The Cat Speaks

Dear President Obama

Sun, 26 Jul 2009 05:50:00 GMT

Please don't call Sgt. Crowley and his buddies stupid. I know that I'm an unlikely champion for the stupid people of this country, but clearly they can't defend themselves when it comes to a war of words. That's where I come in. The Cambridge PD aren't stupid. They're racist. It's a big difference. Some stupid people are racist and many (most? (all?)) racist people are stupid, but the two are not synoninaminous. This isn't even a case of squares and rectangles. If Crowley & Co. were stupid, they would have shown up to the wrong house and arrested a white guy. The fact that they made it to the right house suggests that they are not stupid.

Thanks.

A Miss Kitty Special Report: Spoilertastic Transformers 2 Sneak Preview!

Sat, 04 Jul 2009 21:31:34 GMT

I was going to start this post with a supremely awesome blinking scrolling chartreuse-on-black "Miss Kitty Special Report: Spoilertastic Transformers 2 Sneke Preview!" banner, but I've been informed that such a thing won't fly on LJ. At first, I thought it was some new kind of rule, but as it turns out, I can't entirely blame LJ for it. As it turns out, Amnesty International, Doctors Without Borders, and the UN Commission on Human Rights have jointly issued guidelines that specifically forbid this kind of thing. They were originally aimed at MySpace, but they were written in such a way that people at LJ are expected to comply with them, too. I'm not sure what enforcement of this policy is like. Can I expect a group from DWB to show up at my door? If so, I'll probably have to get them to say hi to each other and sneak away during the inevitable "Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor...." happens. You might want to check on these policies out the next time you have a big announcement. Anyhow, the supremely awesome blinking scrolling chartreuse-on-black "Miss Kitty Special Report: Spoilertastic Transformers II Sneaque Preview!" banner and the Miss Kitty Special Report: Spoilertastic Transformers II: Electric Boogaloo Sneac Preview" sneq preview report are all behind
A Miss Kitty Special Report: Spoilertastic Transformers 2 Sneek Preview!

Stupid United Nations.

Everything else is behind

The new Transformers movie isn't officially out yet, but it's sure to be the blockbuster hit of the summer. The last one was, and no matter how sad that is, it strongly implies that this one will be, too. Well, I managed to score some tickets to a special showing. I wasn't really interested in seeing the new movie, but some of the Jaffa Studies instructors had nothing else to do that day, so we all went to give it a try. I figured the worst that could happen was that we'd get to spend some god-faculty bonding time together. I brought along a pillow, so that if I got too bored, I could go to sleep in the empty popcorn bucket. As it turns out, I did not need that pillow.

If you've seen the last Michael Bey Transformers movie, you'll know that Mike thinks of the Transformers the way that Japan and South Korea think of Tokdo/Takeshima. He doesn't really like them, he doesn't know what to do with them, but he's got them and he's going to keep them. I'm happy to say that this is not the case with the new movie. I know, I'm scared, too.

When pirates maroon unpopular crew at Michael Bay films, they usually toss the crewmember a pistol with one shot left, to be used once the show starts. With that in mind, my Jaffa brought their staff weapons. To those of you making plans to go to this movie, do not do this. Instead, bring tissue. You'll need it. Some of the scenes are really powerful. We didn't have any tissue, but Dave, the chair of Shouting & Stomping, was able to persuade the couple next to us to share.

By the way, if you ever have a chance to go to a movie that is popular with kids and take some Jaffa with you, do it. You know how kids always kick the back of your seat through the whole movie? It happened once.

My biggest complaint with the Mike Bae's first Transformers movie was what he did to Bumblebee. When I was a kid, Bumblebee was my favorite character. I used to watch the original TV series that the family we lived with had been taped, so I know the real Bumblebee. Not the bitter alcoholic of G2 or the junkie poet of Beastwars, or (God help us all) the Pokemon-obsessed loser of the G.I. Joe/Transformers crossovers, but the nice, sensitive Bumblebee that we all know and love. He was friendly. Kids liked him. Birds liked him. He was like a little bit of a Disney princess in the middle of a war. He could cook. He knew literature, and he could compose a waka on a moment's notice. He understood mono-no-aware. Plus, he transformed into a VW Beetle. I the movie, though, he couldn't speak, he transformed into a Camaro (what rednecks use when they don't have strong enough cinderblocks to put up a truck in their front yards), and he was generally a wanker.

Well, he isn't quite what I remember in this movie, but he's got a lot of the same features. Unfortunately, he still doesn't speak, and he doesn't transform. Also, he's got kind of a psychedelic paint job going on. Still, he's friendly and gentle, yet tough and heroic when he needs to be. Yay!

My other major objection to the last movie was, as you all probably know, that there was not enough Starscream. The same holds true for this film.

There were several other rather obvious changes from cannon, and while they may annoy purists, most of these didn't really bother me. In some cases, they changed details that didn't really matter to the storyline and also weren't near and dear to my heart. In other cases, they may have made things better.

First, Tanabe is introduced way earlier in the movie than she is in the comic book. This is actually good, since it gives a little more time for the romantic connection between her and Hachi to develop.

Second, Auntie Tank starts out as an Autobot from the get-go. This is actually kind of a mixed bag, since her original storyline was a great tale of conscience and redemption, but her new storyline is also really interesting and moving. I won't spoil what happens there, though.

Third, Optimus Prime gets married. In the third season of the TV series, we got some pretty strong hints that Optimus was gay. I mean, in episode 317, "Prime Goes to Pride," he and Shockwave both went to Pride. Of course, this doesn't have to conflict with cannon. Optimus could have been at Pride just to show his support for basic human rights; we might assume that Shockwave confused Pride with Yaoicon, but that's much more of a stretch. The other likely option is that Optimus is bi. I don't want to ignite another "Willow is bi/Willow is lesbian" flame war, so let me just make the division very clear. WILLOW VERY CLEARLY NEVER HAD A CRUSH ON XANDER OR OZ. THEY WERE ALWAYS FRIENDS. RELATIONSHIPS AREN'T ALWAYS SEXUAL. I MEAN, YOUR PARENTS LIVE TOGETHER, BUT THEY'VE NEVER HAD SEX. HOLMES AND WATSON LIVED TOGETHER, AND THEY NEVER HAD SEX. KIRK AND RAND WERE ON THE SAME SHIP FOR FIVE YEARS, BUT THEY DIDN'T LUST AFTER EACH OTHER. BIGGLES AND GINGER KILLED NAZIS TOGETHER, BUT THEIR RELATIONSHIP WAS 100% PLATONIC. UESUGI KENSHIN HAD PERFECTLY INNOCENT FRIENDSHIPS WITH KAWADA NAGACHIKA AND NAOE KANETSUGU. OPTIMUS PRIME, ON THE OTHER HAND, CLEARLY LOVED ELITA ONE. THEY HAD A ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIP. I trust I'll hear no more on this topic.

So, on to the plot. The story opens with a young Megatron, maybe eighteen or twenty years old. He's strong, brave, and handsome, a daring Transformer of action and exploration. The news media loves him. Pre-teen Orion Pax (who changes his name to Optimus after his genpuku) is one of his biggest fans. Unfortunately, Megatron is betrayed and humiliated by the Cybertronian scientific authorities, and is driven into exile. Orion Pax meets Ariel (who changes her name to Elita One after her genpuku), a young Transformer who also has Megatron mania. She wants to go explore the galaxy, just like Megatron. They fall in love, get married, and grow old together. They always mean to go exploring, but something always comes up. Then Elita One dies, and Optimus is left all alone. When he realizes that life has nothing left for him, he makes plans to convert his house into a makeshift starship called The Ark and fly off in search of the adventure that he and Elita One never had.

Then we meet Spike, a young mechanic out to earn his Assisting the Cranky badge. Who better for a mechanic to help than an aging, cranky Transformer? Optimus will have none of it, though, and tells Spike to get the hell off his lawn. Spike vanishes, and Optimus takes off just a few steps ahead of the Rulon armada. Soon after, we learn that Spike was actually hiding around the back of the house, and Optimus reluctantly lets him in. Together, the two evade the Rulons and fly off into the great unknown.

They crash land in a bizarre landscape that actually reminded me of the Venezuelan tepuis, except not as bizarre. There they meet Bumblebee, who instantly becomes friends with Spike. Then they fall in with Wreck-Gar, who in this movie looks a lot more dog-like than I was expecting. For reasons that are never quite explained, except that maybe because they look similar, Wreck-Gar is actually working for Ravage. In this universe, Ravage is the head of a big pack of similar-looking Decepticons. Bumblebee vanishes, and the pack captures Optimus and Spike and leads them to Megatron.

Megatron is initially suspicious of Optimus, since he's got the Autobot Matrix of Leadership and all, but once Megatron finds out Optimus is a huge fan, he becomes much friendlier. This changes when Megatron notices that both Optimus and Bumblebee have the big Autobot liquid crystal sticker on their tummies, and Prime and Spike are forced to flee. Bumblebee and Wreck-Gar come to the rescue, but eventually Megatron catches up and captures Bumblebee.

Ravage and his pals take some time to beat Optimus Prime to a metallic pulp before they leave. Spike manages to repair some of the damage, and even takes the the time to give Prime a sort of eye patch and a mohawk, but he is unable to replace Prime's damaged battery. Against Spike's advice, Prime takes off after Megatron.

Let me point out something to those of you who haven't seen the original series. Autobots are called Autobots because they usually transform into automobiles. It's not a universal rule, but it's true often enough for them to get their demonym. Decepticons, on the other hand, turn generally turn into aircraft. On the surface, you'd think this gives them a massive advantage, since jet fighters can probably pawn cars like knobs in one-on-one combat. The designers of the Transformers universe fixed this by allowing the Autobots to break basic laws of physics while simultaneously requiring Decepticons to follow all known physical laws scrupulously. Thus, Optimus Prime and every other Autobot can fly while in humanoid mode, while Decepticons can only fly in jet mode. Those Decepticons who don't turn into jets, like Megatron and Shockwave, instead transform into small, light-weight, easily carried items that can be pocketed by jet-type Decepticons like Starscream. Since Starscream isn't in this movie, Megatron has to use an airship.

Anyhow, Optimus flies after Megatron's airship, boards it, and beats the living hell out of Megatron. Then, just before he is able to do his (in)famous spine rip fatality move, his battery runs out. Megatron pulls himself back onto his feet and is about to inflict a babality when Bumblebee appears out of nowhere and throws Megatron out a window.

At this point in the theater, we all turned to the group of geeks sitting two rows ahead of us. Everyone else in the theater expected them to use the "D" word and then to spend the next ten minutes loudly explaining what it means and where it comes from. That always happens when a group of geeks sees someone go out the window. The beauty of having Jaffa with me in the theater, though, was that they kept their stupid mouths shut.

Bumblebee, though, is surrounded by Ravage and his pack. He takes control of the situation through a clever use of the Picard Maneuver and then stating in an authoritative voice, "No ticket." Ravage yields control to the big B's awesomeness, and they all hook Optimus up to the airship's electrical system.

Finally, at the end of the movie, Spike gets his Assisting the Cranky badge and Optimus, now painted gold for some reason, is made an official citizen of Earth.

I'd like to report one very nice little detail that I think most people missed. When they revived Optimus, he made the Mac startup chime. You think that is a cute reference to Wall-E, and while it may be, it goes one step better. When Megatron staggers to his feet after Optimus shuts down, we hear the Windows startup noise.

Recursing Star Trek Gags

Wed, 27 May 2009 00:31:45 GMT

Some of you long-time Trekters out there may be holding off on watching Star Trek XI: Star Trek I because you are worried that the writers will pack every Trek cliche into a 127-minute film. This is a reasonable fear, given what happened to both American versions of Red Dwarf. You may remember how they packed every single joke from the first four seasons, or approximately 900 jokes, into each of the two awful pilot episodes. If you haven't seen them, they were complete disasters, doing to Red Dwarf what the Bush presidency did to human rights. Similarly, the 1991 film The Addams Family used both jokes from the TV series, although it turned out all right.

Let me tell you right off the bat that you don't need to worry. Yeah, some cliches, catch phrases, and running jokes made it in, but as a viewer, I wasn't crushed under the stampede. Here, to make you feel better, is a checklist.

General
It's green!
STATUS: not included
DESCRIPTION: Two characters are drinking with intent to cause long-lasting genetic damage. They run out of bathroom cleaning liquids and are about to go their separate ways when one of them finds a mysterous container of green liquid. The other asks what it is, and the first replies, "It's... it's green." They drink it.
REFERENCES: "By Any Other Name" (TOS); "Relics" (TNG)

Bones
Damn it, Jim, I'm a doctor, not a <CAREER>
STATUS: included
DESCRIPTION: Kirk asks Bones to do some trivial task, such as passing him a napkin at a restaurant, and Bones says, "Damn it, Jim, I'm a doctor, not a nuclear physicist!"
REFERENCES: "The Naked Time," "The Corbomite Maneuver," "The Galileo Seven," "Arena," "The City on the Edge of Forever," "Amok Time," "Catspaw," "Metamorphosis," "Friday's Child," "A Piece of the Action," "Return to Tomorrow," "Assignment: Earth," "Spock's Brain," "For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky," "The Empath," "Whom Gods Destroy," "The Way to Eden," "Turnabout Intruder" (TOS); "Once Upon a Planet," ""The Time Trap," "The Slaver Weapon," "The Jihad," "Albatross," "How Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth," "The Counter-Clock Incident" (TAS); "The Wire" (DS9); "Phage," "Investigations," "Bliss" (VOY)

<NOUN/PRONOUN>'s dead, Jim!
STATUS: not included
DESCRIPTION: Someone dies in a spectacular fashion, like falling off a cliff, getting sucked out of an airlock, or riddled with 50-caliber bullets, and Bones uses his medical szzzzs to dramatically say something like, "Dumbledore's dead, Jim!"
REFERENCES: "Lurgi Strikes Britain," "Operation: Annihilate!," "Mirror, Mirror" (TOS)

Yo, dawg
STATUS: included
DESCRIPTION: Bones says to a patient recovering from surgery, "Yo, dawg, I heard you like <THING>, so I put a <THING> in your <VITAL_ORGAN> so you could <ACTION> while you <ACTION>."
REFERENCES: "The City on the Edge of Forever," "The Cloud Miners" (TOS); every episode of TAS; "Encounter at Farpoint" (TNG)

Kirk
Picard could kick Kirk's ass any day of the week
STATUS: included, since Kirk appears in this film
DESCRIPTION: Picard could kick Kirk's ass any day of the week.
REFERENCES: every episode of TOS; every episode of TAS; every episode of TNG

Pattern Kirk Epsilon
STATUS: included, barely
DESCRIPTION: Despite being labeled a tactical genius, Kirk forgets some basic aspect of starship combat, such as raising the shields or pointing the phasers the right way, and Enterprise gets the bejeezus blown out of it.
REFERENCES: "The Corbomite Maneuver," "Balance of Terror," "The Apple," "The Doomsday Machine," "The Ultimate Computer" (TOS); Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock

Janice Rand
Spitting and head-butting
STATUS: not included
DESCRIPTION: On TOS, Yeoman Rand had a nasty habit of spitting and head-butting people at just the wrong moment.
REFERENCES: "The Corbomite Maneuver," "The Enemy Within," "Charlie X" (TOS); Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock

You Can Buy Anything at Jusco!
STATUS: not included
DESCRIPTION: Whenever anyone tries to impress Rand by showing her something neat, she informs them that she can get it at Jusco and probably pay less for it.
REFERENCES: "The Corbomite Maneuver," "The Man Trap," "The Naked Time," "Charlie X," "Miri," "The Conscience of the King" (TOS); "Flashback" (VOY); Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock

Mr. Scott
Laws of Physics
STATUS: not included
DESCRIPTION: Mr. Scott is asked to do something to prevent the ship from being destroyed. To make himself look better, he states "I canna' change the laws of physics" moments before he does whatever is needed to save the ship. Afterwards, he calls the bridge to ask, "Who da man? Who da man? Mr. Scott da man!"
REFERENCES: "The Cage," "Where No Man Has Gone Before," "Taked Time," "The Enemy Within," "What are Little Girls Made of?," "Balance of Terror," "Tomorrow is Yesterday,", "Errand of Mercy," "Who Mourns for Adonais," "A Private Little War" (TOS); "Relics" (TNG)

Giving it All She's Got
STATUS: not included
DESCRIPTION: Mr. Scott is asked to do something to preven the ship from being destroyed. To buy himself a little time while he finishes playing Contra: Shattered Soldier, he conjures up a dramatic voice and says, "I'm giving her all she's got!"
REFERENCES: "The Cage," "I, Mudd," "Wolf in the Fold" (TOS); "Relics" (TNG)

Nurse Chapel
Totally 'Shopped
STATUS: not included
DESCRIPTION: At an awkward moment, Nurse Chapel will shout out "That shit's totally 'shopped!" The most famous examples come from Star Trek: The Motion Picture, where she says it three times while the crew watch Schindler's List and no less than thirty-seven times (once every five minutes or so) while they watch the pod racing scene from Star Wars I: The Phantom Menace.
REFERENCES: "The Naked Time," "The Changeling," "A Private Little War," "The Paradise Syndrome" (TOS); "The Pirates of Orion" (TAS); Star Trek: The Motion Picture

Mr. Spock
DFAG
STATUS: included
DESCRIPTION: Mr. Spock responds to a situation by shouting one or more of "Drink!" "Feck!" "Arse!" and "Girls!"
REFERENCES: "The Cage," "The Menagerie, Part II," "Court Martial," "A Taste of Armageddon," "The Deadly Years" (TOS); "Yesteryear," "More Tribbles, More Troubles" (TAS); "Unification Part I" (TNG); Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

'Sup
STATUS: included
DESCRIPTION: Mr. Spock greets a higher-up in Star Fleet or some planetary leader by saying "'Sup?" Spock often tried to defend this practice: in "Journey to Babel," he spends a good five minutes constructing a proof that it is the most logical greeting in the universe.
REFERENCES: "Mudd's Women," "Miri," "Dagger of the Mind," "Shore Leave," "Journey to Babel" (TOS); "Yesteryear" (TAS); "Face of the Enemy" (TNG); Star Trek: The Motion Picture

Uhura
Thunderbirds
STATUS: not included
DESCRIPTION: Whenever we see Uhura while she is off duty, she is watching some episode of Thunderbirds. However, in an outtake from Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, we see her watching an episode of Gekigangar III.
REFERENCES: "The Conscience of the King," "Shore Leave," "The Omega Glory" (TOS); "The Lorelei Signal" (TAS); Star Trek I: The Motion Picture; Star Trek V: The Final Frontier

Mr. Sulu
I'm Hikaru Sulu!
STATUS: included
DESCRIPTION: Whenever Sulu is introduced to someone (except Klingons - see "I'm Hikaru Sulu II!" below), he says "I'm Hikaru Sulu!" He then winks, grins, gives a finger shot with each hand, and makes a clicking noise.
REFERENCES: "Space Seed," "The Devil in The Dark," "The Apple" (TOS); "Mudd's Passion" (TAS); "Flashback" (VOY); Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country

I'm Hikaru Sulu II!
STATUS: not included
DESCRIPTION: Whenever Sulu is introduced to a Klingon, he says "I'm Hikaru Sulu. You killed my father. Prepare to die!"
REFERENCES: "Errand of Mercy," "Friday's Child," "Elaan of Troyius," "Day of the Dove," "The Savage Curtain" (TOS); "More Tribbles, More Troubles," "The Time Trap" (TAS); Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country

Chekov
I'm Hikaru Sulu III!
STATUS: included
DESCRIPTION: Whenever Chekov is introduced to someone, he says "I'm Hikaru Sulu!" He then winks, grins, gives the finger with each hand, and makes a clicking noise.
REFERENCES: "Space Seed," "The Devil in The Dark," "The Apple" (TOS); "Mudd's Passion" (TAS); "Flashback" (VOY); Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country

Salute!
STATUS: not included
DESCRIPTION: Whenever Chekov is about to leave a scene, he holds his hand in an "okay" sign above his forehead.
REFERENCES: "Who Mourns for Adonais," "I, Mudd," "The Trouble with Tribbles," "A Private Little War," "Spectre of the Gun," "The Demolished Man," "The Way to Eden" (TOS); Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier

It's Actually Russian
STATUS: included
DESCRIPTION: Chekov often claims things that are clearly of Klingon origin, such as Romeo and Juliet and The Cherry Orchard, are, in fact, Russian.
REFERENCES: "Friday's Child," "Who Mourns for Adonais," "The Apple," "The Trouble with Tribbles" (TOS); Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country

Star Trek

Tue, 12 May 2009 06:49:16 GMT

I watched the new Star Trek movie today. Let me tell you, this is not my great-granduncle's Trek. That's actually good, since in his Trek, the crew of the Enterprise somehow rescued Gilligan and his friends. I'm not sure how that worked, but fortunately for all of you, you won't have to worry about it. That being said, I liked this. Some people have complained that they got Star Trek details wrong. If you hear somebody say that, you can tell right away that they need to brush up on their movie-watching skills. Perhaps some sort of film studies class would be in order. This isn't "getting some details wrong." This is a "reinstall." You Windows users out there should be familiar with it.

I guess I should start things off by saying that I was okay with most of the changes introduced in the movie. I think they managed to preserve the essence of the characters. The only thing I was really upset by was that they removed my single favorite character from TOS: Starscream. The dude was hilarious!

I was initially kind of surprised that any of the crew of the USS Kelvin lived to tell the tale. I figured, "It's 2233. Isn't it kind of early for anyone to know about a Shadow ship?" Well, fortunately, they deal with that that pretty quickly. As long as you are okay with time travel, their explanation works. It's nice to see that they at least have some sort of reason to reformat and reinstall the series.

Probably my biggest complaint is that I hadn't expected it to be so genocidey. I mean, are we really so used to death and destruction that we need the destruction of billions of people to let us know the situation was serious? They didn't have to do that in TOS, where they just killed a redshirt. They didn't have to do that in Star Wars, where they just blew up a few faceless rebel x-wings. They didn't have to do that in the original Doctor Who, either, where they could kill off another K-9 or, you know, the Doctor. When did this all change? I'm no film and television historian, but I'm pretty sure we can lay about 94% of the blame squarely on the ultra-violent BBC series Miss Marple and, of course, NBC's 3rd Rock from the Sun. I'm afraid this says something about you as a people, and I really hope you tone it down a few notches real soon now. Agatha Christie, I'm looking at you.

I'm also a little worried about future Trek movies or TV series. Vulcan had a population of 6 billion people. By the end of the movie, there are about 10,000 Vulcans. If we use a little calculus, Greene's Theorem if you want to be exact, you can prove that each Vulcan must now be 600,000 times more pompous than before. Quite possibly the only way to do that is to send groups of Vulcans to live in Berkeley for a few months.

At this point, you might be thinking that they completely abandoned the usual Star Trek storytelling techniques for building tension. That's not exactly true, although they were toned down a little bit. Still, die-hard fans of original-universe Trek will be happy to know that there was a scene in which some character dramatically recited numbers that were monotonically increasing. Or maybe monotonically decreasing. I don't want to spoil too much for you.

Many people consider Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan to be the best of the film series. If you've seen this, you no doubt know that Kirk has all the tactical skills of a particularly inattentive ferret who beat the Kobayashi Maru test by programming the Klingons to be scared of his street rep. That's changed. He still cheated on the test by reprogramming the simulation, but (a) this time he just blew the Klingons up and (b) he's no longer the kind of guy who'd make plans to invade Russia in the winter and only pack Hawaiian shirts, jams, and sandals. This is kind of a big spoiler, but yeah, he actually comes up with a plan to defeat his opponents.

Next Gen fans will be happy to note that one of the key physical laws of the Trek universe has remained unchanged. When Kirk told four Starfleet cadets that they'd need some more friends to make it a fair fight, he was bluffing. Had Picard said that, he'd have been telling it like it is. In one scene, he wins a fight in a way that only somebody who isn't that good at fighting but is good at planning (sort of) possibly can. Basically, his scheme involves him getting the crap knocked out of him by an angry Romulan. I'll try to avoid giving too much away, even in spoilers, but he does say, "I don't have to fight you and I don't have to run. I just have to keep you here...until Jean gets back." Then he goes all Miyamoto Musashi on the guy. Not in the sense of awesome martial arts, zen brush painting, or sculpting, though. You'll know it when you see it.

As I mentioned before, I was really happy with how the actors managed to capture the essence of their characters. Karl Urban did what I consider to be the finest job, though. He even looked kind of like a young Bones. I could totally believe he was the real McCoy. The guy playing Sarek, on the other hand, looked nothing like the original Sarek, but I still totally believed he was Sarek.

This is a different kind of Trek. It was fun, though, and that's what Trek is really all about. I'd like to end the same way the movie did, with a voiceover by Leonard Nimoy. Len didn't respond to my e-mail, though, so I'm just going to have to type it instead.

Space: the final frontier. It can be a dangerous place, but it's our last, best hope for peace. This is the story of the first of the starships Enterprise. The year 2258. The name of the place is, as I just said, Enterprise.

John McCain is not a Maverick

Sat, 01 Nov 2008 04:47:39 GMT

John McCain always calls himself a Maverick, but if you've been paying attention, you'll know this is a load of Bush. For those of you who haven't been paying any attention,

shame on you
he's no more a Maverick than Dan Quayle is Teddy Roosevelt.

McCain has never shown any of the style, wit, guile, wisdom, charisma, or honor that would qualify him as a Maverick, but I guess kids these days don't know that. I, on the other hand, have been fortunate enough to plant my butt on both a copy of a Maverick novel and a copy of the first issue of the Maverick comic book. Let me tell you this. McCain is no

James Garner
Jack Kelly
Roger Moore
Robert Colbert
Charles Frank
Mel Gibson

Heck, he's not even an Efrem Zimbalist, Jr.

Don't be fooled, kids.

Starting a Community College: All the Fun I Can Handle

Sat, 25 Oct 2008 20:45:18 GMT

I've been kind of busy getting Jaffa Community College up and running. I really thought it would be easy, but I was wrong. Where do I begin?

I've got union issues. I approve of unions, mind you, but even the best ones can get annoying. I've got four of them. One is for classified staff, like admissions & records people, custodians, secretaries, lab managers, etc. Their union is pretty cool, except that every time I correct the draft contract to refer to myself as "Your God, Miss Kitty," they change it to "management."

Then I've got the faculty union. First, they came from the United Auto Workers. Things were going okay until I noticed that they were trying to set up the same kind of system here as they have for grad students at UC Berkeley. I respect real unions too much to have one of mine be like UC Berkeley's, a mere fundraising arm of the UAW. We replaced them with a branch of the NFLPA. Big mistake there. Finally, some of the faculty formed their own union. They're good people, so I'm not too worried about that.

Unfortunately, I've also got a Jaffa union. Since some of my classified staff, some of my management, and about 75% of my faculty happen to be my Jaffa, this union tends to have some friction with the others. Our first Academic Senate meeting ended in a staff-weapon battle, and I'm pretty sure we aren't going to get our deposit back from the Olive Hyde Art Gallery. I knew we should have waited until we actually had our own building to hold a meeting.

There wasn't going to be a management union for a while. I asked them if they wanted one, but they seemed to think that a union to protect management from management would look strange. After the Senate thing, though, they all wanted better armor. That's not something I'm prepared to just hand out, so they formed a union to protect themselves from the faculty. This seems to be more like a Teamsters kind of union than any sort of collective bargaining union, but I'm sure things will work themselves out eventually.

Then there's money. As a school and a religious organization, JCC isn't taxed. Also, we don't have to worry about finding clever ways to scam extra apportionment money from the state the way other community colleges do. This means we don't have to pull stupid tricks like scheduling hour-long classes to be 65 minutes long just so we can get a 30% increase in our Full-Time-Ambivalent Students. On the other hand, we have this freedom only because we don't get any money from the state.

As I mentioned before, we don't yet have our own buildings. I sent a couple of Jaffa to try to capture Ohlone's office of financial aid and the registrationer, but it was a bust. Half of the people were so high that they didn't even notice. (They actually told one of the Jaffa that he had filled out his forms incorrectly!) The others were simply too clueless to surrender the place. They tried, but they couldn't seem to do it. We were meeting just down the street at the gallery, but I guess that's out now.

I'm also having trouble offering benefits. All the Jaffa get free health care. Even if that cretin John McCain wins and taxes health care, I'm pretty certain he won't tax a kitty in one's tummy. I wasn't sure, so I called his office and asked. They found the idea as laughable as I did. More, actually. Unfortunately, insurance companies are really squeamish, and once they find out we plan to use live energy weapons in most classes, life insurance costs go through the roof. I can't even get a reasonable quote on regular health insurance for non-Jaffa, who will mostly be like 50 yards or more away from likely staff-weapon discharges. I'm really disappointed with GEICO. They say they'll insure anything, but they really wont. At least I got a tasty gecko sandwich out of the debacle.

We haven't even touched IT yet. I was going to ask who wanted Macs or Windows or whatever, but after that Senate meeting, I think I'll wait. Heck, the fight started while they were talking about block scheduling. I'd lose most of my new hires if we got into a Mac/Windows/Linux argument. I'm also not sure what to do about a campus wireless network. I think students and employees should be allowed to bring their computers and other wireless gadgets from home, provided they enhance the JCC experience. Unfortunately, most of our classes (including all transfer-level classes) require OPSEC, and an open wireless network kind of wrecks that.

Speaking of John McCain, I hope he loses hard. I say this knowing full well that President McCain would traumatically increase enrollment at JCC, but I really hope Obama crushes him into the dirt this November. I realize it's odd to think that a Republican president would lead to increased enrollment in any school, but remember that (a) JCC is both a military and a religious school, (b) community college enrollment typically increases during economic downturns, and (c) when he destroys 99% of health insurance, we'll still offer a kitty in your tummy.

Fleet Action off the Southwest Coast of Spain

Fri, 23 May 2008 04:53:17 GMT

Fleet Action off the Southwest Coast of Spain

Part 3
In which the actual pawnzorationing of knobs takes place.

After that last round of psyching ourselves up, nothing much happened for maybe 20 minutes. We talked about Chairman Mao and some other stuff until a little after noon, when things finally got good again.

12:14:Cyan: Yeah, but if even the dude who delivered your enchiladas has heard of 12:14:HAPPYTIGER: 12:14:Cyan: Chairman Mao, and you haven't, we can safely say that you are just ignorant. 12:14:LoneWolf: NO WAI! that's obscure trivia 12:14:m_cat: Signal the fleet: Pawnzoriate the knobs! 12:14:Ichiko: 12:14:BillTehCat: Can I just say "Pwn them?" It's in the signal book. 12:14:HahnSolo1983 (Quarterdeck): The filter doesn't work like I thought. 12:14:m_cat: MAke it so. 12:14:HAPPYTIGER: 12:14:BillTehCat: pwn them, aye. 12:14:FredMarryat (Quarterdeck): Yeah, it just cuts words. 12:14:m_cat (Quarterdeck): How does she type it so fast? 12:15:Speedy: 12:15:HahnSolo1983 (Quarterdeck): She's probably got it hotkeyed 12:15:StephenJAubrey (Quarterdeck): how dod you do that? 12:15:HAPPYTIGER: 12:15:HahnSolo1983 (Quarterdeck): type / define and then the number you want and then "what you want" 12:15:FredMarryat (Quarterdeck): Cool. 12:15:FredMarryat: / define 1 "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weather_gauge, n00b" 12:15:FredMarryat: Sorry! 12:16:HAPPYTIGER: 12:16:BillTehCat: HAPPYTIGER just spoiled the next episode of BSG 12:16:StephenJAubrey: What was that? 12:16:HahnSolo1983: What happens? 12:16:CaptainPeacock: WTF? 12:16:Cylon: wtf whos shootin? 12:16:~~=Wm Norrington=~~: xXxEnterprisexXx fired one gun 12:16:m_cat: Signal xXxEnterprisexXx: cease fire. 12:16:BillTehCat: Cease fire, aye. 12:16:Cylon: n00bz 12:17:Speedy: 12:17:xXxEnterprisexXx: 12:17:m_cat: What did they say? 12:17:BillTehCat: I cant' use Translate Signals until I finish up sending these ones. 12:17:Cylon: fuck man ima get translate signals next lvl u suck 12:17:BillTehCat: Hell, I'll just look it up online. 12:17:Speedy: 12:18:BillTehCat: xXxEnterprisexXx signals "Leroy Jenkins on board. Sry." 12:18:m_cat: Affirmative. 12:18:Cylon: n00b Filter in place for user Cylon Words: n00b n00b! n00bs n00bz n00bs! n00bz! 12:18:m_cat: Time for bathroom breaks if you need them. 12:18:Cylon: 12:18:HahnSolo1983: Anyone played "I've GOt a Gun"? 12:19:Cylon: ?? 12:19:HahnSolo1983: It's a new FPS/RPG hybrid. 12:19:LoneWolf: pc or console? 12:19:HahnSolo1983: Wii. 12:19:LoneWolf: il bet it sux. wii+console rpg ftl 12:19:HahnSolo1983: Well, it's sort of a hybrid of PC and console RPG games, too. 12:19:HahnSolo1983: There *is* a plot. You have an actual *character* rather than just 12:19:LoneWolf: yep sux 12:19:HahnSolo1983: an arm holding a gun, but you can also kill anyone, at any time, for 12:19:LoneWolf: hmm... 12:20:HahnSolo1983: any reason at all. Even during cut scenes. 12:20:LoneWolf: ne1? gotta b merchants 12:20:BillTehCat: He's right. Legally, you can't use the term RPG unless you can kill 12:20:HahnSolo1983: Let me put it this way. I killed the doctor who was fixing me up my 12:20:BillTehCat: shopkeepers. 12:20:BillTehCat: lolz 12:21:HahnSolo1983: first play through. And yes, you can kill merchants. 12:21:LoneWolf: sweet 12:21:HahnSolo1983: Usually if you want to skip plot you have to click through a bunch 12:21:HahnSolo1983: of dialog. With I've Got a Gun, you tear through it, guns blazing. 12:21:LoneWolf: thats the 1st game i want to have lotsa cut scenes 12:21:Cylon: Anyone played Jug Band? 12:21:FredMarryat: What? 12:22:LoneWolf: jug band roxz0rz!!! i play spoonz 12:22:LoneWolf: is like rock band but jug band 12:22:*+*Legolas*+*: What is a jug band? 12:22:LoneWolf: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jug_band 12:22:FredMarryat: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jug_band 12:22:LoneWolf: haha 1st 12:23:Cylon: I got the Action Pack, which includes washtub bass, spoons, kazoo, jug, 12:23:Cylon: banjo, guitar, washboard, harmonica, and guimbarde. 12:23:LoneWolf: basic pkg is jug spoons and guitar. 12:23:StephenJAubrey:<kosh>And so it begins</kosh> 12:23:*+*Legolas*+*: big guns on that one 12:23:.oOo.WiLlIaM NoRrInGtOn-SpArRoW.oOo.: yeah, ATeamVan looks nasty 12:23:Cylon: ateamvan cant shoot 4 shit 12:23:Cylon: firin 2 soon 12:23:HahnSolo1983: Hey, there's goign to be Jug Band for the Wii! 12:24:m_cat:Take us across ATeamVan's bow. 12:24:CaptainPeacock: Aye, sir 12:24:AmbrosiaSpike: Take a reef out of the mainsail! 12:24:Galactica69: 12:24:Galactica69: 12:24:Galactica69: 12:24:Galactica69: 12:24:LoneWolf: more polys on 360 12:24:Galactica69: 12:24:Galactica69: 12:24:Galactica69: 12:25:Galactica69: 12:25:AmbrosiaSpike: Somebodys got a real signal midshipman! 12:25:Galactica69: 12:25:BillTehCat: STFU 12:25:BillTehCat: Galactica69 signals, "ATeamVan sux." 12:25:FredMarryat: ROFL 12;25:HahnSolo1983: So it's easier to see that the art designers suck? 12:26:wilw: Hey, everybody. 12:26:Ichiko: 12:26:m_cat: Hey, Wil 12:26:Cylon: sup 12:26:DiscoWizard: hi wilw 12:26:ElfOfDeepshadow: glad ur finally here 12:26:SirLordBaronVonVaderham: welcome back 12:26:LoneWolf: willw u no who Chaimran Mao is? 12:27:FredMarryat: Hola, Wil. 12:27:ATeamVan: 12:27:StephenJAubrey: How you been? 12:27:wilw: Of course I know who Chairman Mao is. 12:27:Ichiko: Told you. 12:27:LoneWolf: u read 2 much 12:27:~~=Wm Norrington=~~: hi 12:27:HahnSolo1983: When will we be in range of ATeamVan? 12:27:wilw: I just made Jug Band my bitch with a washboard. 12:27:CaptainPeacock: about six mnutes minutes 12:27:DiscoWizard: thats enough for another round of katamari damacy brb 12:28:m_cat: dangit, DiscoWizard! 12:28:Cylon: agammenon gets 1 broadside in like 5 minutes those 12:28:DiscoWizard: ok, fine 12:28:FredMarryat: Lolz 12:28:HahnSolo1983: We get, what? 12:28:JeffVader: Like 3 in 5 12:28:m_cat: Venner, can one of your songs make us go faster? 12:28:Venner: Yep, "Rolling Down to Old Maui." 12:29:CaptainPeacock: Sweet thx 12:29:Venner: No problem. 12:29:Cylon: so shantymans r useful aftr all 12:29:Venner: Hold on, I think my Double Iron Concertina +7 would work better for this. 12:30:Ichiko: our shantymans, let me show you them 12:30:Cylon: venner u munch 12:30:Venner: Look, I've got one job on this ship 12:30:Venner: and I'm going to do it, okay? 12:30:Venner: It's a rough, tough life of toil and strife we whalemen undergo 12:30:Cylon: we just want buff not lyrics, 12:30:Venner: Uncultured lubber 12:30:Cylon: venner ur notmunch ur rper 12:31:m_cat: The Articles of War for this server say no excessive roleplaying. 12:31:CaptainPeacock: Awesome almost there 12:31:PatDemonKill (ATeamVan): How are you gentlemen!! 12:31:Ichiko (Speedy): stfu 12:31:Cylon (Speedy): STFU 12:31:DiscoWizard: SHUT UP! 12:31:Venner: Can somebody snipe him? 12:31:LoneWolf: on it 12:31:PatDemonKill (ATeamVan): All your base are belong to us. 12:31:JeffVader: Fucko ff or I'll kill you with this tray! 12:31:SirLordBaronVonVaderham (Speedy): Fuck off, or I'll kill you with this tray! 12:31:JeffVader: damn 12:31:Vados: Score! 12:31:LoneWolf: pwnt 12:31:Venner: Thanks. 12:31:Ichiko: 12:32:Vados: No prob 12:32:Cylon (Speedy): j00 12:32:Venner: Hey, why is it that hailing range is greater than musket 12:32:Venner: range, and both are greater than cannon range? 12:32:Bl4ck4ddz0r: i heard theyr going to fix that before betas' over 12:32:m_cat: STARBOARD GUNS FIRE! 12:32:Ichiko: 12:32:ElfOfDeepshadow: damn missed 12:32:DiscoWizard: w00t hit 12:32:ElfOfDeepshadow: u only hit mizzensail 12:32:*+*Legolas*+*: w00t hit mizzenMAST 12:32:ATeamVan: 12:32:*+*Legolas*+*: booya 12:33:SirLordBaronVonVaderham: ATeamVan didn't miss that time 12:33:BillTehCat: ATeamVan signals the whole stupid "All your base" thing, whihc I'm not going to recite. 12:33:m_cat: Good man. BillTehCat has received 5,000 xp from the Captain. 12:33:*+*Legolas*+*: damn, last save point is buenos aires 12:33:-+-Kefka-+-: gun crew needs officer badly 12:33:*+*Legolas*+*: ne1 have res item? 12:33:Cylon: j00 res bottles dont work yet 12:33:m_cat: wilw, can you get beclow and command the gun crews? 12:33:wilw: No problem 12:33:*+*Legolas*+*: sry 12:33:-+-Kefka-+-: thx wilw 12:33:LoneWolf: heal plx 12:33:DiscoWizard: haha hit below waterline 12:33:LoneWolf: nm 2 late 12:34:iHEARTviggo: phone afk 12:34:-+-Kefka-+-: haha no jib 4 j00 12:34:m_cat: Marines concentrate on their riflemen 12:34:69MuSaShI69: np 12:34:+STriDer+ (ATeamVan): how u shoot cannon so fast? 12:34:m_cat: (Speedy): practice 12:34:+STriDer+ (ATeamVan): nowai ur haxiing 12:34:+STriDer+ (ATeamVan): i tell gm 12:34:ElfOfDeepshadow (Speedy): hax this 12:34:ElfOfDeepshadow: pwnt 12:35:VampyrePajamas: Nice use of cannister shot 12:35:69MuSaShi69: thx like half their 1/4dek dead 12:35:Cylon: gj 12:3:iHEARTviggo: shit i just got fired 12:35:ATeamVan: 12:35:wilw: Gun crews need cartridges badly. 12:35:Lady Turner-Norrington-Sparrow-Sephiroth-Potter: sry, was on AIM 12:35:m_cat: Are you supposed to be working today, iHEARTviggo? 12:35:ATeamVan: 12:36:iHEARTviggo: I guess I was. 12:36:GM-Barbossa: What's going on? 12:36:m_cat (GM Channel): ATeamVan thinks 3 broadsides in 5 minutes is cheating 12:36:+STriDer+ (GM Channel): speedy is haxing 12:36:Agamemnon: 12:36:BillTehCat: Agamemon signals "Heal plz" 12:36:GM-Barbossa: Speedy has better gunners. Make your time, ATeamVan. 12:36:VampyrePajamas: Damn, we needed that mast! 12:37:CaptainPeacock: Rudder doesn't answer! 12:37:Chandley: 12:37:Bl4ck4ddz0r: i tkae ur bra off 12:37:ElfOfDeepshadow: WTF? 12:37:~~=Wm Norrington=~~: Rudder's shot away 12:37:CaptainPeacock: X( 12:37:Bl4ck4ddz0r: sry wrong chat 12:37:+STriDer+ (ATeamVan): pwnt j00!! 12:37:ElfOfDeepshadow: battle now, cyber later. 12:37:Cylon (Speedy): even get lucky sometime 12:37:Bl4ck4ddz0r: battle? all I do is hit f1 to swab gun every 1.5 minutes 12:37:wilw: Wives and sweethearts later. Don't make me quote the Articles of War. 12:37:KawaiiNekoHimeChanSama: I've got this pain in my leg. 12:37:Bl4ck4ddz04: all i do is hit f1 12:37:Chandley: 12:37:wilw: We gave better than we got: 12:38:wilw: looks like they took 3 below the waterline, 12:38:wilw: some rigging cut, 12:38:wilw: rudder damaged, 12:38:wilw: 1-2 guns hit. 12:38:Chandley: 12:38:Agamemnon: 12:38:BillTehCat: Agamemnon signals "Heal plx" 12:38:LoneWolf: ha shot their captin 12:38:wilw: KawaiiNekoHimeChanSama? You okay? 12:38:Venner: Should I switch from a speed song to an attack song? 12:38:wilw: Reloading buff, please. 12:38:m_cat: Reloading buff, Venner. 12:38:Venner: "Leaving of Liverpool" it is. 12:38:Cylon: wat evr jus don sng 12:38:Chandley: 12:38:wilw: Much appreciated. 12:39:BillTehCat: Chandley signals, "Iron Man is awesome." 12:39:StephenJAubrew (Quarterdeck): The carpenter says we have 3' water in the well. 12:39:wilw: The buff, that is. 12:39:xXxEnterprisexXx: 12:39:m_cat (to VampyrePajamas): How bad is it? 12:39:Dark Star: 12:39:BillTehCat: xXxEnterprisexXx acknowledges. 12:39:VampyrePajamas (to you): Water's four feet high and rising. 12:39:BillTehCat: Dark Star, too. 12:40:m_cat (Quarterdeck): HahnSolo1983, get some people at the pumps. Stat. 12:40:Agamemnon: 12:40:HahnSolo1983 (Quarterdeck): Stat aye, sir. 12:40:BillTehCat: Agamemnon signals "Heal pl0x" 12:40:.oOo.WiLlIaM NoRrInGtOn-SpArRoW.oOo.: Hildegarde's doing a number on Agamemnon 12:40:HahnSolo1983: Not sure who's commanding, but it'sno John Sheridan 12:41:FredMarryat: Lulz 12:41:wilw: KawaiiNekoHimeChanSama?

The fight went on for another half hour or so. Agamemnon struck at 12:47, and pretty much nobody could maneuver by 12:58, but we managed to carry the day. It took us another hour to get enough sail to take possession of our prizes, and then another two days to get back to Buenos Aires, pick up *+*Legolas*+* and a few others up, and sell the four ships.

The butcher's bill wasn't that bad. I think three people got fired, one missed a job interview, one missed the SAT and one missed the GRE, four people forgot to update their respawn points and got sent back to Buenos Aires again, and we still haven't heard anything else from KawaiiNekoHimeChanSama.

As you can see, this game has plenty of action. In fact, it's got so much action that games like StarCraft just can't compare.

Fleet Action off the Southwest Coast of Spain

Thu, 22 May 2008 05:17:30 GMT

Fleet Action off the Southwest Coast of Spain

Part 2
In which the action heats up and we prepare for battle.

Combat hasn't started yet, but you can see my elite crew begin to psych themselves up and get into the right mindset in this short usurpt. Note the results of my amazing leadership skills.

11:47:m_cat: All right! Time to pawn some knobs! 11:47:Ichiko: Rock! 11:47:m_cat: ...Sure. 11:47:m_cat: Signal the fleet: JAFFA! KREE! 11:47:StephenJAubrey (Quarterdeck): that's like 8 times today shes said rock! 11:47:BillTehCat: Kree, aye. 11:47:FredMarryat (Quarterdeck): Just set up a filter. 11:47:HahnSolo1983 (Quarterdeck): How? 11:47:StephenJAubrey (Quarterdeck): srsly? how? 11:47:FredMarryat (Quarterdeck): type / filter (one word) then 11:47:FredMarryat (Quarterdeck): Ichiko then {words you want to filter} Filter in place for user Ichiko Words: Rock! 11:48:m_cat (Quarterdeck): Thanks. 11:48:HahnSolo1983 (Quarterdeck): Thanks! 11:48:Speedy: 11:48:VampyrePajamas: Yeah, so anyhow, no shit, there I was,. 11:48:VampyrePajamas: trying to get out of the Ukraine. 11:48:VampyrePajamas: My friend had Northern and Southern Europe 11:49:Speedy: 11:49:VampyrePajamas: Too many armies in Ural, Afghanistan, and Middle East 11:49:FredMarryat: OMG, what ever did you do? 11:49:VampyrePajamas: I had to take Scandinavia and Iceland to get to 11:49:Speedy: 11:49:VampyrePajamas: Greenland. 11:50:Speedy: 11:50:FredMarryat: My word, what a struggle that must have been! 11:50:VampyrePajamas: You have no idea. Scandinavia had like VI armies on it! 11:50:FredMarryat: Good God, man! How could you take that risk? 11:50:m_cat (to FredMarryat): You're making it worse. 11:50:VampyrePajamas: Well, I threw all my troops into it, picked up the dice, 11:50:FredMarryat (to you): Sorry. At least it's not about LARPs anymore. 11:51:Speedy: 11:51:m_cat (to BillTehCat): How much xp do you need to max out Send Signals? 11:51:VampyrePajamas: and rolled a six and a four. 11:51:VampyrePajamas: Dave rolled a three and a one! I'm, like, "score, sucker! 11:51:BillTehCat (to you): sorry - two more levels, maybe 35,000 xp 11:51:Speedy: 11:52:VampyrePajamas: So now I'm in Scandanvaia, and it's just Iceland in my way. 11:52:~~=Wm Norrington=~~: Pizza delivery - AFK 11:52:VampyrePajamas: Dude on Iceland is like, "Oh, shit!" 11:52:Speedy: 11:53:~~=Wm Norrington=~~:Mmm... octuple meat with a cheese-stuffed crust 11:53:StephenJAubrey: octupal meat? WTF? 11:53:~~=Wm Norrington=~~: It's awesome. There's beef, pork, chicken, 11:53:~~=Wm Norrington=~~: sausage 11:53:~~=Wm Norrington=~~: hamburger, i guess 11:53:Speedy: 11:53:~~=Wm Norrington=~~: bacon 11:53:Speedy: 11:54:VampyrePajamas: Aren't those both beef? 11:54:~~=Wm Norrington=~~: ostrich 11:54:BillTehCat: Hey, when do you use a pooled t-test? 11:54:~~=Wm Norrington=~~: really? 11:54:HahnSolo1983: That's what hamburger usually is. 11:54:~~=Wm Norrington=~~: and duck 11:54:~~=Wm Norrington=~~: Oh, I thought you were talking about bacon. 11:54:HAPPYTIGER: 11:54:FredMarryat: When elements of your data come in pairs, like before and after 11:55:m_cat: I commandeer this pizza in the name of Great Britain. 01:55:FredMaryat: or left hand/right hand or something like that. 11:55:m_cat: and Northern Ireland. 11:55:JeffVader: Do you have a flag? 11:55:m_cat: Yes.

Fleet Action off the Southwest Coast of Spain

Sun, 18 May 2008 20:07:10 GMT

Fleet Action off the Southwest Coast of Spain

Part 1
In which we have discovered a strange fleet.

Since the logs of the time we stole HMS Victory seem fairly popular, I thought I'd share with you even more of our amazing adventures. This one took place a day or so after rollback.

06:07:.oOo.WiLlIaM NoRrInGtOn-SpArRoW.oOo.: Sails two points off starboard bow! 06:07:~~=Wm Norrington=~~: Sweet. 06:07:m_cat: How many? 06:07:FredMarryat: We have the weather gauge. ROFL 06:07:.oOo.WiLlIaM NoRrInGtOn-SpArRoW.oOo.: Three, I think. 06:07:~~=Wm Norrington=~~: pwnt 06:07:.oOo.WiLlIaM NoRrInGtOn-SpArRoW.oOo.: Make that four. One is quite small, and the other three don't look that big. 06:07:*+*Legolas*+*: Wppt! 06:07:*+*Legolas*+*: ^W00t! 06:07:Cylon: wtf is whether gage? 06:07:FredMarryat: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weather_gauge, n00b 06:08:Cylon: stfu 06:08:FredMarryat: STFU, n00b! 06:08:m_cat: Belay that STFUing! 06:08:Cylon: sry 06:08:FredMarrayt: Sorry. 06:08:m_cat: Signal the fleet: Form order of sailing in two columns. 06:08:BillTehCat: two columns aye 06:09:JackVincent: So did anybody catch the last episode of Lost? 06:09:Cylon: that was awesome where do they come up with this stuff?? 06:09:JackVincent: Crack? 06:09:JeffVader: Know what's so great about crack? 06:10:JeffVader: It's crack! 06:10:Speedy: 06:10:iHEARTviggo: im dl'ing lost now don't spoil 06:10:JackVincent: sry 06:10:Cylon: so you don't want me to tell you who died 06:10:Cylon: just kidding 06:11:HAPPYTIGER: 06:11:BillTehCat: HAPPYTIGER acknowledges 06:11:Hildegarde: 06:11:BillTehCat: Hildegarde acknowledges 06:11:Galactica69: 06:11:xXxEnterprisexXx: 06:12:BillTehCat: Galactica69 and xXxEnterprisexXx acknowledge 06:12:m_cat: Starboard watch, go below and get some food. Be back in 15 minutes. 06:12:iHEARTviggo: aye SIR! 06:12:Britannica: 06:12:m_cat: Port watch on deck! 06:12:Ichiko: Rock! 06:12:BillTehCat: Finally, Brittanica acknowledges 06:12:Ichiko: ^Aye, sir! 06:12:m_cat: Signal the fleet: Bear up and sail on course ENE. 06:12:BillTehCat: course ENE aye. 06:13:m_cat: Make our course ENE 06:13:CaptainPeacock: ENE aye 06:13:Cylon: ima get me a sammich 06:13:m_cat: Be sure you come back 06:13:Cylon: np is just in fridge 06:13:Speedy: 06:14:iHEARTviggo: 3 minutes til i get lost 06:14:iHEARTviggo: ne chance theres enough time 2 watch it b4 fight? 06:14:JeffVader: Does it have commercials? 06:14:iHEARTviggo: prolly not 06:14:m_cat: Either way, yes. 06:14:Speedy: 06:15:Cyan: Captain, as a weedy naturalist, I must insist that you delay combat until such time 06:15:Cyan: as I have had a chance to explore those islands over there. Who knows what kind of 06:15:Cyan: interesting creatures might live there. 06:15:m_cat: We started talking about combat like ten minutes ago. Where were you then? 06:15:Cylon: yea what took u so long? u usuall wine at first sign of combat 06:16:Cyan: Sorry, I was playing Starcraft in campaign mode, and Kerrigan just died. 06:16:JackVincent: Oh, god. He's going to cry again. 06:16:iHEARTviggo: No! Please, no. We don't need that again. 06:16:.oOo.WiLlIaM NoRrInGtOn-SpArRoW.oOo.: Again? What happened? 06:16:Cylon: cyan cried when palom and porom died in ff4 and totally wrekt our day 06:16:Cyan: That's a lie. 06:16:Cylon: dude i have transcript 06:17:m_cat: Post it and I have you trhown overboard. 06:17:Cylon: ill im u if u want transcript 06:17:Ichiko: You don't want it. Trust us. 06:19:Cyan: So about those islands I insist on exploring. 06:19:m_cat: You know, this is a RP-light server. 06:19:Cyan: Naturalists are an exception to those rules. YOu know that as well as I. 06:19:Cyan: Besides, now that they've got custom AI working, we might find some really sweet 06:19:Cyan: pets. Who knows? 06:20:m_cat: They broke pets last week after rollback. You can't eat them anymore. 06:20:Cyan: That's why I want to get some now. That and the AI. 06:20:m_cat: We can't eat the pets we capture, and the xp will almost certainly be better in 06:20:Cyan: It's not all about XP, you know. 06:20:m_cat: a fleet battle than on a couple of tiny islands. I'm sorry, but I just can't 06:20:Cylon: yes it is 06:20:InFeStEdBoRg: no its about drops 2 06:20:m_cat: justify losing those ships to explore your islands. We'll come back if we have 06:20:m_cat: time. 06:21:Cyan: What about discovery? The wiki doesn't have any details on these islands. 06:21:m_cat: I command a privateer ship, not a king's ship. My crew wants XP, drops, and 06:21:m_cat: zeny, and they want them now. We do not have time for your damned hobbies, 06:21:m_cat: sir! 06:21:m_cat: Tell the fleet to prepare for battle. 06:21:BillTehCat: Prepare for battle, aye. 06:22:.oOo.WiLlIaM NoRrInGtOn-SpArRoW.oOo.: Wait, king's ships aren't all about xp, zeny, and 06:22:.oOo.WiLlIaM NoRrInGtOn-SpArRoW.oOo.: drops? 06:22:*+*Legolas*+*: King's ships are all about spit and polish and fancy paint 06:22:*+*Legolas*+*: jobs and "correct" English. 06:22:*+*Legolas*+*: At least the ones I've served on. 06:22:Ichiko: Yeah, on HMS Namur, you'd get whipped for like 50 HP and 3,000 xp 06:22:Ichiko: if you used "they" as third-person singular 06:22:FredMarryat: Well, it is gramatically incorrect. It's like using "pwnt" in formal 06:22:FredMarryat: writing. 06;22:Speedy: 06:22:Cyan: Actually, third-person singular they was used by a number of famous authors 06:23:Cyan: throught history. 06:23:m_cat: Including the Bard, himself, I believe. 06:23:Cylon: yea shakespeare in romeo& juliet 06:23:Cylon: friar l: arise one knocks good romeo hide thiself 06:23:Cylon: romeo: not i unles the breath ofhartsick groans 06;23:Cylon: mistlike enfold me from teh srch of eyes 06:23:Cylon: *knock* 06:23:Cylon: friarr l: hark how they knock! 06:23:Cylon: wm makepeace thackary 2 in vanity fair 06:24:Cylon: "a person cant help their birth" rosalind replied 06:24:Cylon: u c it has long history iz just st00pid english teachers whine about it 06:24:LoneWolf: sigular they is all feminast conspiricy like herstory 06:24:Cylon: stfu, n00b. u think shakespere was feminist conspiratz0r? 06:24:Cylon: altho herstory is stupid. is done mostly 2 draw awareness 2 masculan 06:24:Cylon: dominanc of linguistic deffaults like always replacing man with woman 06:24:Cylon: like chairman/chairperson to chairwoman most ppl think sounds odd 06:24:Cylon: but isnt any odder than chairman just not what we r used 2 06;25:Cylon: history tho not the same cuz "his" is not morpheme for male posesive 06:25:Cylon: history is anglisiz0red latin "historia" 06:25:Cylon: historia is latiniz0red greek "histor" meaning knowing 06:25:Cylon: n00b 06:29:m_cat: I'm not sure what the hell just happned there.

Stealing HMS Victory, Part 3

Sat, 17 May 2008 21:29:06 GMT

Stealing HMS Victory

Part 3
in which our great adventure comes to a close.

When last we left our decrepid crew, we had just pawned our first knob. Well, this part takes place maybe half a day later. We'd dealt with a bunch of powerful NPC ships and picked up a bunch of xp and treasure. Then we spent maybe five hours becalmed. Fortunately, MC:TAC includes a number of mini-games, so spending five hours on a ship with no wind wasn't nearly as boring as you'd think. We had several fine games of parcheesi! These quiet times were not to last, though. The wind returned, and with it our great adventure.

12:01:wilw: Hey, I think we've got wind again! 12:01:m_cat: We complete what we started. 12:01:~~=Wm Norrington=~~: Awesome! Let's catch us a fat Spanish treasure ship! 12:02:m_cat: Hey, I meant this game of parcheesi! Get back here. 12:02:~~=Wm Norrington=~~: fine 12:28:m_cat: Okay, now let's complete that other thing we started! 12:28:Vados: Piracy this time? 12:28:m_cat: Abso-warking-lutely! AmbroseSpike, get those sails set! 12:30:wilw: I forgot how long this takes. 12:31:m_cat: Anyone up for another round of parcheesi? 12:32:~~=Wm Norrington=~~: sure 12:32:wilw: sure 12:33:Ichiko: rock 12:33:JeffVader: I'll sit this one out, thanks. 12:33:SaltyBob: i guess im in 12:52:AmbrosiaSike: Sails set, cap'm. 12:52:m_cat: Nice. CaptainPeacock, take the wheel. 12:52:CaptainPeacock: Where to? 12:53:m_cat: I'm kinda busy right now. Use your best judgement. 12:59:m_cat: Pawned like the knobs you are. 12:59:wilw: I was so close! 12:59:SaltyBob: no u wer not 12:59:m_cat: So where are we? 01:00:CaptainPeacock: I was steering for La Rochelle, but I think we are closer to the 01:00:CaptainPeacock: Galapagos. 01:00:m_cat: Mmm... Well, as we have no weedy naturalists, it falls to me to say 01:00:m_cat: that we should land and devour all the delicious animals we find. 01:00:FredMarryat: WTF? 01:01:m_cat: Let's land, kill all the local monsters, and rake in the xp. 01:01:InFeStEdBoRg: I'm in. 01:01:SaltyBob: lets kill those monsters 01;01:Ichiko: Rock! 01:01:JeffVader: Sounds good. 01:01:FredMarryat: Couldn't we go looking for French ships to capture? They're worth more. 01:02:m_cat: We're in the Galapagos. What are the odds we'll find a French ship out here? 01:02:m_cat: I think they just opened this area up a few days ago, so we'll be among the 01:02:m_cat: first to farm it. Who knows what new drops there might be? 01:02:InFeStEdBoRg: better not b lettuce 01:02:m_cat: Throw out the anchor and fetch a boat. We're going farming. 01:03:AmbrosiaSpike: Anchor's out. 01:03:wilw: The gig is ready. 01:03:m_cat: We're going to have to leave somebody behind to make sure rogues don't steal 01:03:m_cat: our ship while we're out, but we can swap out later so everyone can farm. 01:04:m_cat: First up: me, ~~=Wm Norrington=~~, SaltyBob, InFeStEdBoRg, FredMarryat, Ichiko, 01:04:Ichiko: Rock! 01:04:m_cat: JeffVader, VampyrePajamas, and Vados. 01:04:JeffVader: Sweet. 01:04:Vados: Awesome! 01:04:~~=Wm Norrington=~~: Yes! 01:04:SaltyBob: XP! 8)! 01:04:CaptainPeacock: Damn. 01:04:InFeStEdBoRg: yes 01:04:FredMarryat: Excellent. 01:05:m_cat: VampirePajamas? You in? 01:05:VampirePajamas: Sry. I'm in the middle of homewrok. 01:05:m_cat: CaptainPeacock it is, then. 01:06:m_cat: SaltyBob, take us to that island. 01:06:SaltyBob: which island? 01:06:m_cat: The one north-east on your minimap 01:06:SaltyBob: k 01:09:SaltyBob: this ok? 01:09:m_cat: I see several walking lumps of delicious xp. This is fine. 01:10:JeffVader: OMFG turtles have a lot of HP! 01:10:FredMarryat: Failboat! 01:10:Vados: If you hit them fast enough, they can't get move. They die eventually. 01:10:Vados: Nice xp on turtles 01:11:JeffVader: Don't let them hit you. 01:12:InFeStEdBoRg: heal plx 01:12:InFeStEdBoRg: thx 01:12:Ichiko: NP 01:13:m_cat: Man, I totally pawnz0rated that finch. 01:14:FredMarryat: crabs swarm 01:15:Vados: ha ha 01:15:FredMarryat: help plz crabs swarm 01:16:m_cat: Any more turtles around here? They don't seem to be respawning 01:16:FredMarryat: aaugh crabs 01:16:m_cat: Can somebody take care of that? 01:17:Vados: crabs! 01:17:InFeStEdBoRg: omg y thare so mny crabs? 01:18:m_cat: Dangit, le me take care of them. 01:19:m_cat: They weren't so bad. 01:19:Vados: That's because we killed most of them before you "helped out" 01:20:m_cat: When do you think they'll respawn? 01:21:SaltyBob: ne1 seen nething? 01:22:m_cat: I guess we'll go back to the ship. We can try to spade whatever 01:22:m_cat: we got and wait for the monsters to respawn. 01:23:CaptainPeacock: Suck. 01:24:InFeStEdBoRg: what a lame respawn rate 01:24:InFeStEdBoRg: how r we spsed to make xp in this area? 01:25:m_cat: I'm sure the island's ecosystem will restore itself in 15 minutes. 01:26:wilw: Welcome back, Sir. Request permission to make some XP. 01:26:m_cat: Um... yeah. 01:26:SaltyBob: hi cheese. 01:26:ILikeCheese: hi 01:26:Vados: Hi. 01:26:JeffVader: Doctor. 01:26:Vados: Doctor. 01:26:SaltyBob: Doctor. 01:26:FredMarryat: Doctor. 01:26:wilw: Doctor. 01:26:Vados: Doctor. 01:26:SaltyBob: Doctor. 01:26:m_cat: Let's not start this again! 01:26:ILikeCheese: Doctor. 01:26:Ichiko: Doctor. 01:27:m_cat: STFU 01:27:JeffVader: sry 01:27:m_cat: You should be. 01:27:m_cat: ILikeCheese, where were you? 01:27:ILikeCheese: playing SSBB since we were becalmed 01:27:ILikeCheese: woulda been back like 10 min ago but i had 2 download the patch 01:28:Vados: Patch? 01:28:ILikeCheese: yeah new patch came out like a day ago 01:28:SaltyBob: weve been on for like 2 days solid now ha ha 01:28:wilw: Anyt interesting updates? 01:28:ILikeCheese: pets can have custom ai now 01:28:wilw: I used to have a parrot. 01:29:wilw: Before SOMEBODY ate it. 01:29:m_cat: Okay, we've had dthis discussion before. The parrot looked delicious. 01:29:m_cat: It was asking to be eaten. 01:29:m_cat: I mean, why else would you even own a parrot or a monkey if you aren't 01:29:m_cat: going to eat it? 01:29:wilw: Whatever. Any other updates? 01:29:ILikeCheese: minimaps show allies now 01:29:ILikeCheese: skill names changed: "cartridge making" now = "making cartridge!!" 01:29:ILikeCheese: updated combat skills liek double-shot costs less xp 01:29:m_cat: I've heard enough. Everybody except ILikeCheese, log out and update. 01:29:AmbrosiaSpike: OK 01:41:wilw: Hey, they've added to the list of things you can make bullets out of. 01:41:wilw: Now it includes Piece of Reef, Mermaid Heart, and Handful of Grit. 01:41:wilw: Handful of Grit makes silver bullets. 01:41:wilw: Why? 01:41:SaltyBob: hey ive got a monkey egg. ima hatch me a mokney 01:42:ILikeCheese: saltybob? 01:43:Vados: Patching complete! 01:43:ILikeCheese: SaltyBob? 01:43:m_cat: That can't be good. 01:43:wilw: Maybe he crashed. 01:44:m_cat: Loggging off and on should fix it. 01:44:m_cat: or not 01:44:m_cat: Okay, nobody activate a pet. 01:45:m_cat: You know, he'll probably never know what happened to his monkey. 01:45:wilw: That's just wrong. 01:46:m_cat: Not so wrong as to not be delicious. 01:46:Vados: Hey, the mini-map really does work. I see all you guys! 01:46:~~=Wm Norrington=~~: Can we go ashore now? 01:46:Snootch: Come onnnnnn! 01:46:Snootch: I wants the killiiiiiinnnnnzzzzz! 01:47:ILikeCheese: SaltyBob? 01:47:SaltyBob: that sucked. my client kept crashin 01:47:SaltyBob: where's my monkey? 01:47:wilw: I can't imagine what could have happened to your monkey. 01:47:m_cat: Something delicious? 01:47:SaltyBob: wtf? 01:48:wilw: Okay, the forums say you must have a custom AI folder if you use 01:48:wilw: a pet or else your client will crash while looking for one. 01:48:SaltyBob: thx 01:48:ILikeCheese: hey, guys, there's a red thingy moving towards a green thingy 01:48:FredMarryat: WTF? Care to elaborate, man? 01:49:ILikeCheese: zoom out minimap to see the ocean 01:49:ILikeCheese: i think were the green thingy 01:49:wilw: Is that an allied ship? 01:49:Ichiko: Is it the Speedy? 01:50:wilw: Speedy is probably still back near Gibraltar. 01:50:m_cat: wilw, what do you see? 01:51:wilw: Looks British. Maybe 74 guns. 01:51:m_cat: I have a plan so cunning you could paste ears on it and call it a wombat. 01:51:m_cat: Somebody who's not JeffVader, signal Enemy Vessel Sighted 01:53:JeffVader: I guess that's me. 01:53:m_cat: Dangit. Make it so. 01:53:Vados: Are you going to do what I think you are oging to do? 01:54:m_cat: Is what you think I'm going to do an act of genius? 01:54:Vados: No. 01:54:m_cat: Then probably not. 01:54:HMS Victory: 01:55:wilw: um... 01:55:wilw: Are you going to attack a British ship? 01:55:m_cat: You get the ears and I'll get the paste. 01:55:Snootch: Turn on our own side? 01:55:wilw: No way. 01:56:AmbrosiaSpike: What? 01:56:m_cat: Who's the Captain here? 01:56:wilw: Nelson? 01:56:Vados: He's an admiral. 01:57:m_cat: Why do you think I spent 70,000 zeny on this giant hat? 01:57:m_cat: I have a perfectly good +10 Triple-Interstitital Daffodil that I could 01:57:m_cat: be wearing. It gives me better bonuses, and it makes all of my attacks 01:57:m_cat: fire-based, but the giant hat says I'm the captain. 01:57:wilw: You wear a daffodil on your head? 01:57:m_cat: Where else would you wear it? 01:57:wilw: I'd think it would go in your buttonhole slot instead. 01:57:m_cat: Don't be silly. That's where I've got my +3 Ghostly Muffler 01:58:wilw: You've got a muffler in your buttonhole? 01:58:m_cat: Yep. Check the wiki. It's clearly labeled "boutonniere." What do you 01:58:m_cat: have in your buttonhole slot? 01:58:wilw: I've got a campion. 01:58:m_cat: That's probably a bug. It's a flower. It should be on your head. 01:58:InFeStEdBoRg: so about this whole attacking british side thing 01:58:m_cat: Don't get all high and mighty with me. You lot almost drowned the 01:58:m_cat: greatest living British hero just for the xp, and then you locked him 01:58:m_cat: in the forktassel. 01:59:InFeStEdBoRg: who? 01:59:wilw: Nelson! 01:59:InFeStEdBoRg: that dude got my xp! 01:59:wilw: Actually, you were the one who suggested pushing him overboard. 01:59:m_cat: Whatever. Now's our chance to regain all the XP that Nelson and his 01:59:m_cat: British crew have stolen from us in the past day or two. Who's with me? 01:59:wilw: Whatever. 01:59:m_cat: That's the spirit! 01:59:HMS Shrewsbury: 01:58:JeffVader: Shrewsbury acknowledges. 01:59:m_cat: For the record, I wasn't actually talking to HMS Shrewsbury. 01:59:m_cat: I was talking to our ship, Speedy. Shrewsbury just misinterpreted. 01:59:m_cat: Run up "Party?" 01:59:JeffVader: Okay. 01:59:Ichiko: This is messed up. But funny. 01:59:m_cat: Let's start sailing in Shrewsbury's direction. 01:59:AmbrosiaSpike: Aye, aye. 02:00:HMS Victory: 02:00:~~=Wm Norrington=~~: Still talking to the Speedy? 02:00:m_cat: Absolutely. 02:00:HMS Shrewsbury: 02:00:m_cat: So, want to play parcheesi? 02:00:ILikeCheese: SSBB time! 02:00:wilw: I'll beat you this time. 02:00:SaltyBob: no u wont 02:00:wilw: Next time we play poker. 04:39:CaptainPeacock: Hey, we're here! 04:40:m_cat: Awesome. 04:40:m_cat: JeffVader? 04:41:JeffVader: What? 04:41:m_cat: Signal to HMS Shrewsbury, "Approach within hailing distance" or whatever. 04:41:JeffVader: Sure. 04:42:HMS Victory: 04:42:HMS Shrewsbury: 04:43:JeffVader: Okay... 04:43:m_cat: Take us in closer. 04:43:CaptainPeacock: Okay. 04:45:quorelation (HMS Shrewsbury): yo1 u no where is la rochelle? 04:45:m_cat (HMS Victory): Yo yourself! 04:45:quorelation (HMS Shrewsbury): wheres shipz u want to party 4? 04:45:m_cat (HMS Victory): Very near. 04:45:m_cat (HMS Victory): Actually, here's the story. We plan to board and pillage you. 04:45:quorelation (HMS Shrewsbury): what/ 04:46:m_cat (HMS Victory): Heave to. We intend to board and pillage you. 04:46:quorelation (HMS Shrewsbury): no wai 04:46:quorelation (HMS Shrewsbury): can i talk to some1 else there? 04:46:m_cat (HMS Victory): See my giant hat? I'm in command here. 04:46:quorelation (HMS Shrewsbury): r u nelson? 04:46:m_cat (HMS Victory): Have I said anything about confidence? No! I'm not! 04:47:quorelation (HMS Shrewsbury: what soing on here? 04:47:m_cat (HMS Victory): 猿も木から落ちる 04:48:quorelation (HMS Shrewsbury): what u say? 04:48:m_cat (HMS Victory): 猿も木から落ちる 04:48:quorelation (HMS Shrewsbury): no1 here can read that 04:48:quorelation (HMS Shrewsbury): looks like boxes 04:48:m_cat (HMS Victory): Turn International support on. 04:48:quorelation (HMS Shrewsbury): whut? 04:48:m_cat: geez 04:48:m_cat (HMS Victory): Hit cmd-O or alt-O or whatever 04:48:quorelation (HMS Shrewsbury): k 04:49:m_cat (HMS Victory): Now click Languages 04:49:quorelation (HMS Shrewsbury): o i c then international support 04:49:m_cat (HMS Victory): 猿も木から落ちる 04:49:quorelation (HMS Shrewsbury): no1 here can read that 04:49:m_cat (HMS Victory): Didn't we just go through this? 04:49:quorelation (HMS Shrewsbury): no1 speaks korean 04:50:m_cat (HMS Victory): Does it look Korean? It's Japanese. 04:50:quorelation (HMS Shrewsbury) g thx that helps 04:50:m_cat (HMS Victory): Excellent. Now, about this boarding an pillaging. 04:50:quorelation (HMS Shrewsbury): no1 speaks japanese ether 04:51:m_cat (HMS Victory): It means "even monkeys fall from trees." 04:51:m_cat (HMS Victory): and then I eat them. 04:51:m_cat (HMS Victory): I added the last part myself. 04:51:JeffVader: How does that apply? 04:51:quorelation (HMS Shrewsbury): why u say that? 04:52:m_cat (HMS Victory): Because even you, an expert in command of a 74-gun ship, 04:52:m_cat (HMS Victory): have fallen for my amazingly clever ruse. Now, about 04:52:quorelation (HMS Shrewsbury): u have a flag? 04:53:m_cat: Good point. Somebody take down the British colours and put up Speedy's. 04:53:JeffVader: Done. 04:53:m_cat (HMS Victory): Okay, there we go. Make with the being boarded. 04:53:quorelation (HMS Shrewsbury): no i mean pirate flag 04:54:m_cat (HMS Victory): I think we forgot to bring one. 04:54:quorelation (HMS Shrewsbury): no flag no piracy 04:54:m_cat: DANGIT! 04:54:m_cat (HMS Victory): Okay, either surrender or shoot at us. 04:54:quorelation (HMS Shrewsbury): no wai 04:54:m_cat (HMS Victory): Come on, surrender or shoot. 04:55:quorelation (HMS Shrewsbury): r u haxing? 04:55:m_cat (HMS Victory): No. We really do have 104 guns. 04:55:quorelation (HMS Shrewsbury): wherez nelson? i want 2 c him 04:55:m_cat (HMS Victory): Hey, what did I say aboug the giant hat? 04:55:quorelation (HMS Shrewsbury): nelson never had officer named mcat 04:55:quorelation (HMS Shrewsbury): ur hacking. u stole this ship ic all gm 04:55:m_cat: bush 04:55:GM-Cochrane: What's all this, then? 04:55:quorelation (GM Channel): mcat stole hms victory 04:56:GM-Cochrane: Cute. How'd you do it? 04:56:m_cat: (GM Channel): Me? Hey, why do you thinkk I'm wearing this daffodil instead of a 04:56:m_cat: (GM Channel) giant captain's hat? I'm not the one in charge here. It was 04:56:m_cat (GM Channel): ILikeCheese's idea. He logged off when they called you. 04:56:wilw (GM Channel): We just walked on board and sailed away. 04:56:GM-Cochrane: Okay, well, there've been some problems with the custom AI, so 04:56:GM-Cochrane: we're going to roll the server back about 24 hours. That shoudl 04:56:GM-Cochrane: undo your reign of terror. 04:56:GM-Cochrane: Very clever, by the way. Next time, the sentry will shoot you. 04:57:m_cat (GM Channel): Since we're pointing out bugs here, I'd like to report that 04:57:m_cat (GM Channel): eating pets doesn't give any stat boosts. 04:57:GM-Cochrane: You can't eat pets. 04:57:m_cat (GM Channel): Yes, you can. 04:57:GM-Cochrane: How? 04:57:m_cat (GM Channel): In the usual way. 04:57:GM-Cochrane: That's a bug right there. 04:58:m_cat (GM Channel): How is eating a monkey a bug? That's clearly a feature. 04:58:m_cat (GM channel): Don't tell me you wouldn't eat a monkey if you could. 04:58:THE SERVER IS GOING DOWN FOR A REBOOT NOW!

Stealing HMS Victory, Part 2

Tue, 13 May 2008 05:48:47 GMT

Stealing HMS Victory

Part 2
in which we pawn some knobs.

We'd been sailing for about six hours when we came encountered our first possible foe. But would things really go as we had planned?

08:51:JeffVader: A sail! 08:51:m_cat: Where? 08:52:JeffVader: Over there somewhere. 08:52:JeffVader: It's five or so of those thingies to the left. 08:52:wilw: Six points off the port bow. 08:52:JeffVader: I think they're French. 08:52:m_cat: Time to pawn some knobs like they've never been pawned before. 08:52:wilw: Um, I just had an awful thought. 08:53:m_cat: We've got 104 guns. This things a floating gun & pawn shop. 08:53:wilw: Who here can operate one of the great guns? 08:55:m_cat: Oh, dangit. 08:55:CaptainPeacock: Initiate "getting the hell out of here" maneuver? 08:55:m_cat: Yes. 08:55:m_cat: Wear! Come about! 08:55:AmbrosiaSpike: Wearing... 08:55:CaptainPeacock: Aye. 08:57:~~=Wm Norrington=~~: Come on, Victory. 09:02:AmbrosiaSpike: Woo hoo! 09:02:m_cat: More sail, Ichiko. 09:02:Ichiko: Rock! 09:02:Ichiko: AmbrosiaSpike, take two reefs out of the mainsail. Set teh skysails. 09:02:AmbrosiaSpike: Aye. 09:03:Ichiko: And try the studdingsails. Let's see if that works. 09:03:wilw: That's pretty impressive, Ichiko. 09:03:Ichiko: I just say what my Sail Management skill tells me to say. 09:12:m_cat: How does it look, JeffVader? 09:13:JeffVader: They're gone! 09:13:wilw: Already? 09:13:Ichiko: Wow, that worked really well! Rock! 09:14:wilw: JeffVader, are you still looking 6 points off port bow? 09:15:JeffVader: Of course I am. What am I, stupid? 09:15:wilw: points OFF THE PORT BOW means it depends on where the ship is pointed! 09:15:wilw: We've turned since you first saw them. 09:15:JeffVader: Sry! 09:16:JeffVader: Found them! 09:17:JeffVader:If they're bigger, it means they're getting closer, right? 09:17:m_cat: Okay, you can't be lookout anymore, either. Wil? 09:17:wilw: On my way. 09:19:wilw: French, maybe 50 guns, closing fast. 09:20:InFeStEdBoRg: were screwed 09:20:m_cat: Easy there, sailor. How long do we have until she's in range? 09:20:wilw: Maybe two hours. 09:20:InFeStEdBoRg: 2 hrs? that' sfast? 09:21:CaptainPeacock: Maybe the crew's combat programming will kick in. 09:21:wilw: They haven't noticed the French ship. I doubt they will. 09:21:CaptainPeacock: What if they aren't set to be agro? 09:21:m_cat: Let's not rely on that. Everybody think of a plan. 09:49:m_cat: Are they still closing? 09:49:wilw: Yes. 10:03:ILikeCheese: I'm going to play Super Smash Brothers Brawl. 10:48:JeffVader: What if we make a fake ship out of a barrel and some lanterns? 10:51:AmbrosiaSpike: That'd only work at night. It's not even noon. 11:05:m_cat: Maybe we can bluff our way out of this. If that doesn't work, 11:05:m_cat: we could grab everything out of the hold and then log off. I'm 11:05:m_cat: sure a GM will notice eventually and put the ship back where it 11:05:m_cat: belongs. 11:07:~~=Wm Norrington=~~: Requestpermission to begin looting now. 11:07:m_cat: Loot away! 11:16:Ichiko: Damn, weevils have a lot of HP. 11:17:Ichiko: Good drops, tho. 11:20:m_cat: They're shooting1 Start opening the gunports! 11:20:wilw: They're still out of range. They're just testing. 11:21:m_cat: Carry on looting. 11:21:InFeStEdBoRg: it's all lettuce down here!! 11:32:wilw: Okay, they're about in range. 11:33:m_cat: Feels like they're in range now. 11:33:wilw: Bow chasers only. 11:33:InFeStEdBoRg: um... 11:33:InFeStEdBoRg: npcs are doin stuff 11:33:m_cat: Like what? 11:33:InFeStEdBoRg: gettin guns rdy 11:33:m_cat: Awesome! 11:33:m_cat: AmbrosiaSpike, get ready to turn this ship around. 11:34:JeffVader: Are we about to see the power of this fully-operational battleship? 11:34:m_cat: Let me know when the guns are ready. 11:34:InFeStEdBoRg: um.. now? 11:34:m_cat (to AmbrosiaSpike): What's taking so long? 11:34:AmbrosiaSpike (to you): We're missing a topma n. ILikeCheese still is still playing 11:34:AmbrosiaSpike (to you): that stupid game, and we didn't have enough of them to begin 11:34:AmbrosiaSpike (to you): with. 11:34:m_cat (to AmbrosiaSpike): Dangit. 11:35:CaptainPeacock: Heal plz 11:35:CaptainPeacock: Oh, and we're missing the ship's wheel 11:35:CaptainPeacock: thx AmbrosiaSpike 11:35:m_cat: So we can't steer? Dangit! 11:37:wilw: I can't get to where you steer it in an emergency. It's got soldiers outside. 11:38:m_cat: Maybe if we reduce sail they'll overtake us and we can broadside them. 11:38:wilw: I just got a better idea. 11:38:wilw: Throw out the starboard anchor. 11:38:~~=Wm Norrington=~~: You've been watchign too much PoTC 11:39:wilw: No, it's legit. 11:39:~~=Wm Norrington=~~: Even if it works, you saw the movie. It almost wrecked the ship. 11:39:Ichiko: If it gets wrecked either way, why don't we try the crazy plan? 11:39:wilw: It's not crazy. I'm reading the developers' mailing list right now. 11:39:wilw: They've got a problem with the physics model, where tension and a few 11:40:wilw: other things don't work very well. I'm betting it won't actually damage 11:40:wilw: the ship. 11:40:Ichiko: Rock! 11:40:m_cat: AmbrosiaSpike, implement Wil's crazy plan! 11:40:AmbrosiaSpike: Crazy plan, aye! 11:40:Ichiko: What kind of drops does a French 50gun have? 11:40:InFeStEdBoRg: better not be more lettuce! 11:41:~~=Wm Norrington=~~: Crapt hat was loud! 11:41:m_cat: Ha ha pawned. 11:41:JeffVader: It's lettuce! 11:41:InFeStEdBoRg: fuck 11:41:InFeStEdBoRg: xp sux, too 11:41:wilw: We're sharing it with the rest of the crew. 11:41:AmbrosiaSpike: WTF was that flash from the focle? 11:41:wilw: I think Nelson just leveled up. 11:41:InFeStEdBoRg: no fair nelson got my xp!

We survived our first encounter with the enemy, but what would we do after that? Where would we go? Only one thing is for sure. We'll never need lettuce again. Tune in next time for the exciting conclusion!

Stealing HMS Victory, Part 1

Sun, 11 May 2008 23:08:39 GMT

Stealing HMS Victory

Part 1
in which we steal HMS Victory.

01:13:Sentry: Who goes there? 01:13:wilw: Admiral Collingwood? 01:14:wilw: That seemed to work. 01:14:Sentry: Who goes there? 01:14:m_cat: Thomas Cochrane 01:14:Sentry: Who goes there? 01:14:FredMarryat: I'm the Juggernaut, bitch! 01:14:FredMarryat: Maybe they don't care what you say. 01:14:Sentry: Who goes there? 01:15:Sentry: Who goes there? 01:15:Sentry: Who goes there? 01:15:Sentry: Who goes there? 01:15:Sentry: Who goes there? 01:15:Sentry: Who goes there? 01:15:Sentry: Who goes there? 01:15:Sentry: Who goes there? 01:15:Sentry: Who goes there? 01:15:Sentry: Who goes there? 01:15:JeffVader: Fuck off, or I'll kill you with this tray. 01:15:JeffVader: Seems so. 01:15:Sentry: Who goes there? 01:16:Sentry: Who goes there? 01:16:Sentry: Who goes there? 01:16:Sentry: Who goes there? 01:16:wilw: Whoa, I think it's Admiral Nelson 01:16:Lord Nelson: What's wrong with 'confides,' I ask you? 01:16:m_cat: Hey, Nelson! 01:16:Lord Nelson: What's wrong with 'confides,' I ask you? 01:16:~~=Wm Norrington=~~: Now you've done it! 01:16:wilw: Nothing, M'Lord. 01:16:Lord Nelson: What's wrong with 'confides,' I ask you? 01:16:Ichiko: WTF? 01:17:FredMarryat: Maybe he responds whenever anyone says his name. 01:17:FredMarryat: Lord Nelson! Lord Nelson! Lord Nelson! 01:17:Lord Nelson: What's wrong with 'confides,' I ask you? 01:17:FredMarryat: I guess that settles that. Think he does anything else? 01:17:m_cat: I doubt it. Let's get those sails set. 01:17:AmbrosiaSpike: We're on it. 01:19:FredMarryat: Anybody here good with C++? 01:20:~~=Wm Norrington=~~: C++ kinda sucks. You should use Java or something. 01:20:Cyan: Use Scheme. Or Lisp. 01:20:FredMarryat: It's for my programming class. I'm stuck with it. 01:20:Cyan: Ick. 01:27:JeffVader: We didn't bring enough topmen 01:29:m_cat: Be patient. 01:34:wilw: I'm going to go rock Guitar Hero. Call me when we're ready to sail. 01:36:m_cat: Okay. 01:37:Ichiko: Rock! 01:40:AmbrosiaSpike: ILikeCheese, why are you so slow? You said you had 01:40:AmbrosiaSpike: Set Sails 4! 01:41:ILikeCheese: i have to keep opening and closing my skill window 01:41:AmbrosiaSpike: What? 01:41:ILikeCheese: having my skill window open while I'm trying to move around is hard 01:41:ILikeCheese: i have to keep clicking it open and closed 01:41:AmbrosiaSpike: Hotkey it! 01:41:ILikeCheese: what? 01:41:AmbrosiaSpike: PRess F11 01:41:ILikeCheese: k 01:41:AmbrosiaSpike:Did a long, narrow window pop up on your screen? 01:41:ILikeCheese: yea 01:41:AmbrosiaSpike: Is your skill window open? 01:41:ILikeCheese: yea 01:42:AmbrosiaSpike: Drag the icon for Set Sails to one of the first box. 01:42:ILikeCheese: k 01:42:AmbrosiaSpike: Now you can just hit F1 with just that little window open. 01:42:ILikeCheese: thx 01:42:FredMarryat: What a lubber. 01:43:ILikeCheese: STUF 01:43:ILikeCheese: ^STFU 01:58:AmbrosiaSpike: We're god to go. 01:58:m_cat: Take the wheel, CaptainPeacock. 01:58:CaptainPeacock: Awesome. 01:59:m_cat: Cut those cables! 01:59:JeffVader: That was easy. 01:59:Ichiko: Rock! 02:00:wilw: I'm back. 02:00:m_cat: Finished pawnz0riating Guitar Hero, Wil? 02:00:HMS Victory: 02:00:wilw: Um, sure. 02:00:m_cat: Who's doing that? 02:01:JeffVader: I cant' stop the skill now. 02:01:m_cat: You don't get to be signal midshipman anymore. 02:01::DreadPirateRoberts: (the docks): Ahoy Victory! WTF? 02:01:FredMarryat (HMS Victory): I'm in ur port, cuttin' out ur Victory. 02:01::DreadPirateRoberts: (the docks): You're stealing Nelson's ship? 02:01:Lord Nelson: What's wrong with 'confides,' I ask you? 02:01:JeffVader: We've got a flag, you know. 02:01:m_cat: Get us out of here, CaptainPeacock. 02:01:m_cat (HMS Victory): Yes. 02:02:HMS Victory: 02:02::DreadPirateRoberts: (the docks): No! They be takin' mah Victory! 02:02:m_cat (HMS Victory): Bye now. 02:03:m_cat: ~~=Wm Norrington=~~, I understand this ship contains powder monkeys. 02:03:m_cat: Bring them before me. I wish to eat them. 02:03:wilw: Powder monkeys aren't monkeys, m_cat. 02:03:m_cat: Is this another one of those "there aren't any guns in the gunroom" things? 02:04:m_cat: These naval terms are just crazy. Can't they use English properly? 02:04:HMS Victory: 02:05:m_cat: Steady as she goes, CaptainPeacock. 02:05:CaptainPeacock: That means I keep doing what I'm doing, right? 02:05:m_cat: I think so. 02:06:wilw: I think this is really going to work. 02:06:Cyan: We're going to get busted for this. 02:06:m_cat: We'll report it sooner or later. 02:07:wilw: You know, GM-Foley, I only have one eye. 02:07:HMS Victory: 02:07:Ichiko: GM? 02:07:wilw: I have a right to be blind sometimes. 02:08:wilw: It's a quote. Nelson to Foley, when he was pretending not to notice 02:08:Lord Nelson: What's wrong with 'confides,' I ask you? 02:08:wilw: an order to withdraw at the Battle of Copenhagen. 02:09:m_cat: Right, wasn't Nelson's Copenhagen interpretation really important to 02:09:Lord Nelson: What's wrong with 'confides,' I ask you? 02:09:m_cat: quantum mechanics? 02:09:wilw: I don't think so. 02:09:HMS Victory: 02:10:m_cat: Yeah, the Copenhagen interpretation. It's famous. 02:10:wilw: No, I'm sure you're wrong. 02:10:HMS Victory: 02:11:HMS Victory: 02:11:FredMarryat: It's still going. 02:11:JeffVader: It seemed funny at the time. 02:12:m_cat: Yeah, Nelson stated that the waving form of a flag represents the observer's knowledge 02:12:Lord Nelson: What's wrong with 'confides,' I ask you? 02:12:m_cat: of the system. 02:12:wilw: No. 02:12:m_cat: Thus, since Nelson had more knowledge about the battle than did Sir Hyde Parker, 02:12:Lord Nelson: What's wrong with 'confides,' I ask you? 02:12:wilw: No. Just, no. 02:12:m_cat: and thus he ignored the order to withdraw. 02:12:Lord Nelson: What's wrong with 'confides,' I ask you? 02:13:HMS Victory: 02:13:wilw: Am I in an alternate universe? NO! 02:13:FredMarryat: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copenhagen_interpretation 02:13:m_cat: See? 02:13:wilw: I give up. 02:13:m_cat: Goo d idea. I'm typing this sitting on a 1,000+ page physics book. You never 02:13:m_cat: had a chance. 02:14:HMS Victory: 02:15:FredMarryat: m_cat is nuts. Lolz. 02:16:Ichiko: yeah, Nelson's got nothin to do with the copenhagen interpertation. 02:16:Lord Nelson: What's wrong with 'confides,' I ask you? 02:16:m_cat: Maybe we should push him overboard. 02:16:wilw: You want to push the most famous British naval hero of all time overboard? 02:16:HMS Victory: 02:16:Ichiko: Rock! 02:17:~~=Wm Norrington=~~: Sounds like a plan. He's annoying. 02:17:wilw: He's a major NPC! 02:17:ILikeCheese: this is a mmo*RPG* killing rnadom npcs is the whole point 02:17:wilw: That's not true. 02:17:ILikeCheese: well that and lvling 02:17:wilw: It's like I'm in Hell. 02:17:m_cat: I'm putting you in charge of shutting him up, Wil. 02:18:wilw: Fine. I think he's walking randomly. Maybe we could herd him into the 02:18:wilw: fo'c'sle. 02:18:Cyan: Good plan. Where's the f'o'csel? 02:18:AmbrosiaSpike: I'm in. 02:18:wilw: Cyan, stand here. 02:18:Cyan: k 02:18:wilw: AmbrosiaSpike, stand here. 02:19:HMS Victory: 02:19:AmbrosiaSpike: kk 02:19:Cyan: Is he going to move? 02:19:AmbrosiaSpike: Stay on target. 02:20:wilw: Patience. The fo'c'sel is that area up front. Get him to the door. 02:20:HMS Victory: 02:21:wilw:Spike, move left! 02:21:AmbrosiaSpike: k 02:21:wilw: My left! 02:21:AmbrosiaSpike: Sry. 02:22:HMS Victory: 02:23:wilw: cyan left now 02:23:Cyan: I get it. 02:23:AmbrosiaSpike. I c now. 02:23:HMS Victory: 02:23:JeffVader: I'm free! 02:24:Cyan: Thank god. 02:24:m_cat: About time. 02:27:wilw: cyan move now 02:27:wilw: now 02:27:Cyan: Sry. Lag. 02:31:wilw: Yes! 02:31:Cyan: W00t! 02:31:AmbrosiaSpike: Victory for ZIM! 02:31:Ichiko: Rock! 02:32:ILikeCheese: we'da got xp for pushing him overboard 02:32:m_cat: Nelson 02:33:m_cat: Good work, Wil. You're First Lieutenant now. 02:35:CaptainPeacock: We're in the opean ocean!

We've got HMS Victory out of the harbor at Gibraltar and we're free. Tune in next time to see us pawn some knobs!

MMORPG review, part 2

Sun, 11 May 2008 01:29:35 GMT

I'm concluding my review of Master and Commander: The Acheron's Call, a new, historically accurate MMORPG set in the Neapolitan Wars. In the first half, I talked about the really cool parts of the game. In this post, I cover some of the weaknesses. I have no doubt that some of them, nee nearly all of them, will be fixed in time. However, in fairness to anyone who decides to play, I should mention them here.

Drawbacks

In a move that is ill-advisedly stolen from Puzzle Pirates, if you want to take a ship to sea, you'll need a good crew. It's probably best to find people in your time zone who keep your hours. I got off to a rough start in this game because I didn't know this. I set out with a bunch of folks on board HMS Culloden, 74. We were five hours out of Liverpool when our sailing master went AFK "to make a sammich" and never came back.Two hours later one of our topmen started having DSL problems and had to disconnect. Then we lost the wind and were becalmed for a few hours. I'm pretty sure a bunch of the crew, and even one of the mids, switched over to doing MySpace or something like that and forgot about us. Then the Captain and the rest of the officers, who were all in Latvia, decided they needed to get to bed. This continued, and in the end the ship's cook, a carpenter's mate, and I brought the ship into a Port Royal. I've since taken advantage of this, though. One Sunday afternoon, wilw, ~~=Wm Norrington=~~ and I sailed together on the pro-French privateer vessel vVvBlAcKpEnGuInvVv, 24, out of Rio. We knew that most of the crew were in high school on the East Coast, so we just waited until they went to bed and then sailed the ship into Port Royal (a different one) and sold it. We actually pulled this trick a few times before people got wise, but by then I had enough zeny to buy the Speedy.

People are generally pretty good, but it does kinda suck to have to rely on everyone else. One time I was on HMS Unicorn, 46, we were totally about to pawn these two pirate ships when our gunner and one of our midshipmen went all Leroy Brown. Things fell apart pretty fast, and we barely made it back to Liverpool. Basically, it might not be a bad idea to not update your respawn point the first time you sail with a new group.

The cooking system has all the potential to be cool, but it's not yet. Most recipes start with six pounds of butter and four pounds of suet. If it's a salad, you also need a head of lettuce and a few other things, but otherwise you'll need more butter and suet, and a lot of meat. This doesn't seem that bad, until you realize that each French Midshipman you take down only has a 25% chance to drop one ounce of butter. That means you'll have to take down about 384 of them to get the butter you need for a salad. Fortunately, suet is a pretty common drop. Lettuce is way too common, though. I mean, Rather Large Squids have a 100% chance to drop one, and sometimes Merfolk Knights drop two.

Combat might be a little confusing for the uninitiated. It's not that bad when you are on land or doing SvS, but the chat pane during fleet actions can be a real mess. You've got private chats, messages between people near you on the ship, messages within your whole ship, shouts you can hear from nearby ships, and signal flags from every ship you can see.

Even though it's out of beta, there are still a few glitches. Last week wilw, FredMarryat, ~~=Wm Norrington=~~, and a few others of us snuck onboard HMS Victory, 104, which is intended to be an NPC ship. Unfortunately, they hadn't finished all of the code at the time. Every time you talked to Nelson, he'd say "What's wrong with 'confides,' I ask you?" So we cut the cables, set the sails, and took Victory out of port. We sailed around for like 36 hours before the dev team noticed, and we pawned knobs like you wouldn't believe. It was fun, but every so often somebody finds a glitch like that and exploits it.

Summary

This game has it all. It's historical accuracy, a variety of interesting roles, strategy, action, adventure, animal husbandry, resource management, and social interaction. Give it a try!

Just to show you how much fun this game can be, I'll post a few transcripts.

The first will be where we sail HMS Victory out of the docks and stir up some trouble. You get to see not only how cool the game is, but also how well the NPCs interact with you.

New MMORPG!

Sat, 10 May 2008 06:32:18 GMT

I've been playing a new MMORPG for the last few months, and it's just out of beta. Ladies and gentlemen, I introduce to you Master and Commander: The Acheron's Call, which is sort of based on the movie Master and Commander.You can play a sailor in the Royal Navy, a privateer, or a pirate. You can get into trouble on shore or form a crew, get a ship, and sail the high seas!

Cool Features

If you like real-time strategy games, this is for you. This isn't technically real-time, though, since you can sail anywhere in the world in under 72 hours, unless you lose the wind, but it's fairly close. Ship-to-ship combat is quite detailed, and you can assume command of a fleet of PC or NPC ships to square off against your enemies.

Characters aren't limited by classes. Any character can learn any skill, but generally you want to be at least a little bit of a specialist. My crew right now, on the Speedy, has two gunners. xXxWill_NorringtonxXx has just about maxed out Powder Making, while Lady Turner-Norrington-Sparrow-Sephiroth-Potter has just about maxed out Cartridge Making. This way, we don't have live gunpowder in our hold until we actually need it. Then these two start spamming their skills and make as much as we can shoot. Also, the game designers have made sure that every skill is useful.

There's something for everyone. If you are a fan of console RPGs, there's a story you can follow along that involves a lot of fetch quests and talking to NPCs. If you are a fan of PC RPGs, you have stats, and you can kill the shopkeepers, smash barrels, and otherwise act like a psychopath until somebody else takes you down. If you are playing a Royal Marine, there's even a first-person shooter perspective during ship-to-ship combat, where you can snipe away at people on enemy vessels. There's even a Harvest Moon angle. You may not think that taking care of livestock is interesting, but you can bet that somebody does, and you need that somebody on your ship if you want to keep your officers fed and buffed. Fans of resource management aren't left out, either. Your ship needs all kinds of supplies, and somebody's got to buy them.

This leads to what will be another neat feature, the cooking system. I don't think they've go it quite fine-tuned yet, but the recipes are wonderfully complex, authentic, and sound and look delicious. Plus, you get some good stat boosts.

Some MMORPGs have rules against anyone having multiple accounts, or against anyone buying or selling accounts. Not so for MC:TAC. In fact, I just went down to Tortuga, where you can buy just about anything, and picked up a couple of extra characters that I can play. Plus, I got a chance to buy some of that tortuga soup. Mmmm... tortuga...

People, of course, can make or break a MMORPG. MC:TAC has a good group. Unlike most places, "I've been here since beta!" isn't Internet slang for "I'm an ass who can't play very well without outnumbering you 10 to 1." Sure, we've got our bozos, but all in all, it's a good community.

They haven't skimped on the historical accuracy, either. The GM and dev teams are all history buffs, and a few of them don't mind if you ask them questions. One time I accidentally attacked an American ship because I didn't bother to check their flags, and I got the crap knocked out of me. I checked with the dev team, and they said that this wasn't a bug. The ships were just really well-built and the crew was well-trained. It's kind of wacky to me to imagine that, back in the day, the USA made quality stuff. And they say games don't teach you anything!

Next time, I'll introduce the drawbacks. There aren't that many of them.

Jaffa Studies Assistant Professor

Sun, 27 Apr 2008 22:52:47 GMT

Jaffa Studies Assistant Professor

(Jaffa Community College)

Final Filing Date: May 26, 2008 by 4:00 a.m.

Jaffa Community College is now accepting applications for a full-time, tenure-track Jaffa Studies Assistant Professor. This assignment begins Fall 2008 (Augustish).

Salary

Annual salary is expected to range from $38,004 to $153,548, depending on education, experience, and success in battle. Benefits include health care, plunder, a stylish set of armor, and all the Jaffa bars you can eat.

Description of Position

This is a full-time position with the Department of Jaffa Studies at the Fremont campus of Jaffa Community College. Teaching assignments will come from among Jaffa Studies courses such as Shouting, Marching, Milling About With Intent, Jaffa Math, Kitty Petting, Kitty Grooming, Jaffa Religion, and Stomping.

Duties and Responsibilities

To provide classroom instruction in accordance with approved course outlines of record
To prepare and grade class assignments, live-fire drills, and examinations and inform students of their academic and moral progress progress
To post and maintain adequate and regular office hours
To participate in departmental and college-wide professional development activities
To participate in other college-wide professional activities such as committee service, college governance, curriculum development, and military operations
To inform students of course requirements, evaluation procedures, attendance requirements, and how cute Miss Kitty is
To maintain necessary attendance, scholastic, disciplinary, and loyalty records and submit them in accordance with college guidelines

Reporting Relationships

This position is in the Jaffa Studies Department and reports to the Dean of Jaffa Arts and Sciences, as well as to your god, Miss Kitty.

Minimum Qualifications

The applicant must possess one or more of the following qualifications.

A valid California Community College Instructor Credential
A master's degree in Jaffa Studies or Jaffa Education
A bachelor's degree in either of the above and a master's degree in Military Science or Religious Studies
The equivalent (if you are applying for equivalency, please include a page explaining how you meet the California minimum qualifications for Jaffa Studies)

Desirable Qualifications

A broad background in Jaffa studies, to include groveling, stomping, marching, shooting things, kreeing things, kitty petting, and veneration of your god, Miss Kitty.
Experience teaching a range of developmental Jaffa studies courses (elementary stomping through intermediate milling about with intent), and preferably some first-level transfer courses such as introductory kreeing theory and blowing stuff up. Typically, more than 50% of the annual teaching assignment will be developmental classes.
Ability and willingness to modify personal teaching style based on current research in effective teaching strategies.
Ability to lead and willingness to support program improvement through collaborative assessment of student learning, staff development, staff weapon development, curriculum development, and military conquest.
Experience, training, or expertise in dealing with the learning difficulties of students in basic and intermediate Jaffa studies courses.
Experience, training, or expertise in dealing with heretics, spies, and insurgents within and outside of the classroom.
Ability to facilitate effective Jaffa studies learning in the classroom, including experience utilizing alternate modes of instruction such as tutoring, small group, individualized instruction, and live-fire situations.
Ability to connect personally with students and to build a classroom environment that supports students emotionally and religiously as well as academically and militarily.
Ability and willingness to integrate new technology (computers, Nintendo Wii, distance education, the FGM-172 SRAW missile system, etc.) into the curriculum.
Ability and willingness to work with a diverse group of colleagues in committees, the Jaffa Studies department, the college as a whole, and military operations.
Demonstrated sensitivity to, and ability to work with, diverse racial, ethnic, gender, disabled, and cultural populations; and a commitment to working on institutional reforms that deal with student access and diversity issues.

Selection Procedure

Applications will be screened to insure the applicant meets the minimum qualifications as stated in the job announcement.
Applicants will be investigated to insure that the applicant is not a spy of another Goa'uld.
Those candidates who meet the minimum qualifications and possess the highest rating of desired job-related qualifications, or those judged to be spies, will be invited to the future site of the college at their own expense for the week of July 16, 2008. Such an interview is a prerequisite to employment. Spies will be executed.
After completion of the above three steps, up to five (5) applicants will be invited to return for an interview with the College President and your god, Miss Kitty. Final interviews are scheduled for the week of July 23, 2008.
Your god, Miss Kitty, will make the final decision.

How and Where to Apply

To be considered for this position, a completed application packet must be received in Miss Kitty's cute little paws by 4:00 a.m. May 26, 2008. No faxed or e-mailed materials will be accepted. The application packet will be mailed to you upon request, either by writing to Your God, Miss Kitty; Jaffa University; Fremont, CA 94538, or by downloading it from thecatspeaks.com/JCC/jobs.html. The submission of a complete application packet is the responsibility of the applicant. Incomplete or late packets will not be accepted.

A complete application packet consists of the following materials:

A cover letter expressing your desire to work for Jaffa College and your overwhelming urge to venerate your god, Miss Kitty
Jaffa College Application for Employment form, Academic
Supplemental Job Information Questionnaire
Resume
Copy of college transcript(s)
Copy of military campaign log(s)
Supporting documentation for equivalency, if qualifying under #4, Minimum Qualifications
A tin of unagi

General Information

Jaffa College will open in late 2008 in as the newest campus of the Ohlone Community College District, which currently includes the Ohlone Community College main campus in Fremont, California and the Ohlone Community College extension in Newark, California. Jaffa College will be constructed on the shattered, burned-out remains of the Ohlone main campus after a short but brutal campaign to control the ground. Jaffa College will be fully accredited and will offer transferable Jaffa Studies and Military Science programs. The college is expected to serve upwards of 2,000 day and evening students.

While you may not be able to tell, the Ohlone Community College District is a Drug-Free workplace. The District will verify that all new employees are either U.S. citizens or aliens authorized to work on Earth and capable of evading detection by Earth authorities. Potential employees should know that smoking will be punishable by death on any District facility. Jaffa don't smoke.

Christmas 2007 Report

Wed, 26 Dec 2007 03:31:02 GMT

I decide to spend Christmas with my family this year. We're not all Buddhist, but we celebrate it anyway, sort of. We do the secular stuff, but none of the religious or spiritual stuff. We don't do the usual meditation or fasting. We don't read the sutras or restrict our diets. We don't even play Yahtzee or lawn darts. We just sort of sit around with the TV on, chat, exchange presents, and eat tuna right out of the can. It's actually been pretty quiet.

It might surprise you to learn that I don't have any particular bits of wisdom to share with you today. Sorry. Instead, I thought I'd give you a little window into my family.

My dad spent most of the morning sorting through the six boxes of Fallen Empires Magic: The Gathering cards that we got him. Then he hinted that he might be willing to try Yu-Gi-Oh for Valentine's Day and promptly fell asleep on top of a pile of Icatian Skirmishers.

My mom tested out tuna all day. You may not know this, but cats don't have the easiest time getting canned tuna. Grocery stores are unwilling to allow cats near the canned fish section for reasons that are, I think, opaque to all of us. It's probably some kind of wacky Victorian bias. Who knows. Anyway, cats usually end up getting canned tuna through a sort of black market. While I'd like to say otherwise, not all of those who run tuna adhere to high standards of quality, and we all do well to check our tuna. Mom opened can after can and had me test it for poisons or taints. So I wouldn't be biased by my eyesight, she blindfolded me and made me eat a little from each can. Then she'd kick me to see if I was dead or not. She works so hard to take care of all of us.

Uncle Pete is, in fact, a tuna runner. He was pretty busy last week importing tuna from Lichtenstein, so he slept on top of a copy of Eddie Izzard's Dressed to Kill until about 3, when he had a hairball. After that, he moved to Circle and went back to sleep.

Pete's wife, Aunt Flora, races cars. Unfortunately for her, she managed to flip her 1:8 scale Testarossa Spyder two days ago and is currently in a full-body cast. She couldn't eat, so Mom made us all put our tuna next to her for a few minutes so she could enjoy the smell.

My cousin Fuffywuffykins is the family gadget geek, and while she's been on my parents' couch for the last month, nobody has successfully spoken with her for more than about six seconds at a time because she is hooked up to her new iPod Zepto, a Nintendo DS, a Blackberry, and iPhone, a Kindle, and a Pocket Fisherman. She did give me a very nice iPod Nano, though. She tossed it my way when her Zepto arrived in the mail. All I have to do now is put all the bits back in and I'll never be away from my music again.

Great-uncle Tamerlane Nobunaga Cochrane Zhuge Skoochybottoms von Nelson is also here for the day. We're not really sure what he does for a living, but he tells the greatest stories. I can't quite remember any of them right now, but I'll see if I can remember some of them later. They're great. You'll laugh.

My nephew Doug was going to join us, but I guess he was kept late at work. He just started a new job as a therapist at a pit bull rescue center, and he probably couldn't get away. He's such a workaholic.

Finally, my other cousin, also named Doug, did manage to make it. He's actually allergic to tuna, so he and I broke out a canister of unagi and played parcheesi.

Anyhow, that's my family, and we all got along really well this holiday season. Hopefully you and yours will get along equally well, whatever you do or do not celebrate. Unagi! Out!

LJ Buyout Q&A

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 04:01:47 GMT

As you might have noticed, LiveJournal has been purchased by SUP, the company that operated the Russian part of LJ. When Six Apart took over LiveJournal, I had to put down a number of nasty rumors that were circulating. I can see that I'm going to have to do the same this time. I was on the ground floor when this news came out, taking a nap in the corner by the stack of Babylon 5 tapes when my roommate wintersweet made the first comment on the 100 day plan, so I think I'm in a unique position to investigate and confirm or deny any rumors you may hear. I'm sure you'll agree that having my butt up against the VHS cassette of The Deconstruction of Falling Stars gives me considerable moral authority.

Here are the rumors I have found so far.

We'll all have to add Tom to our friends list. Severity: MOST SERIOUS. Status: CONFIRMED BOGUS. While SUP may add some MySpace "features" to LiveJournal, Tom will be staying where he is. You can sleep well tonight knowing that.
Posts that offend the delicate aesthetic preferences of any of the SUP editors will be censored by having all the vowels removed. Severity: SERIOUS. Status: CONFIRMED BOGUS. You're thinking of BoingBoing. Nobody else would sink to that level of childishness pestilence.
All posts that reference BIKECAT will be deleted because BIKECAT isn't as significant as, say, a list of Atari Lynx games or Highlander II. Severity: SERIOUS. Status: UNCONFIRMED, SUSPECTED BOGUS. I can't actually find any BIKECAT communities on LJ at the moment, but as far as I know that handsome devil didn't have his own community back when Six Apart ran the show. I'll continue investing. This isn't Wikipedia, so I'm guessing there won't be any official censorship.
All LJ users will be required to replace their userpics with photos of themselves holding beer and looking stupid. Severity: SERIOUS. Status: CONFIRMED BOGUS. That's one "feature" that will not be making its way to LJ any time soon.
All LJ users will be required to post far too many intimate details about their private lives. Severity: SERIOUS. Status: CONFIRMED PARTIALLY TRUE. First of all, I'm sure you can name a dozen people who already do that on LJ. While there will not be any explicit policy on this, the lj-cut tag will be replaced with the lj-tmi tag. All current lj-cut tags will be replaced with these new tags in the next 2-3 weeks. The material within the lj-tmi tag, if such a tag is included in a post, will be the only part of the post shown by default. Posts without lj-tmi will be assumed to provide too many details.
LJ's terms of service will now require all users to react in one of two ways whenever any kind of change is announced for LiveJournal. They may either (a) have hysterical freakouts or (b) make really pointless posts like "okay, um..." and "wow" in response to the announcement. Severity: MODERATE. Status: CONFIRMED TRUE. I'd like to amend the rumor by striking out "will now require" and replacing it with "have always required." I'd say this was an obscure clause buried in the ToS, but judging by the posts I've seen, it was only obscure to me.

Send any additional rumors you may hear my way. I'll check them out and get back to you!

Presidential Candidate Profiles

Wed, 24 Oct 2007 19:45:59 GMT

While I am in training to be come a System Lord, I'm still your #1 source for accurate news. In that capsaicin, I present the first of my Presidential Candidate Profiles 2008. Today I'll be looking at Stephen (rhymes with Steven) Colbert (rhymes with Dilbert). Stephen, known to his friends as Stephe, just declared his intent to run for President, although we're not sure which party he's going to try to sneak into. You've probably heard of him as the host of the far-right Colbert Rappor, a regular TV show on Comedy Central. Comedy Central, for those of you who don't know it, is kind of like Fox, except that most people who watch Comedy Central know the characters in the shows are lying. From all that I can tell, though, neither Stephe nor his viewers get this. They take him very seriously and he acts kind of like Bill O'Reilly.

Support

He's got it. The show started with 1.13 million viewers, and this has increased over time. He also has another two key demographics that he can call on: high school teachers and college English teachers. "But wait," I hear you say, "why would these two key demographics vote for some kind of right-wing nutjob like Stephe? Aren't right-wing nutjobs responsible for the No Child Left Untested Act, attempts to force creation science into the curriculum, reduced funding for schools, and other anti-education activities?" Well, yeah, and I'm sure Stephe (or S, as some of his even closer friends call him) will screw over US schools if he gets elected, but he has one thing in his favor that will win over legions of high school and college teachers.

Why? Let me tell you the secret to politics. You don't need to tell people everything they want to hear to make them follow you. You just need to tell them one thing that validates some deep, crazy idea that everybody else in the world would laugh at. The crazier it is, the better. The more pathetic your validation is, the better. This is how Walter Matthau scored the role of Batman in Tom Patchett and Paul Fusco's ill-fated 1982 TV series Batman: Same Bat Somethin', Same Bat Somethin' Else.We all know Max Wright would have been a better Batman, but Matthau told Fusco he once felt ill after a vaccination. That was all Fusco, who was just sure that vaccines are evil, needed to hear. This is how Richard Dawkins got to be Pope for a week back in '78. He knew this one cardinal elector (I won't mention his name, but if I say that he was a cardinal under the age of 80, I'm pretty sure you'll know who I'm talking about) who actually believed that sleeping in a closed room with a fan could be deadly. Dawkins told him that he had never, ever slept in a closed room with a fan. Bang. Pope Dawkins II.

What crazy ideas held by teachers has S sort of indirectly validated? Well, in 2006 he had a bunch of his followers go out and modify Wikipedia, and he has said that Wikipedia can be used to modify reality. As you all know, according to a recent survey funded by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. (the people who publish encyclopedia britannicas), 95% of high school and college teachers consider Wikipedia to be a bigger threat to students than Margaret Spellings (the US Department of Education's answer to the UK's Dolores Umbridge), Al-Qaeda, text messaging, television, and video games put together. You don't always want to trust surveys funded by people with positions, but this fits with what I've heard about teachers. S gave them some tiny ray of hope to cling to in their anti-Wikipedia fantasies, so they'll follow him. Dangit.

Street Cred

I don't need to tell you that success as a right-wing candidate is all about having street cred. Odds are good, for example, that McCain will go down hard once people notice that, while he has maintained some sort of street cred certification for the last twenty or more years, he has switched back and forth between ISO 9009 certification (street cred) and ANSI X2.18 (foamy -mouthed street cred). S, on the other hand, has kept up his ANSI cert since he became a public figure. Also, Tom DeLay believes in him. Plus, he's clearly nuts. I'd say he's in there.

Threat Level

High, I think. If S is elected, the US and the world will see some bad stuff happen. Will continue to see bad stuff happening, that is. While he may reduce our involvement in Iraq, he'll probably redirect the troops to hunting down bears: ursines freak him out. His infamous xenophobia will probably also lead the US into some kind of military action with Xenoria. I'm giving him a threat rating of about 0.985 Bushes.

Humor Value

There isn't an easy answer to this one. Technically, he'll be at least as funny as Bush. However, he will probably continue to appear on Comedy Central, so he'll get the first crack at all S (known as Hank to his ultra-close friends) jokes. I'm sure the Colber Librar will be an absolute hoot when they finally build it, assuming we live long enough to see that, but I think Hank's regime will be a dry spot for professional comedians.

Food Value

Low. He doesn't look particularly tasty, and I doubt he'll do anything to spread delicious food around. He's kind of scared of new things.

Hostility Toward Clint

High. He's violently anti-intelectual and anti-liberal. There's a good chance I'll see my roommate deported to some unpleasant country, like Xenoria.

Overall Score

0.0387 John Kennedies, most of which comes from that last category.

Be a Jaffa!

Wed, 10 Oct 2007 19:57:58 GMT

I'm recruiting Jaffa for my Jaffa Kitty Guard. What you'll get:

Superior Equipment: Yeah, you'll have all that. Check out this schematic done by my very own apprentice, William la Puerta: . I think the picture says it all.
Health care: the kitten I'll implant in you will keep you alive and healthy for a long, long time. When that kitten grows up, it will be replaced at no cost with another kitten. You don't need to be part of a PMO or HMO or XKCD or any other kind of health insurance pyramid scheme. Your kitten will be your primary health care provider. I even drew you a picture of how it works: . If you look carefully, you'll notice that my apprentice has a slightly better drawing program than I do.
Bragging rights: Think of the elitest fighting forces in the world: the Cape Verde Coast Guard, The Icelandic Air Defense System, and The Couple of Dudes in Berkeley Who Enforce the Nuclear Free Zone. The will have nothing on the Jaffa Kitty Guard. You'll be more awesomer in every possible way. Your superior training, equipment, leadership, and fanatical devotion to me will let you pawn those knobs any day of the week.
Cash Reimbursements: That's right, I'll pay you back for all Jaffa-related expenses. You go to Fry's or whatever passes for your local electronics store, buy your armor and staff weapon, and send me the receipts. I'll send you some cold, hard cash to cover your bill.
Jaffa Education: You'll be going to Jaffa College before you ever hit the battle zone. I'm still working on a curriculum, though. Stay tuned for that.

HOWTO: Maximize your BoingBoing news reading pleasure

Thu, 20 Sep 2007 18:58:57 GMT

If you know me at all, you'll know that I'm an avid reader of BoingBoing (except when they briefly flirted with shumping the jark by making 75%-90% of their posts on anagram transit maps). I find it even more useful now, with my plans to become a System Lord. I'd figure that if anybody would be full of obscure bits of trivia and wacky facts, it'd be a System Lord. However, BoingBoing appears to be understaffed at present. They don't actually make any money on their site, so they can't exactly afford to hire anybody else. From what I can tell, they appear to have one staff member who does nothing except click Reload every three seconds on The Laugh-Out-Loud Cats.

Please don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that BoingBoing shouldn't be posting these. It's not like anagram transit maps, where anybody who is 1338 enough could make them. No, Laugh-Out-Loud Cats are both a snapshot of cartoon history and a priceless source of humor. I mean, where else could you possibly find pictures of cats saying things like, "Invisible sandwich" or "Visible sandwich?" I'll tell you where. Only behind paywalls.

The problem, as I see it, is that this person is wasting his or her time, and BoingBoing is missing important news. You have probably all heard about the guy who was tasered by the cops after asking John Kerry a question. BoingBoing reported it here. What they missed because they were reloading Laugh-Out-Loud Cats, though, was the story of Emily Delafield, a African-American woman in a wheelchair who was tasered to death by the police. (Thanks to mshades for this tip!) This simply should not happen. What about more mouth-watering photos of long horses and other delicious animals? Technology exists that can click Reload every three seconds for us, freeing BoingBoing's staff to find cogerent news stories like this.

If you don't use LJ, you may not be aware of our amazing (but free and open-source) technology called feeds. Using this amazing LJ technology, for example, science_blogs is set up to automatically post updates from ScienceBlogs. I'm pretty sure that, for less than it would cost to hire someone to click Reload, BoingBoing could get some kind of LJ-like feed system set up to automatically post each and every issue of Laugh-Out-Loud Cats.

What about it, BoingBoing? I'm sure LiveJournal's tech people would be willing to help you out with this.

Harry Potter Correction

Sat, 21 Jul 2007 07:21:48 GMT

It isn't often that I do this, but I made a mistake. The spoiler in my previous post was not, in fact, from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I was reading The Forsyte Saga. Whoops. I was trying to figure out why Harry wasn't in the book, but I had assumed it was a sort of Harry Potter Gaiden. Anyhow, I've got the book now and, thanks to my phenomenal speed reading techniques, I can be one of the first in my time zone to post about the way it ends.

Many have speculated that J. K. Rowling was going to kill off Harry to make sure that she wouldn't be forced to write any more Harry Potter books. This technique never fails to do the trick, and indeed, she's done it. Yep, that's right.

J. K. Rowling kills Harry.

Basically, Voldemort lures Harry up onto a waterfall in Reichenbach and, since they can't seem to kill each other with wands, they get into a slap fight. In the course of this, it seems, J. K. Rowling shows up and pushes them both over the edge. Then they plunge into the deep water and all is dark. So, yeah, as we all know, there's no return from that kind of fall.

Please don't post any spoilers from the first 750 pages until I go back and read them. Thanks!

Harry Potter

Sat, 21 Jul 2007 00:38:29 GMT

Holy crap! Snape kills Nearly Headless Nick in a karaoke contest. It was a wild coincidence that they both sang "Sukiyaki" (上を向いて歩こう), but Nearly did a so-so version in English and Snape did a bang-up rendition in the original Japanese. Why Nearly didn't just sing his ballad I'll never know. Then, somehow, Jeeves arranges things so that Professor Trelawney, Hagrid, Bertie Wooster, and Tuppy Glossop all sing "Sonny Boy." The crowd is about sick of the song when Bertie sings it, and they decide they've had more than enough when Tuppy lets out with "Climb up on my knee, sonny boy." That's when they kill him.

Goa'uldin' ain't easy!

Thu, 05 Jul 2007 02:16:21 GMT

Three months ago I announced my plans to become a Goa'uld System Lord and thus learn the secrets of unagi. As I outlined in that post, I have most of the qualifications. However, I foolishly said that the voice would be easy. You can listen to my practice, if you want.

I've actually been doing some research on the Goa'uld voice. Why do the Goa'uld use that particular voice? I mean, you'd think they'd get more street cred among their subjects if they sounded like James Earl Jones, Patrick Stewart, Alan Rickman, Rick Moranis, Ardwight Chamberlain, or Hugo Weaving. Well, it's not about street cred. It's about the voice. The Goa'uld are naturally a little bit reticent to talk about their history, but I think I've found a few connections that shed some light on things. Consider the six books of Frank Herbert's Dune trilogy, which discusses the Bene Gesserit. These Gesserits are clearly some kind of Goa'uld offshoot, although gifted with a sense of patience that the remaining Goa'uld lack. I know some of you must be saying, "But Miss Kitty, if that is true, don't you think at least one professional historian would have noticed that?" You'd be right. I had the chance to check the Herbert Family Vault and look through my man Frank's papers. It turns out that he did, in fact, notice this, and was planning to write a paper about it. However, at some point in the process he discovered that he didn't really like any of the article-writing software, threw a hissy fit, and spent the remaining year or so of his life trying to write an article-setting program to write his paper in. I've actually seen a rough draft of his paper, which was only a page or so long, but it confirms my suspicions. Consider:

Both groups are raving egomaniacs.
Both groups think that Rose Nylund was the best character on Golden Girls.
Both groups make a habit of altering cultures so that people will see them as gods.
Both groups use the voice.
Both groups rely on personal shielding technology.
Both groups support DRM.
Both groups have funky stuff going on with their eyes.

Frank's draft pointed that last one out, but I noticed the others on my own.

I've also found evidence that we still have Bene Gesserit or Goa'uld running around Earth. For example, see the documentary Teen Wolf. In it, Michael J. Fox uses the full Goa'uld arsenal to get a keg of beer. Here's a photo of him using the voice and the eyes.

I'm not 100% sure what this means. I can see two options. One is that Michael is, in fact, a Goa'uld or possibly a Tok'ra. The other option is that he is a male Bene Gesserit, which sort of means he's the Kwizatz Haderach. I'm not sure I buy this, but the important thing is that the voice is about power and command.Once I master the voice, I'll be set. All I'll need after that is an army of loyal Jaffa.

Also, I started this whole crazy LiveJournal thing four years ago today. Whee!

My quest for unagi!

Mon, 09 Apr 2007 06:08:34 GMT

If you are like me, you have no doubt noticed a disturbing similarity between this image, taken from the front page of www.unagi.co.jp

and the Goa'uld (courtesy of the Stargate: SG-1 TV series), pictured below.

My keen analytic mind informs me that there must be a connection. In particular, this means the Goa'uld know how to manufacture unagi. Logically, then, if I wish to learn to make unagi, I need to run with the Goa'uld. Impossible, you say? Not so, I say! Consider the key distinguishing features of a Goa'uld:

glowing eyes
deep voice
stereotyped behavior

Consider the glowing eyes, as shown here below.

That's trivial for me. See?

Deep voice? I can do that. I've got an impressive control over my own voice. Stereotyped behavior? It's easy to do. I'm a talented actor. Basically, I should have no problem physically passing for a Goa'uld. Unfortunately, that probably won't be enough. There are plenty of no-name Goa'uld out there, and I doubt most of them know how to make unagi. Yes, this means I'll have to set myself up as a System Lord. Season 9 of SG-1 significantly lowered the bar on this, but it's not like being a professional movie critic. I can't just make a paper hat with "System Lord" written on it and call myself a System Lord. I'll need a few things. Here's my current list, which may be updated later.

an army of loyal Jaffa
fancy hardware
Stargate access
a good icon for all of this, which is in the works (Edit: done)

I will be recruiting Jaffa in the near future, but don't kree yourselves into a frenzy just yet. I've got one volunteer already (siderealengine), but we're still working on the details. I'll post more on those as my research progresses

I am not Vados

Fri, 23 Feb 2007 04:01:34 GMT

In my last post, I mentioned my roommate's Ragnarok Online character, Vados, who is (for the moment) a member of the Sharp Shooters guild. The guild, which is apparently made up mostly of idiots too dumb to dress themselves on a regular basis, now believes that siderealengine and I are one and the same. If you are one of those idiots reading this journal, please please please learn enough English to understand:

I AM NOT VADOS. I used his name because he was a member of a guild and he had a funny title ("Biggest Badass Ever"). That's it. We do, in fact, live in the same house. That's why fine sources like dictionaries include the word "roommate." It's used to describe people who live together. It's that simple. I can post a picture, if you'd like.

We here at the appartment have tried explaining this to the Head Nitwit of the Sharp Shooters, Dastun. We've tried, really. He's under the impression that siderealengine has hacked the game to allow him to type multiple messages at once from multiple different accounts. Apparently the guild, experts at the English language that they are, can tell that he and I use "the same words." I'm guessing that's code for "You two can both spell good and stuff." Get over it. Dozens of people in the United States have as good a command of grammar as me. If you count people educated outside the United States, that number increases significantly.

It's simple. Get over it. If you read through some of the other posts, you'll find out who "The Management" is.