awesome quote from The Office on fear

Fear plays an interesting role in our lives
How dare we let it motivate us
How dare we let it into our decision making
Into our livelihoods
Into our relationships
It's funny isn't it
We take a day a year to dress up in costume
And celebrate fear

- Robert California (James Spader) from The Office, Season 8 - Episode 5 "Spooked"

why does Staples hate my fingers and back?

By "new packaging" they mean that 1) the boxes have less red, which is cool because now it won't rub off all over my clothes and 2) they don't have handles anymore.

No handles. They are saving money by making paper boxes with no handles. It is hard to get leverage on a 50 pound box to lift it when you have to squeeze your hands under the bottom of it instead of using handles!

Soon they'll get rid of packaging all together to save money. Then when they realize that they are actually losing money due to the loose sheets of paper blowing out of the delivery trucks, they'll just send us trees and call it good. 

science is so fricking beautiful sometimes

I didn't see this article yesterday, sadly, so I didn't have a chance to look North. I highly doubt we can see this stuff from Washington, but hey, you never know. The universe is beautiful. I am even more determined than ever now: my #1 New Year's goal for next year will be to start on my road to becoming a Space Physicist. Then when the time comes, I will be ready for Starfleet Academy.

From the stars, knowledge.

Sent to you by eye-shuh via Google Reader:

Gorgeous aurorae

via Bad Astronomy by Phil Plait on 10/25/11

A few days ago, the Sun unleashed a blast of subatomic particles, a massive wave of plasma that swept out into space at speeds of millions of kilometers per hour. On Monday, October 24th, that coronal mass ejection slammed into the Earth's magnetic field, compressing it, and causing a secondary wave of particles to cascade down into Earth's atmosphere at high speeds. These particles struck molecules in the air, ionizing them, which then glowed fiercely as electrons recombined with their parent atoms.
In English? Tremendously bright northern lights! Check this out:

That was taken by photographer Eric Hines on the shore of Lake Michigan last night. You can see the glow reflecting in the water! Another photographer, Randy Halverson, took an amazing shot as well and said the aurorae were "insanely" bright, and on his website commented they were so bright it was hard to get them exposed correctly. Universe Today has a lot more pictures as well.
Aurorae were reported as far south as North Carolina and Arkansas! This was a big magnetic event, larger than we've seen in some time. It's already dying down, but you never know: there may be some activity tonight. It never hurts to go outside and look to the north. If you don't look, then you're guaranteed not to see anything.
Image credit: Eric Hines, used by permission

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Related posts:
- The comet and the Coronal Mass Ejection
- Stunning Finnish aurora time lapse
- The Hunter, the station, and the southern lights
- NASA's guide to solar flares

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• Subscribe to Bad Astronomy using Google Reader
• Get started using Google Reader to easily keep up with all your favorite sites

sometimes i think "i need to INSERT ACTION like a mother fucker"

But then I think, how does a mother fucker do something? Like, if I have to pee like a mother fucker, how does a mother fucker pee? Do they pee different than other people? Why do I have to pee like a mother fucker instead of like a normal person? Are mother fuckers normal people? Do I really just have to pee like myself?

Then I think of this song and the rest of my thought trains goes off the rails.

the CDC plans for the inevitable zombie invasion

Bahahaha! I officially love the CDC for putting out a Zombie Preparedness page and comic book. [source] I have put a lot of thought into my zombie plan for the the hospital is inevitably taken over. I work in the basement near the morgue which puts me at an immediate disadvantage, BUT my area is its own fire zone with strong fire door, I'm below the MRI machines which means my walls are super reinforced, and the cafeteria is also on this floor. I figure the zombies will start coming out of the ER or OR before they start popping up in the morgue, so I'll have a little warning. I fully intend on turning the backpack I use to carry my work-out clothes into an emergency kit that I can take with me anywhere. So, all I'd have to do is hole up for a few days to a week. The hospitals will be the first places they hit...and then the first places they leave. 

Once the coast is marginally clear I can make a melee weapon out of any number of heavy things in my office and resupply in the cafeteria as needed. Then, once I'm able to block of the morgue and secure most of the basement I'll start filling one of the ambulances out back up with non-perishables from the cafeteria and drugs from the pharmacy, including sterile needles, equipment, and microscopes. Once I've got a decent stock going I'll drive home and grab Beau. I think it's safe to assume that cell phones and internet coverage won't be obliterated immediately, so we'll have probably stayed in contact. I'll retrieve him and our roommates from the basement of our house where they'll probably have been blockaded in and then we'll all head to the prison. 

The Walla Walla penitentiary has high walls with barbed wire, its own source of energy from the windmills, I assume its own water supply, guns, ammo, food, etc. By the time we make it there it will definitely be a place the military are taking citizens for the safe zone. They'll welcome us with open arms because our supplies will not only add to their own but make it easier to screen people's blood. I imagine we'll have to vote on what to do with the prisoners in order to make room for citizens, but that decision hopefully will be able to be postponed a little while, if made at all. This town is full of farmers...farmers with shotguns. I'm sure we'll have the city more or less under control at first.

Then it's just a waiting game for the CDC to come out with a cure. Despite what The Walking Dead thinks will happen to the CDC, I have faith in them.

Now I just have to learn how to operate a HAM radio and some basic survival stuff like good knots!

i read a stupid game review of Dungeon Defenders. that pretty much sums up this post.

OK, this is the last thing I'll post about Dungeon Defenders (probably) and then I'll give it a rest. Last night I had a ton of fun with the game. Didn't even realize how late it got until I was told that it was past my bed time or else I would be dead in the water at work! The Monk is an awesome character. I loved his easy combination of ranged and melee and how his weapons let you pick and choose which you want to do more of. We cheated last night so I didn't get to use my auras very much, but they seemed like they could be super handy! I am not high enough level yet to use the one that turns mobs against each other but I'm excited for it.

Anyway, this morning I happened across a review of the game that someone posted on Twitter and I could immediately tell from the title--that it was the "best Tower Defense EVER"--that they had received a review copy of the game from the publisher. Sure enough by the time I got to the end of the review there was the little damning sentence of confirmation at the bottom. Why do I think they weren't being honest in their glowing review? Well, it was barely a review. 3/4 of the article was just describing the game. Then there's a little blurb about something that is wrong with the game but they played it off like it was no big deal after all, and then ended it with a Oh trust us! We promise if you like any type of video game ever, you will like this one more!

First off, the game is a little buggy. Not game ruining, but worth mentioning. More than one of us had issues with it randomly switching us to gamepad enabled mode when there was no gamepad connected to our computer and had to reset the game to get it to bounce back to mouse and keyboard. There are a few other jolts and freezes here and there, but nothing to really write home about so I could probably let those pass. The biggest annoyance for me was that we weren't getting Steam Achievements, but I couldn't say whether that was a game glitch or a Steam glitch.

The art is simplistic but fun. I would like to reiterate again that the Huntress looks like a blow up doll modeled off a cheap whore. I get it. They were making "clever" jokes on RPG characters. Good job Trendy! You noticed that video game women tend to have giant knockers and visible butt cracks! Man, you are so smart. We totally needed that pointed out to us. That was definitely original and clever. Good job. /sarcasm

I would say that this is a challenging Tower Defense game but not the best I've ever played. It's fun to be sure, and the player combat combined with the towers, traps, auras, bumpers, etc. is a hoot. However, this game is only challenging the first time around. After you have a high level character you can just cheat and bring them in, set up their superior defenses and offenses, and then let your lower level characters stand around doing nothing and gain levels. We mostly goofed around and shot at things anyway when the big stuff was put out and dominated everything, but the point stands. Also, I still hate the static cross-hairs, uncontrollable auto-aim, and the worst nonadjustable camera angles a game has ever seen. Those three things nearly ruined the game for me until I relaxed into hack and slash mode and didn't try anymore. 

And seriously, there is not a large RPG element. I wish people would stop saying that. At best, there is a weak RPG element with the combat and the stupid freeze frame by frame story telling between major levels. Oh look! Your base for picking levels is in a tavern. If I throw a tavern into a game does that automatically make it an RPG? Apparently the answer is yes according to some reviewers. 

It is a solid, fun, mostly original as far as I can tell, kooky Tower Defense. I agree that it's a good game that people should play that has a great price point. I just hate seeing all these ridiculous worshipful reviews that don't give you any real reason to want to go grab it and don't mention any of the game's very noticeable flaws or picks one flaw to point out to sound like they're being fair but then write about it like they didn't really think it was a flaw in the first place. 

I don't know. Maybe it has more to do with the writing of the reviews? Maybe they just suck at journalism? I'm not this cynical about all reviews that are glowing for it, there just seems to be a great many that sound incredibly fake mixed in with the few honest ones that actually talk with you about the game rather than copy/paste the publisher's PR release. 

tl;dr I woke up late this morning and read a retarded game review that made me ranty. I want to read a positive review of Dungeon Defenders that doesn't just sound like a publisher hand job. 

omg I was so wrong about Monk in Dungeon Defenders

Dude. Dudebros. The Monk is AWESOME. He's got these little fireball ranged attacks that his staffs and axes  can enhance, he does mondo melee damage, and his auras are bomb dot com in slowing down and incapcitating the mobs. Plus his butt crack doesn't show!!

Dungeon Defenders is officially awesome now. I am really enjoying it now that I have a playable character!

Lesson learned: The only good thing about the Huntress is that she is the only one that can use the Portal Gun from the pre-order. I am tempted to level her up to 20s just so I can use it, but right now I am enjoying my Monk too much!

I named him Aang.

few thoughts on Dungeon Defenders

I played Dungeon Defenders last night a little bit. Not enough for a real review but I thought I'd share my initial thoughts after playing a few rounds.

Do not take other reviewers lightly when they say this game is difficult! There were three of us playing on Medium as an Apprentice, Huntress, and Squire. We breezed through a few of the rounds but got stuck and had to rethink our strategies over and over when the game really started throwing its big guns at us. Flying monsters out of no where and giant Orcs that toss your defenses around like they're nothing. I quit that round for fear of running over my bed time, but my companions were able to beat it shortly after. The monsters scale to the number of players. I think we could have won with me there if I had more time to work with them on fine tuning our strategy and teamwork.

I played the Huntress. Her ranged weapons were fun but I found her traps to be pretty lacking. They have a short amount of use and are difficult to repair mid-battle. In the end I think the most useful thing that a Huntress can do is to use her Invisibility and run around repairing other character's defenses while weakening flying monsters and the tougher mobs with her arrows. Maybe throw down a trap here and there outside defenses when the bigger mobs come out. 

The Apprentice was a very good class to have around. He could set up towers that shot down the flying monsters and worked as a great last line of defense for our crystal. We didn't work very well together at first so I can't verify this, but I think an Apprentice/Squire combo is probably the best you can use. They could both set up pretty nice towers and blockades. 

In my view, the Squire was by far the most useful. He could set up really nice defenses that as a Huntress I could just stand behind and help out on one side while upgrading and repairing them. Not only did they hit hard but they completely blocked streams of monster travel.

We didn't play with the Monk. One of the guys I was playing with said that the character wasn't very useful. The description on him mentions healing, and if that means he can heal other characters then, yes, he is useless. You can heal yourself with very little effort or mana to full health in the middle of battle as often as you want. If he can heal defenses...so can everyone else. 

Based on my brief experience I wouldn't recommend playing solo. It's definitely a multi-player game and I think that's where it will draw the most appeal. 

Bad things: The actual "RPG" part of it with the fighting is really terrible. You can't adjust your camera to any kind of useful view and the cross-hairs for firing stay overlayed on your character and are completely static making it really difficult to aim at anything and move at the same time. They definitely focused more on the Tower Defense side of things and didn't do a great job mixed genres as they claimed in all the PR stuff. It's still fun, but trying to have much of an effect outside setting up traps, towers, and defenses was mostly useless. The exception of course could go to the Squire who gets to hack at things with a giant sword and probably doesn't have to worry too much about aim.

Worst thing: You see the top of the Huntress' chubby butt cheeks and butt crack the entire time. That's what you get to stare at when you play her. Why? Why would they make the entire top third of her butt visible? Stupidest art/character design I've seen in a game in a while.

Overall it was a decent, fun and challenging game. I was disappointed but I'll probably play it a little bit more before I call it quits. 

Also, I just realized I never saw head nor tale of my promised pre-order Portal Gun or TF2 pets! Lame. 

EDIT: I was SO VERY WRONG about Monks! They are awesometown!!

EDIT2: I only played in multi-player and the crates containing the Portal Gun and TF2 dudes only show up when you start a local game. lol Oh well. Can't use the damn things yet anyway. Not high enough level!

stargate sg-1, you are the love of my life

I seriously can't believe that Stargate SG-1 announced it's cancelation after the 200th episode. It did not disappoint and had me rolling with laughter pretty much the entire time. The Farscape reference killed me! You gotta love Ben Browder and Claudia Black.

The studio executives behind that decision truly must not have souls to have seen this episode and still cancel. As if to give proof of this fact, we get the awesome quote at the end:

Science fiction is an existential metaphor that allows us to tell stories about the human condition. Isaac Asimov once said, "Individual science fiction stories may seem as trivial as ever to the blinded critics and philosophers of today, but the core of science fiction, its essence, has become crucial to our salvation, if we are to be saved at all."

(youtube video link)

I want to marry this show and have its babies.

achievement unlocked! made the world a better place.

Shit. Yes. Sweet, sweet fireworks.

Thank you so much to everyone who donated! You guys rule! It is 6AM, I decided to weather out the rest of the night with the team for funzies. I think their brains have almost completely broken down by now, so it was really nice to see that meter hit the top!

As I understand it, Extra Life will stay open for donations until November, so feel free to pop that 100% over the top if you are so inclined! 

please help out! last chance to donate to Extra Life! do a lot of good, torture some hilarious people, and save some lives!

Extra Life is THIS WEEKEND! Tomorrow in fact!

The Epic Default team is so very very close to their goal of raising $4000 for the Children's Miracle Network and that is amazing! Let's help them reach their goal! Anything you can spare helps, and it all goes to children's hospitals saving lives and making lives better.

If you need more incentive to donate besides watching the hilarious folks at Epic Default torture themselves for the night, I'd like to share the email I got a little while after I donated. I definitely got a bit misty after reading it and it made me so happy that I was able to contribute.

Let's make one last grand push and bust up that 4k goal!

Good afternoon. As one of the generous people who has donated to an Extra Life player’s fundraising goal this year, I wanted to write to say thank you.  THANK YOU for your help to cure and save children around the world, by making a local difference at a Children’s Miracle Network Hospital and our international Extra Life partner hospitals. Today I have the privilege of introducing you to Jo Ellen Enmon, whose daughter, Tori, inspired me to create Extra Life. As we enter the home stretch this week, I asked Jo Ellen if she would like to say anything to the roughly 10,000 gamers who have taken on Extra Life for their local hospital.  Below is her letter to them, which I also feel very strongly is a letter to you as well.  Thank you in advance for taking the time to read this. Your Extra Life gift truly honors Tori’s family and her memory, and I don’t know that any combination of words could ever adequately convey our gratitude.  So as I introduce you to Jo Ellen Enmon, please accept this simple… Thank you. Tori never quit.  Neither should you. With no further ado, meet Jo Ellen Enmon. Jeromy FROM JO ELLEN: Dear Friends, When you hear a child say that God doesn’t cure everyone – you immediately think that they are talking about an older person with an illness.  Never did I in my infinite wisdom believe that they were talking about themselves – but they were. And never did I believe that something so awful could affect one of my children. Now I have learned the difficult way, that God does not cure everyone – and that everyone’s name was Victoria. Victoria, or Tori Jo, as her friends called her, arrived on June 15, 1992 as our third child. We had two girls and a boy, and our family was complete. We thought our life was pretty perfect until…. When Victoria became ill at the young age of 11 – and the diagnosis was Cancer – our world was rocked. Imagine being 11 years of age – and hearing the word CANCER and knowing that the person who had CANCER was YOU... I can’t even imagine how she felt. When the doctors told her, I saw her tears and I saw her little shoulders shake and I knew at that moment, that our lives as we knew it would never, ever be the same again. Victoria never cried again!  She faced so many, many obstacles and so many bumps in the road, yet she never gave up hope.  Once as I was combing her golden blonde hair and it began to just fall out in large clumps, she ended up being the one to reassure me! She told me “it is just hair Mom!”  As I comb my hair each day, I am reminded of what she told me. I will never, ever, talk about having a bad hair day! If I could tell you one thing to remember about Victoria would be that she was always positive that she was going to beat Cancer. She never gave up Hope and she never lost Faith!   Her courage was endless. She was a fighter. Today I want you to be a fighter for Victoria and a fighter for all of those children who spend endless days and months in a hospital. For these children the simples things are the things we take for granted. Victoria’s last simple request was to go outside and see the Christmas lights. A very kind man, Jeromy “Doc” Adams granted her that simple request and was able to push her around the grounds of the hospital so that she could see the Christmas lights. Going outside is something we all take for granted. Unfortunately it was her last Christmas gift. She was never to see another Christmas light here on Earth. When Victoria passed away, I knew again, our lives would never be the same. The hole in our heart is always there and each day I have that reminder that there is never a “do-over” in life. I can not go back and do this over and make it right. I can not make it right for Victoria. That is the guilt that I  carry with me each and every day. Victoria never got to go to high school like other children, she didn’t get a driver’s license, go on a date, or even get to graduate and there was nothing that I could do to spare her life.  I, as the Mom, could not find a drug that would have cured her, and so I had to tell her goodbye….I felt like I failed her. As you prepare for your event – please do not give up Hope. Encourage your friends, one more time, to give from their hearts for children like Victoria. Please do not make this their last Christmas! Continue to keep battling for Victoria – and for the other children – YOU CAN MAKE THE DIFFERENCE! One day we will all see the difference you have made in the lives of a children with cancer and other serious diseases and injuries– they will be cured and saved. We will all know how you made that difference in your efforts to heal sick children. Thank you all so much for what you are doing for the children! “Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the number of moments that take our breath away.” With love, Jo Ellen Enmon Mother of Victoria (Tori Jo) Enmon

best breast cancer awareness video ever made ever

Tomorrow is "wear pink" day at my work. We pay 5$ to wear pink, the 5$ of course going to breast cancer research. I am going to send this video to all of my coworkers. And possibly our CEO. But first! I am going to take some time to do a self check! ;) I love my ladies and I wouldn't want any of these fine gentlemen to be disappointed in me. Heehee.

 

new Muppets Trailer

OMG this movie is going to be amazing! XD

i love these head cutout things IRL

I only wish we had three players at the time. Heehee. Fun times to be had in the Borderlands DLC!

glitch is the creepiest game ever made

So...Glitch. I played this game for 5 minutes. Why only 5 minutes? It is a creepy ass game! I feel like this is one of those games I'll never understand like Heavy Rain. It's not really a game. You just kind of walk around aimlessly interacting with your environment. Occasionally you have to renew your energy and hunger, which seems to be a pretty easy task. Everything about this game gave me a horrible feeling...the cute factor was taken too far. I was afraid that at any moment the Children of the Corn were going to ask me to build a happy smiling sand castle with them out of body parts next to a sea of blood while we sing a pretty song.

OK, so maybe I'm a little imaginative and I watch too many horror movies. Still, is this game suppose to be some kind of zen gaming thing? 

I drew the line when the game had me bite a pig to harvest bacon. Let's think about that. A happy smiling pig lets you pet him, and then has you rip the flesh from his back off with your bare teeth in order to make bacon for you to eat while he just congratulates you on how well you're doing. 

I fear games like this will always be beyond me. I am not a conceptual gamer. I need a little quest box in the top corner telling me which alien leader to assassinate. 

Netflix Abandons Qwikster DVD Plan, my crazy theories

OK, here's my theory. Reed Hastings owes the mob 100k in loan money and interest that he took out in order to start Netflix. However, he can't pay them back because of the way he makes his paycheck from Netflix funds or something. So, he's getting hassled by the mob and suddenly he has a crazy idea! What if he purposefully lowers the stock price on Netflix, tells the mob to buy it up, and then puts the company back together before selling to a big name like Amazon or Walmart and theoretically double the stock price back up.

So, first he hikes up prices. Unfortunately that's just not good enough. He underestimated how much his customer base needs the service. However, it does bring up an interesting trend. Instead of quitting the service, half of his customers switch off DVD to streaming only. Interesting, he thinks. How could he use this to drop stock prices? BAM! Qwickster is born! He alienates and screws over half the millions of customers easily while still managing to piss off the other half. Stock prices plummet. The mob buys out stock.

Now, the timing has to be just right on this one. He cancels Qwickster, which he is surprised no one notices it was a hoax. He never even went to the trouble of securing it a twitter handle. Then, he sits back and waits for the prices to slowly rise. Soon, a large established company will come sniffing at his door wanting to buy Netflix. They'll do the rest of the work in raising stock prices once he's sold out.

PLEASE NOTE: None of this is true, please don't sue me. lol. This is just the first thing that popped in my head this morning. Sometimes I think I have the mind of a super villain. Though I *do* think Netflix's next big announcement will be the one where they finally sell out to a bigger company. Amazon is the most obvious choice, but I think it could go anywhere. 

Sent to you by eye-shuh via Google Reader:

Netflix Abandons Qwikster DVD Plan

via Mashable! by Todd Wasserman on 10/10/11

In the latest twist in the Netflix saga, the company has backed off a plan to offer a separate service for DVDs under the Qwikster name.
Netflix CEO Reed Hastings announced the change Monday on Netflix's blog, stating, "It is clear that for many of our members two websites would make things more difficult, so we are going to keep Netflix as one place to go for streaming and DVDs. This means no change: one website, one account, one password… in other words, no Qwikster."
The company also announced it is "done with price changes" after its unpopular decision to raise prices in July.
The move appears to be an acknowledgement that the company's moves over the past few months have alienated many consumers. In addition to raising prices on consumers who use both the streaming service and DVDs, the company also announced a plan last month to make the two services separate and rebrand the DVD service as Qwikster . The move baffled many and was perhaps further complicated by the fact that Netflix had no control over the @Qwikster Twitter account.
The series of dubious decisions has been hard on Netflix's stock price, which lost half its value in September.

last chance to donate to zombies, run!

Zombies, RUN! only has a few days left on its Kickstarter campaign if you're wanting to donate! Those who put in 10$ or more will get the full "season 1" of the game which is supposedly a 20$ value. To be honest, that price bothers me for a phone game, especially since they've well exceeded their fundraising goal. The game better be more than amazing if it's going to cost over 20$ for all the content.

That said, the game does sound pretty fantastic. It tracks your running/walking/jogging and gives you little story snippets along the way. Then when you're done exercising you can go in and use what you gained from your time spent working out to fortify your base and play the game. It is a pretty dang cool idea to get people motivated. The more you exercise the better you'll be able to defend yourself against the zombie hordes in-game!

I'd love to see this sort of thing adopted to a full on PC game. I would run all the time if it meant experience points for, say, my Borderlands character. lol

I've been trying to find some motivation lately for exercise beyond using it as my reading time. I thought Fitocracy was going to fit the bill, but I find that it didn't really do anything to make me care about what level I was. The system they built felt rather meaningless. I think Zombies, RUN! does a great job of taking that idea of a gaming related reward system and integrating it in such a way that actually makes you want to get up and go. Hopefully the devs deliver!