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Article posted on May 24
No Title
- Posted by Ryan Finnie on May 24, 2006, 4:07 pm
Growing up in Green Bay, there was a local punk rock band called Boris The Sprinkler. Everybody in the area knew of the band (their concerts were popular), but they never really made it big outside of Green Bay. I had both (at the time) of their albums, but I lost one of them (Saucer to Saturn). In that album, there is one song that I knew the lyrics for perfectly, and would drift in and out of my head for the next decade.
Well, the CD is out of print, but I found a new copy on amazon's third-party selling thing, so I thought I'd share that track with the world: Boris The Sprinkler - Screamin' Demon Martians Ridin' Go-Karts in My Head.mp3 (3.2MB)
(Regarding my act of piracy... The CD is out of print, the band is broken up, I believe the publisher is out of business, and I actually emailed the lead singer back in 1995, and during our conversations he gave me permission to put lyrics and select songs in this new "empeethree" format on my interwebsite. I have no copies of these emails anymore, but seriously, true story.)
(P.S., the CD arrived next-day, which is absolute proof that amazon didn't ship it directly.)
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Article posted on May 18
No Title
- Posted by Ryan Finnie on May 18, 2006, 11:59 am
Last night's dream was directed by Jerry Bruckheimer. I remember shotgun fighting, an elevator fighting scene, a scene with a nuclear bomb on a train that closely mirrored the climax of Broken Arrow, and a pool at a vegas resort with topless women.
rottentomatoes.com gave my dream an 88%
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Article posted on May 12
No Title
- Posted by Ryan Finnie on May 12, 2006, 12:05 am
I just finished SiN Episodes: Emergence, and I liked it. Back in the day (1998?), I got the original SiN, and while I didn't really like the single-player game (it was campy, a lot of the dialog made me cringe), LAN play was excellent, and everybody in the office at the ISP I worked at would play it together.
Emergence is based on the Half-Life 2 engine, and while HL2 focused on models that were as realistic as possible, Emergence still has a bit of a cartoonish feel, which is perfectly OK. Combat was downright HARD at times (it includes adaptive difficulty, which means, for instance, if you start to get really good at headshots, enemies start coming out with kevlar helmets). All of the textures and items are completely original; the only leftover from HL2 I could find was the sound effect that happens when a grenade explodes near you, and you go temporarily deaf and get disoriented. My favorite new feature is riding in the car, where you can switch from front seat to back seats, lean out the windows and fire, open the sunroof and stand up, etc.
You can also shoot through some walls (which is realistic in the sense that a machine gun will easily cut through a wooden or aluminum wall, for example). However, a lot of people seem to consider this a bug, since the developers had to state that it was actually a feature. Still, many people don't like it, since the AI is good enough that if it thinks you are camping out behind a wall, the enemies will actually try to shoot you there. I say hey, you can do it too. I even used it to my advantage a couple of times (most notably, there is an office section where I was shooting through cubicle walls at times).
I finished in about 6 hours, which ALMOST justifies the $18 price tag ($20 if you buy it today). It probably would have been perfect at $15, but I still consider it entertaining.
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Article posted on May 9
NO EMADS - The Album
- Posted by Ryan Finnie on May 9, 2006, 12:28 am
Some of my better work... Original Emad pic here.
(You have to know the "NO EMADS"/"NSFE" meme already to get it.)
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Article posted on May 7
Bay Bridge, from Alcatraz
- Posted by Ryan Finnie on May 7, 2006, 9:48 pm
I have not yet organized the 150 photos from my trip to Alcatraz, but this one stood out as "artsy".
(I had to pay the seagull $5 to get him to pose like that.)
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Article posted on May 4
... wherein fo0bar does something physical
- Posted by Ryan Finnie on May 4, 2006, 12:58 am
This year the company organized a softball team for the city co-ed league, and I signed up. It's rather neat. We got uniforms and caps (probably the best cap I've ever owned). I'm number 21, with the nickname Raver Lunchbox given to me (long story, it's what one of my computers was named). Practices are fun, but I'm always left sore afterwards (along with most of the team).
Games are played every Wednesday evening. Today should have been our 5th game, but instead was the 3rd due to wet fields on 2 of the weeks. The first game we were absolutely destroyed. 2-28 after 3 innings (the game ends after the bottom of the inning after 70 minutes have passed), IIRC. The second game we also lost 12-23 after 3 innings, which was rather heartbreaking. We were "home" (batting at the bottom of the inning), and were winning at the end of each of the first 2 innings (12-9 IIRC). Then our pitcher was rotated, and the new guy just could not get strikes, and started walking one batter after another. They got 14 runs before we were permitted to bring in the original pitcher (substitutions are normally not allowed mid-inning). We all felt bad about it, especially him.
This game was much better though, we won 15-7 after 4 innings. I was batting last (12th), but we managed to get the entire lineup through in the first inning. I got 2 bases off a line drive and a RBI from the person previously on second, then I eventually made it through for a run. I played 2 innings at third, where I got a forced 3rd out (that could easily have been a double play if there was only 1 out).
The rules are quite weird, on top of the existing modifications for co-ed softball. "Standard" rules are 5 men and 5 women in the field (the 10th person is a "rover" in slow-pitch softball), pitcher and catcher must be opposite sex, batting order must switch off between sexes, etc. In this league, it's taken even further. If a female batter is walked, she takes a base like normal, but if a male player is walked, he gets 2 bases (the idea is to discourage walking a man to get an "easy out" with a woman). If there are 2 outs, first base is open, and a woman is up to bat, she can choose to just walk rather than bat. If an error is committed in play, players can advance a maximum of one base, unless a woman has no other players between her and home, at which point she can continue as far as she can. (This means an overshot throw to first or third is essentially a free run to an advancing woman.) Etc. While I'm not saying these rules are completely unnecessary (I imagine the game would be a lot male-oriented without them), it just seems ridiculous at times, especially since we have some rather good female players on our team. IE, if we were to have bases loaded and a woman is up to bat, I don't "oh god, she's going to strike out" or anything.
Still, quite fun.
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