OOC

I've been away again. Things to do and all for the past week. Don't feel left out or anything, none of the others have had any more of my time than you.
We seem to be coming back to these little lulls more often than before, I think. I really can't be arsed doing too much roleplaying, really. I might get a little motivated (and perhaps antisocial) and start writing a story of my own, but I'm not sure if that'd going to happen either.

Tiberius, I'm not sure what you meant by the superman comment, but if it's of any relevance Batman did a nice job of it in the comic The Dark Knight Returns. It's a big, novel sized, kinda atmospheric book, but I haven't had the time to read it through yet. Another thing to add to the list, methinks.

In my away time I was fairly isolated. Has anything important happened in the real world? I saw something about Michael Jackson again, but that's about it.

I was on a course with my cadet people again, and learned how to give orders in the fashion employed by the military, and how to give small lessons on unimportant subjects and teach people how to mindlessly march around better.
It was full of the good old hypocritical nonsense they always have, but this time they seemed to dwell more on the "everyone is different" thing, while telling us we needed to act in a uniform fashion at all times, and when acting think of how I would feel, while still recongnising that how I would feel may not have anything to do with how anyone else might. Or something. I don't think they've quite made up their minds yet.
I met a dolt who was convinced they were a child genius, and I wasn't all too bright. I laughed for a little bit, but then she asked the Christian whether he thought she was going to heaven or hell because of her beliefs (or lack of), and cried at the answer.

Just venting a little, getting the story out of my system. Do not feel obligated to read the stuff below.
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Yesterday, our last proper day, we got in trouble. We were marching to dinner (at 5 o'clock, no less), and the person we got our step off decided to change step. This resulted in some minor havoc, but it was under control. We stopped outside the food hall, but when given an ambivalent command half of us turned the wrong way when the person taking us tried to face us to the front. When told to correct ourselves, half of each group turned around, thinking they had turned the wrong way. Regular force caught sight of this sort of stuff, and complained to someone important, and that evening we were brought before the course director who did the incredible and listed off their obligations and and legal references and such, and then chapters and paragraphs of the Policy and Administration Manual we had breached, in a proper and legal manner. People cried at that too, and most others went outside to drink water, or something.
It was decided that a letter of apology would be the best chance at getting off scot-free (instead of making an appeal against the likely decisions of the person who was to decide the consequences), so people argued hard. More crying, more thirst for some, and we were left with a nice little bunch who had (at that time) a nice little dry sense of humour which suited me perfect, though the sarcasm came through a little too strong. Halfway through writing the apology the Dolt took a defeatist attitude, and asked us to stop writing, because we would argue too much. The went outside, and we finished the letter.
It was nice, but it didn't have the word moreover in it, and that was a disappointment. And "We the undersigned". That would have been great.
We weren't sure where to use modify, or rectify, or correct, or... Semantics, and people got so worked up. Of course, me being perfect, I was the calm in the centre of the storm. People argued over whether to day we had learned from it, or whether that would say that we were better off for having misbehaved, and that we weren't really all too sorry.

In retrospect, I think that was the major learning point for the course, actually, so I'm not really all too sure on why I meant to go in the first place.
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I drew satisfaction from the title of the song "Killing Me Softly With His Song" that was played, and the irony I derived thereof. A guy said "You've been a good man. You'll be rewarded in the Netherlands", and that cracked me up, too. The course was littered with that kind of stuff, but in the end I think it was a long walk for a short beer.


Also, Chris, I wasn't sure if my reply to your LJ post would fit, so I put it in the appropriate place over on our trouser-disinterested sister site. Please forgive some of it, I was working under the assumption that anonymity was a given.

<font color="#333366" size="1">[ April 24, 2004 01:29 AM: Message edited by: Gerald Blake ]</font>

At the end of the holidays, or possibly the start of the term, one of those, several large bilboards were displayed around campus. They were constructed from wood, painted white, and in large black lettering informed us that "The hypnotist is coming!".

Since I'd already seen said hypnostist perform at Orientation week, I had no real desire to see him again for twice the price. Instead, I dcided that I might like the large sign (and large is really an understatement) in my room. Me being a terrible judge of distance, mass, and so forth, I figure it would fit nicely.

And so began the master plan - Relocate the Hypnotist Sign!

Anyway, monday night Richard and myself (you guys probably don't know Richard), clad in trenchcoats and silly jester hats, crept down the street to the university campus to scout out the signs. There were three of them, one behind the students association building, one near the bookstore, and another on the lawn in front of the science block.

The bookstore sign had massive braces on it, so that was out since we didn't have a powered drill to remove he over-sized screws holding it together (a lock of foresight on my part, perhaps). The one by the science building seemed perfect, until we realized that it was in plain view of the main security desk (manned, even at 1am).

And so, by a rather simple process of elimination, it was down to the one behind the UCSA. Armed with our bedspreads, we untied the ropes holding this behemoth to the tree, and lifted it's stakes clear of the ground (this was surprisingly easy). Throwing the bedcovers over the blatantly obvious, shiny white sign, we lifted our booty and made off, like the pirates we are!

Across the road, and into the field where there weren't any security lights seemed a good option, to avoid court-martial (or a stern telling off). A quick text to home base (our hall) asking to be let back in soon (since our keys wont open the back door), and we were off again, this time through the gardens (while carrying a massive bilboard. It's difficult). After bout 45 minutes of bush-crashing, we emerged victorious, and tossed our loot over the back fence.

Next step, get the treasure inside!

Of course, this sign was around 7 feet on the short side, probably over 12 lengthwise...
And so we had issues. But boy did we try anyway! And what a racket we made. Fortunately, we didn't wake anyone up, or if we did, they were sufficiently scared enough to remain in their rooms.

Eventually, slightly defeated, we decided that this simply wouldn't work, unless either we broke the sign up, or rennovated the building. Neither could be done at the time (about 2am). We planned to later attempt to winch it up to the third floor balcony.
And so the mighty hypnotist sign was stashed behind the music room where nobody would notice it...

A few days later I was in the bathroom and happened to look out the window, only to see the groundsman peering behind the music shed...
Since I had a class (Astronomy, followed by a physics tutorial) there was lttle I could do. Fortunately, on my way out I ran into Spiller (not literally) the head RA, who blatantly encourages us to be stupid anyway. Informing him of our great caper and our ultimate discovery, I learned that not only was the university annoyed about losing their sign, they had sent a message to the heads of the halls looking for it.

Darn.

And so began the next master plan - Re-Relocate the Hypnotist Sign, back to it's original location!

But that's hardly intersting. So we needed to add some flavour. We came up with ideas ranging from putting it upside down, to painting a big skull and crossbones on it. Actually, they might have been the only two ideas.

Anyway, once we realized we had access to some black spray paint, the solution was obvious.

Again dressed in trenchcoats and silly hats, and chuckling maniacally, or maybe Richard was just drunk, we tossed our previously-soiled bedspreads back over the incriminating hypnotist sign, and strolled off down homestead lane, desperately avoiding the drunken reatds that kept ambushing us.

Annoyingly, thursday night didn't have the same sense of Where-the-fuck-is-everybody? that we had experienced the previous monday. The student pub was cranking, and there were cars all over the road. There were also two idiots carrying a giant bilboard disguised with blankets.

Fortunately, we were separated from the masses by the river (this was where my execution thingee was), and most of the drunk/drinking fools didn't notice our super-ninja styles.

[ooc]This computer just about crashed on me, and I almost lost everything I've just written[/ooc]

Tying the sign back up to the tree, though back to front, we pulled off the covers, revealingly our rather unprofessionally spray painted message on the back of the bilboard:

ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US.

And with that we ran giggling home.

I wouldn't mind a picture of it, but first thing the next morning they'd put it back to regular advertising. Of course you can still see our message on the back, albeit upside down and obscured by a tree.

So that was pretty much my week.

<font color="#333366" size="1">[ April 29, 2004 07:11 PM: Message edited by: Tiberius Frost. ]</font>

Well done. Clark mentioned something about something regarding a real person fully aware of the AYB thing, but it's his story to tell, I think. (That means post, you lazy arse).

On the other hand entirely, of course, is our new Computer System Network Administrator. We (Chris and I) went to his office to talk about bringing gaming to the school. Beforehand Chris had told me he seemed to be a pretty cool guy all round, and meeting him in person was great. He's closer to what we might be than any adult I've seen before I think, anyway. Like gaming. He said at one point he was seventh at C&C Red Alert worldwide, and had a screendump to prove it. That kinda put me in a bit of awe straight up. (I beat the game as the Soviets in single player, but nothing else..)
He wasn't in any way opposed to the idea of us playing at school or polluting the machines with anything violent, and seemed ready to trust us not to hax the system to whatever devious ends we might strive towards. Quake didn't work on his laptop at all, which was a problem, but he was confident we could trouble-shoot that nicely. We showed him about a minute of TFDE2 (jumping around a bit. Got to see the part where the HW juggles the guy off Xpress and some nice midair rocket kills. He figured the game looked nice enough once it was running, and I think we might have taken that as an unintended hint to install it with all the eyecandy we could muster.
The CD when I was making it was only about half full, so I chuched some music on there too.. Chris clicked on that accidentally, and covered up with the misleading "Oh yeah, that's our pirated music. You didn't see that."
To which he replied, of course, "Anything I don't have? Chuck it on my desktop." We did what he said. Things went on. He asked what other games we played, and seemed interested in getting some. And then the DVD rips. Chris suggested a trade, of sorts, of the movies.
All in all he seemed realistic, too, which I think is a bunch more than I can say for a lot of people in charge of computing I've seen. I mean, Pearson was nice. Bloggs went along with Chris' plan, but initially gave little hope, on the premise that "Oh... Games... Probably not, then..." Stent, we all know, was pretty ridiculous at times. And at primary, the computing guy wouldn't let me play a data/audio cd on his cd player, on the fear it would give his stereo a virus.

At interval we went to Blogg's room, and over to the teacher's computer (unoccupied at the time), as it was the only one with a cd-rom drive. The machines in there all P1.3gHz processors and 248 (for some reason) megs of ram, and quake opened up nicely. Smoothly. Quickly. We put in the usual command to load a map, and were greeted with a constant 2 or 3 frames a second. After turning everything off we possibly could, and letting quake use some massive amount of ram, and setting the res to 320*200, we got about 10 fps.
It quit really quickly, too.

We figure it's either graphics drivers of some form that need some beating upon, or the fact that the onboard graphics are having a cry. Software is always an option, but we may lose some people along the way.


Whangarei CAN looks lovely. 256 kilobit connections and a phone line for $60. Unlimited (within reason, they say) traffic, and Hayes says it is wireless.


http://bnz.co.nz is hosting three big looking writing comps under the name Katherine Mansfield. Prizes $1,000 - $15,000, I think, in n00b, Secondary School and Open categories. David Hill wrote up some pointers, which seem to resemble what he told us when he came around, which is nice. I mean, as long as he told us more than the rest of the country.

<font color="#333366" size="1">[ May 11, 2004 02:17 AM: Message edited by: Gerald Blake ]</font>

You guys got a new IT guy? Did he actually replace Stent? or is he just in charge of IT and not classes...?

And when you say Chris, and then say Nick, and then Chris again, are you talking about the same guy? Or is there a new Chris/Nick that I haven't met?

I have a killing round to play in tonight, but it has a vampire theme so it's not on until 12 oclock. So really it's tomorrow.

I can't think of anything else of interest to say really. Somebody post in a thread.

You say a real person, Gerald. You forget the person I was talking about was a 40 year old Computer lecturer at Waikato Uni - that is grounds enough to negate that statement. He was just what like Whiu would be when he was 40. [img]eek.gif[/img] [img]confused.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/thinking.gif[/img] However, he was showing AYB to a whole bunch of people at this mini lecture on the open day. I'm sitting at the back, barely able to contain my laughter, getting strange looks from all present, except for the lecturer, who much have instantly labled me as a geek. [img]graemlins/smarty.gif[/img] Never mind, I will just go back to my current daily routine - a cool new game. It's called "Stack up a whole bunch of crap like cans and boxes in the photography dark room and laugh your arse off when somebody comes in and trips over them and scares themself with all the noise it makes." It's super funny when the relief teacher comes in and does it. Ha. Ha. Hah.

The last post over here was four days behind that of the other place. I think we might have died down again. Perhaps a little more permanently, though. No in character posts happening too much, and I really don't think we can be bothered too much with this anymore. I mean, if I want to say something to someone, I'll probably talk to them. Or email them. Or talk on messenger.
However, there is no way I'm going to do any live action roleplay. So this place is a little better than some. Not that we tend to do too much. MR had a bit more of a purpose when the posting left.


Real names to avoid confusion and conflicts with people who share names.
There was another party last weekend, this time in memory of my day of birth. We had upwards of ten people come around in total, going from a Friday evening to a Saturday evening, though most left a while before then.
It wasn't so computer based as the previous events, and this was mainly for two reasons: A lack of planning meant that Stefan and Nick couldn't arrive, and people weren't so prepared for that sort of thing. And two, that party followed a bit more of a "contribute what you want to see" flavour, so people came for party, and people came for food, and apparently Chris came for horrible booze.
There wasn't so much room to move as last time, also due to the lack of planning, but also the unexpected number of people coming to pay their homage, and placate me with their offerings. Nick just gave the offerings, of course. (Thanks all for the gifts, if you read here).
There was some music there, and most of it was good. I had the music that nobody else likes playing off in the corner, pretty quiet, and Chris had his songs going too. Not quite so varied as Stefan's, but nice nonetheless. I think. Ben set up in the corner with his bass amp, and put some sound through every now and then.

While not so in-depth as before, the gaming was rather more varied than can usually be said, I think.
We played some Quake, of course. Chris beat me (though not too thouroughly, Quake tends to accentuate that sort of thing a lot more) in a duel, and I think that was the end of duelling. We (Daniel and Myself) played some xpress against Chris, Ben and Gatty (I think... Whiu may have been in there) and did rather well. Chris decided to go attack engy for some reason, and usually got off an emp before he got killed. I went medic and discarded, of course.
We played mini32s some and ripped up a bit there too. It plays better when nobody takes the quad, I think, and there was some cheap use of it, but it was pretty good for the most part. I pwned Chris a bit with my 1337 medic skills, of course.
After that Daniel and I got our asses royally slaughtered in Amth ctf, with them placing a good quality turret and taking the clever ways into our base while I tried to defend as demo. (And Chris wasn't even on their team... 3 vs 2 is my excuse, I guess). Good fun all around, though. Caps weren't counted in the amth duelling or the capping, though, which was a shame.
We played Anaconda. For the benefit of those who haven't played, it's Snake on a TV with rotating snakes instead of ones that turn on a dime. Awesome fun.
Ben, David and I are all going to try and claim that we were the best here. If you lost, it was that you had an off game, and they happened all the time. You could only show your true skill if you won (if then), and if you lost it was a silly mistake or that the game drew the snakes the wrong thickness at the tails.
Of course, I won the most.
This game was rather significant, actually. To get it up and running I had to change the channel on the television and make my way through most of a level of a nice FPS to get to the minigame, and people didn't mind all too much. I got there, and we had four players real quickly, despite a couple of people saying it was a stupid game. However, I think the biggest reason this game was significant was that (I think) it was the only game we managed to get any of the girls playing at all. Let alone for hours straight... After some practice she won some games, too. A little after that point we had to stop playing, of course. Everyone wanted me to preserve my lead, of course.
Again, if people read at this place... Erin, I think you're the one they're going to try to convert.
Also, if we have a cube running next time, I think it could be a nice way to settle disputes.
Ben and David (as well as Daniel and myself to a lesser extent) took Elastomania for another run, and we were all useless.
There was some UT, and that was nice. I tihnk Daniel claimed to be almost religiously opposed to it at one point, and made fun of it afterwards, but we all had fin in the actual game itself, I think. Nick, who heard afterwards, seemed rather dismayed. Others can post more to that in greater detail if they feel necessary, I didn't play as much as others, and don't know the game enough to make any real calls, though Daniel made a little fuss over how the game decides whether you get a headshot or not.
Worms World Party was also big, though later. Mainly Saturday, really. After most had left Ben and Daniel played some big battles, though while everyone was there there were very large hotseat games, with Damien, Matthew, Daniel, Ben, probably David, myself and maybe others. Points for weapons at the last lan probably came in with Stefan, and didn't appear at all this time around. I think Ben loves his ninja rope a little too much. He seemed to come out on top a fair bit this time around, too.
Nobody understood Tribes 2 all too much. People did some tutorial, but the game was a little too complex for some pick-up-and-play lan action.
Quake 2 didn't get up, or Doom. Quake 3 almost did, bit that was before we fixed the network, and we forgot to play after. Bouncy and CPMA next time, though, I think.

Underworld went on the television early on, through Whiu's laptop, but it got a little drowned out by the people and the bass guitar. My sister and Matthew's sister seemed to be the ones most intent on watching it at the time, and my sister seemed rather vexed at her show not being so audible. Outwardly so.

There was pizza. Pizza's always good at a lan, and it was good stuff, too. I found the topping a little sweet at times, but it was super on the whole, and prime target for an ineptly named midnight snack.
People brought corn chips, and they went relatively quickly. People brought chocolate, and that went down easily too, though people were reaching over to grab a piece every now and then rather than all feasting on it, which worked well. We may have had more white chocolate than milk chocolate, I think, actually, which may have been a special at New World, changing preferences or everyone trying to be different. The M&Ms went very quickly, though, and I think the dispenser they were put in only added to that. I saw two on the ground afterwards, but they weren't there when I looked a second time.
There was Beer (Speights, which threw Damien off a little - "Since when is there quality beer in this house?"), and that was more popular with the guys than the girls. Chris brought something that was called "white sambuka", or similar, or has been described to me as "like white sambuka, only you're being punched in the gut". That wasn't too popular with anyone. Mum saw it, smelled it, and exclaimed "Hey! It's Uuzu!". This went on for a little bit before she explained that it brought back memories of being drunk in foreign lands.
Coke with lime and Sprite Remix came along a bit, but weren't finished. The chocolate milk (the person who brought that was damn clever) did disappear, but not before I had a glass.

From this party I have a few things to show, though. I stone paper-weight and an empty chocolate easter egg box (Cadbury, Dairy Milk, Milk Tray and the colour purple are Cadbury Ltf trademarks used under license) from Matthew (all lovingly wrapped in pages from Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, by Terry Brooks), and a Green plastic bag, a nice pen and pad (paua designs on the cover) from "Liz and Erin. and Kezia". And Tribes from Nick. And Chris' computer, though I'm not sure how long that stays here. He probably wants it back.

Everyone all seemed to disappear at once, and I suppose many of them tried to sneak out from under my nose. Chris went out with a bang, though, and left a lasting impression on many, not the least of which being Ben's car. We picked Whiu up from Chemistry Saturday afternoon (We should have been there too...) and came back for some Worms, pies and chips. A little UT after that and the final invaders decided it was home-time at about 7.

I slept.

I went to a party at someone's house, and ended up playing some drinking game.

--------------------------------------

I woke up at 4 in the mornig the next day on the floor and got up to ask what was going on. Everyone had left, and I was short one eyebrow.

Then I slept on a couch, and got up the next day and watched the Matrix all morning, and went home about 3pm.

I think this might have been 2 weeks ago, but I can't remember.

Oh, and at 1200 last night, I realized I had Math homework due this morning. Needless to say, I'm tired, and I'm going to go play Blood Bowl now.

Wow my sig is long these days.

Has anyone here seen The butterfly effect? Don't be put off by the fact that it's Ashton Kutcher or however the f* you spell it. If you want a wicked mind fuck, download that shitte and trip yourself out. Seriously. This is one of the best movies I've seen for a long time. I'd compare it to Memento, Fight Club, The Matrix... Insane.

Yes, The Butterfly Effect was a good movie. A very good movie. However, Fight Club and The Matrix were revolutionary. The Butterfly Effect, with its rather cliche Alternate Universes and stuff didn't nearly match up. It is the little brother of all the wonderful pop culture movies. Tries, and tries well. But I would not go comparing it to something as revolutionary as The Matrix.

Oh, the best bit of that movie? The movie theatre, where the 13 year old (I think) beats the absolute SHIT out of the guy who laughed at him.

I would not want to mess with that little fucker.

On another note, would anybody be intersted in some actual roleplay? It's been awhile...