The Swing Of Things

Well I'm back. Oregon was beautiful; lush forests, the ocean a short walk away, fresh air and far away from the noise of traffic and neighbors. It was so peaceful and serene there, most of my time was spent hiking, watching the ocean or deer in the trees.

We we're staying in Cape Blanco, several miles away from any towns or anything resembling shopping. But there was the historic lighthouse and Hughes House just a short walk away, which were both great. It was just wonderful to see nothing but ferns and trees for so long, soothing even...

So it's only natural that I come back to disaster, the Steam Pipe update to be exact. See, while I was off connecting with nature, Valve decided to update all their games; breaking tons of mods and custom content in the process. I'm not even surprised anymore. I've just come to accept that I'm not allowed to have nice things and any web service I use is past due for an ugly, hard to use overhaul. In the meantime, Source SDK was broken and won't load Hammer, meaning I can't work on maps. So far there's been no reason to think they'll address this little problem. But hey, at least we get trading cards now. Virtual trading cards. With no readily discernible purpose other than breaking my games and and turning my Steam profile into some horrible lovechild of the Fischer-Price corporation and a tax return form.

In any case, someone found a way to get Hammer working until those office-goblins sort things out. Not that I'm particularly inclined to work on any maps right now, why should I when they'll probably all be broken next year?

See, this guy gets it. This update reeks.

Whatever. While this mess gets cleaned up I'll be fondly looking back on this trip, thinking back to the purple flowers and the dense fog that rolled in from ocean. There were several days when I would stop at the cliff face along the coast trail and just stand there, letting the wind blow past me. I didn't want to leave at all. If I could, I think I would really like to live in a rural environment like that, with trees in every direction, moss and ferns completely surrounding my little cottage.

Or a cave. I would be perfectly okay with living in the depths of the Earth like some kind of salamander.

Wake Up and Smell the Ashes

Five days, Doctor Freeman...

I have no idea how I'm going to emotionally prepare myself for this release. I still feel like I'm in some bizarro world where impossible, beautiful things actually do happen. It's such an alien feeling to be able to look forward to something and have good reason to believe it's going to be good, instead of a vague hope (unlike Asylum of the Daleks, more on that later).

To keep myself occupied, I've been looking through their wiki again, ogling at all their new models for Xen aliens. After I made it my mission to read their whole wiki I found this page. This gist of it is that they have absolutely no plans to include cooperative gameplay and have redesigned all the maps specifically for single-player. I don't care what you think, that's hot.

I hate cooperative games like nobody's business. I hate how every game that comes out now has a co-op component tacked on. Why is it so wrong to release a proper single-player game? When did developers decide that every game has to play like a social networking site? I know there's a boat-load of people out there who disagree with me, especially mackdombles. On paper co-op sounds like a good idea; it's not just you playing a game, you're inviting a friend to share in the game's world, forming a bond in a hand-crafted world of adventure. In theory, co-op games promote trust and cooperation. Heck, it's even in the name.

But that's the linchpin of the problem: in theory.

The awful truth is that most people who play co-op games are unsavory egomaniacs. They do not cooperate and they rarely contribute anything besides angry demands on the other players. The result isn't a group of like-minded friends working towards a common goal, it's a bunch of backstabbing bandits looking out for themselves, gobbling up all the items they can and running ahead of the group to distance themselves from their perceived failure.

I think this is part of the reason why Alien Swarm isn't as popular as it should be. You're stuck, relying on other people. Well that's bad news because those people you're forced to depend on will more often than not try to kill you in exclusion to the aliens. Yes, even when friendly fire is deactivated. These developers forget that the natural inclination of all people, especially gamers it to evil and when they're playing a game on the Internet, their inherent wickedness is magnified to such a degree it would make Marquis de Sade blush.

But let's assume that your teammates don't want to kill you. First of all that's not possible, second of all they're still going to steal health kits and ammunition from you. It's a given. In fact, the easiest way to tell if someone playing Left 4 Dead is a computer-controlled bot is to see if they're healing someone, because only the computer ever actually bothers to try and heal teammates. Everyone else hopes they can make it to the safe room first and use the rest of the team as bait.

Not only that, but they're stupid. And they're foreign. Despite what 80's cop movies told us, there's no such thing as a multicultural team; if you can't speak the same language how can you yell at each other for stealing the good weapons? What if they're just plain stupid? Then it won't matter what language you're speaking because they won't understand you anyway. They'll go on attacking enemies twice their size and setting everyone on fire without a care in the world.

And don't tell me I'm being an old fart, because I know this is true. I know because I turned into the very picture of a bad co-op partner when everyone was playing Killing Floor. I could see myself undergoing a hideous transformation into a hateful, frothing loony. Maybe it's because I played as the Berserker in exclusion of any other class. Or maybe it's because I used the samurai sword in exclusion of any other weapon. For whatever reason I started to scorn everyone's lack of honor. My team wasn't a help, they were a hindrance. They were an obstacle to my own personal honor and glory. Without realizing it, war drums started sounding in my brain. I would run to the far end of whatever map we were playing, trying to keep as much distance between myself and the dishonorable fools I was trapped with.

I would loudly belittle their choices of classes and weapons. I would painstakingly explain to them how they could achieve no honor by playing Demolition. You'd think I'd get some sort of comeuppance for my obvious loathing for those people, but no. I tore them up verbally and I tore up all enemies literally. And there was nothing anyone could do about it because, and I cannot stress this enough, they had no honor. None of them.

And that's really the heart of the problem. Online games aren't good for cooperation, just competition. When I see another player there is no part of me that wants to empathize with them, only to destroy them. That's why there's no such thing as teamwork in Team Fortress 2. It's more trouble than it's worth to try and get everyone working cohesively, especially when it's so much easier to do your own thing and kill the other team however you see fit.

This is why single-player games are so much more emotionally fulfilling. In a game like Half-Life you're not tied down by some jerk you met online. It's you, all alone against the whole world. You can take all the time you need to explore the environment, because you're not worrying about someone else's schedule. You can go at your own pace and take in the scenery.

So there, I got that out. I actually feel a little better now. Plus I think we've learned a valuable lesson here today: Steve Moffat is a terrible, terrible writer.

I Seriously Want to Punch Someone in the Mouth

I absolutely hate it when websites change their layouts to some godawful "new and improved" design which is neither. Blogger's done that in my absence apparently. They changed their editor to some crappy new design recently that looks like Youtube, that is, gray and unwieldy. Plus, it's made pictures an absolute chore to add to posts, it's taken all the effort I can muster just to figure out how to get this picture here to show you how god awful it looks.



It's so unintuitive to use now, I can't resize anything and any attempt to fiddle with the pictures shifts all the text to one side of the screen. Honestly, if someone could tell me how to revert to the old editor I would GREATLY appreciate it because this is pure, unadulterated garbage.

I was going to make a post about mantis shrimps today but now I'm not in the mood because there's this annoying flash pop up and I feel like if I see it again I am going to throw this computer out the window.

News Flash:

Okay...okay. Crisis seemingly averted...for now. Apparently if you mess with the URL you can revert to the old layout. Still, that's obviously not a legitimate method and I don't know how long it'll take until the backwards hicks that maintain this website to realize this. But I'm serious, if they pull anymore snafus like this I feel like I'm going to go to a different website altogether. I just want my blog to be simple! IS THAT SO WRONG!?



If you want to revert to the old editor this link was very helpful. It's not perfect but it's better than nothing. But I'm serious, if this new design becomes the default and they make the switch permanent I WILL look for a superior site.

Tower Power

As I alluded to about a month ago, I've been helping Ramzca design a tabletop role-playing game, which takes place in the mystical city of Adelphon. The goal was to combine film noir-style detective fiction with a setting similar to the works of Jorge Luis Borges. The result I was hoping for was a setting that was at once dark and brooding but almost paradoxically bright and colorful. In my mind I imagined Adelphon to be constantly sunny, every street was a winding cobblestone path and every building was a beautiful French villa, their facades covered in lush green ivy.

At least that's why I hoped for. But alas, Adelphon isn't so much a city as it is a war zone now. See, Ramzca has been playing a lot of World War II games recently and it's obvious from talking to him in Steam Chat that it's affecting his thinking. As a result every question he comes to me with about the setting isn't about local culture or the history of the city. It's about how many pieces of military equipment he can cram into the campaign and how many landmarks he can demolish. Every discussion we have devolves into talk about nebelwerfers or battleships appearing to destroy the city in one fell swoop. He's even alluded to actual Germans invading Adelphon, which really has nothing to do with the story as I understand it.

Basically, he's systematically ignored every suggestion I've made. Plus, I'm all but certain he's forgotten that the main characters were supposed to be telepathic (he's actually told me he's removed some elements of gameplay involved with telepathy in order to focus more on gunplay). The result is less "Quasi-Mystic Detective Fiction" that I was promised and more "Alternate History World War II". At the very least I was able to convince him to make our version of The Germans into giant inter-dimensional crabs so at least there's that small victory.

His strategic undermining of my work is never more obvious then what he plans to do to the setting as a whole. I don't mind telling you that I spent a fair chunk of time coming up with a rough cosmology for this game, drawing maps of this city according to his specifications and giving it a personality, a history. He plans to ignore all that, totally remove the city of Adelphon from the game and have it all take place inside a flak tower.

It goes without saying that this is totally outrageous.

Granted, while this change flies in the face of everything I planned for the setting it's at least a change with some serious potential. For those not in the know, the flak towers, or die Flaktürme, were truly enormous concrete fortresses built in Hamberg, Berlin and Vienna around 1940. As Wikipedia will tell you, the flaktowers were used by the Luftwaffe as defense against enemy bombers and served as air-raid shelters during the war, arguably doing their job too well.

Hitler himself was deeply involved in their design and construction, insisting that they be huge and well armored. In a mere six months the first flak towers were built. It was such a Herculean undertaking that the entire national rail system had to be rescheduled to divert concrete, steel and lumber to the construction sites. The result? Huge, diabolical towers with walls of 3.5 meter thick concrete, bristling with anti-aircraft guns that could fire at a rate of 8000 rounds per minute from multiple levels of the tower with a full three-hundred sixty degree range of vision. Under extreme duress, the towers could house around 10,000 civilians and even a fully stocked hospital ward. They were for all intents and purposes nigh-indomitable.

When the RAF flew bombing runs over Germany they did everything they could to simply avoid the towers altogether. It was simply futile to try and crack through their superior armor. When the Soviets invaded Berlin they had to maneuver around the towers because they simply could not inflict any damage on them, not even with their cartoonishly oversized 203 millimeter howitzer cannons. Plus, the soldiers inside the towers eventually turned their anti-aircraft guns to fire at targets on the ground, turning the ground around the towers to a blasted wasteland from which there was no escape. Eventually, their reign of terror did come to an end, not because the Soviets were actually able to break through the concrete, but because they finally ran out of supplies and eventually surrendered on their own volition. It could only be assumed that if they managed to start pumpkin farms on top of the towers they might still be there today.

In fact, the towers are still there today, simply because the effort needed to tear them down would be too much work. Theoretically, an RAF Grand Slam bomb would be enough to tear down the G-Tower in Berlin, but the sheer explosive yield from it's detonation would probably be enough to demolish the rest of Berlin with it.

They were nothing short of modern-day castle keeps constructed from sheer malevolence.



So yes, I stand by my opinion that moving the game's setting from a sunny sea port town to an irresistible tower of doom to be deviating from the original plan just a bit.

But I know what you're thinking; "Where would this impenetrable tower of evil be exactly?". Space apparently. Not anywhere in particular in space, just floating around in a nebular void of some kind. One can't help but feel like he hasn't exactly thought this through. Much like another totalitarian dictator I can mention.

CH-CH-CHANGES

If there's one thing I hate, it's change. Especially unnecessary changes that don't improve anything. I've suffered the lion's share of pointless changes in my life, from the merger of TechTV and G4 to updated channel designs on Youtube and here on Blogger. Because of this, I have actively tried to eradicate change from my life until nothing remains but my own singular consciousness, totally immune to any outside influence. I've told Idontknow about my plans but unfortunately he doesn't see the appeal in becoming an invulnerable energy-being. Oh well, I think we all know who'll have the last laugh when I survive the Universal Heat Death.

Sadly, my efforts to exterminate progress have met less than successful results. G4 is still an awful spout of miasma and Youtube is becoming more and more sterile and impersonal with every passing day, saying nothing of the unfathomable stupidity of it's commentators. Plus, as far as I can tell the outside world is still a thing that exists so that's terrible too.

I've had a few minor successes in creating my own personal bubble though. As I said, Blogger's been updating their editor. The comments on my blog have been acting, for lack of a better word, wonkey and everything felt slower.

Naturally, this will not do.

To make a long heartache short, I spent the last hour and a half fiddling with different settings to get everything ship-shape again, even considering using a new template for better compatibility. This would have the effect of making the blog look slightly different. Naturally, this would not do. So I did what had to be done, I sifted through some of my oldest folders and found a dusty old XML file, the oldest surviving template I had. With only minor tinkering it worked and the editor survived apparently unscathed. Why did I do this? Because I hate changes in my life and I will not stop until every uncontrolled variable has been exterminated.

Oh, I just remembered, today is Valentine's Day. Well too bad! I hate love too!

Der Übermensch

Every so often I take the Myers-Briggs questionnaire for kicks, mainly to confirm my self-image. For those not in the know, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is used to measure how people perceive the world and make decisions. Each personality type is measured with a four letter code, representing extroversion versus introversion, sensing versus intuition, feeling versus thinking and perceiving versus judging. It's a nifty test that doesn't take very long and can provide some interesting insight into the minds of your loved ones so it's easier to judge them.

Each time I take it I always get the same two personality types: ENTJ or INTJ, meaning Extroverted (or Introverted) Intuitive Thinking Judging. Generally speaking, this is bad news. ENTJ and INTJ are the two rarest personality types, only 1-4% of all people who take the test get that score. Both types are characterized by pragmatic logic driven by facts and a lust for greater efficiency. They're analytical and readily find faults in themselves and others. These personality types are simultaneously loners and efficient leaders.

Basically, all the makings of an evil genius.

As you can imagine, I was delighted when I learned this. Of course I'm a judgmental control freak. I wouldn't expect any less. All the greatest corrupt corporate executives and evil overlords are ENTJ and everything about INTJ is in line with Friedrich Nietzsche's concept of der Übermensch. The personality type is even called the Mastermind! Apparently I'm in good company. A lot of villains in literature, film and real life have the NTJ personality types. For example...

Scar from The Lion King
Ernst Stravo Blofeld (the one with the death ray satellite) from the James Bond movies
Satan from Paradise Lost
Mr. Burns
Ayn Rand
Margaret Thatcher
Megatron from Transformers
Richard Nixon
Benjamin Linus from Lost
Gordon Gekko, Micheal Douglas's character from Wall Street
Carl Showalter, Steve Buscemi's character from Fargo
Sauron, as in the giant burning eyeball from Lord of the Rings
Tony Montana from Scarface
Andrew Ryan from Bioshock

...and of course, Charles Foster Kane.

So yeah, sorry Mom, but you've basically raised a super villain. I'll be sure to tell you when I melt the ice caps or something.

But I know what you're thinking, how does this relate to ponies?



By the way, my sister wanted me to tell you she's Rarity (ENFJ). Be sure to post your results in the comments!

The Worst Aliens Ever

If there's one thing I love it's aliens. Bizarre, inscrutable and completely unearthly in both manner and deed. For as long as I can remember I have been fascinated by what could be "out there". What indescribable beings could be among the stars right now? Many have wondered, and from the imaginations of many here on Earth have come some truly inventive, outrageous, incredible and yet believable creatures which would be right at home on all those strange new worlds.

With that said, you can imagine that I'll be a little disappointed when I watch a movie with aliens who are, oh, not quite up to par.

Okay, maybe disappointed isn't a strong enough word. Violently hateful is probably a better description.

Yes, for every silicon-based sentient microbe colony there's a dozen cat-like aliens. Science-fiction is inundated with xenobiological trash. Some of these inferior excuses for extraterrestrials are so bad that I can't help but lie awake at night imagining their poorly thought out planets exterminated in righteous plasma. So, with no further delay, let's take a look at the pathetic world of...

The Worst Aliens. Ever.

10. The New Paradigm Daleks



I will never forgive Steve Moffat for these abominations. Ever.

9. The Aliens (War of the Worlds 2005)



There are plenty of things not to like about the 2005 version of The War of the Worlds, not the least of which is Dakota Fanning's horrible, ungodly screaming. In fact, when compared to the main characters, the aliens seem downright pleasant

But as it turns out, the characters are bad and the aliens are also bad and this movie is just bad.

First of all, take a look at that picture, that's not a terrifying invader; that's a mutant frog with a triceratops head. It's little eyes and tiny teeth don't make it scary, just oddly cute and nonthreatening. Plus, it doesn't look particularly alien. Weird by Earth standards maybe, but that's it. It's not scary, just slightly weird. Certainly a far cry from the hideous octopus-like blood-drinking brains from the book.

Does that mean this whole movie was a waste? Not necessarily, the Tripods were very cool...and that's about it.

Also, take a look at this. This is the alien from Independence Day (Which was awful for completely different reasons.). You'll notice that they both look exactly the same.

8. Robin Williams



Robin Williams is not funny. He's tedious and obnoxious to such an extreme he's received actual death-threats. So how bad can Mork be when a man so annoying as to insight feelings of murder calls the character a bad idea?

Bad. Very bad.

7. Everything from Star Wars



I've come to hate Star Wars over the years. Slowly, day by day, my memories of it sour more and more. No doubt some day I'll just straight up start burning their merchandise on my front lawn.

The aliens from Star Wars are a very special kind of lazy. They all follow the same formula: oddly colored human body + weird head. And that's it. Go ahead, rewatch those movies, you'll find that the majority of aliens, with the exception of Jabba are all people with weird heads.

Of course, we mustn't forget that behind these half-baked costumes are painfully one-dimensional comic reliefs.

6. Klaatu from the Day the Earth Stood Still (2008)



First of all, I have nothing against Keanu Reeves, the man's a Highlander after all. That doesn't change the fact that The Day the Earth Stood Still was a stupid movie with a stupid premise.

In this picture, Neo plays Klaatu, an alien sent to Earth to tell the Human race that if they don't start driving electric cars and using solar power they will be exterminated to save the Earth from our evil greedy ways.

First of all, you can't have your protagonist threaten omnicide and expect the audience to sympathize with them. Also, if these aliens are so advanced that they can quickly exterminate the most wide-spread species on this planet wouldn't it be easier to give us the technology to make a cleaner energy source? It wouldn't be that hard, they wouldn't even need to kill anyone.

Aliens like these really frustrate me. We're supposed to think they're our moral superiors and we need to feel ashamed for being Human. Meanwhile they're killing countless people on-screen as they lecture us for being violent and primitive. I won't stand for it, no amount of giant glowing marbles will convince me otherwise. These aliens are hate-mongering eco-terrorists that rival the Daleks for sheer brutality. But while the Daleks are gleefully evil, these snobs try to pass themselves off as the good guys.

That will not do.

With that said, Gort was still cool and the original movie actually did make sense. I encourage you all to see it. Also, Ted Logan isn't to blame for this mess, just Green Peace.

5. The Kzinti



This is probably the only creature on this list I feel guilty for resenting. The Kzinti aren't bad characters per se, they've got lots of interesting quirks. Their society is interesting and Ringworld was much improved by their presence. They're like Klingons, they're a credible threat but when the time comes to really show things just got serious, they're the first ones to get the beat-down. TVTropes would call this the Worf Effect.

The only problem is they're cat-like aliens.

I hate cat-like aliens because no matter what planet they come from, they're just cats. I know this seems like a weirdly specific thing to get fussy about, but surprisingly there's a ton of cat-like aliens floating around.

Why did everyone suddenly decide beings from another world must look like Mr. Whiskers? Because people are feeble-minded. Rather then really work their brain imagining something bizarre their primitive brains fall back to cute little kitties.

Now that I think about it, I don't have a problem with the Kzinti at all, I think they're great. It's all the other alien cats that I hate.

And furries.

4. Those Idiots from Signs



I don't need to tell you what an incredibly stupid movie Signs was. Plenty of other websites have pointed out in excruciating detail just how completely nonsensical this tripe was...but I'll tell you anyway.

First of all, the big twist in this movie is that the aliens are allergic to water.

Let that sink in for a moment.

Okay, ignoring the fact that Earth's surface is over 70% water why would you invade a planet with hostile natives that you have no defense against except poison spray? Keep that in mind, poison spray from your hand versus, well, anything us Earthlings have.

Secondly, why are these aliens naked when they invade a planet? What's the point of that? Humans wear clothes and we spend all our time on this planet.

So, in review, what we have here are creatures who think it's a good idea to invade a planet they're allergic to while wearing no protection whatsoever and their plan to subdue the natives (with nuclear weapons) is to spray their asthmatic children with poison. And while we're at it, why did they invade Earth in the first place? What was it that they wanted!?

And I'm supposed to believe that they were smart enough to invent space travel?

3. The Protoss



The Protoss of Starcraft are a race of mouthless telepathic warriors and they are relentlessly dull. They inhabit a weird niche in sci-fi: they're a race of alien religious zealot warriors with a predominately blue color scheme. Like cat-aliens, this is a bizarre cliche which has nonetheless endured, especially in video games.

All their units in the game use blue energy stuff to attack with, whether it be blue energy swords, or globs of blue energy stuff in their ships. They're sufficiently advanced aliens and nothing else, there's nothing else to their personality as a species.

I get it, the point is that they're supposed to be cool. But that's the problem, the Protoss aren't cool, they're just bland. Plus, they're the basis for an extremely boring stereotype all aliens in video games seem to follow.

Speaking of which...

2. Everything from Halo Ever

If there was ever a franchise that embodies everything wrong with science-fiction, video games, and fourteen year old boys in general this would be that franchise. Halo is a dull-minded mess of boring level design, flat characters, stupid plot and horrendous aliens.

First of all, the so-called Covenant, the primary antagonists, are obviously a stand-in for radical Islam. The first game came out in 2001 after all. They're everything wrong with the Protoss multiplied a thousand fold, playing the "scary religious fundamentalism" to it's furthest, justifying their war against Humanity as the will of their prophets or whoever. The same thing we've seen a thousand times thanks to them. But the problem isn't just the alien's boring lack of identity, it's that visually, they're a check list of sci-fi stereotypes. You have standard bugs, large gorillas, dudes with weird faces a la Predator and alien birds, among others.

Of course, one can always find exceptions, even in this mess. Apparently, in the later games there's large jellyfish-like beings that the player can occasionally find, from what I've read of them those sound pretty cool.

But everything else sucks.

1. Space Smurfs



This.

This is what is wrong with the 21st Century.

My family is baffled that I don't like Avatar. At first glance it does sound like the kind of thing I'd enjoy: a well thought-out ecosystem, the whole movie taking place on another planet, a very well designed and realistic space ship at the beginning. It all seemed to be going so well for the first five minutes.

But then came the ridiculous blue cat-people.

Everything about this movie from it's misanthropic environmentalist message to the long-winded first act to the impossibly stupid alien design is wrong. It embodies a paradigm shift that started in 2000 that has been rotting the brains of every man woman and child on this planet to make us believe we're inferior to simple-minded animals.

First of all, ignoring the society of these imbeciles for a moment, their biology makes no sense. The planet in the movie clearly has a diverse ecosystem with creatures that don't look like they would come from Earth, so why is the local sentient species blue Humanoids? And don't tell me it's convergent evolution because that's not good enough. These are the personification of the appeal to nature fallacy and the juvenile belief that the movie-watching public cannot sympathize with a character that doesn't look like them.

The overblown environmental "message" is so stupidly obvious, the aliens literally "connect" to nature using their hair braids, all the while looking like they just walked off the set of Dances With Wolves.

It's the same balderdash The Day the Earth Stood Still tried to pull, demonizing the same creatures watching the movie and presenting a farcical alternative. I place the blame for the blossoming misanthropy of this generation solely on movies like this. It's fiction like this that makes teenagers turn to vampires and blue-skinned cat people for emotional support. It's grooming an entire generation to believe it's influence on this planet is nothing but negative.

People are not perfect, of course, but I'd rather be living among puny Earthlings if it means I'm not surrounded by self-righteous overgrown smurfs.

Into the World, the Hallways of Wraith

Oh jeez, I've been meaning to make this post for a while now but there has been simply no time. I've tried for the past several days but never is there enough time for a proper post.

First thing's first: Insomnia has been downloaded over ten thousand times in the past ten days. That's an average of 5149.5 downloads a day and that's fantastic.

My ego has swelled to the size of a red giant and I'm loving it. My life means something again, I am the artist supreme. Now I'm starting to have delusions of godhood (or at least demi-dietyhood).



(This is how I've felt since Insomnia's release.)

Of course, the euphoria of unquestionable success hasn't been without a grain of salt. I've gotten quite a few complaints from map aficionados from the Garry's Mod Toybox:

"Paranoia was so scary and cool but this is just weird with action"
-006 spy killerCCPC/CP Commander

"I think I prefere paranoia better, this is missing something, I dont know what though."
-Straight Up Lazy

"I've didn't like this map, I prefered Paranoia. Insomnia isn't scaring and is very easy and short.

2/10 "
-Nicholas Da Costa

"wasnt that fun. he lost the mojo in this.i like parania better."

Now that's all fine and dandy, I don't mind if people like Paranoia more. I mean, I love Paranoia as my first born map. But keep in mind, Insomnia wasn't really meant to be scary. Paranoia was scary, but I dropped all pretenses of horror in it's sibling and opted instead to open the floodgates of abstraction and spill as much weirdness as possible into a single map.

Also, I'm not too into the whole "constructive criticism" thing. If a map shows promise and you have good ideas on how to make it better then by all means share them. Of course, if a map is bad, simply god-awful, then by all means call it bad and leave at that. Brevity is the soul of wit.

On the other hand, if you're talking about a masterpiece like Insomnia, especially when it's made by a God-Emperor, then you had better have something better than "lost the mojo". That simply will not do. It makes it sound like I misplaced some exotic salsa or worse, became infertile. And that's terrible.

Now, that's not to say the response has been overwhelmingly negative. Like every masterpiece from den Übermenschen, there will be nay-sayers. It's an unfortunate fact of life. It's exactly what happened when Atlas Shrugged was written, or when Citizen Kane was filmed or even when writing was invented.

Plus, this comment refutes all others:

"you my friend, you are a god"
-1st recon papa boomer

You hear that?

I AM BECOME AGAMEMNON!

THE CREATOR OF WORLDS!!!

The Furthest Reaches

I've run into a pretty strange problem with Insomnia this week. Last night I was compiling it while Stress was blaring in the background. I was delighted when the song and compile finished at the same time. I wasn't delighted, however, when I looked around the map and found that nothing had changed. Nothing. This was especially embarrassing because my Grandmother was there to watch me try and play it off.

"Oh. It's exactly the same as if I hadn't built anything...Um, I meant to do that." I said as I desperately searched for any sign of the last two day's work.

I immediately checked the compile log and found a disturbing error...


See where it says VERY FULL! in that chart-looking section? Notice how entdata is at 116.5%?

I was stunned when I realized what went wrong, Insomnia has gotten too big. I actually made too much and Hammer gave up. I don't know how to explain myself, it feels like Hammer is trying to tell me, "Stop! Ok, we get it, you want to make the best map ever but if you think I'm gonna try and make sense of all these brush faces you can just forget it!".

Honestly, I think I should get an achievement for this. I broke my map by making too much stuff. I didn't even know that was possible.

Oh well, I guess this could be a blessing in disguise. I didn't really like any of the new section anyway. It was a large tunnel like area with a huge fan and some catwalks and it just didn't feel right to me. Which was a shame because later I was planning on making a museum section, a recreation of my house and a secret project that I've unofficially dubbed The Tunneling Entanglement Device.

Maybe Insomnia was trying to telepathically tell me that I just need to stop and wrap this thing up. Either way, the major brush work for the map is done whether I like it or not so that means we're actually all the more closer to finishing it!

See, if I've learned anything from watching My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic this week it's that I've learned how to make the best of a truly terrible situation like this...and that friendship is magic.

So yes, the good news is that Insomnia is actually closer to being done because it is physically impossible to make any more. The bad news is that I'm still going to watch a girly cartoon about ponies when no one is looking.

The Corruption

I have nothing to say about my abusive girlfriend Insomnia because I've had just about enough of looking at her and her staircases for one day. Instead, I want to talk about how I've been sick with a case of the brain fever on this otherwise fine Presidential Weekend.

You see, it all happened last Wednesday night when I started coughing. I dismissed it as an unwelcomed indignity that comes part-in-parcel with my nightly ice cream snack but I kept coughing all throughout the night. On Thursday morning not only was I still coughing but I had developed an oppressiveness on my chest and a dense fogginess of mind. I realized then that I had little time left. I went throughout the day as usual, giving angry speeches in my English class when wholly inappropriate, giving speeches in my Math class (also inappropriate) and giving speeches to my friends because honestly they need some guidance in their lives. All the while I could feel it growing inside me. The Corruption. The tainting of my precious bodily fluids. Throughout the day I could feel myself becoming more "disconnected" with the world around me. I couldn't concentrate and my eyes grew heavy and hot. I felt nauseous and lost all appetite (which really is tragic because my Grandmother made a very nice sandwich Thursday).

By the time the day was over I was dead, slumped over in my chair and totally unable to communicate with my own nerves, let alone the world around me. My mind was swimming through static as I could hear Mark (some dude I know) calling from across the abyss. The whole time, a single word kept running through the rapidly sinking ship of my mind.

Agamemnon...

"I'm going to die." I told Mark over and over. "And you're the executor of my estate!" But I couldn't die, not yet (Insomnia isn't done after all). So somehow I workup the sheer will to stand up and walk when class was over. My head hung limply in front of me as I made my way to the library. I promised one of my misguided friends that I would meet him there to help him plan a videogame he was making or whatever. By that point I couldn't care, I couldn't even understand what was happening. I was running on the last reserves of my strength and before I knew it I was playing a children's card game. He offered to take me home and I politely refused, we parted ways and I was alone in the failing light of the oncoming evening, a ticking time bomb of feverish delusion. I had to make it home, I couldn't collapse in the street. By the time I finally reached my house, I mumbled something I couldn't understand to my Grandmother and collapsed on my bed, not moving for the rest of the night.

Agamemnon lives...

Friday morning, I'm laying in bed with an awful bronchial cough. My head is throbbing, my eyes feel like their going to burst and my brain in swimming without direction, it's ship's wheel long gone. The whole day is spent sheepishly sipping water and laying in bed, I can't even look at the computer screen without waves of nausea washing over me. I don't know if I feel hot or cold but I'm constantly tearing the sheets away, only to pull them back over my head, shivering.

Saturday, I'm totally disabled and barely have enough of an appetite for a cup of yogurt. I can't bring myself to open Hammer and I shun Minecraft, instead I try to glean interesting facts from TVTropes and learn about a really really funny series called Look Around You. I lay in bed mostly and read Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, which doesn't sit too well with me after the dreams I had last night and certainly do not have the patience for Atlas Shrugged.

It was after I watched the "Calcium" episode of Look Around You and decided to go to bed that it started to get weird...

I dreamt that a Mexican drug cartel had kidnapped my sister and it was up to me to rescue her. For reasons I don't remember, the first order of business was getting a steady job and a house. I'm certain I never actually found her or any evidence that the cartel was even real but I do remember lots of car chases through the vibrantly colorful and even psychedelic streets of that nameless Mexican city. Plus, I narrowly avoided getting trapped in an electrified net.

I woke up, drenched in sweat and quite confused. I've had this dream before and even after I'm awake I remember it perfectly (but sadly do not now). I've had dreams like this the last time I had a fever. So I change into fresh evening wear and wait for the next dream.

I'm in the house I grew up in, in the backyard is my old swing set. I'm suddenly in my room, staring at a person who will remain anonymous. Their eyes are red and filled with tears, cardboard boxes full of papers are scattered everywhere in my tiny bedroom. Suddenly, the person pulls out an Uzi and points it at my head. I wake up before they shoot and wipe the cold sweat from my brow.

Today is Sunday, I still feel a little unbalanced when standing but I had some pancakes and a grilled ham sandwich. My vibrancy and dynamic rage have all but restored but still cough loudly and frequently.

In a way, I was looking forward to this. I'm actually a pretty healthy person, I walk to and from school every day and have taken up very light weight lifting but it's been in the back of my mind since the last time it happened: The Fever. It was about three years ago when I last had a fever and, coincidentally, it was the first time I read The King in Yellow (SO cash) and since then, I've wanted to have those same strange, pallid dreams. Those visions of long-extinct sea-life and dead, dry Earth. I've been able to revisit that, and while I would gladly give up the coughing and feeling like I'm-going-to-throw-up-but-won't I wouldn't give up the dreams and out-of-body feeling.

Tomorrow, I will read War of the Worlds as it is my tradition when sick.

Lucid

Oh hello everyone, how are you? Good? I hope so.

Everything is fine here, I've gotten over real-life Insomnia and can sleep again (and in turn have nightmares about giant owls again).

HEY! Take a look at this!



This video (and my large collection of books on M.C. Escher) were probably the most important sources of inspiration for Paranoia and to a smaller extent Insomnia.

I have watched this video over and over again and every time it's always the same: totally bizarre. This never gets any less strange or incredible to me and I love it for that. The problem? This map is no where to be found. There is no mention of it except for this one video.

Now, it's been on my favorites for a while now so I decided that since I'm pretty much INTERNET FAMOUS I would try to send a message to the email address seen at the beginning of the video. In my letter I basically said everything that I said here and how much I would love to play this map even if it is incomplete.

I day later I got a response telling me that the copy of the map was lost on a CD somewhere, never to be found again and that the creator may or may not recreate it. Also, he lost inspiration a long time ago.

What the video again and ask yourself how you could loose inspiration when making that.

It's astounding really, that something so professionally surreal could just be abandoned. I can't help but feel a sense of loss when I realize that no one, especially not me, will get to play this map. I'm taking this as a cautionary tale. So remember everyone, don't throw away any piece of art you make, save it.

Unless said work is really really embarrassing, I let it slide if you throw that out.

Day Two

My Grandmother told me it would be a good idea to write a log of my continuing insomnia, so here it goes:

Last night I went to bed at 10:00 and as far as I could tell I fell asleep around 12:00, after that pathetic attempt I woke up and didn't fall asleep again until 5:30. Seeing as I had so much time to wonder about it I think I have an idea of what's happening here. I just can't turn off my brain. What was my greatest asset is now turning into my greatest enemy. I just sit there running through a mental checklist of mapping stuff, science stuff, alien stuff, just stuff. Not only that, but it's like I have five or six different songs stuck in my head at all times. Last night I think it was "Call on Me", the one that's on YTMND all the time.

But it's more then that, last night in particular my fabulous brain was concerned with a singular problem of the kind of complexity that's best left for day time thinking while I just wanted to go to sleep. The fourth dimension.

Yes, all last night I kept thinking about how a four dimensional Universe would work. Oh, and don't tell me the fourth dimension is Time because that is a big cauldron of WRONG.

I stared up at the ceiling, constantly imagining hypercubes float by even though I didn't want to. So, my nocturnal philosophizing has led me to one conclusion so far. In addition to the three directions we're used to, forward and backward, left and right and up and down, the fourth dimension is some how moving "parallel" to the space you're in, like, being able to move through matter.

See, this isn't helping. I'm not understanding 4-D space any better and it's taking up precious sleeping time.

A Precious Gift Stolen

That's right everyone! Proof it still exists!

Ah yes, I love uploading new videos. What I don't love is the fact that I'm dying. Let me explain, for the past week or so I haven't been sleeping very well. I wake up at weird times in the middle of the night, I have trouble actually falling asleep in the first place no matter what time I actually go to bed and I have a cold now because of it, though, as I'm writing this it seems to be going away BUT STILL!

Last night I went to bed at nine, my throat was sore, my head was in a fuzzy place between awake, asleep and dead and I was exhausted by the various garbage of the week. So I sat there in bed, not doing anything and waiting to fall asleep.

By the time 3:00 AM rolled around I must have passed out from sheer anger, next thing I knew it was 7:30 and I didn't feel any better.

So yes, I have Insomnia, in real life.

I think I'm just not drinking enough Purple Drank before bed.

Photo-Journey

Greet-ings puny life-forms! It is I! DALE! I have re-turned with news from the mapping pro-ject! I was or-dered by the Da-lek Emp-er-or to IN-VEST-I-GATE! the state of things there! I HAVE TAKEN PICTURES TO PROVE IT!!!
This is me after I got off the train, it is an IN-FER-I-OR form of TRANS-PORT-A-TION!
Their doors could not ACC-OMMO-DATE! superior DALEK WIDTH! I EX-TER-MIN-ATED the door to get through!

Here I am with some fellow DALEKS!, see that man sitting next to me? He was EX-TER-MIN-ATED!

EX-TER-MIN-ATE!!!

After WAN-DER-ING! for some time I fell through a hole in the...ceil-ing? Is that what you Earth-men call them?...I FOUND MY-SELF TRAPP-ED IN THIS ROOM!

I-AM-AM-USED BY THE UN-FOURT-UN-ATE EARTH-MAN WHO WAS TRAP-ED IN THIS ROOM! I EX-TER-MIN-ATED HIM!

I-DO-NOT-LIKE-THIS-PLACE!

I stopped to watch TE-LE-VI-SION in this room! But the only show on was some Earth-Wo-man telling me how and when I would die! I left because the TRI-AN-GLE in the back BORED ME!

HATED IT.

HATED IT!

HATED IT!!!

Eventually, a few other DALEKS! and I found a PAR-TY. We EX-TER-MIN-ATED the HU-MAN IN-HAB-IT-ANCES and took their BE-ER. IT WAS A FUN NIGHT!

Weather Most Foul

Today was weird. So weird in fact that I just had to tell you all about it.

As you may or may not know, we've been having a truly spiteful heat wave here in California. It's been in excess of a hundred degrees Fahrenheit every day this past week. It's been so hot that the moment I step outside the house and away from the cold, loving embrace of modern air conditioning it feels like my organs are melting. It's a terrible feeling.

Today in particular stood out as particularly gruesome; This morning it was the same face-burning heat that I had grown accustomed to this week, it didn't seem too out of the ordinary. But the change began this afternoon, A few friends and I noticed some dark, puffy clouds billowing in the distant horizon. Thunder clouds. A foreshadowing of the coming turmoil.

The last class of the day, I was quietly finishing a test when the P.A. system sprung to scratchy irritating life.

"Attention teachers." The crackly noise said. "There is a lock-down, please do not release your students until such and such time because blah blah there's a fire outside."

My fellow students, as sticky and humid as they were, began to mutter darkly amongst themselves about the quick work a fire would do to their delicate flesh-meat. Being the genius I am I asked the teacher the pertinent question: "If there's a fire why are they keeping us all in a very flammable building?" Everyone laughed, including the teacher.

If I may side-track, I think my algebra teacher is silently intimidated by my genius, but that's just me.

So yeah, I exchanged a shrug with my friend across the room after that outburst and for the rest of the class time everyone quietly puzzled just where the fire was supposed to be or if we were in danger. Thankfully, class was over before we were burnt to death and it was time to go home.

Now, I've never been to the tropics but after today I think I have a good idea what it would be like to live there. The blast of hot, misty air was at once invigorating and horrifying. The moment I stepped out of the room I could have sworn I was in a steamy jungle in the Jurassic. Not only that, it was raining. So if ever someone asks me what it would be like to be a tiny person inside a tea cup while someone's pouring boiling water on top of you I will know how to respond.

What's embarrassing is that I was wearing a white shirt today, so the possibility that the rain would make me indecent suddenly became a very real possibility.

I sprinted for the crosswalk, taking cover under every tree I could. After avoiding most of the water I made it to the intersection. Now, you must know that the intersection near my school is dangerous. Everyday. Forever. But today in particular it seemed particularly deadly.

Cars were weaving around each other in every direction and fleeing students were scrambling in between the rain-soaked vehicles in a mad dash at escape. It looked like a disaster, if you saw that intersection today you too would think that society has collapsed.

In a way it did, because just as I was crossing the street, still running, I heard a loud crunch. A small silver car was spinning wildly in the middle of the intersection and a larger green car was slowing to a halt nearby. It was then that I saw the silver car's right side pointed straight at me, dented and crumbled inward.

By that time I had enough, the heat, rain and alleged fire had combined and the stress was too much for these motorists to take, they had gone insane. I could tell, I saw the driver of the green car get out of their vehicle, I looked them in the eye as I crossed them on the sidewalk, they had a look of sheer confusion in their eyes. No one said anything for those few moments after the collision, even the car's engines seemed to silence themselves.

I ran full-bore for the safety of the other side of the street, suddenly I noticed the flashes of lightning in the distance. Yes, there was lighting now.

I waited under a tree, something I instantly realized even while I was doing it was a bad idea, because my Grandmother (or Nana) said she would meet me there to pick me up as I usually walk home. For ten minutes I waited under the relative safety of the tree. There was another young man there and for a while we talked about the crash, the rain and the spider that was slowly lowering itself on a single thread just a yard away from us. Plus the insane weather.

The rain subsided a bit and I decided to make my escape. I marched boldly down the sidewalk, breathing in the hot tropical air in large lungfuls.

Eventually a small red car pulled up next to me. Inside it's foggy windows I could see my Grandfather (or Poppa) motioning for me to get in. We made it home safely, I noticed he wasn't wearing shoes and I noted the urgency of his actions. When we got home my Nana told me there was a small tornado or dust devil in the backyard.

Just so you understand, today started as very very hot, then just as school was over it started to rain, then there was lightning, then a car crash and then tornadoes and fire. All this happened within a space of thirty minutes.

I'm convinced California wants a sacrifice. There's just no other explanation.

Ruination

If you know me you'd know that sometimes I am overwhelmed with such feelings of sadness and desolation that I feel like my organs will give up in the face of the Kafkaesque tragedy laid out before them. What I am talking about is of course the end of summer vacation.

This could very well be my LAST summer vacation and as I am writing this the last few hours are drifting away like dust in the wind.

Honestly guys, I feel like I'm dying.

But then again, who knows. Maybe a small piece of me will survive the heat-death of the one thing still keeping me free and sane, a small, twisted piece; fueled by rage and a hatred for all impure life forms. This piece will go on to create an army and take over the universe. Oh, no. We've all seen that before.

The map isn't helping my abyssal tragedy either. Insomnia is taking three hours to compile. Three. HOURS. So what I've decided to do is make the second half into it's very own map: Hypnophobia. It's catchy, no?

The Skull

A while ago I wrote this little dandy of a story and posted it on the Happy Chair Clan's announcements. Now, any of you who knows about the Clan, and by any I mean my only two readers: IDontKnow and possibly Mother, you know that the announcements section is probably the zenith of my literary skills, plus it's a place for me to argue with Ou812. I drop all pretenses and unleash the full force of my sesquipedalian loquaciousness when addressing the good people of the Happy Chair Clan. But most of the times something gets lost in translation and I don't sound so much intellectual and more power mad. Whatever. So I posted this short short story a while ago to test the waters. Thankfully it was received well and no one called me a pretentious hack, yet.

The Skull

It is well known among the Manor's staff that Master Watersworth was very eccentric later in life. The old man was not one for proper social gatherings or conventional old people hobbies. Instead, he kept himself busy in his later years with a series of increasingly strange projects, the purpose for any of which was never revealed to us. Naturally, we simply ceased to ask whenever there was a fire in the library or dirty laundry floating in the fountain. We had accepted his habits as the product of his advanced age. He was a strange old man but his antics rarely did anyone harm. All except one.
It was a typical day when he went decidedly "off his rocker" despite the fact that he quite disliked rocking chairs. As one of the gardeners tending to the many shrubberies around the Manor I was not host to Master Watersworth's infamous moods in the morning. Yet, everyday after breakfast, I would see him wandering around the garden near the South Wing muttering to himself. I paid it no mind, per usual, and focused myself with hedges. But it became increasingly difficult to focus on my work when I noticed Master Watersworth yelling quite frantically.
I looked up from the bushes to see why he insisted on making a spectacle of himself, instead I saw him running at me at full speed. It was an incredible sight, he was so old one could not think him possible of running so fast; and yet, he jumped clear over the hedge and landed on my person.
"What is the meaning of this!?" I inquired.
"Paper! Paper!" He gasped as he shook me with his bony hands.
"I don't make a habit of carrying paper when working, Sir." I tried to remain polite despite his earnest efforts to shake me senseless.
"Paper! I need paper!" His wispy beard was in my face and I began to panic. I pushed him off of me to escape, not hard enough to injure the old man but simply to remove his beard from my personal bubble. He looked at me with those crazed bespectacled eyes, I thought he was going to attack me again. Instead he ran back to the manor, still screaming the whole way.
I was able to complete my work with the hedges and after I was convinced they were flat and level I headed back to the manor to see what had become of the old man. Everyone was congregated around the parlor, muttering lowly. I had managed to push my way through to the front of the gathering crowd to see the craven sight for my own eyes.
Master Watersworth had died while smashing all the furniture in the parlor to pieces. Several maids who had been accosted by the man in his last moments cowered silently in the corner of the room. It was all quite horrible to see him sprawled across the carpet, still clutching a large leather bound volume in his claw-like fingers.
Mr. Brandon, his most trusted butler, walked over to the corpse slowly.
"Send the women away, they mustn't see this." He said, never taking his eyes off from the old man. After making sure he was well and truly dead Mr. Brandon snatched the book away from his ancient fingers. Suffice to say, it was a rather strange way to start the day.
For nearly a month after I had thought nothing of Master Watersworth's mysterious and sudden death. Indeed, I had fancied that the old man's senility had infected his vital organs in a manner similar to rabies. I thought this notion logical and forgot the whole rest of the ordeal. Yet, many others in the Manor felt quite differently about his death and thus a melancholy mood hung over the grounds thereafter.
It was not until the Master's legal heir to his estate, Herbert Watersworth, had arrived for the reading of the old man's will did the oppressive mood leave the Manor and memories of his fatal outburst came back to my attention. Herbert Watersworth was the Master's nephew born to his brother, Sir James Watersworth and through a strange combination of deaths in the family and vauge wording on several legal documents did Herbert Watersworth become the sole heir to all of the old man's worldy possessions.
I still remember the day the young Watersworth had come to the manor for I was ridding the lawn on the East side of gophers by throwing sticks of dynamite down their holes. He came in a carriage down the cobblestone path from the North Gate. From where I was standing at the time I could clearly see the disgruntled expression he wore on his face. No doubt, spending one's time at the estate, as dusty and bat-be-ridden as it was, was no way to spend one's weekend.
As I was told, he spent the rest of the morning in the very parlor Master Watersworth had died in, going over the preceding with a group of lawyers. Allegedly, there was one, very strange, condition that had to be met in order for Herbert to inherent the estate. I learned later that day what the condition was as my presence was required in the dining room where it would be met. The young Watersworth was there as well as the lawyers and a strange man wearing the skull of a cow as a mask and a long flowing robe.
Master Watersworth's remains were laid out on the table, with no tablecloth I noticed. It was an altogether gruesome sight.
"Why do I have to be here?" I asked, or maybe whined because I was silenced right away by one of the lawyers.
"Yes, what is the meaning of this? None of you have told me why you have my uncle's bones on the table, with no tablecloth nonetheless!" The young Watersworth said.
"It was in his will, he said that until this ritual is completed, with the heir of the estate as a witness, then no one will get anything." said one of the lawyers.
"Ritual? What ritual?" said the young Watersworth.
As he said that, the man with the cow skull raised his arms, chanted something in an unpleasant guttural language and started dancing around the room.
"This man is an expert." One of the lawyers assured us. "He comes from darkest Africa, from the very fringe of the Empire where Master Watersworth would go on safari earlier in life."
"Yes, I remember Uncle talking about how he would shoot ten to twenty giant lizards a day." the Young Watersworth said.
The strange be-robed man continued to dance around the room, he jumped onto the table and began convulsing all the while talking in that awful sounding language. Suddenly, Master Watersworth's remains began moving in a similar manner.
"My God! The old man is haunted!" yelled one of the lawyers.
With that, the old man's skull ripped from his ancient face and twisted from his body with a sickening pop. The skull then started to fly around the room.
"Great Scott!" I said. Again, I wasn't sure what my purpose there was.
"Silence!" The skull said as it floated just above the chandelier. "I have come back from beyond the grave to give a dire warning!"
"Uncle!? Is that you?" The young Watersworth said.
"It is I, you must all leave this place and never return!"
"But why?" said one of the lawyers.
"Silence!" said the skull and suddenly a huge gout of flame came from the skull's empty mouth and conflagarated the lawyer who was instantly burnt to ashes.
"Good heavens!" said another lawyer.
"Silence!" Again, more fire and another lawyer was killed. I noticed the room was also burning but I politely refused to speak about it because I did not want to face the skull's wraith.
"You must all leave this place and never return! You will face my eternal undead wraith if you do not obey!" said the skull.
"But what about your estate?" Said the young Watersworth.
"I no longer need Watersworth Manor, I have broken my mortal coil and live on in the form you see me in now." To prove his position the skull summoned a swarm of angry bees from it's hollow eye sockets which began to vigorously sting the man with the cow skull who was inconspicuously standing in the corner of the room. The bees swarmed and his entire body was covered in the buzzing beasts. In a moment, the buzzing had become intolerably loud and even managed to drown out the sound of the man's screaming as the bees bit and tore into him. Suddenly, the bees left his person and only a blanched white skeleton remained.
"Now leave!" said the skull as we tried to escape the now very much on fire dining room. I wasted no time at all jumping out the window as did the young Watersworth. The lawyers however, still faced the skull's wraith as streams of burning acid ejected from it's eye sockets and onto the faces of the lawyers.
Me and Herbert Watersworth stood in the garden for some time, watching the Manor burn to the ground. Every so often a maid would come running out, their petty coats on fire.
"Now what?" I asked him. Herbert still watched the Manor, deep in thought.
"I suppose." He finally answered."I shall build a new Manor, one without crazy uncles. I still inherited the family's large tracks of land in China, maybe I shall open a trade route there. Why, it could revolutionize the opium industry! I could live in comfort for the rest of my life."
As he said this, the roof of the Manor exploded violently as a single burning point shot straight into the sky like a steam engine. It let out a terrible cry as it disappeared into the clouds.
"What was that?" I asked.
"It was probably Uncle, most likely he'll be able to live out his dream now." said Herbert.
"What dream is that?" I asked.
"He always wanted to become a flying death-skull so he could go into space and fight the Martians. Silly me, I forgot that was his intentions all along."

Cube

You know, it's not all surrealism here in Grimgrvy Land, sometimes we do other things. For example, a couple days ago me and some friends decided to try out the Cube gamemode for Garry's Mod. Now, if you know me, and I'm sure my two or three readers certainly do not, I think the movie Cube was the most perfect ontological mystery distilled to film form and the fact that very skilled Lua programmers and mappers enjoy it to is even better.

Anywho, me and Idontknow wanted to play something because I was tired of fooling around with SDK and he was bored with I don't care what he was doing. We both downloaded the gamemode and after a lot of trial and error a server was made.

As I joined and downloaded all his useless text files from the server I was gloating to myself because, since I've seen the movie twice, I was obviously going to be far superior at getting out of the Cube. Plus, I can factor prime powers so that's good too.

We tried to stay together in a little group and take turns testing rooms to see if they were trapped. However, the rooms would constantly shift and we would be separated, often without any way to test a room for traps. Both of us died, a lot.

The moment I remember most fondly is when I fell into a trap, it wasn't like the other traps. You see, all the doors in the room lock and a gun falls from the ceiling.

You're expected to shoot yourself.

Being the prideful genius that I am I decided to simply not pick up the gun. So I sat in the corner of the room for five minutes just staring at it. By strange coincidence Idontknow somehow glitched into the room when some other rooms shifted and as he fell from the ceiling and landed right on top the of the gun. I laughed at him, from the chat, and demanded that he shoot himself. We argued, names were thrown around but he wouldn't budge. His only option was to shoot himself but he just wouldn't do it. So we stayed in that room for about two minutes before he finally shot himself. Apparently, it's because he couldn't stand looking at me anymore. 'Whatever' I thought, 'The doors will open any second now'.

They didn't.

So I sat in that room until the round ended.

WON HUN-DREAD SUBSKRIBERS

That's right ladies, one hundred.

Was I anticipating this day? Just a bit, not really though. I never thought of myself as someone who would get one hundred. As for my movies, they certainly don't seem like the kind that deserve one hundred subscribers either. Well, like it or not I'm a very successful person now and you should treat me like one.

Here's the video to prove it:


There seems to be a wee discrepancy though. As I've already said, Youtube is a lying, no-good, rotten website full of crooks that don't care if all their garbage is broken. So on the channel it actually says I have 99 subscribers. The only way to see the hundred is to go to the last page of the list of subscribers. This infuriates me to no end. Honestly, their incompetence makes me so angry I want to throw my desk out the window and beat someone silly with a tire iron.

I just hate Youtube so much it makes me sick.

I am Extremely Upset!

This is what happens when cooperate idiots decide that doing the exact opposite of what the people using their product want is a good idea! These new channel layouts for Youtube are ugly. Not only that, but Youtube is being intolerably stupid in insisting on using these "new" clunky, obtuse, and hard-to-use-in-any-and-all circumstances God-Forsaken trash of jumbled stubbornness. The word "Stubborn" really is the only way to describe people who, after recieving what I can only imagine to be thousands of emails from very angry people who are not only unhappy with the proposed change in layout but are activly revulsed by it decide to go ahead and change everyone's channel to this absurd and absolutely unneccisary change. At least give us options!