February 2004
- 29 -
Leap to the challenge
So, this Leap Day is also Oscar
night, but more importantly, it's time to decide the winner of the final
showdown between Shalo Kitie and Carnage Mustdestroy in our last installment
of:
Explode: Counter-Explode!!!
This time Carnage Mustdestroy has been clamoring to go first, and it's only fair since Shalo Kitie went first the last two times. Let's begin, shall we:
"People!
I have some scandalous and shocking news about my opponent, Shalo Kitie!
It seems that before he was a character used to show Salix's mood, he was
attempting to host his own web page, which you can view in full here.
Yes, Shalo really is that incoherent and juvenile, not to mention that
his writing style is a mere ripoff of others who do that particular gimmick
much better. Anyone can create a web site where they pretend to be
an idiot, but only Shalo Kitie can ruin it so badly. If that's not
enough for you, I have a little information regarding my importance as
compared to that of my opponent. A while ago, Salix mentioned that
The Sine Wave was not even in the top 100,000 sites according to Alexa.
Well, it's still true, and I suspect Shalo Kitie has hurt this site's ranking
even further with his uninteresting shenanigans. I, on the other
hand, seem to have made a big splash despite the fact that I have only
been around for one month. If you go to the Sine Wave listings
page and refresh enough times, you'll see a Sponsored Links list on
the right side of the screen. One of the links that is currently
listed is to the Amazon.com page for a book called A
Carnage in the Lovetrees. Yes, that's right: Carnage, like me.
If you think that's just a convenient coincidence, then go to where it
says Sponsored Links on the listings page and move your mouse over the
text that says "what's this?" Then, look at the status bar in your
browser, and you'll see that the phrase "words=carnage" is at the end of
the URL. Yes, it's true: the name Carnage Mustdestroy is synonymous
with The Sine Wave."
Ouch! I don't know how Shalo Kitie is going to recover from that, but it's going to be a difficult task, full of trepidation (is that the right word? Or is it tribulation?) and hardship. Let's see what response Shalo has come up with:
"Ooh,
Carnage, you say these things! These things about me, you say these
things, but you know, I shrug them off like a dog shrugs off water after
it has been in the rain! Yes I know, it is bad to use a dog analogy
since I am Shalo Kitie not Shalo Pupie, but that is how mad you make me
with these things you say! Oh, oh, so Alexa says you're better.
Well guess what, kid, Alexa and Amazon.com are biased! They have
an anti-Shalo Kitie bias! That bias is so apparent and extreme, but
yet hidden so well, that Bernard Goldberg could make a million zillion
dollars writing about how biased
Alexa and Amazon are against me! And, and, and, guess what else!
That book of poetry has nothing to do with you. Nothing at all.
You're just leeching off others. That's all you are, a leech!
And you know what else? I'll tell you what! Carnage Mustdestroy,
you are nothing but a big MEANIE! That's right, I said meanie.
So there!"
Oh, the humanity! Or, I should say, the felinity and the... I don't even know what Carnage is, but oh the whatever-ity too. I'm looking out at a scorched, battle-scarred landscape, and a single tear is running down my cheek because I'm thinking about how awful war is and how things would be so much better if there were no more fighting and we could all just throw kisses instead of bombs and shoot hugs instead of bullets and... sorry. Wait a minute, shoot hugs? How would you shoot a hug? Launch yourself out of a cannon with your arms outstretched? Well, it doesn't matter, because we don't live in a kiss-throwing, hug-shooting world, we live in a world of chaos and destruction where Shalo Kitie and Carnage Mustdestroy have just fought a pitched (is that the right word? Pitched? I'll have to look that up) battle, and with the help of Super Explodo Reptile, I'm about to announce the winner. Okay, Carnage Mustdestroy made some good points about the amateurish Shalo Kitie web page and the Alexa thing, but Shalo Kitie came back strong with the courageous exposé on all the bias against him, and I conclude that he got the upper hand when he played the whole "meanie" card. Good show, Shalo Kitie, and better luck next time, Carnage Mustdestroy. Now it is time for me to declare, in big letters:
Shalo Kitie wins!
But don't worry, you haven't seen the last of our good friend Carnage Mustdestroy. Like so many one-dimensional Simpsons supporting characters, he'll be back faster than you can say "Disco Stu likes disco music." This has been our first, and probably last since I'm so lazy, episode of Explode: Counter-Explode, and if you read through the whole thing, I just have one thing to say: I'm sorry. Really, truly, and deeply sorry. Good night, and see you next month!
All right, this time I tried
playing Far Cry as more of a first-person shooter and less of a hog-riding
simulator, and I got much better results. First, let's talk about
the graphics. Yeah, they're pretty good. Yeah, the bright island
setting is a welcome change from the sewers and dungeons of most games.
But the game engine is just too taxing on my system. When I installed
the game, it said that the AGP aperture size was too small and that I should
have at least 64 MB, but I don't know how to change that and I don't even
know if I can, because I only have a 64 MB graphics card. Whenever
I would try setting the shadows to anything above Medium, the frame rate
would become so low as to be unplayable. Finally, when I used the
Auto Detect option for the graphics settings, it automatically set all
the details at Low, except for the texture filter size which was set at
Medium. That's just ridiculous! I have a Geforce Ti4200, and
while it's not quite as powerful as the Ti4600, it's still the latest hardware
the last time I checked! Of course, the last time I checked was over
a year ago. How fast has graphics card technology come since then?
How about processor speed and RAM and all that stuff? It can't be
that far ahead of me. Anyway, I played at my piddling Low (and one
token Medium... gee thanks for not setting them all at Low, Auto
Detect, but could you come up with something a little more dignified
than Texture Filter Size? Sheesh!) setting because I knew there would
be some fast-paced action that requires accuracy since I was playing at
Medium difficulty instead of Easy like I used when I was looking for hogs
to ride. The gameplay is pretty good, although the mission is kind
of short. You just have to get on the big island, climb up to the
top of the mountain, and blow up an enemy facility. Along the way,
you encounter enemies, and you have to fight them or sneak around them.
Now, this isn't one of those games like Jedi Academy or Serious Sam where
you can just run at the enemies with guns blazing. In Far Cry, that'll
get you killed quicker than a hog on an island full of hungry mercenaries.
(Speaking of which, now that I'm not planning to ride any hogs... here,
piggy piggy!) No, in Far Cry, stealth is important because most of
the guns have limited range at long distances, so it's best to sneak up
on your enemies and fire at them at close range before they can find an
object to hide behind. Also, there are a few boats you can ride,
but they have limited use. If you just ride up to the main island,
you'll be an easy target, and the enemies will come after you in boats
of their own. If you ride the boat out too far away from the island,
then instead of hitting an invisible barrier, you'll get shot to death
by a patrol helicopter that sees you every time. Don't even think
about trying to destroy that helicopter, because it's invulnerable.
In fact, near the end of the demo, you can shoot down a huge plane with
a rocket, but when the helicopter comes to shoot at you, your rockets have
no effect on it. The Far Cry demo reminds me of the Halo demo in
a few ways. First of all, you're on an island, and you get to ride
around in vehicles. Secondly, you can only carry a few weapons, and
grenades are counted and used separately from the other weapons.
Then, there's the save system, which is eerily similar to Halo. There's
no way to quicksave or save anywhere, as far as I've seen. Instead,
there are regularly spaced checkpoints where the game saves automatically.
Other than that, the gameplay is mostly different, because there aren't
any allies to fight alongside you in the Far Cry demo, except for someone
who communicates with you and opens the door to the enemy facility from
far away, and the action is more stealth-based than the charge-and-retreat
tactics that work well in Halo.
Here at college we have two student
newspapers, and both of them have comics sections. I've noticed that
in a lot of the comics, there's a lot more sheer randomness and less thematic
consistency than you'll find in ordinary comic strips. One thing
I've always wondered is whether this randomness is a result of greater
creative freedom in the student newspaper medium or a shortcut to creativity.
I wonder because of the experiences I've had with my site. At first,
my site was only going to be about the things listed in the tagline image
below the Sine Wave logo, namely 
.
But as time went on, I lost focus. I haven't written any stories
lately, except for some purposely bad Drakan fan fiction that I don't know
if I want to share. I haven't been traveling at all for the past
three years, so that's only the first year and a half of my site that have
anything to do with travel. As for movies, I used to talk about those,
but I haven't watched many movies lately so that aspect of the Sine Wave
is pretty much invisible. But on the plus side, I do talk about computer
games a whole lot. That's one out of four of the first thing new
visitors to this site will see that can actually be found on this site
regularly. No editor would let me get away with this kind of loss
of focus.
I just played the demo of Far
Cry. In case you don't know, Far Cry is a hog-riding simulator that
takes place on a tropical island. You have to ride far on a crying
hog, hence the name. But for a hog-riding simulator, the actual hog-riding
mechanics are kind of lacking. You just jump on a hog, wait for it
to walk somewhere, and hope it takes you where you want to go. That's
another thing: you never know where you want to go because the game doesn't
define a concrete start and finish line. It's surprising, because
even though the developers of Far Cry added a way to control boats, they
didn't bother to add any control scheme to the most important part of the
game. Also, it's hard to find a hog because most of them are hiding
in the bushes, although I guess that makes it more challenging. Far
Cry seems to suffer from a lack of direction, because in order to even
get to the hog-riding part of the game, you have to shoot a bunch of people
along the way. I suppose that adds to the gameplay variety, but it
really seems like they just threw in some gratuitous violence in what could
otherwise be a family-friendly hog-riding game so that they could jump
on the blood and gore bandwagon and be "edgy." Instead of adding
the pointless shooting scenes, developer CryTek should have focused on
refining the hog controls and maybe adding some bots to race against.
As a hog-riding game, the Far Cry demo is a far cry from perfect.
Ride that hog, yeeha! But
if you actually want to control it, too bad for you!
I don't really have any "stuff"
to say today, so just pretend like I said something really poignant and
mind-blowing here. Come on, say to yourself, "Wow, that Salix sure
is a master philosopher just like that guy in the olden days, what's his
name, Plocrastotle or something." Just keep telling yourself that
and soon you'll start to believe it, and when you believe it, tell all
your friends.
Wow, it's getting kind of hot
in my room. That's not a double entendre or anything; I'm just saying
the weather is warming up. Also, I want to get this Shalo Kitie vs.
Carnage Mustdestroy debate over with by the end of the month, so I'll continue
it today with our second installment of:
Explode: Counter-Explode!!!
All right, let's continue this debate. Last time, Shalo Kitie argued that he was here first, and Carnage argued that he's the product of a more refined thought process. Let's see what Shalo Kitie has to say about that:
"Greetings
again to you, Sine Wave readers. So Carnage says he is a more well-developed
character. But the facts disagree. Salix, did you not say at
the beginning of the month that Carnage would be like an 'even angrier
version of Shalo Kitie'? From where I am sitting, I do not see an
angrier version of me. I only see a smug, arrogant fool. And
where has that caveman speak gone off to? You were supposed to lapse
into caveman speak sometimes, Carnage."
Well, it's true, I did say that. But I wanted to show I could create more than one character type. Now for Carnage's rebuttal:
"Ha!
So that pathetic little worm Shalo Kitie wants me to speak like a caveman?
He probably only wants that because big words are too difficult for his
little pea brain to process. Well, Shalo, let me put this into words
you can understand: My brain crush your brain in talk fight thing.
Go back to hiding in your image mouseover text, because natural selection
truly does not favor your particular variety of feline."
Ouch! Trust me, if I weren't so tired, Carnage would be saying much more intelligent things and really laying on those five-dollar words, or maybe ten-dollar, or however many. Sorry for spoiling the "multiple characters" illusion. Not everyone can just think up funny and unique characters all the time, at least without resorting to gimmicks. Do you know how taxing it is to have to translate a huge chunk of technical Japanese text three times a week? And on top of that, to work on two programming assignments at once while studying for a macroeconomics test? I'm going to bed.
Ralph Nader is running for president.
Listen, Ralph, you had your 15 minutes of fame in the 2000 election, but
this isn't the best time, you know? Is anyone going to bother voting
for Ralph this time? I imagine that the vast majority of potential
Green voters just want to get Bush out of the White House so they'll vote
for the Democrats, and none of the conservatives who are dissatisfied with
Bush would consider voting for someone as far left as Nader. This
presidential race is just getting crazier and crazier.
You know, I've been thinking
about becoming one of those people who tells insensitive jokes at the most
inopportune of times and saying "shocking" things that will make people
gasp. But the more I think about it, the more it seems like it would
just make people mad and make me bitter toward life, even though it's supposed
to be a way to take all the problems in the world in stride. I guess
it's all part of this big mindset I have that no one's ever going to be
able to take me for a chump, and I'll become the most horrible monster
you've ever seen to prevent anyone from playing me for a fool. But,
they say that you're supposed to make mistakes so you can learn from them,
and learning from the mistakes of others will only go so far. Also,
one day I might end up in big trouble and needing real help, and I'll have
alienated everyone. It would be like if the Malagasy hero Ibonia
didn't make any friends so no one would be there to revive him, or if Sikhuluma
ended up making Mangangedolo's daughter mad so she wouldn't be there to
help him out... you're probably not familiar with those examples from my
African Storyteller class so I'll just say that it would be like if Luke
Skywalker made an enemy of Obi-Wan Kenobi earlier and didn't have anyone
to turn to after the Empire destroyed his home and killed his family.
Alienating everyone is the way to the Dark Side, and it's also the easy
way out because it doesn't require any real work, just a heap of rage.
Good news! I don't have
to go to Technical Japanese class tomorrow. But the good news came
with some bad, because in place of the class, there's a take-home test
that we have to do and send in. The test consists of a passage that
we have to translate, and this one was about ferromagnetic thin film.
It was another one of those passages where they listed off a bunch of applications
of the concept without going into detail on any of them, but there wasn't
as much jumping between topics as there is in some of the passages, so
it wasn't so bad. In addition to my test, I also have to complete
two programming assignments by Tuesday and study for a test coming up on
Thursday. It's going to be a long week, and I'm glad Spring Break
is coming early this semester.
So I've been seeing these Quizno's
Subs ads on TV. You know, the ones made by the owner of Rathergood.
Now, I think it's sort of cool to see some of this Internet randomness
on TV, but it also makes me worry because what if this becomes a big hit
outside the geek community? What if suddenly people on the street
start wearing All
Your Base T-shirts while singing the Lobster
Magnet song? Sure, I could claim that I knew about all those
things before they were cool, like I can do with Rathergood now, but it
would be kind of annoying to have people suddenly get interested in Internet-style
randomness as if it were a new thing. Am I being too cynical here?
I'm trying to think of what it's like. I guess it's like really being
into something like the country of Suriname, and then one day Justin Timberlake
features an artist from Suriname on one of his albums and suddenly everyone
is talking about planning trips to the Voltzberg
Dome and wearing clothes with their names spelled out in Ndjuká
characters. It may sound far-fetched, but that's the kind of thing
that happened with swing music after those Gap commercials and Japanese
characters after the boom in popularity of Japanese video games like Final
Fantasy VII. And then there's the whole Latin music thing.
I guess I shouldn't complain, because otherwise I'll turn into one of those
indier-than-thou
people who always like people's old stuff better before they sold out.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a commercial starring Shalo Kitie to float
to the advertising agencies.
Well, I have a confession to
make. I'm afraid I've been shirking my Azenera duties, getting distracted
with so much other stuff. It's not that I don't want to finish this
series of levels, it's just that it seems like I'll never be able to have
the kind of control over little details that I want to have. For
example, there's no way to have health crystals gradually restore health
at a fixed rate rather than all at once, so I had to change the healing
system to something that uses more inventory space than I want to have
to use. Also, it seems like I've been adding too many collectible
items like speed potions and spell orbs, and now the levels look like something
out of Starfox Adventures. It's getting to where you can collect
like 70 health crystals, 200 lightspark spells, and a bunch of other spells
on every level, and 200 lightsparks will let you get through a level without
ever having to fight an enemy up close. I'm hoping that will change
when I start adding more knights and death mages. Maybe I should
stop putting items in every single corner so players don't feel like spending
most of their time looking under bushes on the ground.
I can't resist:
When
you feel life is to get you down
Then
you should go for get down with life!
Why
are you so Sad all the time?
You
should be More happy!
You
are beautiful girl With life ahead Of you
And
there Is no reason for you To be sad!
Life
Problems will pass soon enough Worry not so
Chin
up! Smile!
Now that that's out of my system, I think it's time to get back to the main event, which is to host that contest you've all been waiting for:
Versus
in
Explode: Counter-Explode!!!
Yes, that's what Carnage Mustdestroy looks like, at least his face. Also, I realize you've never really seen Shalo Kitie in any other context than those little icons I used on all the October entries last year, so I'm giving you the "original" drawing of Shalo Kitie that I did. I'm just getting word that the debate between these two dynamos is over, and the winner has been declared, but I'm not allowed to tell you until the end. The debate started out in a civilized fashion, with no weapons coming into play just yet. Shalo Kitie started out by saying:
"Hello
readers of The Sine Wave. Or, more likely, reader, singular.
Ha ha! That was a little joke at the expense of this site, which
I am sure thousands of people read every day. Seriously though, I
believe I should stay and Carnage should go because I was here first.
The sleep deprivation-addled mind of Salix came up with me first, and Carnage
was merely a result of a primitive emotional outburst. Come on.
Look at the name. I can imagine a little kid yelling 'Must Destroy'
repeatedly while banging two action figures together in an imitation of
mortal combat, or perhaps Mortal Kombat. But would a little kid yell
'Shalo Kitie' in any context? I think not. And that is what
makes me, Shalo Kitie, better."
Okay, that was a solid 5-point argument, but minus 10 points for that little dig at me, Shalo. Now for Carnage's response:
"Anyone
with at least one functioning brain cell can see that I am the superior
candidate. I am smart, strong, and capable, while Shalo Kitie has
both the intelligence and physique of a flea. He should be called
Shalo Flea, but he would probably misspell it as 'Shalo Fleey' as he is
prone to do. Yes, it is true that Shalo Kitie came first. But
that only means that Shalo Kitie is a less finely developed character,
whereas I am the result of years of careful thought and more life experience.
The likelihood of a child screaming my name is irrelevant, and it is indicative
of Shalo Kitie's broken thought processes that he would even bring up such
a thing. For shame."
Whoa! Burn! 5 points! But I have to say, minus 10 points for insulting the state of mind I was in when I thought up Shalo Kitie. I was so mature, darn it, and I still am! (pout) Well, both candidates are tied at -5 points. Stay tuned for more Explode: Counter-Explode!!! with Shalo Kitie and Carnage Mustdestroy, and a special appearance by Super Explodo Reptile at the end, which really isn't a surprise anymore because I just told you about it! Now come on, don't Be sad for Life will Go on if we just put to Believing!
You know what? All those
anti-PC people say that no one can get through life these days without
being called a racist, but I've never seriously been called a racist.
Like, no one has ever angrily yelled in my face, "You're a racist!" or
said anything like "Despite my opponent's racist leanings" during a debate
in which I was the "opponent." What's the deal here? I mean,
I fit all the superficial criteria for someone who should have at least
once in his life been unfairly called a racist, but it's never happened
to me. Is it because I'm quiet most of the time? Because whenever
I do speak, I always toe the politically correct party line or something?
Well, I can't help that, that's just the way I talk! I guess my life
experience of never having been called a racist is kind of like being a
virgin. And I suppose if someone were to call me a racist, that would
be like being touched for the very first time, as Madonna would say.
Well, I'm going to risk losing my racism-accusation virginity by making a controversial statement now. Are you ready for it? Okay, here it is: While the goals of affirmative action are noble, its implementation is often imperfect.
There, that was the statement. I'm ready for all the consequences, and it's times like this I'm glad I don't have a job to lose over controversial statements like that, although I'm worried that I might get kicked out of college. No doubt that statement will result in a flood of angry e-mails calling me names like racist, sexist, classist, imperialist, and various other words that end in "ist." You too are probably in a frothing rage right now, but I must ask you, when you're writing me that angry e-mail, please be gentle. After all, it is my first time.
I've decided that I'm not going
to do that journal thing because it would take too much effort, and I might
seriously get in trouble if someone thinks I'm stalking them or something
crazy like that. But that would be funny, because I'm like the last
person who would ever actually stalk someone. I might think about
it for a while, and plan something out in my head, but then I'd get distracted
by TV or just plain lose interest in the whole idea. Lately I haven't
even been able to write an update every day on this site, or even get around
to that
Explode: Counter-Explode!!!
thing that I talked about on the 4th. Oh man, I'm so disappointed by the total lack of carnage that's actually going on compared to my new username, Carnage Mustdestroy. And look! I haven't even changed the name in that image on the bottom of the page yet! Well, that's going to change right now.
You know what's really popular
these days? Online journals. From LiveJournal to Xanga, these
things are everywhere and they're hosting tons of people. A lot of
the people who write these journals are teenage girls, and they often write
about their everyday lives. I've always had a crazy urge to pretend
like I'm a 40-year-old man who doesn't speak English very well and browse
these journals, and whenever I see a comment that indicates the writer
is feeling depressed or mad about something, I would post a message saying,
"Why are you so sad? Stop being so sad all the time! Smile!"
It would be like I'm some middle-aged man with no life who gets his happiness
by living vicariously through the lives of other people. Basically
the attitude I'm going for is a less creepy version of Robin Williams in
One
Hour Photo crossed with Jean Teasdale from the Onion. So anyway,
I could start up my own journal in which I post pictures of babies and
puppies and write cheery, corny slogans in broken English like this:
You never know
what life give you
Until
you give other a smile!
Yes, that image is recycled from my August 1999 archives, but I didn't have any original pictures and I didn't want to steal someone else's images. But you get the idea. After I've established this persona, I'll start going around to other people's journals and telling them to turn that frown upside down!
Man, that Kyle Katarn is such
a jerk! Better look out, or he'll start going psycho and attacking
you for no good reason! All right, let me tell you the story.
I was on the planet Vjun, and Kyle was following me. We had just
finished defeating one of those big armored enemies with the Stouker rifles.
Kyle did most of the lightsaber work, but I had the important job of giving
emotional support, which I did splendidly. Soon the enemy was dead,
and I was all like, "Go Kyle!" But then, the trouble started.
I decided that I needed a bit more training, so I did a few practice swings
with my saber. I swung once, and it turns out that Kyle was in the
way because my lightsaber went through his leg, and he flinched in pain
and said, "Stop it, Jaden." So then I said, "What do you mean, stop
it? I'm just doing a few practice swings, that's all. Why don't
you get out of my way?" So I kept on swinging, but Kyle decided to
be a little baby and refuse to get out of the way, so I ended up hitting
him a bunch more times. After a while, the little jerkwad got really
angry and started attacking me right out of nowhere! Really, that's
too much. I was just training, you know, like you wanted me to
do, Kyle, and suddenly you're trying to kill me? It's your
fault you were in my way. Soon it was game over because supposedly
I had "turned on my friends", but the game is just a big liar because Kyle
started it by being a stupid pukebreath, so it was really him who
turned on his friends. I loaded a saved game from back before
Kyle started being a jerk, and I knew that I couldn't practice my Jedi
skills because Kyle would go all psycho on me if I tried to, so I decided
that I could at least hone my mercenary shooting skills. I whipped
out my laser pistol and started shooting at a spot on the wall that was
annoying me, but it turns out Kyle was between me and the spot, so my shots
ended up hitting him. Man, that guy really knows how to stand in
the wrong place, doesn't he? He flinched again and said, "Stop it,
Jaden," but this time he got out of the way. Good! He learned
his lesson, finally! But then, it's the funniest thing, because I
suddenly became really bored with the spot on the wall I was aiming at
before, and I found a new spot on a different wall to shoot at. But
guess what? When Kyle got out of the way, he moved to a place that
was right between me and the new spot that I wanted to shoot at!
I couldn't take it anymore, so I got out my lightsaber and started slashing
at Kyle because he was being a bigger jerk than ever by standing in my
way all the time, and you know what he did? Whenever I would slash
at him, he would jump out of the way! Oh sure, Kyle, all my attacks
hit you when I'm not even aiming at you, but now that I'm actually trying
to hit you, suddenly you're Mister Dodger Man. He was too fast for
my blade, so I grabbed that Stouker rifle off the enemy and I started shooting
it all over the place. I didn't hit Kyle, but I did shoot down at
my feet and blow myself up. As I fell to the ground dying, I could
just hear that jerkface laughing at me. You win this time, Kyle Katarn,
but we'll see who gets the last laugh when I become the most powerful Jedi
in the universe!
Well, today most sites have a
heart theme with the red and the pink and the chocolates, but I'm not going
to bother with that. It's late. I should be getting to sleep
now, but I can't get to sleep easily because unless I'm really tired, I
always stew in my thoughts and get kind of psycho and basically act like
someone who's destined to become a Dark Jedi before the end of the Star
Wars side story. My lack of sleep is holding me back, and if only
I could be completely rested some day, I could become more powerful than
any of you could ever imagine! See, there I go again. I hope
I didn't spoil Star Wars: Jedi Academy for anyone with that little outburst.
Speaking of Jedi Academy, I installed it a few weeks ago and I've played
it through a few times. First I played as a light side Jedi with
all the light powers, and then I tried being a dark Jedi with all the dark
powers, and finally I played through with a balanced character with both
light and dark powers. I'm really enjoying Jedi Academy because you
get to start out with the lightsaber and you get force powers after the
first level. Not only that, but before each mission, you can build
up your non-core force powers, and you can become a master at one particular
force power early in the game. For example, you can master force
heal and recover quickly from damage, or you can build up the force grip
and start tossing enemies off of ledges. Jedi Academy really lets
you make use of some of those force powers that weren't so useful in Jedi
Outcast. For example, by the time you got level 3 force lightning
in Jedi Outcast, your enemies were pretty much only dark Jedi and the occasional
AT-ST walker, along with a few stormtroopers here and there. However,
in Jedi Academy, there are lots of indoor places with large groups of stormtroopers,
and level 3 lightning is really good for frying them all at once.
Also, level 3 force grip is indispensable, at least on the lower difficulty
levels, because you can save a lot of time and health by throwing dark
Jedi off of platforms instead of fighting them with your saber. There
are tons of places where you can do this because many of the levels take
place on rooftops, floating fortresses, or towers with bridges and catwalks
everywhere. I've mostly been talking about the dark side powers,
but there are light side powers that are really useful too. Force
heal is good if you don't want to look for medpacks every time you're low
on health, and there's one level later in the game where force protect
comes in really handy. One thing I like about this game is that since
everyone uses the same force powers, you can tell what powers are good
in different situations by observing your allies and enemies. For
example, if you hold a force-using enemy in a force grip, the enemy can
break free of the grip by using force push, so it's intuitive that a force
push of your own can break you free if you're being held in a force grip
by an enemy. Also, it was only after I tried the force rage power
for myself that I learned that force-using enemies can't be killed by weapon
attacks when they're in a rage, and that they're vulnerable after the rage
is over. They still die when tossed off ledges when they're in a
rage, though, so my primary offense against them still works pretty well.
You know what? Everyone
else is having a real life and not finding time to update their journals
and websites, so I figure that turnabout is fair play so I'm skipping out
on my site and compressing time again. I keep failing to update,
even though I have some ideas for new topics occasionally. Man, I'm
really out of it right now. I've got tons of homework and reading
lately, and on top of that I caught a cold and I've been tired. I
guess I won't be able to be Carnage Mustdestroy this month. Maybe
in March.
It's time for a little segment
I like to call Point-Counterpoint to see who's better: Carnage Mustdestroy
or Shalo Kitie. Actually that's what the old me, Salix/Zeoc, would
call it. I, on the other hand, enlisted the help of Super Explodo
Reptile as a referee, and we agreed that it should be called:
Explode: Counter-Explode!!!
Ha ha ha! Somehow I feel all this stuff would go better with images, but I don't have the energy to do any serious image editing right now, so I'll save this debate for later. As for now, let's just bring out an oldie but goodie: Antzap!
Today I was playing Jedi Academy
and I crushed the stormtroopers' throats with my force grip!
Then I blasted them with lightning! Then I smashed
them against walls with my force push power! Then I went into a bloodthirsty
rage and totally slashed up a Reborn warrior with my dual sabers!
Then I stopped to pet a cute little puppy! Then I eviscerated
an enemy mercenary with my disruptor rifle! All in all, it was a
good day. To die. I mean, for my enemies to die, although I
did plenty of dying as well, especially with all those battle droids who
shoot a Stouker concussion rifle at you. Those droids are such a
pain. Me explode those droids good, you see!
You know, I've had the screen
name Salix since as long as I can remem... oh wait, I've also had the screen
name Zeoc, which I still use sometimes along with Salix, and you might
be wondering how I got those names. I was looking in a tree field
guide and saw the name Salix and thought it would look kind of cool.
The name Zeoc was just a short name I picked while playing Hexen 2 because
I was tired of being referred to as "Player" in all the death messages.
But now I feel that since this site has been running for... let's see,
how long has it been? Four and a half years? Holy cow, I never
thought I'd last this long. But since it's been so long, I'm seriously
thinking about coming up with yet another name. From now on, you
can call me:
Carnage Mustdestroy!
That's right, my name is now Carnage Mustdestroy. You can call me Carn for short, but don't call me Carny or I'll get mad. I'll get really, extremely furious if you call me Musty. And from now on, I'll occasionally slip into a caveman-sounding manner of speech. Me think that real good plan. Me crush all who hate Carnage Mustdestroy! Me talk like even angrier version of Shalo Kitie!
So I've been seeing these Wal-Mart
commercials with the rollback smiley face sticker assuming various identities,
such as Robin Hood and a secret agent, and I've been thinking, what other
characters can that sticker become? I've got an idea: a drunk plumber.
It's perfect! Normally the plumber would be unclogging the toilets,
but since he's drunk and out of control, he'll be "unclogging" the price
tags by pulling the numbers off with a plunger to reveal a lower price
underneath. Or how about a nerdy entomologist? The rollback
sticker could be studying some rare insect, but then it could escape, and
maybe it could be revealed to be a number-eating bug that injects venom
into price tags that cause their numbers to fall off. The insect
could fly around Wal-Mart, rolling back the prices with its numerical poison,
and the rollback sticker could chase after it whining, "Oh buggy bug, please
come back here Mr. Bug, sir!" Or maybe the rollback sticker could
disguise himself as the disgruntled owner of a small shop who was put out
of business when a Wal-Mart opened nearby, and now he's sneaking into Wal-Mart
to sabotage their operation by marking all the prices so low that Wal-Mart
makes no profit whatsoever! I'd better formally propose these ideas
before someone else steals them.