My shirt-to-jeans ratio is very disproportionate.

I got my invite for Google Wave today. If you also wave and want to.. uh.. do whatever it is you'd use wave for, let me know!


edit:
Also I'm stealing Shae's invites and I have around 10 left, let me know what email to send it to if you want one.

So I recently figured out how to make an iTunes Store account without requiring a credit card. This is good for two reasons, mainly because I don't have a credit card and don't plan on getting one until I have to make some large purchases which can't be dealt with by using the debit card, and the reason being that I might actually be tempted to buy something from the damn iTunes store - and that'd be absolutely foolish of me, what with the DRM and AAC filetypes and all.

So in case anyone's curious, you have to make an entirely new account, and select a free app from the US App Store, it then asks you for contact info, just fill in a bunch of crap. I looked up the address to one of Microsoft's offices and used that. Then you select the payment option of "None" and you're good to go.

So you may be asking why bother? Having iTunes enabled with the store enables you to download any free singles/apps they have on there, along with the more important things: automatic album art downloading and track information acquisition, as well as the "Genius" functionality.

There are also other features I haven't looked at before, or perhaps just weren't in whatever the last version of iTunes was I played with. So I'll look at iTunes DJ, and then I'll follow it up by laughing at the memory footprint of iTunes... as well as the footprint of Win7's Paint. (!)


The Mini Player seems to have been slightly remodeled, with less rounded edges, and a "supermini" version that doesn't show track information:



( The rest is cut for the unfortunate few who don't run at 1680x945 or higher and would murder me in my sleep for posting several 1000x600 images in one post. )

So strangely enough, even though it's a huge program both in terms of screen real-estate and memory, I'm finding myself using it as my primary media player, especially as I'm still in the process of getting some albums I lost when my desktop crashed (such as Skinny Puppy and Rush). Having iTunes auto-add album art is great, and I'm a sucker for the new visualizer when I'm not on the computer. I'm hopeless.

Awesome promo for Google Chrome's new-ish theme feature:
http://www.youtube.com/googlechromethemes

Watch out for the surprise ending.


This is pretty nifty too:


Now that Chrome has support for extensions I find myself loading it up instead of Firefox.

Nine Inch Nails' album "Pretty Hate Machine" turns 20 today!
And it's still amazing.

Sorry, deleted the earlier post, this was still ongoing and I was planning on reposting it later, as I'm doing now. Didn't know deleted posts still show on the friends page for a bit.

( A text message chat log, as received by my phone. )

And that went on like that for another hour or so.
The "congratulations" I'm talking about in the first post I actually wound up receiving 13 times, between 6pm and 3am.

I still can't find my camera's battery charger, so you get bad cameraphone pics instead.
Here's some slightly better pictures of the ring made out of as-of-yet-undetermined metal:





The "new" car to replace the Hyundai Accent which died (timing belt broke on it, took out the engine). It's an 05 Pontiac Wave:

Here's the necklace I "made" the other day like I was talking about. There wasn't really any making involved though.. just swapping.

I took a necklace I already had which had a cross pendant on it and took that off (I know that sounds horribly blasphemous, sorry) and then I took a ring which my parents bought me in Mexico and put the good chain through that ring.
The ring's spiffy, it's (apparently) made of some sort of really hard metal (okay I know all metals are hard, bear with me). I think Mom said it was magnesium but I'm not sure if I trust her accuracy in remembering the right metal, especially seeing as magnesium is the least dense metal.

Anyway here's some pics my cousin took of it:





The second one is supposed to show off the design cut into the side but it's dark and out of focus. Maybe I'll try to take a pic of it tomorrow.

I know it's not as geeky as if I had a One Ring to put on the chain, but it works for now. I also like wearing things where the pendants don't give people preconceived notions of who you are or what you're like, which is why I don't get an ankh pendant. Some people around here would probably think that means I'm some kinda pagan religion or something crazy.

And we're live!

Asmodian - Marchutan server.

See you in the Abyss!

So I had a mostly uneventful weekend, I went on the island to visit Ricky as he had some people over. Soupie and Ang showed up who I haven't seen in a year or more. Watched some people play Advanced Simon Says (aka Guitar Hero) on easy and felt bad because I had to put it on Expert to make it challenging for myself, while everyone else started at me as if I was insane for even contemplating it.

Then they all played Warcraft.
And speaking of mmos...

Hope you liked that clever transition there. Aion's open beta was this week. I was again trying to find a deal-breaker in the game and was unable to - instead I found more things to get excited about. Had some excellent duels, and read about the stigma skill system (sort of a cross between GW's skill system with WoW's talent trees) which starts at level 20, along with the ability to enter rifts into the opposing half of Atreia to kill some fail angel wannabes.

I was also impressed with the release of a 600 meg patch addressing a plethora of bugs and annoyances, along with the extension of playtime due to lag issues near the start. For what it's worth I didn't get any lag, but I only got around to playing on Monday or Tuesday, and for only two days total. When I stopped, I was a "bubble" away from level 19, out of 50.

The only real gripe I've had with the game so far is that the "elite" mobs take a fair amount of time to kill - 20 to 30 seconds in a 6-man party - however, our party composition was probably not ideal,and I'm willing to give people the benefit of the doubt where the game's still new - they may not have known how to play their classes properly yet.

--

In other news, I found the USB adapter for my DS's flash card. Some amazing games have been released/are being released soon:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scribblenauts <- One of the best games of E3 09!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professor_Layton_and_the_Diabolical_Box <- The sequel to the amazingly fun (and rather difficult) puzzle game.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario_%26_Luigi:_Bowser%27s_Inside_Story <- It's Mario, ffs!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_Hearts_358/2_Days <- Likewise, it's Kingdom Hearts! On the DS! I've heard a ton of great things about that series but never actually had a chance to play through it before.

The DS stuff should keep me occupied until Aion goes live on the 22nd, anyway. Then I'll probably forget about it again for another half a year.

So I've been wanting to go off on a rant of sorts recently, as I had a few things I wanted to bitch about. Of course, I always have things I want to bitch about. But damned if listening to Sigur Rós's untitled album ( ) isn't completely counteractive to ranting.

Nevertheless, I can just do it without the pissed off vibe. Mostly.
So then, the problem?

Auto-tune is ruining music.
Anything can be made into a song! Just listen:



This shit is EVERYWHERE lately. Obviously it's in songs, but actual tv commercials as well - hell even the slap chop company took the slap chop remix rap and made a real commercial out of it. It's even making it's way to the news! (Megan you should watch that link, I have a feeling you'll find it hilarious).

Seriously though, it's like synth was in the 80s. In a few years time we're going to listen to the popular songs that were out now and say "What the hell were we thinking?" Now obviously not all songs are entirely auto-tuned, but the program also helps out terrible singers. Why do people need to have talent to sing when you can just digitally tune your voice in key on the off-notes? It's completely ridiculous. And people wonder why I don't like mainstream music? I happen to not enjoy being taken advantage of by record labels and talentless scrubs. Your mileage may vary.


And that's about it, really. See I was all wound up and wanted to tear into a multitude of subjects earlier, but.. Sigur Rós and all. Too peaceful.

Today, NCsoft, the world's premier publisher and developer of MMOs, confirmed that Aion has been released to manufacturing. Aion is the highly anticipated game that has already taken Asia by storm and has quickly become one of the world's largest MMO franchises ahead of its release in North America on September 22nd.

In advance of the game's launch, Aion will be showcased at both GamesCom 2009 in Cologne, Germany, as well as the Penny Arcade Expo 2009 in Seattle, Washington. Both events will feature exclusive hands-on access to the 1.5 version of the game, which has yet to be unveiled to Western audiences. This version of the game introduces numerous enhancements, including continued improvements to Aion's innovative character customization that will now include a host of Western styles, as well as new zones, instances, skills, quests and continued game balancing and improvements.

Still think they should have put the 1.5 patch out during the closed betas. A lot of people were put off by things that the three huge content patches fix.

---

In other NCSoft news, 95% of my friends list already knows this, there might be a trailer for Guild Wars 2 tomorrow at Gamescom. (Which is the European version of E3, or the Tokyo Game Show.)

---

Also, on Friday, Blizzard will be officially announcing their next WoW expansion, Cataclysm. Old Azeroth continents will be overhauled, leveling made easier, goblins and worgen are the new races, lots of phasing will be implemented (like in the death knight starter zones and most of Northrend). Aaaand some other stuff. I'm assuming/hoping there'll be a trailer.

I'm pro at cooking:

So I found all the fun vendors and decided to blow all my cash on trying out the costumes, dyes, and emotes.

And then there's the last pic, which is of my midget scout.






When the "story event" that's taking place starts up with the Balaur, I fully intend on charging in with my pretty (yet rather useless) outfit. Unfortunately I didn't have enough for the korean new years dresses. Now that would have been entertaining.

----
edit for more:

this coffee meme is really easy.



227 clicks in 30 seconds.

[01:29:09] <@shawn> we hit a deer going to town today
[01:29:10] <@shawn> http://photos-a.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc1/hs148.snc1/5491_110779929177_501814177_2047808_7798463_n.jpg
[01:33:16] <ruki> holy =\
[01:33:17] <ruki> everyone ok?
[01:36:03] <@shawn> no
[01:36:05] <@shawn> the deer died
[01:36:05] <@shawn> lol

Four other pics here:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=92830&id=501814177&l=c0939d7360

Should have better damage shots tomorrow sometime. We're taking the car down to Blanche so I can learn how to drive a manual transmission car.

I had no idea Our Lady Peace had a new cd out. They're one of the few mainstream bands I not only like, but am a rather large fan of. They also had a concert yesterday in Halifax I missed out on.
Alas.
And so, here's an embedded video of one of their songs in honor of 90s music monday.

title shamelessly stolen from kama

So there've been a few Aion reviews on gwo and such, but I haven't got around to posting mine yet. Heather wanted to know if I liked it (not Katina, the other one) and so.. here we are.

So to start, I actually applied to the Lords of the Dead guild, because it was endorsed by Joe Hostile from [rawr], which was good enough for me. Rolled an Asmodian on the Seil server, and as will surprise no one who's gamed with me for any length of time, I went Cleric. And the char wound up a bit too whoreish looking for my tastes, but I was anxious to actually play the game, not mess around with the ludicrous amount of char customization.
(45 hairstyles, 20 faces, 20 tattoos, and 18 "decorations" such as makeup or freckles.)



Quests are typical MMO faire, but what I found interesting is that there are multiple pages of quest text for even the simplest of quests sometimes. This gives you a ton of backstory and a reason for questing (even though I wound still up skipping the quest text most of the time). At the start I guess you're raiding these little Mumu critters because they've been stealing your food.. or.. something. Whatever. And then you meet this exiled guy and he's all "oh hey I'll get you some wings." Good times are had. Another neat quest thing were cutscenes, although in the beta they seemed to have no purpose other than to just.. be there. "Oohh, there's a crazy witch up on this hill you need to talk to, look!" ..Yeah it's just up the hill, I could have figured that out on my own, really. Luckily I've seen cutscenes from future quests, and they seem more in-depth.

I made it to level 16, and it was starting to cut it close as far as quests went, as just before I hit 16 I only had one quest left to do. In the retail version of the game this should hopefully be remedied some, as they're adding loads of new quests, as well as doubling the quest exp rewards. Nonetheless, the grind didn't bother me, as I didn't concern myself with my level. No matter if you're playing GW or WoW or Aion, a level is just an arbitrary number, and everything in those games boils down to FedEx quests or kill x of y type things.

Luckily, the combat is extremely fun. The skill chains and movement bonuses means the stereotypical idea of standing in one spot hitting enemies fails. Not to mention the aerial combat (which I never did think to take a picture/video of, however it works the same as fighting on the ground. Just.. higher, obviously.)

( Two gameplay videos )

And there's not a whole lot more to say, really. It's like gw mixed with wow type features I guess, so it has an auction house, private stores, will be shipping with the three large content patches that are out in Korea, better graphics, and a larger pvp focus. And you can turn into a cornstalk and walk around and freak people out.



Yeah.

Have some more pics.

It's more like scamwow to be honest.