Ravings of a Madman

One of those days

2011-01-04T16:59:00.001-08:00

One must love those days when one wakes up to wonderful information.

For the last few days, I have been trying to get back into a schedule of sorts. Going to bed at a reasonable time and getting up early, that sort of thing.

As part of this effort, I sketched out a written schedule that included keeping up with the so called "enthusiast gaming press" like I used to back in the day. This generally includes going to sites such as Destructoid, Kotaku, Evil Avatar, Joystiq etc. It was in perusing these sites that I came across the post that made me so verry happy today.

For you to somewhat understand my joy, perhaps a bit of background would be helpful. Back in the day, which for this instance would be about 4 years ago, I was really into podcasts. My first favorites were Scott Johnson's ELR and the Sceptics Guide to the Universe. But from those two I branched out mainly into the video game podcasts. One of these that, for whatever reason caught my eye, was Destructoid's original podcast "Podtoid".

I don't know whether it was the right time in my life for silly dick jokes, or my general cynical outlook on life, but podtoid filled an empty void in my week with dick jokes galore. I think the first episode that I listened to was around 45, but I continued to listen to them weekly up until early last year when they kinda just died.

Anthony Burch, the last host of the podcast was moving from Destructoid's editor in chief to go off to Gearbox Software, a dream job for him. Months before, Aaron Lindie had picked up a job at Microsoft Game Studios, and didn't have much time for the podcast either, and Brad Nicholson, the man who was to replace Anthony as host, left Destructoid to be the news guy on Giant Bomb.

So, me being the change hater that I was, I went into a bit of a slump and stopped reading about games or really the gaming industry at all. This lasted for the rest of the year. That is until a few days ago... that is, until today.

It turns out, Brad Nicholson IS hosting a podcast. A podcast that has many of the same people that Podtoid had. A podcast that could very well BE podtoid if they wanted to call it that. "The Electric Hydra". Brad Nicholson, Topher Cantler, Jim Sterling, and Aaron Lindie are on the main cast, as well as one or two others. Sometimes even Anthony Burch, and Samit "SPORTS" Sarkar stop in for a few episodes. The entire cast of the old podcast has at one time or another been on the The Electric Hydra.

I don't quite know how to describe it. It's like coming home from a long overseas trip to old friends. I have been listening to the old episodes of podtoid, stopping by the site every now and then to see if there was a new episode up, but forever being disappointed. All the while, they had started anew on a different site with a different name. Now I am kinda kicking myself for not at least keeping up with the industry enough to hear about The Electric Hydra when it first started.

Ah well, I have it now, and frankly I couldn't be happier.

Manly Names And Brad's Biceps

2010-11-16T19:16:00.000-08:00

On my forays across the vast internets, I have ran across a lot of cool websites. One of my favorite types of geeky websites are "name generator" sites. Whether you need a quick fantasy villain name for table top games, or looking for reggae names for a friends new pet; there is always a website out there for you, waiting to generate random, and often funny names.

I was perusing the internet, as I am wont to do, and came across an article about WWI's infamous "Red Barron". The pilot's real name is Manfred von Richtofen, which may just be the most manly name in the world.

...Even though his hair kinda makes him look like a penis...

Wait. Does that make him more manly?

...That is untill I came across a "Max Fightmaster" in an article on manly names from Cracked.com. Max is, or at least was in 2003, in the armed forces. Infact he holds a rank of Staff Seargent. Thats right, his full title would be Staff Sgt. Max Fightmaster. Holy. Shit.

All these manly names reminded me of an old Podtoid(one of Destructoid.com's now defunct podcasts) joke about one Brad Nicholson.

This literal HULK of a nerd.

Basically, they decided that the name "Brad Nicholson" was not manly enough for Brad up there, so they came up with the nickname "Chet". They then joked about about other manly names: Frag Thickfeet, Snake Kickhead, Butch Rockfist, etc. Well, turns out there is a website that generates these names. Much laughs were had with the Manly Name Generator. I have a sneaking suspicion that Staff Sgt. Max Fightmaster's parents might just run the damn thing...

The Clothesless Connection

2010-07-12T11:52:00.000-07:00

For a long time I have asked myself, why do I like games?

Is it graphics?

No, I still love to play old NES games more than many newer titles.

Is it gameplay?

No, there are incredibly simple games that have pretty much no gameplay to speak of that I like as well.

Is it story?

No again, many of my favorite games of the past have little to no story.

So what is it?

I thought about it for a while and came to the conclusion that the best way to find out is to list my top 3 favorite games, and see what they all had in common.

1. World of Warcraft
2. Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
3.The Sims 3

Then it came to me. In all three games, you can take your clothes off and run around naked.

In oblivion and the Sims, you can even take other people's clothes off (granted, you have to be looting their corpse in oblivion, so it's not as fun.). Some might say that this is rather contemptible, but hey, I'm a rather contemptible guy. There is something liberating about not wearing clothes that you can feel even when in a video game.

Now lets take a closer look at what makes each of these games a gem when it comes to clotheslessness.

1. World of Warcraft.

While you are still wearing underwear when you have all your armor removed (unless you have the nudity mod installed, you dirty, dirty boy) it is still fun to gauge the people around you's reaction. Especially if you try to have a meaningful conversation with them. Also fun, is to start stripping while having said conversations. This also serves as a great way to troll people in instances. Usually one of two things will happen. Everyone will either bitch at you about not having any armor or stat buffs, or for some inexplicable reason, everyone else will take off their armor too. The latter makes me believe that there are a lot of closet nudists out there in WoW, just waiting for a friend that understands their needs.

2. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

Now beyond a few quests and some interesting glitches that I have seen, the majority of the people in Oblivion wear clothes. This always changes once I kill them. Now you may be thinking that there is something horribly wrong with me (and you are probably right) but hear me out. Blacksmithing. That's right. In oblivion you benefit from stripping all the clothes off of your victims bodies and repairing them for them. And believe me, to fully level blacksmithing, you will have to strip A LOT of people.

3. The Sims

Or as I like to call it, the multi-party sex simulator. Okay, so out of the other games, this may just be the most family friendly, and to fully get the most out of it, you have to do some rather extensive modding and searching on some rather... questionable corners of the web. But trust me. Its worth it. I have seen more deprived acts preformed by my Sims than I have ever seen in all of the porn I have ever watched. Fellatio chairs, sex showers, censor removers, the orgy bed. The list just goes on and on. But I think the best thing is that, now, whenever I see the EA/Maxis logo, I get a hard-on.

Oh yea, that's the stuff.

Now, there are other reasons that I like those games. The leveling, the customization, the open world feel, the modding communities, etc. But first thing that came to my mind, was the quasi nudity they all share.

So my conclusion is:

I like games because they give me a boner.

-EQ out-

CONGRATS REBECCA AND SID!!!!

2009-07-16T09:42:00.000-07:00

Those of you who keep up on The Amazing Meeting (TAM) have probably already heard the news that Rebecca Watson (from The Skeptics Guide To The Universe) and Sid Rodriguez (from London Sceptics In The Park) were married on stage in front of the SGU panel audience. The rings were presented by Adam Savage (of MythBusters fame) and George Hrab (from the Geologic podcast) was on guitar for the music. The serimony was preformed by Julia A Kovacs, who had just recently (for this event do doubt) obtained her licence to preform marrages. Below is the video. I teared up a bit, I'll admit.

CONGRADULATIONS YOU TWO!!!

Angry Video Game Nerd

2009-04-12T12:00:00.001-07:00

This is the first of the humor parts of my blog. "The Angry Video Game Nerd", perviously known as "The Angry Nintendo Nerd" is a character portrayed by James Rolfe. He has a very, well, vehement commentary on old games that were sub-par or just plain bad. His most recent video tackles the famous (or infamous) Metal Gear games for the Nintendo.

One word of advice, if you are offended by strong language, this video is not for you. I find it to be part of his charm.

YouTube

2009-04-12T11:45:00.001-07:00

I am really starting to consider becoming a video blogger on YouTube. The problem is, I need a few things. A mic, camera, and video editing software. Looks like I will have to shell out some cash.

The title of the blog was going to be "Life in Utah" A play off of one of my all time favorite blogs "Life in Tokyo". But it turns out it is already taken, albeit with no actual video, and crappy sound. I still think that the subject matter of my blog will be the funky life in Utah, but it looks like I will have to find a new name. Suggestions?

New subject matter

2009-04-12T11:40:00.001-07:00

Man, I haven't posted here in a while. If you look down the list of my past blogs, this becomes a recurring theme. But now... now I have a small app on my iGoogle home page that will always remind me to update, even if I do not have many (if any) readers.

Mainly where I am now looking to go with this page is a daily posting of funny things I find, with the "Ravings of a Madman" interspersed without. This, I think will give me a good place to share my findings with my friends, and still let me rant.

A long time coming.

2009-01-03T05:35:00.000-08:00

It has almost been a year since my last update. Many things have changed, some for better, some for worse. I have lost a few friends, gained a few new ones, lost a job, gained a job, and much more. I don't want to go into it here. However, I promice I will begin updating once again regularly. Hhahaha, I say once again like I was ever updating regularly before.

The world would be better without it.

2008-01-19T17:25:00.001-08:00

4chan. I used to go there, browse around a bit, and laugh at some of the memes, but no matter where you go in 4chan, you will eventually run into disturbing shit. I can't tell you how many times I clicked on a link (yea I know, I should know better, I wasn't born yesterday) and something DEFINITELY unrelated, and 99% of the time disgusting, pops up. I have seen scat, lolicon, bestiality, dickgirls and more, and I'm tired of it. I was thinking earlier about how to avoid these traps, and it came to me. Just don't go to 4chan. That simple. So, here I am to say, I am done with 4chan, the world would be a better place without it.

Now, on a lighter note, and one that is NOT disgusting, here is a funny TF2 vid.

Things that piss people off make me happy!

2008-01-19T14:39:00.001-08:00

Here are two Team Fortress 2 griefing videos. Does it make me a bad person when I laugh my ass off at these?

Tis the season

2008-01-19T09:12:00.000-08:00

It's January bitches! You know what that means? Winter-een-mas is near! For those of you who have never heard of the beautiful holiday, I'll break down the basics for ya. Winter-een-mas is a celebration of video games. It was created by writer and artist Tim Buckley of Ctrl+Alt+Del fame. Basically, it was initially a storyline in his comic, where the main character Ethan created the holiday to pass the time when the heat in his apartment went out. The holiday caught on with the fans of CAD and now is celebrated by many every year. The actual holiday is always the last week of January, and each day has a specific genre. Go check the main site, or the wiki (whitch is not fully established yet) for more information and Happy Winter-een-mas to all, and to all a good game!

EDIT:

It's Been Far Too Long

2008-01-04T11:49:00.000-08:00

It has been too long since I have been here. I'll give you an update of how things are going in my life right now.

Currently I am unemployed. Yea, it sucks but for arduous reasons I was forced to leave my job last year in December. I have been looking for a new job, but I would like to find one that is around my home. I was driving 40 miles round trip to my last job and it nearly tore my poor car apart.... actually it did tear my car apart.

Being unemployed leaves me with a lot of time on my hands that I am not used to having. For the first few weeks, I basically confined myself to my bedroom and sat on my ass. This is all well and good, but after you do that for two weeks strait, you realize the strain you put on your body. I was already out of shape, and that two weeks of not doing anything but sitting on my ass started to make ordinary tasks like getting up to go to the bathroom and getting food a laborious prospect.

The thing that finally pushed me over the edge and made me realize that I had to start thinking about my health was the fact that my ankles had began to swell. Not just a little bit, but a huge amount. Turns out, this is because of when I did manage to work up the strength to get up out of my cozy chair, I would go eat ramen noodles (my one weakness when it comes to food) or some other salty processed food. It turns out that when you consume copious amounts of salt, your ankles, legs and feet begin to swell.

Needless to say, when I looked down in the shower and saw what some refer to as "cankles" (as in calf and ankle combined) developing, I was jolted back to the real world from my period of near total dormancy. This was about a week ago. Thank goodness the swelling is starting to go down,(I have changed my diet) and I am exercising 4 times a day for about 15 minutes each time so that I can get into shape. Not only to the point that I was when I left my past job, but finally get FIT!

Well, thats whats going on in my personal life right now. Admitidly I am not trying as hard as I should be to get a job, but I think that a little off time would be a great chance to get in the habit of exercising. Expect a lot of other posts today, detailing what I have been interested in lately.

2007-07-23T20:08:00.000-07:00

Alright, I now have a blog. Basically I have created this blog to detail what I am doing to get to my goal of living and working in Japan. Eventually, I hope to have a large readership of like minded people. I have been interested in Japan for a long time now. Probably since I was about fourteen. I admit that my interest started with anime, but since it has expanded to a general interest in the culture. So yea, I created this blog as almost a self motivation to get my ass over there.

Just so everyone knowes, I am breaking one of the most paramount laws of posting anything on the interwebz.... I am drunk.

That being said, here is a sweet little blog entry that I ran across. While you are there, check out the rest of his blog... Funny Shit. Well, goodbye for now, its time to amuse myself with misc. shit.

~EQ out