Snake? SNAKE!? SNAAAAAAAKE!

So I suppose I haven’t posted since I got my PlayStation 3.  That’s understandable though, as I’ve spent all of my time away from friends/family/work with said PS3.

Anyway, I got the 80GB Metal Gear Solid 4 bundle, and it’s awesome.  The first week of owning it, I could only play it in SD (480i) on my RCA 24/27″ CRT TV.  (Can’t remember the size.. it’s one of those two.) and as such, didn’t play a lot of games other than demos.

After I got a Neoya X2VGA2 and some Sony component cables from Toys R’ Us, I hooked my PS3 up to my monitor, and am now gaming/watching movies in glorious 720p.  Yes, it’s not 1080p, but feh, I’ll get a bigger monitor/an HDTV in the next 6 months.

Ah, but I have not explained the title of this post yet, have I?  I mean, I did mention Metal Gear Solid, but I didn’t really say why it would weigh so heavily on the post that the title would be a reference to a famous line from said series of games. (For the record, this post is so long, that I had to split it up–click the ‘More’ or ‘Continue Reading’ link to read the rest of it… but be forewarned: it’s a doozy.)

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August 1, 2008 · Filed Under Draupnir, Gleipnir, Journal, Mjolnir, Projects, Ullr, Work

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Naming Conventions

As a lot of you may already know, I try to stick to a norse mythology naming convention for technological items I own–my older PC was/is Freya (it now belongs to my father… or is at least used by him.), my main PC is Mjolnir, etc.

But I’ve recently renamed a bunch of stuff, as the old titles just made no damn sense.  What follows is a list of the names of my current gadgets/computers, etc:

Freya – My dad’s computer, used to be mine–a Hewlett Packard I bought from N20.<br />
Mjolnir – My main gaming PC–I don’t seem to use it as much as I used to as a few parts are currently being replaced.<br />
Nasir – The only non-Norse thing in the list–my Dell Inspiron 1300 which I got for use with school studies, etc.  It currently is used by me every day in lieu of Mjolnir.<br />
Yggdrasil – My Linksys WRT45GL router running DD-WRT.  It gives the wonder that is the internet to all of my gadgets, consoles, and PCs.<br />
Ratatosk – (New as of July 8th 2008) – My hacked Fon La Fonera 2100 router running DD-WRT, and serving as a wireless bridge to hook my Xbox 360 up to the network and ze internet.<br />
Gleipnir – My PlayStation Portable–It used to be called “Ragnarok”, but that just made no damn sense, mythology-wise.<br />
Iðunn – My Nintendo Wii–I don’t use it nearly as much as I should, considering how much trouble I went through to get it.  Still fun for parties/gatherings of a lot of people, etc, but my friends and I usually end up just playing Rock Band on Quin’s Xbox 360.<br />
Ullr – My Xbox 360–Was originally Odin II, since Odin was my Xbox, but I’ve retroactively removed the name from my old Xbox, as it was sold on eBay to a new owner.<br />
And finally, Draupnir – Draupnir will be my PlayStation 3 when I purchase it.  If all goes according to plan, I should be doing so sometime around the 17th of July or later.  Just need to find an 80GB MGS4 bundle first.  (Easier said than done!  Most people claim they’re as rare as either a Wii or Wii Fit as of late.)

So there you have it–the list of gadget names.  Why?  Because I wanted a place to write them down where I could remember them, honestly.  It gets confusing, especially when I rename a few.  I’m pretty sure I’ll unconciously refer to my PSP as “Ragnarok” for a while still, but it really made no sense as a name.

(P.S.  As an off-topic note, I’m really back into Magic: the Gathering as of late.  Can’t wait for the Eventide release on the 25th!  Booster box, here I come!)

July 7, 2008 · Filed Under Announcements, Draupnir, Freya, Gleipnir, Iðunn, Journal, Magic, Mjolnir, Nasir, Projects, School, Ullr

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It was an accident, I swear.

OR: How I inadvertantly started the whole MediaDefender versus Rev3 fiasco.

It was an accident, really. I was poor, had no money, I was bored, and felt kind of sick. I didn’t like it, but I accepted I was going to download a movie without paying for it. I looked through the list of recently released-to-DVD/BD films @ Rotten Tomatoes, but couldn’t find anything. I then looked to the soon-to-be-released list, and saw Rambo/John Rambo. Now, I love Rambo. I was going to go see it in the theatre when it came out, but once again, I was doshless. Anyway, after finding a torrent for it, I was on my way…when I noticed that one of the trackers was on Revision3′s server.

That seemed wrong. They’re a legitimate company that publishes shows like The Totally Rad Show and my personal favourite, Diggnation. So I quickly hopped onto the Rev3 forums, and wrote a post about it to let whoever was in charge of their BitTorrent tracker know what was going on. You can see the post on their <a href=”http://revision3.com/forum/showthread.php?p=369753″ title=”Rev3′s BitTorrent tracker being used for piracy? – Revision3 Forums”>forums</a> from the 24th.

Shortly after that, someone who worked there pulled the plug on it, and said:

“while it means revision3′s tracker will be more complex and less robust, i have implemented whitelisting. let the server crashes begin again”

And that’s exactly what happened.

Since then, Revision3 has started to file a lawsuit against MediaDefender, and even has the FBI involved. (So you can see why I didn’t really want to post this.)

Anyway, I’m at least hoping that this will result in MediaDefender’s demise, because they clearly aren’t only targeting illegal P2P, but all P2P, which is just silly. I occasionally use Rev3′s tracker to get Diggnation (most often I just directly download it… it seems faster) but they don’t deserve to be DDoS’d for any reason. It looks like Rev3 wasn’t even helping spread the piracy of “John Rambo”, but were having their servers misused by MediaDefender to try and stop it. It still could’ve resulted in Revision3 coming under lawsuit for helping with piracy though, so I’m glad they’re no longer announcing illegal files.

(P.S. Since then, I’ve rented “John Rambo” on DVD, just to make up for downloading it early.)

May 29, 2008 · Filed Under Announcements, Freya, Journal, Mjolnir

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The Lazy Podcast #10: Wiidiculous.

First of all, a note about the title: I’m waiting for BillyBob to come online sometime, because I rented Mario Strikers Charged to play with him ($10 for 7 days. jeez.) and it’s nearly been four days now, and he’s still not on. It’s getting Wiidiculous.

Okay, so, I’ve not posted in a while, nor have I posted a podcast since the 8th of October, so here we go. In this one, of course, I start of as usual, by playing my guitar poorly and talking about it. Towards the end I have actual information that only the people who listen to the end (or skip to) get to hear! That’s right, I’m withholding information, baby, and if you don’t like it, you can listen to the podcast.

Anyway, in this one I play chords. Yeah. Chords. Three of ‘em. D, G, and Em. Impressive? No, but I still like ‘em.

So without further adieu:

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February 13, 2008 · Filed Under Announcements, Gleipnir, IRC, Iðunn, Journal, Mjolnir, Nasir, Podcast, Projects, School, Ullr

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Auld Lang Syne

So, it’s a new year, and already great things have happened.

I got my Wii back, and the only downside to it is that Nintendo forgot to give me back my unspent Wii Points and anything I had bought in the Wii Shop channel. I was told to call ‘em tomorrow, though, so I’m confident that’ll work out fine.

I’ve been playing World of Warcraft with my friends Christa, Derek, Quin, and Jeff lately. (Ben and Ty have been playing Age of Empires III mostly, I assume, as I’ve not heard from either of them for quite some time… though I often see them online on Skype, I’m always busy when it happens.) I’m now level 61-and-a-half, and I’m looking forward to 62, as I’ll get a new spell, Molten Armor, which is just awesome. I just got my epic mount, and I’ve been questing in the Hellfire Peninsula on (in) Draenor (Outland) with Christa lately.

While I die a lot in Hellfire, I’m pretty sure that’s just ’cause I’m a fire mage, and everything there is demonic in some way, and everyone knows demons have a natural (unnatural?) resistance to fire. I’ve quested a li’l bit in Zangarmarsh, just to see if it’s any different, and it is. Everything is either a plant, or .. covered in plants.. or lives in a plant, and everyone knows plants burn really well. Anyway, I’m still pushing for level 70, so I can say I’ve done it.

Because I’ve been playing WoW with all of my friends, I find I don’t play my other games that much. Right now all I play is World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (usually with Quin) and Super Mario Galaxy. And, on occasion, Team Fortress 2.

I’ve been waiting for friends to get Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and Unreal Tournament 3 so I can play those with them as well, as on your own.. they’re just not the same.

Anyway, whenever I get a chance, I’d like to play Age of Empires III: The Asian Dynasties with Ben and Quin, but I don’t know if/when that’ll happen.

Now, in non-gaming news… I .. got some free brownies the other day. The li’l two-bite kinds.. that come in bags for like $6 at a grocery or corner store. They’re awesome. Even more so ’cause they’re free.

I had Jeff (Powell River) visit for about.. four days, I think. Quin and Christa met him, and they got along really well. Nice to see they like each other. Sadly, it felt like he had to go way too soon, and he couldn’t even stay for New Years, as he had to get back to work. (Just realized both Jeffs have jobs. One at a sushi bar, one at a grocery store.)

Me and Jeff played some guitar again, and I got back into it enough that I’ve decided to start getting lessons again. I intended on starting before Christmas.. but it never happened. Now that it’s afterwards, I can finally do it. That and take my Driver’s Licence Test/Exam Thing(R).

What else…

Oh, New Years Eve was awesome. I went over to Quin’s for the night, and spent it with his family, Christa, and his sister’s friends (one of which was named Savannah, which I thought was strange, but awesome.) Me, Quin, and Christa watched Orgazmo (an awesome movie by Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the South Park guys. It’s old and crude but oh-so-awesome.) as well as Live Free or Die Hard. We played Scrategories, a board game I had never played before, and we played it with everyone who was there. After that, we went outside and played with some sparklers for a while. All in all, best New Years Eve I’ve had in a long while, as I usually just watch movies and eat pizza while my parents are out at a party or something.

Anything else? Let’s see…

Oh, I returned my used copy of Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock and got a new one. While me and Quin (he was nice enough to accompany me to Gibsons for the day) walked around, ate lunch at A&W, and waited to get the bus home, it seemed everyone recognized the game, and wanted to speak to us. It was really awesome, actually. Kind of like when I bought the Halo 3 Legendary Edition.

Oh, today I spent the day with Quin again. Got my Wii back, then he came over, and we watched a movie, Shoot ‘Em Up which was awesome. We then rocked out in GH3 and then I head over to his house to play some more WoW on Nasir while he tanked Karazhan for his guild. (That sounded so lame. ;))

Speaking of movies, while Jeff (Powell River) was here, we watched a tonne of movies including Death Proof, The Number 23, 1408, and … I believe that was it. There might’ve been one more.

hm, so that seems like everything. I’m just trying to be thorough, as I was very very very late between the last few posts, as I just.. didn’t feel like posting. But 2008 has started off quite well, and I’m looking forward to the rest of it. (Wouldn’t it be horrid if I like.. got hit by a car tomorrow, and then later people read this, and were like: ‘Oh, he didn’t live! So sad! Poor him! He didn’t know it was coming!’, etc? Such morbid thoughts I have sometimes.)

((..in case that does happen, to any friends or family who read this: I couldn’t've asked for a better group of people to call my loved ones.))

January 3, 2008 · Filed Under Announcements, Iðunn, Journal, Mjolnir, Nasir, Projects, School, Ullr

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