from xkcd.com http://xkcd.com/

from The Daily What http://thedailywh.at

RIP Society of the Day: I can’t decide who I dislike more: The “who is Paul McCartney” kids or the “I would let Chris Brown beat me” girls. 

I say we toss them all into a monster truck arena and let Bigfoot sort them out.

[nedhepburn / caitiedelaney.]

Tagged: Is it 2012 yet?, RIP Society, Who is Paul McCartney

from TDW Geeks http://geeks.thedailywh.at

Sad Pop Culture Duos of the Day: Artist Chris Gerringer created a series of illustrations featuring depressed-looking pairs of video game, movie and comic book characters who can totally relate to each other’s problems, and captioned them all “I know that feel, bro.”

For example, Mario and Adventure Time‘s Finn both have issues with princesses, Pikachu and the Genie from Aladdin have itty-bitty living spaces, and a Stormtrooper and a Koopa Troopa are some of the most expendable bad guys around.

But at least they’ve got each other to share that feel with.

Check out the whole series after the jump.

[io9]

Tagged: chris gerringer, i know that feel bro

Submitted by: Unknown

from The Daily What http://thedailywh.at

Parents These Days of the Day: 15-year-old puts up normal teenage Facebook post bashing her parents for making her work too hard, dad reacts by posting a video response to her grievances on her Facebook page. (Make sure to stick around until the end for the video’s dramatic conclusion.)

[reddit.]

Tagged: Crime And Punishment, ever heard of charity?, Facebook Parenting, Parents These Days

from Lamebook - Funny Facebook Statuses, Fails, LOLs and More - The Original http://www.lamebook.com

from Capcom : Official Blog http://www.capcom-unity.com/go/network/blog

By now you've probably spent a good deal of time playing with the Ability Cards inside of Heroes & Heralds mode - but the locations of each card may not yet be entirely clear, as each has a few critera that must be met. Today we have the full list of where each card lives, and how you can obtain it...

Parrying, crazy combo chains and more are possible with Ability Cards

If you click here, you'll find a large image that contains all the data. Basically, each card is acquired by playing as one faction (Heroes or Heralds) on a specific background (Kattleox Island, Danger Room etc). Simply look up the card you want to get, cross reference with map and faction, and boom, there's your path to victory.

Just a sample - click here for the full size

Example - to get Daredevil, I need to play as Heroes, and win a match on Training Room, Hand Hideout, Kattleox Island or Metro City. To get Bullseye, I need to play as Heralds and win a match on City That Never Sleeps, Danger Room, Shadowland or Days of Future Past. Note that some cards have other stipulations, like winning an online tournament or playing specifically in offline mode.

For the full list of Ability Cards, I typed this finger-cramping post!

from The Daily What http://thedailywh.at

Logical Conclusion of the Day: Also, as noted by Redditor Hank_Scorpio_77, Batman Begins was released the year Obama was sworn in as Senator (2005).

Election over.

[4chan / reddit.]

Tagged: Election Over, logical conclusion, POTUS

from The Daily What http://thedailywh.at

Interrupting Bus Driver of the Day: A press conference on the Horseshoe Casino collapse nearly had to have its own press conference after a bossy bus driver almost rammed into attendees, just before getting out of the vehicle and ordering everyone to move so she can get by.

[thanks moriah!]

Tagged: cincinnati, Horseshoe Casino, I Got A Job To Do, Interrupting Bus Driver

from kottke.org http://kottke.org/

Adrian Chen has an interview with a renegade IT guy named Martin who does social media, hacking, and other tech stuff for "High Net-worth Individuals" and criminals. One of things he does is set up drug rings with prepaid cell phones and a rotating collection of SIM cards a la the Barksdale/Bell drug crew in The Wire.

With Martin's system, each crewmember gets a cell phone that operates using a prepaid SIM card; they also get a two-week plastic pill organizer filled with 14 SIM cards where the pills should be. Each SIM card, loaded with $50 worth of airtime, is attached to a different phone number and stores all contacts, text messages and call histories associated with that number, like a removable hard drive. This makes a new SIM card effectively a new phone. Every morning, each crewmember swaps out his phone's card for the card in next day's compartment in the pill organizers. After all 14 cards are used, they start over at the first one.

Of course, it would be hugely annoying for a crewmember to have to remember the others' constantly changing numbers. But he doesn't have to, thanks to the pill organizers. Martin preprograms each day's SIM card with the phone numbers the other members have that day. As long they all swap out their cards every day, the contacts in the phones stay in sync. (They never call anyone but each other on the phones.) Crewmembers will remind each other to "take their medicine," Martin said.

That's clever. The "take their medicine" detail reads like it's straight out of the movies.

Tags: Adrian Chen   crime   The Wire

from Hardcore Gaming 101 - Blog http://blog.hardcoregaming101.net/

Visual novels are a long-running staple in Japan.
Popular titles don't just sell like hotcakes, they go on to influence merchandising of all kinds, manga adaptations, anime version, and even the occasional fighting game spin-off.
For years if not decades, this has largely remained a very Eastern-centric pastime, if not as Japanese as they get.
That slowly started to change, partially thanks in no small part to the popularity of Capcom's Gyatuken Saiban/Phoenix Wright games, which arguably started making the genre a viable one in the US.With the primary focus being on reading into witness testimonies, and giving the player an attachment to the immense cast along the way, the PW games are solid examples of what makes visual novels appealing.
Still, for the games to have a chance at selling in the US, the publishers and localization teams responsible usually try to find titles that involve gameplay of some kind; not just reading pages upon pages of text with little to no player involvement.
Not very surprising given how American gamers tend to expect some kind of action along the way.
This hasn't stopped die-hard VN fans from giving purist readers their fix, however.
The expansive 'Umineko No Naku Koro Ni'('When The Seagulls Cry') series, for example; an elaborate tale of magic versus reason, murders, witchcraft, and romance.
07th Expansion's PC novels spin one gripping tale, and remain one of the most widely known of the genre. It's also one of the best examples of a solid fan translation.The Witch Hunt didn't just go all out in their translation works of the Umineko saga; they even got the attention of the series creator, Ryukishi, who went on to sanction their work, and even give them a reference in the story.
That's all good and fine for the comparatively small niche of readers who are savvy in patching Japanese titles, but what about going after the gaming population at large?
Localizing any VN title, even one with VN elements, remains a risky gamble.
RED Company's long-running Sakura Wars franchise, ever a huge success in Japan, finally had a title localized c/o NIS America, only to have an underwhelming performance when it came to sales.
A balanced mix of mecha strategic combat and the wooing of numerous female significant others, Sakura Wars remains one of the more enjoyable and innovative examples of visual novel RPGs.
Despite being a great game in its own right, Sakura Wars V is largely considered the worst in the series. Moreover, it was released both for a dying console(the PS2) and one that left it easily overlooked in a sea of shovelware(the Wii).
Whether it was the wrong game or the wrong time, the failure of NIS's endeavor seems to have largely spelled the end of Sakura Wars' chances in the states.
Fortunately, it didn't end hopes for the VN genre.
Aksys took a considerable gamble in localizing Chun-Soft's DS visual novel/suspsense puzzler, '999'.
The venture paid off in spades. The game went on to sell out all over the country, and continues to be reprinted to this day; up to its 5th printing at last count.
(It very much deserves it: 999 doesn't just tell a great story, it brings a great game along with it.)
With the success of 999, the flood gates appear to have opened, and VN fans have much to rejoice over.
Team GrisGris and 5pb's Corpse Party, a mix of visceral horror and traditional top-down RPG, was a pretty risky venture by definition for XSeed.
It deservedly did well for itself, and remains the biggest selling game on the PSP.
(Which may not say much when the console is on its last legs, but a success is a success!)
Aksys aren't ones to be outdone, either.
Idea Factory's Hakuoki is next on their list, and as a rare first, this one's for the ladies: the protagonist is a female character, out to seek love and vengeance in feudal-era Japan.
As of recent, even some extremely dedicated fans have taken up the mantle, and created a visual novel of their own:
The controversial, and free!, Katawa Shoujo.
One of the more time-honored variants of visual novels, Katawa Shoujo is purely a dating sim: where all the available girls are afflicted with a handicap of some sort.
Despite the shallow-sounding premise, it's the solid writing, charming cast, and the ensnaring atmosphere that makes this one a keeper: and if the GameFAQs top 10 is to be believed, a very popular one.
It's also worth noting that some groups such as Manga Gamer and JAST sell official localizations of visual novels through the web, such as 07th Expansion's Higurashi(the precursor to Umineko), and the well-received Aselia The Eternal, though their works tend to skew more towards the eroge(adult) genre.
So what's next for the genre in the US? Only good things, if all the previous examples are to be believed.
I'm waiting with bated breath for an official Umineko localization, myself.

from Destructoid http://www.destructoid.com/elephant/index.phtml?mode=atom

Do you miss the good old days, when a videogame wasn't a videogame unless you were forced to plan your life around it? When you couldn't just kick open a door and shoot everything inside, but instead had to peek through the keyhole, hack into the security cameras, set up fifteen ammo drones, and then wire the door to kick itself in? Well, BioShock Infinite has what you want. 

Irrational Games has announced "1999 Mode" after overwhelming fan demand. This new gameplay setting will bring back the glory days of titles such as System Shock and Deus Ex -- where planning, awareness and pragmatism are essential. 

"It’s not simply a matter of adjusting the difficulty sliders in the game -- the team went much further than that," said the studio blog. "Resource planning? If you’re to survive this mode, proper planning will be crucial. Combat specializations? You’ll need to develop them efficiently and effectively throughout the story; any weapon will be useless to you unless you have that specialization. Combat? You will need to carefully target every shot, and your health will be set to an entirely different baseline.

"Game saves? Well, yes, there will be those, but according to Irrational Games Creative Director Ken Levine 'there are game saves, and you’re gonna f***ing need them.'"

1999 mode will feature irreversible decisions that will make you "suffer" if you choose incorrectly. According to Levine, this is for "the oldest and most committed fans," so you old school nutjobs out there are in for a real treat. 

Sounds seriously tantalizing, right?

from TDW Geeks http://geeks.thedailywh.at

Cosplay Corner: Cosplay queen Yaya Han returns with another gorgeous costume. This time, it’s Litchi Faye-Ling from manga-inspired fighting game BlazBlue.

Yaya writes,

Litchi’s design and fighting style with the staff was instantly my favorite. I also really approve of girls in glasses. AND I love pandas, and she has one hanging on her head. It was love at first button push.

So, not only is Yaya an amazing model and costume designer, she’s also an arcade game nerd? Yep, “love at first button push” sounds about right.

Check out some more photos of Yaya as Litchi after the jump, and make sure you show us your cosplay! Head over to the submit page and send in your best photos.

[yayacosplay]

Tagged: blazblue, cosplay corner, litchi, yaya han

Submitted by: Unknown

from TDW Geeks http://geeks.thedailywh.at

George Lucas Retiring from Blockbusters of the Day: The pressure of making Hollywood blockbusters has finally gotten to George Lucas.

The Star Wars creator told The New York Times he intends to settle down and focus on small art films after he finishes promoting his latest movie, Red Tails, an action flick about the Tuskegee Airmen.

“I’m retiring,” Lucas said. “I’m moving away from the business, from the company, from all this kind of stuff.”

Lucas had previously mentioned making a sequel and a prequel to Red Tails, but now he wants to turn those projects over to other filmmakers, possibly Spike Lee and Precious director Lee Daniels.

The Times describes Lucas’s future work as “small in scope, esoteric in subject and screened mostly in art houses,” which is about as far from Star Wars as it gets. And that’s fine with him.

“Why would I make any more,” Lucas said, “when everybody yells at you all the time and says what a terrible person you are?”

Lucas also revealed that he was the one responsible for the infamous “nuke the fridge” scene in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, although Steven Spielberg took credit for it.

“He was just trying to protect me,” Lucas said, before admitting that he created a six-inch thick dossier on the probability that Indy could use the refrigerator to survive.

Uh, George? You might have been better off letting Spielberg take the hit for that one.

[avclub]

Tagged: george lucas, red tails, retirement, star wars

Submitted by: Unknown

from TDW Geeks http://geeks.thedailywh.at

Conspiracy Theory of the Day: Redditor moving-target posted an extensive collection video reports of people from around the world hearing the same mysterious sound, asking Reddit to help him explain the phenomenon.

Other Redditors quickly dismissed the noise as fake, pointing out that the YouTube accounts posting the videos all mentioned aliens, the apocalypse and other conspiracy theories, and that the frequency of the mystery noises was inconsistent with the rest of the audio heard in the vids.

It’s still not clear what the mystery sounds are, although viral marketing is one possible explanation. Some on Reddit even joked that this might be the beginning of a campaign for Cloverfield 2.

What do you think these noises are all about?

Listen to more examples of the phenomenon after the jump.

[reddit]

Tagged: video

from Myths RETOLD http://bettermyths.blogspot.com/ So mice
we have them in my apartment
also my house
they eat things and it sucks
but imagine how much worse it would be if they could do this:
so one day this mouse gets fed up hearing all these fairy tales
about crazy mystical far off lands
and he's like FUCK STORIES
I'm going to go to those far off lands MYSELF
so this mouse just picks a direction and starts walking
but almost immediately problems start happening
because like ten feet from the mouse's house is a river
and mice suck at rivers
so he's sitting there trying to figure out what to do
when a frog jumps out of the river like WHAT'S UP MOUUUUUSE
and the mouse is like uh
how do I cross this river?
and the frog is like oh, that's easy
just swim
and the mouse is like oh ... ok
and the frog is like why do you wanna cross the river anyway?
and the mouse is like well I am just trying to get to the magical fairytale kingdom
and the frog is like well that sounds reasonable
here:
let me give you
SUPERPOWERS
I HEREBY NAME YOU
JUMPING MOUSE
and ho-lee shit
this mouse suddenly has incredible frog jumps
superman leaps
man these are some hops you could brew beer with is what I am saying
and the mouse is like THANKS MAGIC FROG
and the frog is like HOW DID YOU KNOW MY NAME?
ANYWAY GOOD LUCK
so jumping mouse is jumping along
and he runs up on a buffalo that is passed out in the grass
and he's like hey buffalo
what the fuck is wrong with you
and the buffalo is like dude
I totally went blind from drinking too much
and now I am so screwed
aaaaaaa
and jumping mouse is like dude it's okay
don't you know that I have BASICALLY NECROMANCY POWERS?
HERE
HAVE MY EYES
and he straight gives his eyes to the buffalo
and the buffalo is like HOLY SHIT THIS WORKS SOMEHOW
SORRY YOU'RE BLIND NOW LITTLE DUDE
LET ME GIVE YOU A RIDE TO THE MOUNTAINS
I WILL PROTECT YOU FROM EAGLES
WHICH ARE THE GREATEST DANGER TO TRAVELING MICE
NOT THAT THERE ARE REALLY A LOT OF TRAVELING MICE
BUT WHATEVER DUDE
TRUST ME ON THIS ONE
so that is what the buffalo does
but then it turns out buffalos are useless and can't climb mountains
so jumping mouse is left to crawl blindly up the rest of the way
and halfway up he just runs STRAIGHT INTO A WOLF
and instead of eating him
like a REAL WOLF
the wolf is like BOO HOO HOO I LOST MY SENSE OF SMELL
and jumping mouse is like oh no problem dude
HAVE MINE
and the wolf is so grateful
that he CONTINUES TO FAIL TO EAT JUMPING MOUSE
and in fact gives him a ride to the bottom of the mountain
protecting him from terrifying eagles the entire way
not that jumping mouse can even really tell at this point
because he is BLIND AND CANNOT SMELL
so he's down in the valley
which turns out to be the magic fairy kingdom lands
and suddenly he hears this creepy voice up in his ear
like congratulations jumping mouse
it is i
magic frog
apparently I knew a faster way to get here the whole time
but enough about me
it is time for you to JUMP JUMP JUMP
and jumping mouse is like seriously dude?
I am kind of mourning the loss of about half my senses
and the frog is like YOU ARE FORGETTING ABOUT THE SIXTH SENSE:
JUMPING
and so jumping mouse starts jumping
and then all of a sudden his arms turn into wings
and his sight comes back
and also his smell
and he is just soaring all the fuck over everywhere
and the frog is like CONGRATULATIONS JUMPING MOUSE
IN RETURN FOR YOUR GENEROSITY
YOU GET TO BE AN EAGLE
and Jumping Mouse is like whoa
i should probably get a different name huh?
So the moral of the story
is give away all your organs
and you can BECOME YOUR GREATEST ENEMY
The end

from The Daily What http://thedailywh.at

Shut Up And Take My Money of the Day: Not even lying: I would pay double the suggested retail price for a Criterion Collection edition of Good Burger.

[@criterion.]

Tagged: Criterion Collection, good burger, shut up, Take Money

from Ask A Jedi http://www.askajedi.com

As some may be aware (and certainly the mention of it in my latest Blasters, Beggars & Credits post generated more than a few comments), the method to get the fabled Magenta Adegan Crystal has finally been revealed. A group of Redditors (and it’s unclear to whom exactly receives credit, so why not just give it to r/swtor as a whole) unraveled the mystery and shared it around the evening of the sixth – we feel confident that the secret is out!

This sleuthing was based off of Georg Zoeller’s hint: “273.15.” Based on that, they figured out the exact steps to acquiring the crystal. So we figured we’d post a guide for those that want to embark on the journey. Be warned, some spoilers follow, and if you like figuring out puzzles, you may want to skip this one! For those that don’t know, 273.15 is the temperature (in Kelvins) at which water freezes.

Heavy risk - but the prize...

Your quest for magenta should first take you to Tatooine to get a buff. This buff is called “Sustained and Refreshed,” and it lasts for 30 minutes, albeit without a timer. Speed is of the essence once you get the buff, though 30 minutes should be plenty of time so long as you don’t engage in other activities.

In order to get the buff, you need to find a water vaporator that has a glowing object attached called a “Water Access Panel.” These vaporators are located in Jundland, and are all over the place, but look to be mostly concentrated around the Republic base of Dreviad Outpost.

Back off the Water Access Panel, mate.

Once someone gets the buff, the item goes away and spawns in some other location. It also takes 15 seconds to cast. However, if you are taking multiple people through to get it, you can all click the panel at the same time and complete it off of just one click.

For a desert planet, there's a surprising amount of moisture available.

Now, you have your buff. The next part of your magenta quest is to head to Hoth, specifically to Highmount Ridge. Above Leth Outpost, in the southern part, is a mountain ridge; ascending it to the approximate coordinates of -993, 148 will place a debuff on your character called Extreme Altitude; additionally, if you have the “Sustained and Refreshed” buff, you will have a new item in your inventory called Pure Shockfrozen Water.

Delicious, pure water.

Now that your timed portion is done, you must travel to Ilum to one of the daily quest areas, northwest of the Republic Waystation and southwest of the Imperial Waystation (around -555, 34 on the map). There you will find an item on the ground called a Depleted White Adegan Crystal.

Where's the magenta? It's just white and off-white, here.

If you have the water in your inventory, clicking on this item will cause a Force Ghost Champion with around 214,000 HP to spawn. A 4-man group with reasonable gear should be fine to kill him; we had 16 since everyone wanted to get a crystal made (this was our 3rd or 4th run at it in the past few days, with similar numbers attending each time).

It's a g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g-ghost!

Killing him spawns a bunch of crystals on the ground that anyone with the water can then loot (in exchange for the water, of course).

Now you know that white crystals need water to grow into magenta crystals.

And with that, you’re done – or, well, sort of. You also need to find an artifice who has the pattern. The guild I’m in was lucky enough to get the 33 power crystal to drop from the Belsavis world boss (known as The Primal Destroyer) a few days before the method was discovered for acquiring the magenta crystal (we’re on the Jung Ma server for any interested), but it does seem that the pattern is a rare drop from that boss. Gargath on Hoth supposedly also drops the crystal.

This whole adventure reminds me of the days in World of Warcraft, you could go to Blackrock Spire, have a Priest Mind Control a specific enemy NPC, and then have him grant a huge fire resistance buff to everyone in your raid. This really helped out in the early days of fighting Ragnaros! I think undocumented puzzles like this are very cool, and hopefully we’ll see more like it from the team at BioWare down the road?

Good luck on your quest!

from Jeffs Gameblog http://jrients.blogspot.com/

The PDF version of The Miscellaneum of Cinder, my 2009 compendium of random tables, will no longer be listed for sale at lulu.com.  Instead, a free version is now listed at the OSR Conservation Project.  If you want the print version, that is still available at lulu via this link. Note that the OSR-CP version lacks the much-maligned purple cover.

You know what's missing from standard D&D character sheets? A spot for an animal companion.  Even if you don't have a familiar or a magical talking dog or psionic chameleon, there ought to be a place for your donkey or warhorse.

Do class abilities migrate in FLAILSNAILS games? For example, I let a Lamentations of the Flame Princess-derived magic-user fire a bow and wear leather in my Wessex campaign, since Raggi's rules allow that. Should I have enforced the BX rules on that guy?  And if not, does that mean my PC gets the funky bonus die from his one level as a DCC warrior and the cleave ability standard to fighters in Outland?  I kinda like the idea of adventurers collecting weird abilities based upon where they were when they leveled up, but I don't want things to get out of control either.

I've re-read a bit of Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed the past couple of days.  I don't really have any more to add to that.  I just think that it was a pretty cool idea. It seemed daunting at the time to replace all the standard 3e classes and races with new ones.  Would it be easier for me to pull off today?  I dunno.

from The Holocomm http://www.theholocomm.com

One of the coolest things about a new MMO’s launch is that the game still holds mystery. Within months, just about everything there is to find will be found, but those first few weeks after launch are filled with a sense of pure discovery. The Old Republic players felt that in spades this past week when debate over the mysterious Magenta Adegan Color Crystal reached a fever pitch. Sure, the item is in the Torhead database (as well as other TOR databases), but where the heck does it come from? Does it even exist, or is the item just a relic from beta?

Late last week on Jan. 6, The Old Republic‘s Lead Combat Designer Georg Zoeller took pity on players desperately searching for their color crystal of choice and dropped a hint:

Magenta Adegan Crystals

It’s actually not difficult at all. There is no RNG element involved, nor do you need to be running around in endgame gear to obtain it, nor do you need an Operation to do so.

You may need a bit of time, but not a crazy amount either. All classes are capable of obtaining it. Think of it as something like a datacron.

Of course you also need to find an Artifice capable crafter with the recipe to turn the raw crystal it into a Lightsaber crystal, but for the right price, I’m sure they’ll help you out.

Honestly, I was a bit amazed to find out that it is possible to have a mystery like this in an MMO. It’s been in the game for a few months now (since beta).

Why the mystery? Why not serve it on a platter to those who want the color?

Well, for the same reason there aren’t vendors at the start of the game with all the outfits, colors, colors, weapon appearances, etc. Because this is an RPG – some things are earned, not just handed to you on a silver platter. If you want them, you have to play the game.

Yes, we know character appearance is important for people. Hence many of the choices we made in the game, hence us adjusting many features based on feedback from the community during beta. However, the acquisition of appearance options is still a part of the game. You earn appearance past character creation, in various ways.

As said, the magenta adegan crystal is available for everyone and eventually someone will figure out how to get it. It’s rare because it’s undiscovered, not rare because it’s terribly hard to get.

And, because I’m such a nice person today, I’ll throw in one hint to get you started:

273.15

source

 

Those of you that paid any attention to your science courses in high school may recall that -273.15 is the Celsius equivalent of 0 Kelvin, or Absolute Zero. In other words, the hint was to think cold. Very cold. Players on TOR‘s official forums, reddit’s /r/swtor, and numerous fansites went wild trying to find a solution, and eventually one surfaced.

Fly to Tatooine. Click on a Water Vaporator’s Water Access Panel to get a Refreshed and Sustained buff. Any vaporator should work.

Fly to Hoth while still under the effects of Refreshed and Sustained. Climb up the highest point in Hoth (roughly -966,600) until you receive an Extreme Altitude debuff. Upon receiving that debuff, your Sustained and Refreshed buff should disappear. You will then receive a Pure Shockfrozen Water item in your inventory.

Fly to Ilum. Find a Depleted White Adegan Crystal node, which are scattered throughout the zone. Clicking on the node will spawn a level 50 boss Force Ghost, which you will need a group to kill.

Once you’ve defeated the boss, it will drop raw magenta crystals on the ground — your entire group can loot one crystal per person. The crystals are unique, so you can only hold one at a time. No stockpiling raw magenta crystals!

Elaborate? Yes. Significantly more convenient than relying on RNG? YES!

A crude image that surfaced on reddit lays out the map coordinates very well, but if you prefer to see this instructions in video form, NotCasuals has you covered.

from The Daily What http://thedailywh.at

What’s In A Name of the Day: Madison, WI man Beezow Doo-Doo Zopittybop-bop-bop, 30, was arrested on Thursday on charges of carrying a concealed weapon, possession of drug paraphernalia, and possession of marijuana.

Zopittybop-bop-bop, born Jeffrey Drew Wilschke, legally changed his name in October.

It’s not clear whether Wilschke’s name change was inspired by Bill Cosby, nor do police reports reveal whether, like other kids these days, he enjoys the hippin’ and the hoppin’ and the bippin’ and the boppin’.

His Facebook profile does say, however, that he’s a member of the Orthodox Church Of Jerry Garcia Fans.

[dailypicksandflicks.]

Tagged: What's In A Name

from The Daily What http://thedailywh.at

Whoopsie Daisy of the Day: At a Mitt Romney rally in Charleston, SC, Sen. John McCain took the stage to endorse the presidential candidate he believes can “turn this country around”: President Obama.

“I believe in America. I believe our best days are ahead of us,” McCain continued, apparently not realizing that he hadn’t said “Mitt Romney.”

Romney realized it, though, and moved to take the mic from the septuagenarian senator, who finally corrected himself, saying “Excuse me. President … President Romney will turn this around.”

[wonkette]

Tagged: brain fart, john mccain, mitt romney, senior moment, video, Whoopsie Daisy

from Crew Skills » – Crafting & More in SW:TOR http://crewskills.net

As I posted a week ago, Slicing is still profitable post-nerf. It’s just no longer a license to print money, and has more risk involved.

Findings

 

Mission Yield

Class

Moderate

Abundant

Bountiful

Rich

1

1.44

0.98

 

0.93

2

1.41

1.11

 

1.10

3

1.39

1.30

1.14

1.09

4

1.34

 

1.17

 

5

1.44

1.22

 

1.44

6

1.18

1.21

 

 

A ratio of 1.0 means that your rewards average out to equal the cost of the missions. A ratio of 1.2 means that for every 1000 credits you spend on missions, you will – on average – receive 1,200 credits from lockboxes.

From this we can see a few key things:

Moderate-yield missions score surprisingly well – this is usually because they’re very cheap to perform.

Equally, Rare missions aren’t worth doing for most classes (except 5). This is because they’re usually a huge increase in cost, and they often don’t pay much more than the lower-yield missions.

Class 1 and 2 Moderate missions are very profitable, but they’re fairly fiddly given that you have to tend to your companions every few minutes.

Methodology

You can see the data set I accumulated in this Google Docs spreadsheet.

All Slicing missions were performed after the Patch 1.0.1 nerf.

All missions were performed at 400 skill.

All missions were carried out with companions under 1,000 Affection, and none of them had any bonuses to Slicing.

There were no mission failures. Some missions were crit successes; you can see these in the dataset with Large boxes listed as the reward.

The value of other rewards (schematics, augments, mission unlocks) were not included, only the credits from the lockbox.

Every mission was done 10-15 times, except unlockable missions. They’re included in the dataset for reference, but not included in the table.

Some missions are unrepresented: these are Imperial-only missions. There are some factionally-split mission pairs which are identical in cost and yield and time – I’m assuming their profitability is equivalent too.

There wasn’t enough data to say anything conclusive about unlockable missions. My suspicion is that they’re probably worth doing for the extra goodies, credits aside.

You may also want to take a look at this Google Docs spreadsheet (provided by pdxmarcos on the official forums) which has numbers on Average Credits per Minute. I’m not including that data in this post as it’s directly affected by companion affection, but you can find some useful numbers there.

Slicing Profitability is a post by Siha from Crew Skills. Comments, feedback and discussion welcome!

from Wondermark http://wondermark.com

Well, the yacht is a-rockin’ dangerously, don’t bother knockin’
Yeah, the yacht is a-rockin’ hazardously, don’t bother knockin’
Yeah, the yacht is a-rockin’ precariously, don’t bother, come aboard
I said the yacht is critically top-heavy, don’t bother, come aboard

from Gnome Stew http://www.gnomestew.com

With our regular game canceled last week, we tried out a game that has been neglected on my shelf for too long. The game was In A Wicked Age. It features a short rulebook, simple character sheets, and seemed perfect for a fill in game. We got started a little late, didn’t get all the characters tied together, and quit a few scenes before we reached the end–but it was a fun experiment anyway. Here are some key elements that might work for you, whatever game you ordinarily play.

Situation Building: Oracles

The game begins incredibly flexibly; it’s a rush and a terror to try to tie together the prompts and make a situation. What am I talking about? The Oracle, and what it reveals.

You select one Oracle, to give the game a specific style. Then you draw four cards, each of which contributes one specific element. We selected the God-kings of War oracle, and got the following results:

A day sacred to an oppressed slave cult, the celebration of which is punishable by torture.

A warrior-woman, queen of her small wild tribe, hard-pressed by advancing civilization.

The arrival of a hundred fearsome warships on an unprepared, prosperous, peaceful coast.

From those random elements, everyone at the table picks out characters that sound interesting–explicit or implied by the oracle’s reading. The characters can be anyone–god, mortal, slave or king. In our case, the characters that were selected were a tribal queen, a noble horsewoman driven to the edge of habitable land by the large empire. She crossed paths with a captain of the approaching fleet, who it turned out, was a member of the subjugated culture that kept the slaves and drove off the warrior-woman’s people. The last PC was an adviser to the high priest of the banned religion. We had many other characters who came up when we read the characters from the oracle–the ones no one claimed became NPCs. The queen of the ‘peaceful, prosperous’ empire, the high priest, the admiral of the invading navy, and the neglected god were all other characters that could have been selected as PCs–and wound up as NPCs for our game. You can imagine how different it would have played if one of the players had switched their character for one of those roles!

Oracles and You

The core game concentrates on a bronze age, Conan, feel. But the oracles have been embraced by players who love other settings and gathered at random-generator.com; oracles exist for Mouse Guard, Shakespeare, Wuxia, Battlestar Galactica, and dozens of other settings.

If you’re stuck, or just need inspiration for your next session, click on an appropriate oracle. You might have a one-click Shadowrun at hand. (Some assembly required.) You can twist the PCs into the implied roles–or just report the tense revealed situation to your players, and see how they get sucked in.

Short Character Sheets

In A Wicked Age does a great job of summarizing a character’s capabilities succinctly. A PC’s stats are: Covertly, Directly, For Myself, For Others, With Love, and With Violence. That’s how you solve problems–pick two that apply and roll their associated dice. In some ways the stats are similar to traditional RPGs–being good at solving things With Violence is similar to being a high strength fighter in D&D–but being a passionate fire mage is as good an explanation for solving things with violence.

NPCs are even simpler; they have only three stats: Action, Maneuvering and Self-protection. They’re each fixed combinations of two dice, so they’re immediately ready to go. If an NPC is good at maneuvering, okay at self-protection and poor at action? That sounds like an idle ruler or his vizier, doesn’t it?

Needless to say, assigning stats takes only an eye blink when those are all you have. Coming up with the cool character is much less simple, but it is refreshing to throw out driven NPCs, just worrying about characterization–and without pondering how their CR matches up to the PCs, what feats they have available… and all of the other burdens that we accept with our standard systems.

Mastering In A Wicked Age

So, now that I’ve played, here’s the research I should have done to have a smooth session. I hope it helps you get off on the right foot.

This isn’t just advice, it’s also an example and a nice tool. Best Interests tutorial and sheet (PDF)

Some of the bad habits addressed in this thread impeded our play too. This thread, led by the game designer, does a good job of bringing some unconscious habits to light.

I muddled, bringing dice in too early. This thread includes good advice, particularly about waiting until someone says, “Hell no, you’re not doing that” before the dice come out. It’s hard to resist using the system, but delaying until it’s a real conflict would have helped to cement the difference.

Tim Jensen’s advice later in the above thread would have really improved our game. “All of the characters should start within easy walking distance of everyone else.” Not addressing that led to three parallel stories rather than a braid of overlapping interactions.

Setting Sparks

Have you played In A Wicked Age? Did you play it straight, with a different oracle, or hacked to your group’s play style?

Even if you haven’t played IAWA, have you ever used a tool like an Oracle to help you plan out your next scene? Or even to generate PCs and a tense situation for a game?

from The Daily What http://thedailywh.at

Celebrity Shill of the Day: Local Kia dealerships in Pennsylvania and Texas hired wacky waving inflatable arm flailing Gary Busey to sell some cars. That was last year, and the TV spots have somehow gone unnoticed by the video-viewing masses.

Naturally, being that this is the Internet, they couldn’t remain undiscovered for long, and, naturally, being that this is Gary Busey, they are amazing.

Check out a couple more below, and then head over here to watch the rest. Tell ‘em Gary sentcha (or he’ll pull your endocrine system out of your body).

[uproxx.]

Tagged: Celebrity Shill, gary busey, kia, video

from Dice Monkey http://dicemonkey.net Number of Views :3
It’s here, it’s here!

Okay, it’s not actually here, per se, but it’ll be here before we know it!

You should go to your FLGS and beg them to stock it, or, barring having an FLGS, you could preorder it on Amazon.

Now, you all know me: I love miniatures. As such, I think I need to prepare for the game.

The basic game will allow you to play as one of many heroes, and make your own. I like the idea of playing established heroes in the universe (at least to start), so we’ll need miniatures.

The text on the site mentions “Captain America, Spider-Man, Daredevil, Iron Man, Wolverine, and more” while the cover of the book (as seen above) also shows Spider-Woman and Ms. Marvel. So, we’ll need those minis.

Fire up Strike Zone Online, and get looking!

First up: Captain America. Depending on which Cap is carrying the shield in the stats, there are two options: This one, depicting Bucky Barnes as Cap (for the low, low cost of $.88!), or this one, depicting Steve Rogers.

Second, we have Iron Man. I like this one, which features Iron Man flying forward at top speed. It would go well alongside the Steve Rogers Captain America above.

Spider-Man has a fantastic variety of miniatures, but my favorite is definitely this one. He’s got a backpack on, and if you don’t like that, it’s easily removed. I’ve got the mini, and it’s actually fallen off of my figure.

Wolverine has a lot of options as well. Here’s a nice, straightforward figure, and this one would be good with a repaint. Also, there’s Logan, without his costume. It’s a great figure.

Daredevil has a couple good sculpts. Here’s one, where he’s punching. Also, this is a great dynamic one. This one is great as well.

With Ms. Marvel, they aparently only have her as a Skrull, so you’d have to do a repaint. Here she is.

Spider-Woman has a single sculpt, which is this one. Not too bad, but not as great as it could be.

So that’s the heroes they’ve mentioned. They mention a couple of villains as well, Armadillo and Zzzax. I’m certain that there will be a lot more, but those are the only two we know of so far.

You’ll need villains, so I can imagine you’ll need lots of HYDRA Agents (found here, here, and here), lots of AIM agents (here, here and here), some Skrulls (here, here and here), and some Doombots (here). Of course, picking up some well-known villains such as Magneto and Dr. Doom wouldn’t hurt.

Luckily, with the Heroclix figures, you can usually find a cheap version of any hero or villain you need.

But what about the gigantic stands? No one likes those! Well, you can easily chop the figures off, and put them onto D&D bases. Works like a charm.

Finally, go get a few sets of the Star Wars Galaxy Tiles (I have three, from when they first came out). These can represent the hallways of the Helicarrier or a dozen other places.

Now go forth and get ready! I’m preordering my copy as soon as possible.

from The Daily What http://thedailywh.at

What The Hell of the Day: How does a 14-year-old African-American girl who speaks not one word of Spanish end up being deported by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to Colombia? That’s what they would like to know.

ICE Director of Public Affairs Brian Hale said the department has opened an investigation into the circumstances leading to the deportation of a Texas teen named Jakadrien, who was arrested and sent to Colombia last year despite never having been there in her life.

According to Jakadrien’s grandmother, who managed to track down her granddaughter with the help of Dallas Police and Facebook, the then-14-year-old ran away from home in 2010 after her grandfather died and her parents divorced.

News 8 says Jakadrien ended up on the streets of Houston, where she was arrested by police for theft. Alone and scared, the young girl gave officers a fake name, which, by sheer misfortune, happened to belong to a 22-year-old illegal immigrant from Colombia.

Without verification, ICE collected Jakadrien’s fingerprints and deported her to the South American republic, where she was given a work card and released. In Facebook posts, Jakadrien reportedly complained of being tired from having to work all day cleaning a big house.

Though the U.S. Embassy has been notified of her whereabouts, this sad story isn’t over yet: The Colombian government has since seized Jakadrien, and is holding her in a detention facility for reasons unknown.

Her grandmother, however, is far from giving up: “I feel like she will come home,” she says. “I just need help and prayer.”

[wfaa.]

Tagged: All Kinds Of Wrong, Jakadrien, what the hell

from Tiny Cartridge http://tinycartridge.com/
New Japanese commercial for Super Mario 3D Land starring actress/idol Haruka Ayase. This is the handheld gaming experience — spending a quiet afternoon slouching in a chair, knees up, talking to yourself and making weird noises as you guide characters around a tiny screen.

Looking at Ayase’s filmography, I saw she was in a hilariously titled Japanese movie called Oppai Volleyball, which I found this amusing description for:

“Haruka Ayase stars as a newly-transferred 23-year-old teacher who takes over coaching of her new school’s volleyball team, only to discover the squad’s 5 players are all geeks who are too preoccupied with girls to bother practicing. Without realizing quite how effective it would ultimately be, she somehow gets roped into promising to show her ‘oppai’ (breasts) if they win a game, turning the boys into highly-dedicated sportsmen overnight.”

She was also in Kwak Jae-yong’s (My Sassy Girl) Cyborg She, which I hear was good but haven’t checked out yet.

Buy: Super Mario 3D Land, 3DS system

Find: Nintendo DS/3DS release dates, discounts, & more

See also: More Super Mario 3D Land stuff

from Comixed - 4 panel comic strip (yonkoma or 4koma) http://comixed.memebase.com

Comic by:

Berial

from The Daily What http://thedailywh.at

Supercut of the Day: The plot of It’s a Wonderful Life recreated with clips from over 20 TV shows — and Back to the Future II.

(List of shows at the source.)

[vkmtvstudios / waxy.]

Tagged: Clip Compilation, It's a Wonderful Life, Mashup, Movie Montage, Supercut

from The Daily What http://thedailywh.at

This Is All Kinds Of Wrong of the Day: The Arizona Humane Society has come under fire for euthanizing the nine-month old kitten of a recovering heroin addict who was unable to pay $400 for the animal’s surgery.

Scruffy the cat was Daniel Dockery’s “closest companion.” Dockery had raised the feline from birth.

Earlier this month, Scruffy sustained severe injuries after getting tangled in some barbed-wire fencing. The AHS demanded $400 from Dockery to treat his pet. He requested 24 hours to obtain the money by wire from his mother in Michigan, but staff members would not allow it. They even rejected his request to have his mother provide her credit card information over the phone.

They left him with one option: Sign over Scruffy’s ownership rights or the cat would go untreated.

Dockery reluctantly gave Scruffy over to the AHS after being assured the cat would receive medical aid and put in foster care. He then spent two weeks attempting to track Scruffy down at every local shelter, but to no avail.

Yesterday, Arizona Republic‘s Robert Anglen learned the heartbreaking truth: Scruffy had been euthanized.

Asked to explain its actions, AHS told Anglen the kitten was put down “not because of its wounds, but because its owner could not immediately pay for its care.”

Apparently there were only enough resources to treat two of the three ailing cats at the clinic, and Scruffy pulled out the short straw.

“Now I’ve got to think about how I failed that beautiful animal,” Dockery said. “I failed her. … That’s so wrong. There was no reason for her not to be treated.”

AHS told Anglen it would be reconsidering its policy of rejecting payment over the phone.

Despite all he’s been through, Dockery still feels taking Scruffy to the AHS was the right decision. “I don’t want to turn people away from the Humane Society,” he said. “They do do good works.”

[azrepublic / mediaite.] 

Tagged: All Kinds Of Wrong, Arizona Humane Society, Daniel Dockery, Scruffy

from Hardcore Gaming 101 - Blog http://blog.hardcoregaming101.net/

Despite the holiday season bringing joy, laughter and harmony to many of us, it doesn't shelter life from its fragile nature. Today, Abel announced that Hiroyuki Kanno has passed away. On December 19th, Kanno left us due to a cerebral hemorrhage. Kanno was only 37 years old.
Throughout his life, Kanno was an avid reader and studied the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Stephen King, as well as philosophical studies in order to learn about the human psyche and emotional patterns. He would make use of this when he began to design video games in his early 20s for C's Ware, a visual novel software house that became an influential in the progression of the visual novel genre with his games Eve burst error and Desire. His greatest achievement in video games would later be YU-NO, the multi dimensional thriller which not only brought innovation to visual novels, but video gaming as a whole.
Kanno was a close friend of late Ryu Umemoto, a friendship which saw them collaborate on the games which made them two of the most well respected individuals and deeply regarded in the independent video game scene in Japan in their respective fields. Now, the legendary duo has both passed away, all within 6 months.
Hardcore Gaming 101 would like to offer our thoughts and condolences to Kanno's family.

from TDW Geeks http://geeks.thedailywh.at

Mysterious Metal Ball from Space of the Day: A 13-pound metallic ball, about 14 inches in diameter, has crash-landed in a remote region of Namibia.

Local authorities suspect the ball fell from space, judging by the size of the crater it left, and they’ve attempted to contact NASA and the European Space Agency about its origins.

The hollow metal ball is one of several that have been reported over the past two decades in Australia, Latin America and southern Africa.

Although it was first discovered in November, the mysterious object wasn’t reported until recently, because authorities wanted to verify that it wasn’t dangerous.

“It is not an explosive device, but rather hollow, but we had to investigate all this first,” said police deputy inspector general Vilho Hifindaka.

[popsci]

Tagged: metal, mystery, mystery objects, namibia, space ball

Submitted by: Unknown

from Jeffs Gameblog http://jrients.blogspot.com/  It's just a spell that does damage at a range, right?Magic Missile Manifestation (d20)
1. Summon Ghost Arrow
2. Laser Beam Finger
3. Ebon Flame Gout from Palm
4. Icicle Spray from Fingertips
5. Sparkly Rainbow Gesture
6. Summon Nano Black Hole
7. Throw Fire Shurikens
8. Bees from Mouth
9. Lightning from Eyes
10. Fingers Briefly Become Long Snakes
11. Heat Wave From Forehead Cooks Foe's Innards
12. Spheres of Eerie Light Up From Ground
13. Slime Erupts from Target's Pores
14. Summon Biting Skulls
15. Eyes Open In Palms, Shoot Purple Beams
16. Spit Lava
17. Conjure Vortex of Green Fumes
18. Call the Hideous Cackling from Nowhere
19. Blow Kiss of Death
20. Projectile Vomit of Acid
DMs may opt to track specific formulations, or simply each caster has their own version, or maybe you have to roll every dang time you cast.

from xkcd.com http://xkcd.com/

from Hardcore Gaming 101 - Blog http://blog.hardcoregaming101.net/ I’ve been meaning to post about Satellablog for months, but kept forgetting. Apologies to all involved. Satellablog is dedicated to all things Satellaview, the satellite-based add-on system for the Super Famicom in Japan. Arguabl...

from Comixed - 4 panel comic strip (yonkoma or 4koma) http://comixed.memebase.com

Comic by: AllSeeingIsland

from inessential.com http://inessential.com/ I’d love to run, edit, and write for a publication bigger than just me and my blog. I don’t have time, so I won’t, at least not any time soon. But if I were to run a publication, I’d have a few rules: Design for reading Obviously. See my previous p...

from TDW Geeks http://geeks.thedailywh.at Akira Casting News of the Day: Ken Watanabe (Inception, Batman Begins) has been offered the role of The Colonel in the live-action version of Akira, according to Twitch. Watanabe is the first Japanese actor to be offered a major part in the controversia...

from TDW Geeks http://geeks.thedailywh.at Hoarders: Skyrim Edition of the Day: Putting objects on people’s heads in Skyrim is so last week. Now everyone has moved on to collecting as many items as possible and dumping them all in one location. Redditor Deriol, who dropped an enormous heap of eq...

from Blog of Holding http://blogofholding.com "You might call it a game," said the youth. "When the bell completes its song, several strokes hence, the maze will be laid. You will then have an hour until it strikes again. If you have not found your way out of town and away from here by that time...

from TDW Geeks http://geeks.thedailywh.at Cosplay Corner: You might not recognize him without the pixels, but this is Cecil Harvey — protagonist of Final Fantasy IV (Final Fantasy II in the U.S.), and commander of the Kingdom of Baron’s airship fleet — as cosplayed by NeilBomBad at Fanime 2011. ...

from Nerf NOW!! http://www.nerfnow.com/ Click for full size I decided to try something different with MW3. I decided to just watch it all instead of playing it, and you know what? I liked it more that way. The game plays like a movie and, like a movie, it is best "played" on a single sitting ...

from Hardcore Gaming 101 - Blog http://blog.hardcoregaming101.net/ Fancy collecting for the Sega Saturn but put off by increasing prices for the rarities? Considering buying a modchip to play backups but aren’t sure which one is best? Then join us as we conduct a head-to-head BATTLE TO THE DEATH...

from TDW Geeks http://geeks.thedailywh.at Mysterious Google Earth Finds of the Day: Images on Google Earth have revealed some mysterious structures in the Gobi Desert, near an area that China has been using for its military, nuclear and space programs. The structures include two mile-long refle...

from The Daily What http://thedailywh.at Letter Of Note of the Day: After her husband passed away in 1989, mother-of-three Marianne Brown — then 36 years old — wrote a letter to Kurt Vonnegut to thank him “for his books and his compassion.” She didn’t expect a reply — but got one anyway. “I ha...

from Massively http://massively.joystiq.com Filed under: Fantasy, MMO industry, Free-to-play, Humor There's a good chance you've never heard of M2, a small free-to-play MMO developed by Japanese company Sankando and operated by Hangame, and if it wasn't for a major misstep last month, your igno...

Be thankful you don't have to play these Rejected Darkmoon Faire Minigames

Watara Supervision: A Beginner’s Guide

from fever.midboss.com’s Saved Items http://fever.midboss.com/fever

Warlock Ovale script for 4.2