News of Edward

About a year go, I quit World of Warcraft. I quit cold turkey. It was a tough time at that point in my life. I kept wanting to play it. It was like an itch. Sounds like a drug? Yeah, it was. No more.

So what am I up to a year later as far as games go? Well, I’m currently playing Fable. It’s a light weight RPG. A decent sized world but not too big. It’s all set paths too. You can’t really go exploring like you can in some games. I also got a hold of Oblivion. I’ve barely started, but that reminds me a lot of the WoW landscape in terms of depth. It’s even more expansive actually. Easily larger than any city (proper) in the US. Also you can just pick up most anything. Here’s a skull, there’s an arrow stuck in the wall, there’s someone’s ring from there finger… you know, stuff you totally need.

These both sound addictive, and to some extent they are. I spent a lot of hours on Fable the first weekend I got it. And I’ve barley done anything in Oblivion and already spent an hour or so. However, both these games are single player. There’s not Massively Multiplayer Online world to get sucked into. I can pause whenever I want for any reason. It really takes a lot of stress off the game.

I am also playing an online game… kinda. It’s Dungeons & Dragons which is usually played on a table with dice. However, I found an IRC server that I can play on. Getting people together for a game is quite a challenge sometimes and there’s always someone who will play there. I have been sucked into that kind of game for hours on end and not been able to leave, kinda like WoW. But 1. I don’t have to play 2. it’s a lot more work than WoW so I have to have the energy and 3. the whole style of playing is way more laid back so if I need to leave for sleep/just because, I can.

Lily Allen - Knock ‘Em Out
Check out the rest of this album. It’s good.

http://isitchristmas.com/
http://www.howmanyfiveyearoldscouldyoutakeinafight.com/
http://thisissand.com/
http://www.whywashesad.com/
http://www.abevigoda.com/
http://www.colorflip.com/
http://buffaloremix.ytmnd.com

And there’s so much more too.

Because Joss Whedon is an incredible director/writer/producer,
because Firefly was such an awesome show that tanked so hard,
and because he deserve all the support he can get,

GO HERE AND WATCH THIS TOMORROW!

Make the internets crawl.

Here we go.

I went to Hollywood & Highland Center today. Let me tell you, that’s a dense place for tourists. The following are some things I took pictures of.

First off, this is my apartment building, and here is my street. Woo palm trees.

Forecast said it would storm today. They were pretty close… (not)

Read the rest of this entry »

It’s my own fault for subscribing mostly to Apple- and Technology-related blogs, but I really don’t see how people want to hear about how many times MobileMe is down, or seeing 13 different galleries of iPhones being taken out of their packaging. I suppose news is news though and I’ll live. I’ll just have to wait until people calm down a little and we get back to reporting useful apps, tips, tricks and knowledge.

I need a website redesign. This is looking tired to my eyes. As soon as we get the new BIRN thing done, maybe I’ll look at redesigning it. I think I’ve learned a fair amount since this design.

I can’t find a song, but this video will do. It’s hilarious.
Goldfrapp - A&E

Update: Apparently, the english language requires a hyphen in between two or more adjectives when they are together describing a noun. As a believer in syntactical standards (even if I’m not particular familiar with or in favor of this one) I fixed “Apple and Technology related” to what you see above. That is all.

I have been looking for the Theme to Boston Public forever and I finally found it. I used to watch Boston Public when I was in Middle School. It was probably a lame show, but I enjoyed lame TV at a point in my life. This is Thomas Newman so you know it’s good.

Boston Public TV Theme

They say LA has consistent weather but this seems a bit compulsive.

I have 2 announcements for you all tonight.

First is my map of Veril. Veril is the world in which I play DnD using IRC. Their map was lackluster at best. It was hard to read and not very enticing so I decided to make my own. Cartography, while I couldn’t do it for a job, is really cool. The amount of detail and creativity that goes into maps is quite extraordinary. It’s a world on paper. A single sheet of paper. So I present to you, my first attempt at a map for the World of Veril (5mb). If you don’t have fast internet, check out this version that’s only 1.5mb.

Second, is Pass Brain. I’ve been learning PHP recently, and I needed a project. First I made an application that shows the status of employees at a workplace. I made it for my job at Mac Pac. They’re still using it and it’s always encouraging when people use your software. So I made another app. It’s called Pass Brain. I got the idea from Domain Brain. If the owner of this application is concerned about copyright issues or something, please contact me.

Pass Brain, is a username and password storage application. Basically, you enter a URL, Username and Password and it saves it so you can access it from your web server wherever you are. I made a really clean interface for it and some security features. Mostly, because this will be used in public places where you don’t have your automatic logins all set up, the username and, even more so, the password are at low contrast so that people looking over your shoulder would have to be very close to the screen to read the text. Also you have to click on the URL so it will display the username and password in the first place.

I have made a public demo for anyone to try. (Keep in mind that ANYONE can see this so don’t put anything real on. It’s just for testing.) If you have access to a web server with a mysql database and php, I’ll be happy to give you a copy. I’m not particularly comfortable with storing someone else’s passwords on my server purely because of security issues.

On a personal note, we went mini golfing today at work. It was a lot of fun. I’m ok at mini golf but not that great. Somewhere around a 54 for 18 holes. The place also had video games, food and racing of the slick track, paved track, grand prix and drag variety. I did not partake in the racing. Also, my boss is a pretty amazing dude. I can’t get an artist past him, past or present. Driving down the LA freeway, he turns on nothing else but Joanna Newsom’s Ys. Amazing.

That’s all for now. Until next time.

Night Journey - Thomas Newman

I’ve been meaning to post. I just haven’t. It was insanely hot this weekend. Like unnecessarily hot. I couldn’t made it hard to sleep. To keep my self entertained, I’ve been cooking, cleaning and playing more Dungeons and Dragons more. I found a good group on an IRC server. If you’re interested, let me know and I can hook you up.

Other than that, it’s been interesting here. I am still skeptical of LA just because of all the crap I’ve heard. NI is still pretty cool. I’m doing things that I can’t really talk about, but it’s a good time.

I’ve been really into David Cross lately. Really funny guy. He has that extreme sarcastic humor. Here’s one of my favorite bits. It’s not work appropriate (unless you work where I have in the past). Check the part around 2:43 just over half way through.

Some Links for you.

HA!
HA!
Woah.

I hope my links work in Firefox this time…

This is a funny picture. You should look at it.

I’m testing this post at the moment. For some reason it won’t link in Firefox…