Annoying Bots

Well, I had hoped to allow people to post comments without having to register first. However, there have been several bots attacking the site as of late, posting junk in the comments fields. It’s getting really irritating. Especially when the bots post in threads that are old. So, I’m going to instate a new policy. I’m not going to make people register, but I am going to approve comments now before they get posted. This seems the safest thing to do. Also, I’m upgrading the site to the latest version of Word Press. This should cut down the spam, or get rid of it all together. Bots piss me off >:

Escape Into Farscape

I started watching Farscape on DVD last night.  I had never watched it when it was on TV simply because it was on at stupid times.  But, I had heard from those who had watched it on how great it was.  Then, I read the reviews online for the first season and every one of them was positive.  So, I decided to buy the DVD set–not the cheap edition, but the good edition.

And, I agree: Farscape is one of the best sci-fi TV shows ever.  The show is colorful, fun, and inventive.  It starts with a NASA astronaut trying out a new space vehicle, which is launched from the shuttle’s cargo bay.  Everything goes smoothly, until the friction from his craft accidently opens a worm hole.

John Crichton, the pilot, finds himself in a totally different place–a galaxy far, far away ;)  There his craft drifts after having lost power while in the worm hole.  He’s in an asteroid field when he’s struck by another spacecraft.  The craft ends up exploding, killing whoever or whatever was inside.  Then, John finds his craft being pulled toward this huge spaceship, which is being attacked by smaller ones.  Once onboard, disoriented, he makes his way forward, ending up on the bridge.  That’s when he finally realizes he definitely isn’t anywhere near Earth.

The first alien’s you get to meet are Zhaan, D’Argo, and Dominar.  Zhaan is a blue-skinned, fish-like thing who’s a priestess amongst her people.  D’Argo has strange things growing off his head and belongs to a warrior society.  And Dominar is an exiled king who is like a frog and flies around on this little disc.  And they all have one thing in common: they’re convicts.

John is knocked out and when he awakes he’s in a cell with a Human woman.  He goes up to her and she kicks the crap out of him and when he falls to the floor she drops to her knees over him and he finds himself staring up at her crotch.  Then, she demands to know his rank and why he’s out of uniform.  You learn she’s a peacekeeper–and she has mistaken John for one of her kind.  Anyway.

The series starts out with mistrust between the characters.  Yet, they have to work together if they are to survive.  The ship they travel on is alive, which isn’t completely original but is handled superbly by the writers.  In fact, it really does become another character.  Oh, and the ship, Moya, is flown by an insectoid creature simply named “Pilot”.  Could you get much better than that?

Farscape is awesome.  And I’ve watched a lot of sci-fi TV and movies.  It definitely stands out in my mind.  It beats Stargate SG-1 and the new Battlestar Galactica hands down ;)  It’s a shame that in later seasons the stories went downhill (that’s from what I’ve heard), which eventually led to the show being cancelled.

Myths and Bugs

Last night I was up at 2 in the morning, unable to sleep as usual, watching TV.  I had the Discovery channel on and the Myth Busters Movie Special was on.  They were attempting to prove or disprove some Hollywood myths.  Such as: falling through sets of awnings will slow your decent so you don’t die when falling off of a building’s roof, shooting locks with a gun will instantly open them, a perfectly normal-looking car can have an ejector seat, shooting around you in a circle will cut away the floor below you so you can escape the bad guys, and so forth.

Falling through the awnings was interesting: it actually does work.  However, the stunt in the Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom was done by using a bungie cord, which was later removed from the film.  Also, the awnings had been cut in the middle so they ripped apart where needed.  It was funny, though.  The insurance company wouldn’t allow Adam to try the stunt, so Tori went in his place.  Needless to say, Adam wasn’t too happy.

Shooting locks they discovered does work, but not with a handgun.  You’d have to be carrying a shotgun or rifle, and the shrapnel could be deadly.  The ejector seat was much more plausible.  They took an old car and made a seat with tubes beneath it attached to compressed airtanks in the back.  Just like in James Bond: Goldfinger, the seat worked perfectly, ejecting Buster from the car

I knew the last one that sticks out in my mind would be busted.  In Underworld, Kate Beckinsale escapes from hungry werewolves by shooting the floor around herself in a circle with a pair of machine-pistols.  Tori setup a rig that allowed him to shoot a circle like this but not be on the floor while doing it.  Big surprise, it didn’t work.  The joists kept the floor up ;)  Sorry, Kate, maybe next time.  Anyway.

Then, when I was just going to turn the TV off, a commercial came on, which sort of took me by surprise.  There was this little cartoon bug flying around the screen going through different scenes of people doing various things.  And this narrator was talking about, I can’t remember now, but it was related to the bug.  Then, the CIA emblem came up!  LOL  The CIA is advertising like the Army or Airforce or any of those other Government organizations.  It was fricking wierdo!  At first, I thought it was a joke or even a Discovery Channel promo, but it wasn’t.  It was an honest to God recruitment commercial

Maverick Unleashed

Being the coaster enthusiast that I am, I’ve been anxiously awaiting today’s announcement by Cedar Point: Maverick.  Yes, Maverick, a ground-hugging, throw-you-back-in-your-seat ride, is Cedar Point’s latest roller coaster. At 21 million dollars it’s one of the parks largest single investments, and will be its 17th roller coaster (only Six Flags Magic Mountain can possibly touch that record).

Throughout the speculation process, which has been going on since track sections began showing up at the park in early January, I knew, as many others did, that the coaster was obviously going to be an Intamin creation.  Why?  The track had their design written all over it.  That three-railed, triangular construction is something that has been seen on several Intamin installations worldwide.  But, until this point, nobody was exactly sure what type of ride it would be.  For example: would it be launched, or would it use a chain or elevator cable lift system?  Would it have inversions?  The questions and speculation were everywhere.

Well, today, Cedar Point cleared it all up.  Maverick, as it’s called, is indeed an Intamin design. It’s LIM-launched in two places, at the 105ft first hill and at in the 400ft long tunnel, which is approxiamately halfway through the course.  After the train leaves the top of the first hill, it dives down at a 95 degree angle and zig-zags through a series of ground-hugging curves–at this point it’s only at five feet above ground!–and then, yeah, it hits two spiraling corkscrews separated by a high-banked turn.  And that’s not it!  There’s still more.  The track goes into the 400ft long tunnel to be accelerated back up to 70mph after which it goes into a heartline roll and then banks back and forth with several near-inverting turns. Also, there are eight air-time hills spread throughout the course.

The highlights of the layout for me are the more than vertical drop and the near-inverting turns.  Plus, if you add in the high speed and low height at which this occurs, you have something that is worthy of Cedar Points record-breaking coaster collection.  However, you don’t have to take the Webmonster’s word alone.  No.  Just visit the official site.  There you can get the full skinny

Gorgons…scarabs…oh my!

Just recently Ironlore Entertainment, the developers of the highly-addicting, monster-bashing Titan Quest, seems to have weeded out all multiplayer issues that had plagued its release from the start.  So, you know, after installing said patch, I had to try it out.  And, indeed, they have fixed all the issues, which made me extremely happy.  However, the first time out, TQ crashed on me and ever since then I had an annoying audio-clip problem.  That was until yesterday when I discovered a new Forceware patch.  Now, that’s solved.  Anyway.

I went online and played TQ with the Wolf.  He chose the nature path, I chose the warrior-spirit path.  I’m at level 19 right now and have an armor class of 34, which is fairly good, but the monsters are getting touger now–so hopefully I’ll find some new armor soon. Yet, with my Liche King backing me up, I’m still fairing pretty decent.  I’ve discovered that the more health potions you have, the better.  Also, it’s OK to run from a fight if you think you can’t handle it.  Just let your health potion take you back up while the monsters chase you around.  Then, you can go back to cutting off their heads

Meanwhile, the Wolf has two wolves and a forest nymph.  Stats wise I’m not sure what he’s up to, besides being at level 18.

After playing the majority of the weekend away, I’ve found some beefs about the game that are starting to irritate me, though not too badly. Money is not a problem, which I like, since you can pretty much pick up any object and sell it anywhere there’s a merchant, but skill points are another matter.  I don’t mind working to get what I deserve.  However, in Titan Quest, I think you get too little when you level, as far as points are concerned.  For your basic skills (strength, intelligence, dexterity) you only get two points and for your overall major skills you only get three.  This, in my opinion, is not enough.  And it gets frustrating when you’re like I just need one more point to get what I want.  Ugh!  That is one of my major beefs.  Also, why do the monsters come back?  I want completion!  When I finish a section, I want it done, not for everything to respawn on me if Windows decides to crash

Yet, even with the few things that do annoy me with TQ, at least, everything else is superb.  The graphics are still outstanding and so is the audio, especially the professional voice acting.  Nothing in that department is anything to cry about.

Thus far, Ogre and the Wolf have made it to Egypt.  And, I’ll admit, that before playing multiplayer, I never had made it that far.  So, I’m happy Ironlore got the game’s multiplayer fixed.  We just got done with the library, which was an awesome map, and now we’re in Giza handling some minor things.  We did, or I did at least, miss some quests back in Greece.  Though, when we do go back to finish them we’ll be so strong it shouldn’t be too difficult ;)

Some things to keep in mind while playing, besides using health potions and knowing when to retreat, is to remember who are the most dangerous opponents.  Any sort of caster is the most dangerous foe and should be eliminated first.  Second to casters are ranged and poisonous units.  Archers need to be taken out almost as fast as casters.  Also, those units wielding any sort of weapon which carries poison.  Those enemies are ones that can hurt you quicker than any other.  Another thing to keep in mind is the sort of weapons you use or prefer.  Since I’m a warrior I go primarily for melee weapons.  I’m carrying a sword that deals minor fire damage right now along with a more unique weapon.  Somewhere along the way I picked up a leg from an arachnid which carries a 60% poison damage bonus.  So with both being used at the same time I have a high chance of leaving just about any fray.

Lastly, remain true to your path.  Like I said, I’m a warrior, though I have Spirit as my second major following.  So, what I decided to do was strengthen my warrior skills first, and put into Spirit only the few things I need at the moment–primarily the Liche King.  So I’m strengthing my warrior side first, like I said, and also strengthing my Liche King before I do anything else with Spirit.