Captain to the Bridge
rattrap, you don’t happen to have the PageMaker files for the compiled “Multiverse Cycle” lying around, do you? Or, failing that, a word processor file of “Batron and the Beast”? I have someone here who can properly appreciate fanfic, and they want to read the Cycle.
I finally found part two of “Duty Calls” in digital format, which wraps up a few of the dangling Multiverse storylines. Oy, does this all bring back memories.
I think I’m going to go write something.
Darn it, people don’t fear the dark like they used to
MSNBC.com has posted a Virgin Galactic video showing a CGI simulation of one of their space tourism flights. Click the “Launch” button under “NBC Video”. This is quite cool and inspiring, but it’s not what I’m here to babble about.
I recently caught up to “The Satan Pit” episode of Doctor Who. When I’d seen the title earlier, I was hoping that they were speaking metaphorically, but (spoiler alert!) no, they weren’t kidding. This episode is the Doctor vs. Satan.
I cringed even writing that. Click for rant with spoilers…
Ringtones
I’ve discovered, to my surprise, that I generally prefer MIDI ringtones to MP3 ringtones. Perhaps it has a little to do with the tiny speaker they’re coming from, and in part because a MIDI just sounds more like a phone-ring sound to me.
My current favorites: katamari.mid – DoctorWho2006.mid – dune.mid
I like technology that beeps.
Fold-up technology
New phone now. At first, the RAZR wasn’t performing any of the tricks I wanted it to, but I fiddled with it a bit, and now GMail works, and I’ve figured out a way to get my own ringtones onto it without buying ones from Sprint or purchasing a Bluetooth dongle for the Mac. (I might try to get the dongle anyway, since I can then do calendar synchronizing.)
I also found “One More Time“, the first cut off Daft Punk’s “Interstella 5555 (The 5tory Of The 5ecret 5tar 5ystem)” on YouTube. I’m still deciding whether I like the music (think it’s a yes), but the video was throwing me some serious late 80’s flashback with its Leiji Matsumoto-y goodness. Gonna have to try to see the whole thing, now.
Speaking of anime, rattrap gave a good review to Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles, which I had just recently heard about on the RDF Underground podcast. The podcasters agree with him that the character designs for the ladies are a bit mammary-focused, but I guess they were shooting for what they felt was an authentic modern anime look. Still, it’s supposed to hold up well, and I’ll be adding it to my collection when I can swing the cash, even if (like The Sentinels) it uses Alphas instead of Valkyries.
Explosive Devices
How to identify a complete Trek geek, #117:
The use of “photorp” as a verb, e.g.: “They’re actually adverstising phaser eye surgery now, so I figure the next step is getting your eyes photorpped.”
In other news, the gnome mage/engineer Mirandala finally reached level 60 last night. Though this accomplishment is no longer as cool as it was two months ago, it’s still a wonderful milestone.
Hardcore World of Warcraft players manage this in 6 weeks – it took me about 18 months of casual play. If it’s an addiction, it’s one with a very weak hold on me 🙂
The Dream Is Alive
Last night, I heard that Virgin Galactic will be testing their SpaceShipTwo prototype this year, and expects to start its public, commercial, sub-orbital flights before the end of 2008 (possibly early 2009, depending on which part of their website you’re looking at). They expect to take several hundred people up to 100km (official Astronaut altitude) within the first year of the company’s operation.
Even after the success of SpaceShipOne, the whole thing still seemed a bit pipe-dreamy. “Maybe we can do this as a business one day.” Now, somehow, it seems real, and I hear the sound of Richard Branson buying himself a major turning point in human history. Not that I mean to be too dismissive of the man: it’s a much healthier way to establish a presence in the textbooks than trying to establish a 1000-year Reich, for example.
I cannot help but look at their promotional materials and realize that my dream of going up is about to change from “realistically impossible” to “currently impractical”. Don’t let anyone say that’s not an enormous difference. There was a time in my early 20s when it was “currently impractical” for me to walk unassisted. “Impractical” is a lot easier to change.
Elves and aliens lurking behind your icons
Yeah, I’m posting a ton of WoW stuff this week. Don’t worry, I’ll find other stuff to talk about soon enough.
So, I was looking at a official Blizzard Entertainment desktop pic for The Burning Crusade, and I started thinking, “I wish they had one with the great graphics from the cinematic.” Then I thought, “Hey, I have QuickTime and Photoshop, what else do I need?” and I threw together a little image.
Look behind the cut for a small version
News from the Azeroth front
So far, so good on my quest for 60. I made it to 59 last night… I kept dying a lot, though; I made my best progress when I stopped trying to quest, and just stood close to home base and kept grinding monsters.
(Many of them were level 59 boars, and I was unavoidably reminded of the South Park WoW episode where they grind boars to 60.)
The experience is good, but I still wonder if my armor repair bills would be lower if I went back to Winterspring. Maybe I’ll try it for a bit tonight. I doubt I can manage a level in a single evening, even if I play for several hours, but it would be nice.
Ironforge was a ghost town last night on Uther. Even the Dranei starting area, where I fiddled around a bit, was pretty empty. I think the whole server is in Outland right now.
