The Rikonian Alliance

Back in Action

2003-11-02T05:03:00.000-08:00

Well I didn't get the library gig, or the delicious meats serving position, but I am a pizza monkey. Minimum wage has never seemed so sweet as when you get your cable internet back and have several gigs of porn downloading as you post on a blog about how much porn you are downloading.

Isn't America wonderful?

Back to the subject at hand. Pocky.

Tasty stuff, really. Comes in pretty little boxes and you can have ever so much fun making little things out of the wrappers and boxes.

Ohh, porn vid just finished, me talk later.

Lord High Rikonian: Weather God

2003-09-18T16:22:00.000-07:00

Well, Isabel went past, and while from what I hear, my state got hit pretty hard, but guess who skated by yet again with minimal power loss.
Me: the Lord High Rikonian.
I only lost power for a couple hours or so, and I have phone and cable too. I think this is the 5th or 6th big storm in the last few years to ravage the surrounding area and leave me untouched and with my precious electronics functional.
In fact, the last time my neighborhood lost utilities for days, I was out of the state on vacation. THe only thing I can figure is that I am some sort of latent weather god.
I pledge to use my powers only for awesome.

A Windows Annoyance Not Caused By Microsoft

2003-09-15T18:43:00.000-07:00

Well, windshields, actually.
I just got home and was ready for an after work recharge session in my regeneration bay, when the phone rings.
It was some asshole at an auto glass place calling to ask me if I had and holes or cracks in my windshield.
"If I did, then I would call you! No, actually, I wouldn't. I'd call someone who gave me enough mental credit to believe I know how to use a fucking phone book, asshole!"
These auto glass people keep calling me. And I hate it. Other telemarketing, I can at least understand. Yeah, ok, maybe you think your long distance service is something I've never heard of before. Whatever. But auto glass? What sort of retards does this bring in? I guess they expect something like this:

"Oh no! My windshield has a crack in it! And I can't afford a new car! Oh, if only there were some magical place made of pixie dust and faerie crap where tiny mystical elves could somehow repair or replace my windshield! Oh maybe someday NASA will come up with the technology to..."
*RING*
"What's this?! You can replace windshields?! Oh great saints of Valhalla! My deepest prayers have been answered!"

On a happier note, much congrats to Burrito on being some kind of librarian savant. Good luck on that job Burrito!
You see, America, that's the kind of benefits that come from having a reference by Lord High Rikonian on your job application. A benefit reserved solely for friends and colleagues of the Lord High Rikonian... UNTIL NOW!!!
Just call 1-800-RIKO-REF, and you can have a valid job reference for just $19.95.
This is a limited time offer, applicable state taxes may apply (which is why they were applicable), offer valid in 49 states (sorry Tennessee!)

Monday has come and is going

2003-09-15T16:11:00.000-07:00

So I'm sitting here in front of a terminal as my school, and I'm just brimming with excitement. I had my interview (a panel interview no less) with the library and it went well. It was basically them asking me if I would ever push grandpa down the stairs (grandpa has been protected) or what I would do if someone didn't have proper identification for getting a library card (don't have the proper papers? I cast thee into the pits of tartarus!).

The actual information I had to provide was really simple, like what fiction and non-fiction meant. The one thing that was supposed to be "hard" was shelving materials according to the Duey decimal system. From what I can gleen from the time chart, I was the fastest of the four already done, and I got it all right.

Woo.

So if they like me (I might have to pass them a note in class asking if they "Like Like" me or if they just "Like" me) they'll ask me back for another interview. So cheers to me for not masturbating out of fear on the table.

Test.

2003-09-14T13:26:00.000-07:00

Test blog. Test test test. Blog test.

It is done. My old monitor has been cast into exile

2003-09-14T12:40:00.000-07:00

I love computers. Sometimes a little too much, as the doctor told me last time I was brought in due to electrocution.
But I hate monitors.
Monitors are big and cluky. Heavier than the computer by far, and far more breakable as well. And in an era when your printer, mouse, keyboard, scanner, automatic machinegun, and pretty much and other peripheral can connect via simple plug-in USB or firewire, monitors are the one thing that you can still count on to use parallel port connectors. Those stupid connectors witht he two pins you have to unscrew, and if you don't do it exactly right, one will push the other out of alignment and you have to go all the way back to the beginning and start over.
And then, there is, of course, the weight. And the awkwardness, since most of the weight in is the front.
And the size. The box my replacement monitor shipped in was huge. I could barely fit it in my trunk to make the drive from the apartment office to my apartment. And, needless to say, the two monitors were completely different size and shape from each other. So I'm not 100% sure I packed the old one right.
But it's done. It's gone. My old monitor is sitting in my apartment office right now, waiting for the FedEx guy to pick it up tomorrow. It lasted three years. Well, almost. That's the one good thing about this. It conked out two weeks before the Circuit City three year plan was to run out instead of two weeks after. I guess they got the auto-destruct date wrong or something.

This is the first major piece of computer hardware I've had to replace. Oh, I've had mice go bad. But never a monitor before. But it betrayed me. It failed me. ANd the price for failure in my computer empire is death. Well, death or being shipped back to the factory. But I like to imagine I'm sending it, instead to the Smelting Pools of Cybertron where it can die in screaming agony for failing me and leaving me without personal computer use for a week. Say hi to Scrounge for me, asshole!

The new monitor is nice though. They sent me a better one than the one I bought. Which is pretty much the only way this could have turned out, as emachines doesn't make that model (or maybe anything) anymore.
So now, I have a three year old Compaq, a brand new crisp Nokia monitor, an optical mouse, and the rest of the stuff you'd expect.

P.S. if you ever plan to upgrade, don't buy Compaq. They fucking suck at internal layout design. To add a memory stick or a new drive, I had to unhook all my drives, pull out all my memory, and take out a couple things I'm not sure exactly what they do. Everything is all crunch together and somehow, they manage to put everything behind something else, even the stuff up front. Fuck Compaq!
Next time, dude, I'm getting a Dell.

Flat Top Tony & the Purple Canoes

2003-09-11T17:44:00.000-07:00

My Amazon order came this week.
The Mr. Show Season 3 DVDs are excellent. Ten episodes, plus yet more original HBO TV ads. And the commentary tracks are even better than those of the Season 1&2 disks. I highly recommend these DVDs.
Also, Dane Cook's CD Harmful if Swallowed. Dane Cook is, bar none, the funniest stand up comic out there today.

Kaloo Kalay!

2003-09-11T17:37:00.000-07:00

So the library called me yesterday and scheduled an interview monday. I'm damn happy about that. Now if the Ham Man would call me and have me come in for an interview, I'll be sitting pretty.

Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.

My lemur has a femur

2003-09-09T17:37:00.000-07:00

So it's D-Day for me and jobs. This is the week when I'll hear back from the library if I get an interview or not, and also the place of honyed hams will contact me in the same time frame. Whelp, I'm off, just wanted to let all you know that I might be back within a couple of weeks here.

I hath returned!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2003-09-08T17:09:00.000-07:00

Well, it's been 8 days since my last monitor conked out, and the replacement just arrived today!!!
It took me a half hour to catch up on the webcomics I read.

Good Luck Burrito

2003-08-30T18:46:00.000-07:00

Hey S_B, I hope you get that library job. I was in the library my last 3 semesters of college and it was a good gig.
And, when you get the job, you can get KOTOR!

Slow Children at Play

2003-08-29T18:25:00.000-07:00

So my job prospects are looking rather tasty at the moment. Tasty as in ham, Honey Baked Ham to be precise. I'm looking very pretty at the moment as far as the interview went, even went so far as to have me sign a release on a drug test (since all us 20 somethings use copious amounts of illict chemicals while not in public).

The library test was actually pretty fun, it was a situational test. What would I do in various situations and how I would deal with specific problems. Although I'm still not to sure that I'll get that job. The applicants that showed up were primarily female (of various ethnic backgrounds) and abour mid-20's. I was one of five males present (and by far the sexiest I must say).

So yeah, with any luck I'll be back online with in a month or so and then I'll be back to my usual unhealthy amounts of time spent in front of a computer.

Over and out, mahalo.

KOTOR....shrugs

2003-08-26T18:01:00.000-07:00

yeah, I beat it...was okay...it's all about the Suikodeon 3 :p

2003-08-24T12:04:00.000-07:00

Oh no. Rik's od'ing on a game that sounds like it could be a tampon. "Oh, honey, while you are out could you pick up some bread, milk, and a box of KOTOR super tampons? You're a doll."

The game can not be THAT great....unless it gives head while you play...

Ooooh so that's it! Rik, you pervert.

KOTOR!!!

2003-08-23T08:28:00.000-07:00

I've been busy. Very busy.
KOTOR has taken my attention. In fact, even as we speak, I am halfway through the second of three videotapes, filled entirely with shows I would normally have watched, if I were not playing KOTOR.
KOTOR, or Knights of the Old Republic, as it is also sometimes called.
This game is great. Admittedly, it is not anywhere near as immersive a game as Morrowind, but let's face it, but then, what is? Well, maybe Fable when it finally comes out.

Anyway, enough musing about future games. What has KOTOR done right? Just about everything:
^A very rich game world. A nice involved world that you can shape to a greater extent than is normal. I'll get into this more later on.
^A very clever and twisting story. I was genuinely surprised by the surprise twist toward the end.
^Light Side and Dark Side. Although they could have just included Dark Side, and probably only about 5 people would have noticed.
^A customizable character (always fun)
^Dialog tree logic that lets you shape the flow of the conversations with NPCs (and snag Dark Side points).
^Some very clever and inventive plot points. Especially for those of you with a Dark Side bent. There are some sick bastards at Bioware. I mean, by the time I beat the game, I had performed a series of Dark Side atrocities that would make Emperor Palpatine cry and wet himself. Of course, by the time of Return of the Jedi, he was senile and did that anyway. Why do you think he wore those long flowing robes, if not to hide the fact that he had three layers of Depends on underneath?
^Force Powers are fun to use. Especially Dark Side powers.
^Customizable lightsabers!
^And look at the game credits. George Lucas's name doesn't show up anywhere except the last "very special thanks" bit. You know what that means? That means that George "I know, let's put an annoying digitized gay muppet in the prequels!" Lucas had nothing to do with this game. Although I do with they did put at least one gungan in, so I could Force Choke it to death. A village of
Ewoks to massacre would also be a nice touch.
^Some top notch voice acting. Carth has a good jaded semi-tough guy sound. Bastilla is a dead on spoiled snotty egotistical Jedi chick. And I found myself reminded of early Princess Lay-Me more than once. Canderous' voice is perfect for a merc who's kind of on his way down. Jolee Bindo*. And HK47 is a protocol droid you don't want to melt into slag.

Of course, no game, not even KOTOR is perfect. Here's what they can strive for in KOTOR 2: Force Lightning Boogaloo:
^An even more expansive game world. I'm thinking Morrowind with a party and lightsabers and Force powers!
^More than 20 levels of advancement.
^A few more types of Lightsaber crystal.
^No more Twi-leks who sound like valley girls or surfer dudes.

The game lets you pick three character types. Scoundrels, who end up being total pussies; Scouts, who are very well balanced; and Soldiers, who are good at fighting but not much else in this game.
Then you get to become a Jedi. You can be a Consular, who, like the Scoundrel, sucks; the Sentinel, who is a more balanced character, and the Guardian, basically a Jedi meathead.
Ironically enough, since Light Side Force powers suck so bad, if you're gonna go light side, you need to go with a Soldier/Guardian combo. But the Dark Side is better served with a Scout/Sentinel.
I won't bore you with the rest fo the character creation, since there are many walkthroughs that go into detail on the subject. Instead, I'll talk about the support characters and worlds.
Trask: A typical generic soldier. I won't discuss him, because he dies in the first five minutes.
Carth Onasi: No, not Darth Onasi, Carth Onasi. No real special abilities. He's useful early in the game, but not so much so later. Still, the character is fairly interesting. Very good voice acting and writing, even if he is whiny as times. You can help him get past his trust issues, or leave him a shaken jibbering shattered wreck.
Mission Vao: A Twi'Lek valley girl? Ugh. At the end, it took me all of two seconds to decide to Force Persuade Zalbar to kill her. Hers is one of the voice acts I could do without.
Zalbar: I hate Wookiees. Not sure why, but I always have. Still, I guess you gotta have a token space carpet in every SW game.
Bastilla: A very good spoiled Jedi bitch. And she does start the game as a bitch, though she becomes nicer fairly quick.
The Astromech droid: It's not R2D2, so I hate it on principle.
Canderous: The most useful non-Jedi inthe game, and a cool character to boot.
Juhani: A whiny cat woman alien. But if your character is a woman, you can get some cool lesbo-suggestive dialog out of her.
Jolee Bindo: An old not-quite-Jedi with an interesting perspective. Weak in combat, but very fun dialog cut scenes for this "old semi-Jedi who wants you to get some kids off of his lawn"
HK-47: AKA: Hitdroid: Codename 47. Some of the funniest dialog in the game comes from this droid. I think you'll find him useful too, meatbag.
These characters each have a dialog tree that gets unlocked as you play the game. And you can even shape their psyches a bit, if you like the idea of playing mind games with your team.

There are several worlds you can go to as well.
Taris: You start here, and collect most of your teammates (Carth, Mission, Zalbar, the astromech, Canderous, and Bastila) here. Don't get too attached though. It's a fun little city, but why do all the greedy assistent types sound like Peter Lorre?
Dantooine: Learn to be a jedi you will here! A nice little planet where you become a Jedi and can do fun side quests like keeping two rival families from warring (or, fanning the flames of their hatred). It is interesting that they have one of those little green muppet guys, but perfect syntax he uses. I guess their planet's public education system went way downhill between KOTOR and TPM (Toilet Paper Menace)
Tatooine: Ah, the home of Loke Groundrunner. A fun little place, and it really gives you a chance to use your newfound Force powers to be a bully. You can even do the old Darth Vader Force Choke on someone you're arguing with!
Kashyyk: The Wookiee planet. There is a light side and dark side resolution to this planet that will shape it's society for many years to come. But if you want to be really Dark Side you'll give Freyr his sacred sword so he can challenge Chundar, then talk Zalbar into siding with the evil Chundar, instead of his noble father Freyr. I'm not sure, but come on, that's gotta give you a buttload of Dark Side points!
Manaan: An annoying little water world where the fishheads impose strict nonviolent neutrality. You can't even say "I'm gonna kick your ass!" without getting in trouble.
Korriban: Ah, my favorite world. The Sith training world. This place is so delightfully evil and fucked up, I almost regretted having already maxed out my Dark Side points, because I could have racked up a lot of them here. You actually join the Sith Academy!
And then there's the game ending worlds that I won't spoil for you.

So, you must get this game. *waves hand* This is the game you are looking for.

*Little Known Fact: Jolee Bindo's original name was Jolee Berman, but the legal department advised they change it. They also removed all of his original dialog blaming Revan and Malak's fall to the Dark Side on violent video games and rap lyrics.

Friday Update

2003-08-22T17:15:00.000-07:00

Well after getting the first check I've gotten in a few months (from a temp job I had a week or two ago) I went to the bank to cash that bad boy and wouldn't you know it? My bank closed my account to due several months of inactivity. So when I get a decent amount of money again I'll reopen my account so I can use the much vaunted Debit Card online to purchase things I really don't need.

On the job front. I had an interview with a pizza place yesterday, and I didn't get hired due to a time conflict with my classes. On monday I have an interview with the public library as a shelf-monkey. I really, really, really hope I score this job.

Well thats about all that I really have to say.

To Timmeh, Ha Ha, you winmodem using wench.

To shots and Rik, you guys rock, thanks for the references.

To any hot chicks that happen to be reading this, I'm sexy.

Tarnation!

2003-08-19T17:41:00.000-07:00

My good modem seems to be busted so I am stuck getting online, when I can, with a winmodem in a computer waaaaay to slow to be using a winmodem. It doesn't help it has Windows, too. Bleh ...

Like herpes, I'm back for a short while

2003-08-15T14:34:00.000-07:00

So it's been another week, and what a week it's been. Not really.

I watch the news a lot, partially due to my lack of connection, and also due to my pesudoaddiction to information. I spend most of my free time reading the newspaper, watching the new on tv, reading the few news sites that can get past the filter on the connection here. And I have to say, specifically to krome lizard and liam the genius, HA HA, no power for you bitches.

Also of note, I got my hands on the beta of Trillian Pro 2.0 (legally even), and it's pretty neat. The feature sets are more robust, the expanded sdk makes for some interesting plugin ideas, and I just like to say I have it even though I can't use it.

Actually I'm suddenly very sleepy, so I think I might doze off for a while then come back and post something more if the mood strikes me.

I feel like a man in the desert

2003-08-08T13:11:00.000-07:00

Oh boy does not having a connection suck.

I mean seriously, this sucks like a Saigon Whore on 2 for 1 Wednesdays. I had to give up the connection cause it was costing too much cash and without a job, too much cash meant only one recourse, turning it off. I'm still sort of online (ever so infrequently) so you can expect random S_B sightings for a while but once I get a job and get the funds boy I'll be back online faster than something that moves quickly.

Onto less painful thoughts.

I'm wasting away ever so slowly, as of a few days ago I'm missing 30 or so pounds and no I won't provide a metric conversion to that you non-US folks. I would like to point out that this isn't part of a plan or some self image problem. It's due to the fact that I eat very little food and I walk many miles each day (uphill both ways, in the snow). So if one of you who knows what I look like see a skinny version of me walking down the street, it might actually be me and not a skinny dopelganger that is planning to hollow me out and live inside of me like a meaty hut.

Also I've been watching a lot of the anime that I had backed up on disc but never watched (which was a good sized stack). So far I'm really into Tokyo Mew Mew, a delightful "Magical Girl" series. Think Sailor Moon and Digi Charat. Also I'm watching more TV than I used to, which was very close to none, and happily TV doesn't suck as much as I remember it sucking. I've been watching FLCL on adult swim along with Blue Gender, both anime series that have been dubbed, I have seen FLCL before and the dubbing isn't that bad, although some of the voice actors I could have lived without. Blue Gender I havn't seen before but I have noticed one thing, and that one thing is really scary, the mouths of the big bugs, "Blue" as they are called, remind me of toothy vaginas.

I havn't made whoopie for serveral days now.

Anywho, I'm about to get caught posting on a blog during class time so I want to publish this before I have to erase it or someone sees the phrase "toothy vaginas" on my screen.

2003-08-07T22:11:00.000-07:00

Its not so much as being smart as it is paranoid and learning a few new tricks. Thanks to the good ol' folks over at Gnome, using it is becoming a breeze. Red Hat, and other distributors I am sure, are making it (or at least trying damn hard) a no-brainer to keep it configured moderately well. With a graphical installer that'll more or less do it itself if you keep pressing "next" enough (reading it is a damn good idea, though), all you have to remember to do is to is: make your root password ironclad, a dozen characters of random, letters, number, and puncuation should do it; change it regularly; never, ever, log in as root unless you can help it, "su" to root is a lot safer for almost any application (which is to say, make yourself a user account that you use); if you have noticed a trend here it is because if some nafarious person get ahold of root access to your machine they can do anything including physically breaking the hardware, not to mention raising holy hob on the rest of the internet; if you want you can make it log you into your user account automagically; use the hand graphical tool they give you to make a firewall; use the handy graphical tool they give you to turn off every services (read: servers and such -- like a web server, mail server, et cetera) you are not using, which would undoubtably be dang near all of them; and, finally, use the handy graphical tool they give you to look for updates to all the nifty programs ... that will actually fix bugs!

After that it is more or less point n' click your way to victory! XMMS looks very similar to Winamp (hmmm ...), Gaim looks an aweful lot like AIM (except cooler, if you play with the configuration), Mozilla gets you where you want to go and has all sorts of added perks if you look through the configuration. A couple of my favorites are to only allow images (and cookies) from the originating server only which puts a pretty good dent in the on-site ads (and stupid bandwidth wasting sig. pic.'s on message boards O:-) ), and the very nifty toggle to disallow Javascript from creating unrequested windows; i.e., pop-ups. Tabbed browsing is divine, too; which is to say: different web pages in different tabs instead fo completely different windows. The only page I have found disallowing third party images broke was Hotmail, and we all hate them anyway, by the bye.

All in all, if you have a resident geek to pester if you break something (and I stress if and you break :-P ) its a sweet ride. If you manage to get it up and running and don't touch anything that looks important, it is pretty good too. Everybody I have convinced to use it hasn't looked back, and, to be honest, he wasn't the most computer savy person in the world and he's about as harcore of a Linux-geek as I am now.

I only carry on about it so much because it bugs people, too. Well, and I do think it is the greatest thing since sliced bread, so to speak.

Boy, I like wasting space on somebody else's blog ... :-)

Hmmm ... I have a rant I could grace you all with, but I think I'll save that for another day, or another blog ... actually, now that I think about it, I could do a couple. Its not my bandwidth. O:-)

2003-08-06T14:00:00.000-07:00

I still don't think I'm smart enough to switch to an open source operating system. For some reason it always makes me think of MSDOS and I can do maybe two things with that....check a directory and.......okay make that one thing.

I like the ease of Windows........even if it is a huge whore that goes down on me more than most men I know. It's easy.

I only gripe about Linux to bug Timmeh anyway. It is a neat idea. So many contributors doing it and not even for money. That's gotta count as coo.

Whynix Prime!

2003-08-05T21:03:00.000-07:00

To elaborate on Smiling Borrito:

The 3D rendering is pretty darn good considering the developers have to reverse engineer the hardware in their spare time because the manufatures tend to be wankers about Linux compatibility. Several drivers are up to commercial grade, though, and nVidia provides a Linux driver themselves. Which reminds me, I should probably see if they have a new release.

Games, always the big sticking point, are still a sticking point. It is, thus far, an intractable deadlock problem. People don't switch because there are not as many games as they think there should be, and companies don't release games for it because there are not enough uses to make it worth while. Not universally true, of course; there are many free and opensource projects in the works to choose from; unfortunately, most of them are either not as "pretty" as people seem to want nowadays or are not at a stable release stages. Tuxracer proves that you can make a good looking advanced 3D game on Linux, if nothing else, and for $15 its better than most bargain bin buys. Freecraft, an open source RTS I was keeping my eye on, got cease and desisted by Blizzard. Name confusion my ass; attacking open source projects that can't afford lawyers is just lame. Anything else that looked cool I've been too bandwidth limited to check out. Until such a time as companies start to realize penquins like to play too, there is always Wine. It will actually run a large number of programs. Apparently, they have gotten the Micro$oft Office Suite to work in its entirety; why you need it is an interesting question. While I have never liked OpenOffice that much (waaay to bloated for my taste), last time I tried writing a fancy looking document Abiword was good enough and weights in at around 5 meg. Irregardless, the notables I have managed to get to run in Wine are StarCraft, Halflife, and Warcraft 3. While I am way to lazy to benchmark them, they seem to run just as fast or faster under Wine as in Windows. I am not really a game fanatic so aside from getting them up and running, I didn't do much with them.

What else can I waste space on? Oh yes, aside from those few times when I personally screwed something up and locked the X display (more importantly, the keyboard), I haven't crashed it yet in a couple of years and, even in those instances, if I was so lazy I still could have recovered.

As for those things that everyone uses, Mozilla, Gaim, and XMMS have the web browser, chat client, and multimedia system (respectively) down pat. I would be inclined to argue their superiority, but I don't wanna rub Rik's nose in it. :-P

Finally, Microsoft is getting even more antisocial and draconian; with the moves towards subscription based licensing, slipping things into EULA's that nobody reads that don't belong (like the crap with a mandatory upgrade to Windows Media Player that had a clause about giving Microsoft the right to download and run programs on your computer, without notifying you, that may effect what programs would run and/or files you may access), and the plans for "Palladium" (and resemblance to Palladium Books is completely coincidental) I want as little to do with them as possible. Which is to say: nothing. Moving to a OS that you can pass around complete free and legal is an added bonus.

If you are a hard core gamer, you still have to suffer; that doesn't mean you can't fire off angry letters to Game companies telling them to port to Linux.

My spelling sucks lately ... :-/

Whynix?

2003-07-27T22:38:00.000-07:00

Well why not? Well for 3d rendering, it's pretty good if you consider the fact that the only folks making the drivers are doing it in their free time. Games, I don't know, I don't really play games. Faster? Again it depends on what you use it for. If I wanted to run a server, I'd go for a *nix. If I wanted to play the latest games on the latest hardware? Go for windows.

Heck, why go for one or the other? Just dual boot and play with the one you need at the moment. No reason for being a wanker about it, use the right tool for the right job.

A Long-Winded Linguistic Lesson

2003-07-26T23:42:00.000-07:00

William Safire beware. For you now have competition.
I heard recently that the English language is the hardest language to learn. I think that that might be because nobody ever uses the most magical word in the English language.
So, I give you now, a speech you can read to teach your foreign friends, or your children to speak English. You can also tape record yourself saying it, and then listen to it if you ever get hit real hard in the head and forget everything, including how to speak English. Of course, you'll want to tell a friend, because you won't remember about the tape. Trust me, I have read and performed enxtensive research on this subject, and have indeed come very close on several occasions to winning the Nobel Prize for comical head injury research.
Oh yeah, when you read this essay to someone, or record it for yourself in case of massive head trauma, don't read this first part. Just the part that comes after this line break.

The two most frequently noticed types of words are nouns and verbs. Nouns are people, places or things.
For example, in the setence "Steve let out a fart in Rome", Steve is a person. The fart is a thing. And Rome is a place.
Verbs are actions. For example, "Steve farted." The word "farted" is a verb.
Nouns can be singular or plural. Plural nouns usually, but not always, have an "s" at the end of them. For example, one fart or 10 farts.
Verbs are more complicated.
Verbs have three main tenses: Past, present and future.
There is also the matter of "person". First person is for when you discuss yourself doing something. Second person is for when you speak of something the person you are talking to is doing. Third person is for when you are talking about other people doing things.
Verbs can also be singular or plural, but it usually only matters for present tense third person.
Past Tense/First Person: I farted.
Past Tense/Second Person: You farted.
Past Tense/Third Person: He farted.
plural versions use the exact same verbs
Present Tense/First Person: I fart.
Present Tense/Second Person: You fart.
Present Tense/Third Person: He farts. They fart
Only the Present Tense/Third Person combination uses two versions of the verb. Perhaps we should coin a new word: verbsions. Or perhaps we should not.
Future Tense/First Person: I will fart.
Future Tense/Second Person: You will fart.
Future Tense/Third Person: He will fart.
Future tense always uses the present tense version of the verb with a word denoting future performance of this action. For example, in the sentence "I will fart", the word "will" is the word which makes it future tense.
The version we use for the plural of the noun for third person. So if you say "He will farts" you just sound stupid.
There is also a "future past" tense that is sometimes used. "He will have farted." What this means is, at some time in the future, it can be said that at some time in the past, he farted.
He may have already farted. He may be farting right now. He may fart int eh future, but before this hypothetical point. Since there is no qualifier, this sentence will hold true no matter when he farts, so long as he farts at some point in the history of the universe. It is for this reason that future past tense is really fucking stupid.
Verbs can also have an object, but they do not have to.
I farted. That sentence has no object. The verb exists in a vacuum, not direrctly mentioning anything that is affected by the verb.
I cut a fart on my chair. In this case, the word "cut" is the verb. The direct object is the fart. The indirect object is my chair.

Adjectives are words which describe nouns. They may either be used directly with the noun, appearing right before the noun, or they may be separated from the noun by a word such as "is" or "was" or "will be", in which case the adjective will appear after the noun.
For example: That smelly fart was loud.

Adverbs typically describe verbs, which is why they're called "adverbs". We should, by that logic, call adjectives "adnouns", but fuck it.
I farted loudly. "Loudly" is the adverb, which describes the act of farting.
But adverbs can also describe an advective.
My fart was very loud. "Very" is an adverb, used to describe the advective "loud" which describes the fart. I could also have said "I cut a very loud fart."
Adverbs can also describe other adverbs.
I farted very loudly. "Very" is an adverb, used to describe the adverb "loudly" which describes the act of farting.
I notice that, while adjectives can only describe nouns, they do not have the word "noun" in their name. However, Adverbs can describe verbs, adjectives or other adverbs, and they have the word "verb" in their name. If there were any sense to the universe, adverbs would be called "adjectives" and adjectives would be called "adnouns", but, as I said earlier, fuck it.

Whynix?

2003-07-26T14:09:00.000-07:00

Why switch to Linux? I've never heard any reason other than "I don't want to give Billy Bob Gates any money"
But what are the technical reasons for using it? Can it handle 3D rendering better? Can it run games better? Is it faster? What are the advantages to it?

2003-07-26T00:11:00.000-07:00

I guess a good analogy would be like jumping in some really cold water. At first your genitals shrink painfull, then eventually you get numb enough to start getting worried about the state of your genitals.

Actually if I put it that way it's a horrible analogy.

2003-07-25T19:02:00.000-07:00

You scare me sometimes, Bandit. I mean having the urge to leap in front of moving cars is all fine and normal, but Linux?! That's the scary part. Isn't it hard and stuff?

The Geek is strong in this one

2003-07-25T16:56:00.000-07:00

Okay, I have a dual boot linux system for my personal use, that's not too unusual.

But I'm currently at my campus, I also just installed linux on several lab systems (yes I got permission). And to top it off, I enjoyed it immensely.

Automobiles

2003-07-24T14:17:00.000-07:00

As some of you might know, cars and I don't mix well. Generally I avoid them, and generally they avoid me (but we do exchange gifts at the company christmas party). Lately though, I have to resist this urge to try and catch them while they're driving by. And I'm not talking in the "chase after it like a dog" catch, I'm talking "step out in front of it and catch the front" catch.

This isn't a healthy impulse.

But while I'm walking around, I have to try hard to not step infront of them and catch them like an oddly shaped dodge ball. But I resist, after all denail of self is the path to enlightenment (well that and it also isn't the path to the hospital).

And as for the lemurs, I'm sure that if you have a special pair of lemur knickers, they'd look darling.

2003-07-22T18:24:00.000-07:00

Hmmmm. I still don't like the idea of Lemurs wearing pants. It makes me think of OrganGrinder's Monkeys.

2003-07-21T19:24:00.000-07:00

Advanced Lemurian technology, of course.

2003-07-21T19:18:00.000-07:00

I suppose that would work, but how would you keep it closed? Buttons? Velcro? Snaps?

Flap

2003-07-21T19:17:00.000-07:00

OK, so the lemurs would have a flap in the back of the underwear then.

2003-07-21T19:15:00.000-07:00

I still say that having a semi-stiff appendage forced up over the waistband when it's natural tendancy is to point out or down, would be painful and cruel. Imagine a penis that naturally hangs down being twisted and pinned upward. Would that put a crimp in your life?

Lemurs

2003-07-21T19:01:00.000-07:00

Wouldn't the tail be over the waistband? And if not, then certainly a gap or hole would be put into the underwear.
That's how they did it in the world's second famous lost civilization, Lemuria.
BUt no discussion of lemurs would be complete without a link to the classic "Joey the Lemur" MST3K skit

2003-07-20T17:22:00.000-07:00

Lemurs in underwear would be cruel. Their tails would get all balled up and stuff.

I'm still tired

2003-07-19T23:22:00.000-07:00

Actually, I think that writing that essay would make Bandit an expert on his underwear. Placing him in an exclusive intellectual circle populated only by himself, inspector 12, and underpants stealing gnomes.

Maybe we should start a campaign to make lemurs wear underwear. That would be funny.

Size isn't everything

2003-07-19T22:30:00.000-07:00

Everyone, lets have a round of applause for Rik. He has written a nice ditty about the social and economic ramifications of immortallity. But I have to deflate his accomplishment a bit (just cause I'm a jerk like that). His entry is 1361 words long, we can take it that he wanted to make note of this. Normally folks think that the more words put into something, the "smarter" the person is on the topic. While it's obvious that he has spent some toilet time thinking about the topic, but can we really assume that he has anymore insight into the topic than the average lemur?

I say nay.

I could easily write a 1362 word entry about the state of my underwear. I could discuss it's motiff (in this case the red M&M fellow), how the various bits of cloth are attached, and even the wear and tear that is present on it (quite a bit). Does this make me anymore of an expert?

Again I say nay.

Just because I write a long report about the state of an object, or in Rik's case the possible future of the human race, doesn't make me anymore knowledgeable about the topic than your average lemur (I love those little guys). So in the end what we really have is a lot of conjecture, links, and personal opinion. Not that it is a bad thing, most religions and artwork is based on atleast two out of those three.

Now onto a topic that doesn't make me seem like a mild jerk, cartoons.

Just a bit ago (well half an hour now) I finished watching "Teen Titans" on Cartoon Network. Decent show actually, the character designs are pretty original, smooth action, and just enough humor to make it better than Super Friends (man that show sucked). Two things caught my eye.

1) Clearly cultural osmosis is exerting it's influence (the other way it usually goes) on the animators. For evidence of American popculture showing up in Japanese anime I point to FLCL (Furi Kuri/Fooly Cooly) having a South Park style theme. Now in Teen Titans we have anime-esque facial experssions and in a promo for the new episodes, the everpresent tentacles. The Starfire chick was caught by someone and sure enough, she was "restrained" by some tentacle critter. Not that I'm complaining about the interbreeding of the styles, it turned out to not suck.

2) Teenaged superheros in very stylized outfits. As some of you anime watchers know, porn based off the characters is very common. American characters don't have this happen as often, but it does happen. So now we have characters in an anime influenced show, teenaged characters, in skimpy outfits, serveral of whom are female, and one who can change into animals. Sounds like the perfect setting for some nice fan made pornographic material.

Welp, it's time for a shower, as my earlier entry indicated, I'm in sore need of some soapy water applied to my most secret of places.

I'm tired

2003-07-19T21:09:00.000-07:00

I just wrote a 1361 word blog entry on immortality tonight. I swear I didn't mean to make it that long, but hey, living forever is a subject I'm serious about.

My nether regions are all sweaty

2003-07-19T19:24:00.000-07:00

Statements like that tend to alientate folks I would normally consider my peers. I mean how couldn't it? Unless I'm mistaken gonads are still a "taboo" topic of discussion (well outside of a medical context). So I guess that's just a really verbose way of saying "test" but I also wanted to inform everyone about the status of my "area".

2003-07-19T15:43:00.000-07:00

Second test, and hey, yo... check out the Lord High Rikonian's mad editing skillz!

Preliminary test

2003-07-19T15:21:00.000-07:00

Test

Testing... 1 ... 2 ... 3

The Rikonian Alliance

Back in Action

Lord High Rikonian: Weather God

A Windows Annoyance Not Caused By Microsoft

Monday has come and is going

Test.

It is done. My old monitor has been cast into exile

Flat Top Tony & the Purple Canoes

Kaloo Kalay!

My lemur has a femur

I hath returned!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Good Luck Burrito

Slow Children at Play

KOTOR....*shrugs*

KOTOR!!!

Friday Update

Tarnation!

Like herpes, I'm back for a short while

I feel like a man in the desert

Whynix Prime!

Whynix?

A Long-Winded Linguistic Lesson

Whynix?

The Geek is strong in this one

Automobiles

Flap

Lemurs

I'm still tired

Size isn't everything

I'm tired

My nether regions are all sweaty

Preliminary test

KOTOR....shrugs