a cesspool of interwebness

Canada Day @ PM's

Posted by Unknown On 2007-06-29 4 comments

Please come out to our place Sunday night for our Canada Day celebration. We want to kick off with BBQ and beers at around 5pm, and plan to have a pit fire, maybe a game or two (or some cards) and some fireworks around midnight.


It's bring you own meat, and if you want to contribute a side dish to the cause, that would be greatly appreciated (but we should only need a couple things, so not everybody should bring - maybe post here, or on facebook if you plan to bring something).

Looking forward to seeing everybody on Sunday, let's hope we get some good weather.

Stupid things that humans do

Posted by captainorange On 2007-06-21 5 comments

One might say that I am famous for the stupid things that I do. I'm considered odd at best. Do you want to be thought of as stranger than you already are? Think you know every thing your mother never taught you about walking? Can you drag your ass out of bed at 3:30am on a weekend? Join me in my quest this summer.

Why? Why?
"Oh, do not ask 'what is it?' Let us go and make our visit"

Come on, own the city you live in (or near)

|\/|y G@M3R 7H30RY (Pu|2e G@m3Z)

Posted by Unknown On 2007-06-20 11 comments

[click included photos for full size images, fully linked and annotated]

A while back in a living room not that far away but still a considerable drive*, before there was summer and birds (and wicked wrath of god type rainstorms) outside, Wilkanomics Sr. picked up at 360. We played a whole schwack of nifty games until Jr. says, 'hey, wanna check out 360 Live Arcade?' - ya, sure...

Next thing I know we're sucked into 6 hours of Geometry Wars, yeah.... you know, it's Asteroids made by people who've had one to many hits from the hi-def bong if you'll take my meaning, but hey, any game called "Retro Evolved" sounds like its targeted at my demographic. I probably spent the next three or four weeks trying to figure out how to get it running on my PC (where could a version be found?). I saw some brutal clones, but no dice.

:[ nuge ]:

So, last night, I'm playing a little Counter Strike: Source (Valve: SteamPowered), when, upon exit, I'm launching into a nifty little promo for GEOMETRY WARS: RETRO EVOLVED for my Windows XP PC!

(you think you're excited! feel these nipples!)

After forking over a paltry $2.50 (yes, two bucks and some change) I was dialing into my own personal "supra-deffy-digi-verse" ** of mayhem and explosive destruction set to groovy techno music. Booyaah!


You too can nab this gem for $2.50 from Steam if you act before June 22nd - but I hear you say it: 'that ain\'t nothin\'!' (script escape characters just for effect)... well.. yes. GW:RE sure lights the fire and gets the johnson to attention, but does it provide that sense of peace and tranquility that I'm always after? Not so much.

For that I turn to an equally good find, but this time on the PS3 (or, "that Scottish console" as I prefer to call it, as I would never utter the letters P, S, and the numeral three when actually around other electronic equipment, but I digress... ***).

The game I refer to is obviously, flOw (brilliantly made all hi-deffy for that Scottish console by SCEA). . So, after having my inner Nameste touched by this game on said console, I came home to find that flOw was originally designed to run in in Flash by Jenova Chen)!

Into the depths with you! err.. me! Try and follow along:





Hey, what am I doing back at the beginning? I just beat this frickin' thing and now.. now... well, now I'm all spherical and serene, and ohh.... I like it... I like it, it's good.... yeah, pass the hydrator please... "tsshhoooooooo.... 'eeer'! "







And, at the end, after fighting the equally large and impressive bad-guy Jellyfish Beasty (who must have come from an equally unimpressive small swirling mote just as I), the game presented me with the most puzzling challenge: to determine if it has crashed, or I had just finished it victorious, or it was never finished, or WHA@!%?.

You see, I nailed the final foe and ate all his good stuff that comes out when a baddy expires, but then there was no more depths to conquer.
I wept.

After all this nice nice, I was pretty spent of course, so I went a browsing through some of the demo games at Steam (have I mentioned Steam yet? huh...) and found a killer demo for, yes, modelling defence condition levels and all out nuclear war (it was really only a matter of time wasn't it).

Ever seen that goon Mathew Broderick in War Games? :[brutal!]: Ya, you have.
Now it's on my desktop and waiting for multi-player action. What's it called? DEFCON: EVERYBODY DIES.


That's a nice one brutha!

My point in all of this? Pure Games. These were pure games, with no deep story, no first person reality simulating perspective. I press start, I play the game, I marvel at the perfection of the game design, I'm eventually defeated by the game (GW:RE) or I defeat the game (flOw), but either way, I had a great time, and I seem to be playing these games lots still. I figure it's because these games aren't work - they are PLAY.

Rainswept had a good point the other night: "maybe that's why it's called 'grinding' in the game", yeah, who needs another grind? I'm gonna stick to things I play.



* A drive I now make daily I might add as I traverse the city to reach my new place of employ. ** All texts, graphic images, and other content ("Materials") which refer to "supra-deffy-digi-verse" are Copyright © 2007 Sonic Ice Multimedia / Kyro Productions. All rights reserved. *** But I still might end up owning one of these bad boys since it looks like Blu-Ray is poised to win the format war (and I know the Jury not in on that one yet, but it's looking bad for HD-DVD)

Jazz Festival

Posted by Toad008 On 2 comments

Some of you expressed interest in when I was playing at the Jazz festival. I would love to see you come out for one (or more) of these shows, if you have time. My apologies for the shameless self plug. For those who are interested as well, there is a beer gardens at the free stage, so you can sit outside, have a beer, and enjoy free live music all week. For information on other shows, please visit www.saskjazz.com

Saturday June 23rd, 4pm to 6pm with Paschall and Dahl at the Star Phoenix free stage in Kiwanis Park, by the Band Shell. (Free)

Monday June 25rd, 7pm to 9pm with U of S Summer Jazz Band at the Star Phoenix free stage in Kiwanis Park, by the Band Shell. (Free)

Tuesday June 26th, with Paschall and Dahl at Beily's. I don't know exactly when, feel free to contact Beily's to find out. Also unsure if there is a door charge or not.

Thursday June 28th 7pm to 9pm with Paschall and Dahl at the 2nd Ave Bar and Grill. Reservations are recommended.
Saturday June 30th Doors at 7pm, Show at 8pm, with Paschall and Dahl, opening for Oscar Lopez, at the Broadway Theater. Tickets are $27 in advance, or $32 the day of / at the door.

Hope to see you there.

Funk-ified Chess

Posted by AtlasMason On 2007-06-18 3 comments

Hey folks... Saw this just a few days ago and thought that those of you who appreciate board games might get a kick out of it. I know that I definitely want one now.

http://www.iwantoneofthose.com/fathers-day/khet-laser-game/index.html

Prophecy?

Posted by Selbonaut On 2007-06-16 5 comments

I am not sure if you are getting sick of the video's that I am posting, but here is another fun one.

Gonna make it a bit easier for you...


Chaos Theory

Posted by Selbonaut On 2007-06-13 2 comments

Hey everyone, not sure if any of you actually checked out that site that I linked a while ago rocketboom, but Tuesday there is a neat little bit on Chaos Theory.

Can't Post?

Posted by Unknown On 2007-06-10 0 comments

Send me an email if you used to be able to post and can't now for any reason. I've got it on good authority that re-inviting might solve the problem.

Also, if you have a Gmail account now (but didn't then) you would be best to email me from that requesting the re-invite, as said accounts work much better than anything else.

You can also MSN me (I'm djkyro@hotmail.com) to notify/request if you want.

(why am I asking you wonder? well, AngryParrot said the other day he could read but not post for a time, and I'm hoping to get the situations like that sorted out - it's one of the things on my to-do list, and I'm trying to clean it up)

Video Editing Software Reccommendations?

Posted by Unknown On 2007-06-08 8 comments




Do you have any?
I'm looking for an easy to use piece of video editing software that will allow me to mix in a soundtrack as well.

Perspective

Posted by Selbonaut On 2007-06-07 0 comments

No matter how complicated we make things, sometimes all it takes is a simple video to put things into perspective.

The Winerack

Posted by Unknown On 2007-06-06 2 comments

Finally a way to combine the intrinsic male preoccupations of booze & boobs!

Proudly brought to you by the same folks who created The Beerbelly.
Oh you clever little Americans!