Sweet. I know what I’m doing next March and onward.

Posted by Ron as Games at 9:30 AM EDT

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Wow, I was researching Squid today on wikipedia, and through a wacky chain of linkage, found this. For those of you too lazy to click it, the link is to a hilarious parody of the original Dark Dungeon Tract, using goth subculture instead.

For those not in the know, the Tracts are religious zealot propaganda published by Jack Chick, a semi-famous Fundamentalist Protestant wingnut and “accomplished” conspiracy theorist. This deluded individual’s website is the stuff of nightmares, such that upon initially viewing it, you might think it was a joke, like the Landover Baptist Church website.

Also found a C’thulhu-based one and a smashing parody of the infamous “This Was Your Life” Tract. There are tons more where that came from, here and here (at the bottom of the page).

And, somewhat more political (which seems to amount to the same thing in moder-day amerika), whitehouse.org is good for many a laugh as well….

Posted by Ron as Uncategorized at 3:41 PM EDT

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Keep in mind this image was taken at about 5 o’clock. It’s not supposed to be this dark yet. In fact, I was turning lights on inside at 3. It was crazy thunder and lighning from about 4, and didn’t stop until shortly after 8. The clouds and rain were so thick that the horizon disappeared like playing a FPS game with the background detail set to ‘low’.

Posted by Ron as Miscellaneous at 9:11 AM EDT

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I am no longer without a direction. I don’t mean that I’m not still at a loss about what it is I should do with my life, I just mean that now I know where I’ll be doing it for the next little while.

Meghan interviewed for a supervisor job with a before-and-after-school program and got hired, so looks like we’re staying here in London-towne. I’m pretty pleased by this, as it’s a really nice place, and our families like the idea of moving here also, so us being here is further incentive.

We’re probably moving into the same building as my sister, though the earliest we can get in is November 1st. Okay, not entirely true. There is one unit on the top floor that comes available October 1st, but we viewed it a few weeks ago and weren’t very happy with it, so we’ll hold out.

I was kind of hoping to be on the same floor, for various reasons, but there are three units available, one on each the 8th, 16th and 18th (top) floors, and we’re going to check them out on Saturday. I think that 16th will be nice, though I think Meghan would like to be lower. We’ll have to see, I guess. We’ll pick the best unit, regardless of the floor.

One of the reasons I was hoping initially to be on the 11th was because of the cats. Loki-cat has been living here with us and is now quite used to having Mr.Feebs and Azrael around. Visiting would just be easier if they were on the same floor. The other reason involved the internet.

Jen’s internet connection sucks. I know it, she knows it. The problem is that she’s too cheap to upgrade, whereas I will settle for nothing less than 3.0Mbps. What I had proposed was sharing my internet wirelessly with her (she has a laptop with built-in WiFi), and she could throw me some cash for it every month. Sounds great in theory.

The problem is, while the range of the network is theoretically 1,155 feet, in reality, due to interference and all the walls in between, I’m guessing we’ll be lucky to make it work from even the 8th floor. I guess we’ll have to test out the range some time to see just how far we can reliably connect. If it helps, I can pick up a high-gain antenna. SMC (the same as the router manufacturer) makes an omni-directional model that provides a 20% range boost, as well as a directional model that supposedly provides up to 50% range boost. I’d probably get the directional model and point it either up or down, depending on which floor we end up on. I guess we’ll just have to see how it works.

The other nice thing about actually moving in is that I won’t have to fight for a parking spot every time I move my cars. There are 127 units in this building and only 14 visitor parking spots, meanwhile, the actual parking garage is mostly empty. I suspect that some of the actual residents simply never bothered to rent a spot and rely on sheer luck to land a spot at the end of each day. Personally, I couldn’t deal with that. I already asked, and they won’t let me rent a spot unless I live here. As you may have noticed in the photos I’ve taken from the balcony, there is plentiful parking all around us here, but it’s all pay-parking, which is lameness. If I have to pay, I at least want a garage.

This could be a problem if I get another car or two. It’s 35$ for the first spot and 25$ for each additional one. Meghan was talking about getting her own SVX, and I wanted to pick up an old Nissan 240sx. I don’t really want to get rid of the Stratus either, since I’ve had it for a while and I know it’s reliable, and I know where its been. But this would just be ridiculous. I guess if we do get more I’ll just have to part with some. Also, EI isn’t going to cover my car habit, so I’ll have to land a job too before I start seriously thinking about this…

Posted by Ron as Miscellaneous at 10:17 AM EDT

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At last year’s Tokyo Game Show, it was revealed that a continuation in the Front Mission series, Front Mission 5, was under development for the PS2. This year, according to RPGamer, a few more details have been announced and a teaser site is up and running with a streaming FMV trailer. Though, I can’t watch it because my connection is too slow here. In the meantime, I just have to keep my fingers crossed for a North American localisation. I have no idea what the sales figues were like for FM4, but I’ll bet they weren’t all that great, so it’s anybody’s guess if I’ll actually ever see this one hit North American shores, and more importantly, store shelves. It seems that TRPG fans here would rather look at noseless, disgustingly cute, and badly drawn anime teenagers in Yet Another rehash of the original Final Fantasy Tactics formula.

Posted by Ron as Games at 9:23 AM EDT

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Yesterday, it was foggy. Really, really foggy.
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Posted by Ron as Miscellaneous at 10:17 AM EDT

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I don’t have a home right now, so my entries may be infrequent for the next little while. I’m staying at my sister’s place in London until Meghan and I figure out where to go. Unfortunately, Jen, my sis, has a craptastic internet connection. Not dial-up, but the next-suckiest thing: DSL Ultra-lite. The only thing it has going is price, and it isn’t even that cheap, if you ask me. But hey, it’s not my house, I don’t pay rent, so I don’t get a say. Don’t get me wrong. I’m truly grateful for the hospitality.

Posted by Ron as Miscellaneous at 12:06 PM EDT

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