I've neglected to put anything about my addiction to the Spore Creature Creator on here so far. Quite why, I have no idea. When it first came out, I played it solidly for a full week, hardly doing anything at all except play, eat and sleep.
Spore, when it comes out, will be a game of epic proportions. You start out with a single-celled creature that you evolve as you go along the game. By the end, via a series of different types of game play, you're controlling a space-faring race of creatures that's able to create life on planets or destroy entire planets, if that's your wish.
The Creature Creator is all about just making creatures for the full game. With the tools available, it's amazing how many different creatures you can make. When you've made them, you can upload them to the Sporepedia where they'll be joined by more than two million other creatures. I've made tons of "original" creatures, but I've also been making creatures that look like characters and animals from real life or various games, like Mannoroth the Destructor from Warcraft 3, pictured in original and Spore form respectively:
I think the likeness is rather good, myself. If you want to see my various creatures, you can go to my profile page and check them out. There are a LOT of them, though. Eighty at the current count, in fact. I'll put some of them up with some stories and stuff later on. For now, have a look at my dancy video right here (made from one of the earlier versions of Mannoroth) and then buy the FULL version of the creature creator so you can get all the different parts to use. Well, you can use the trial as well, but you only get one quarter of the parts.
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When I first heard of it, I thought the Threadless site was just another t-shirt seller. However, it's so much more than that. It's a web community of designers and artists who make designs and rate eachother's designs all week until a small selection of the designs are chosen for printing. The reward to the winners is simply stunning at 2000 USD cash plus vouchers and other niceties.
I just ordered my first pink garment from there, namely the hilariously named Gay Pride T-Shirt (Groups of lions are called "prides") and I'm very tempted to start uploading some of my own designs from the Cafepress days when I get back to Scotland.
So check it out.
(Yes, the link is a referral thing, so if you buy a shirt there, I actually get three dollars off on their products myself, which is the exact same amount I got for every t-shirt sold on Cafepress.)
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We bought Age Of Conan (The Norwegian-produced, hotly anticipated MMO based on the Conan world) today and as I'm about to enter the second hour of the installation process, I would like to take this opportunity to quote Henry Rollins in his fantastic spoken-word album A Rollins In The Wry:
My life... is leaving me.
I think it's safe to say that the Age of Conan will pretty much be over by the time all the patches and everything are done installing.
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Some of you know of my (pretty much consistantly failed) attempts at writing, chief amongst them Bulb Squad Chronicles, which I never continued after the second installment. Well, it occurs to me that I don't know if you people write at all.
I can think of a few of you who MIGHT be writers, but I don't KNOW. So here's the deal. If you're like me and you're working on some project (or several) and you're missing fellow writers to talk to about ideas and to get feedback from, I just started a forum at write.magnulus.com that you can join.
Now, it's a relatively closed thing for the sake of the privacy of the people who write there (Mainly me and two others for now) so only register if you're actually planning on participating either with feedback, your own projects or both. It sounds kinda elitist, but it really is only for privacy reasons.
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Some of you may or may not remember that I spoke about Beyond Good And Evil a long time ago and, at that point, talked about how it would be awesome on the Wii. Well, it's been two years, but it's finally actually coming out! Counter-intuitively enough, it's not coming out for the Wii, but I'm fairly certain it'll be awesome-sauce (which is the online lingo for "cool" these days) in any case. Have a look at the trailer just below here:
An online friend (whose name I didn't know was Fabian 'till ten minutes ago even though I've known him for five years or so) pointed me in its direction and was lamenting the colours and general art direction of the trailer. He conceded that it looks absolutely gorgeous, but that he missed the look of the original game, as seen here:
I think that the trailer is quite possibly taking a leaf out of Blizzard's book and using a realistic design for the cinematics but a more saturated, cartoony look for the game itself, like with World of Warcraft or any of the other Blizzard games. Even if they do stick with this realistic style all the way through, I don't mind myself as long as the gameplay, story and animation are as well-done as the original.
In worrying news, the CEO of Ubisoft said that the original was commercially unsuccessful because it was too hard and that they're looking to make it more "accessible". The game was nowhere near too hard when it came out, and I suspect, like I told Fabian, that the game is an easier sell to the CEO if they say that "Oh, it sold because it was too difficult, we'll just make it easier!" rather than "We're still not entirely sure why it didn't sell. Could be marketing, the strange characters, the cartoony style (yeah, right!), the non-genre-specific nature of it, or any combination of all of those, but we're sure people will like it THIS time!!".
Let's hope the game industry works a little like the movie industry and that they were only saying that to get the backing from the CEO. Even if it IS too easy, I'm fairly certain it'll still be enjoyable to play.
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It's no secret that I love technology that empowers people who don't have the full physical capabilities most of us are used to, be it software that helps people be creative or things that allow people to move like everyone else. The Luke arm is probably one of the most awesome technological advancements I've seen in a long time.
It's a robotic arm that weighs the same as a normal arm and can do many of the same things based off impulses from the nerves left in the stubs of amputated limbs and now even brain waves. I saw this video of it a while ago, where a man who's not had any arms for YEARS is now able to pick up objects with ease and manipulate them effectively. Can you even IMAGINE what that must feel like? Man, sometimes it's so obvious to me why I love technology.
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My good friend Kerry recently took a test to see how many kids he could take on at once in a fight.
30
Created by OnePlusYou - Free Online Dating
Yeah, that's right biatch! While you're being pummeled to the ground, I'm swinging a kid by his ancles into another kid... And THEN I'm swarmed.
How about the rest of you? How many would you take? Click the picture to find out!
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Well, DO you?!
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While sorting my documents earlier today (aka. procrastinating when I should have been working on my essay) I found some pictures I snapped of myself with the course's digital stills-camera in the second half of my time in Alta in 2002. To the right here, you can see a soulful-looking (*snort* YEAH, RIGHT!) me displaying my then-new Alexander deLarge tattoo. This must have been quite soon after I returned from Oslo with my group after filming our end-of-year documentary project. Then, of course, you have my first stint as either spokesperson for the liquer brand Sheridan's or Cruella deVille's lost son. Some of you will know I had another one in 2004 or so. Finally, there's the non-intentionally quasi-artistic blurry one.
I played around with that camera a lot in the long hours spent editing or using the webternets at the school. Digital cameras were like MAGIC back then, and could even take pictures that filled the entire computer screen. Insane, I know.It's weird to see images of myself that are not so far away from the current me. There are little, subtle differences that have applied themselves to my features since then, like my jaw jutting out a little more and more lines (or wrinkles, if you will) appearing around that grin of mine. It's also weird, because they remind me how different I am to the Magnus I was in 2002 on a personal level while simultaneously making me aware of some striking similarities in the then-me and the now-me.
In many ways, it highlights the fact that even though we might change a LOT over the course of our short lives, the core personality doesn't change all that much at all. I think of who I was as a teenager, and I think "What a prat." but I also remember things that I would say or do that I could easily have done today.I guess the lesson to take away from all this is that Magnus is and always will be Magnus.
.
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Of course, there is no Face-Song 1. The name comes from Song 2 by Blur, which I've parodied. Duh.
I know, I know. My next video was supposed to be an animated Lord of the Rings Rewritten, but I just couldn't get it done, so I decided to finally do something about this lamentable lack of videos.
Lyrics:
This here slow-motion
Conjures emotions
It isn't pretty
But nothin' is
No!
When I really feel bored
I feel the need to record
I got an essay to work on,
but procrastinate for hours and hours and I make this
Make this video.
I made this video
It's really dumb, yo.
It's not my problem
Now it's your problem
When I really feel bored
I feel the need to record
I got an essay to work on,
but procrastinate for hours and hours and I make this
Make this video.
Will upload MP3 of the song later today.
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