New Tongue Twister

Traffic Attractant.

Try it, I dare you.

Holy crap, it's the 3rd of august!

It's been a whole month, I know. Sorry about that. Things have been pretty busy, as I've been looking for new jobs lately. Largely game related and production related. Hopefully it'll work out, and I'll be doing something new in a couple of weeks.

Wish me luck,

-s

Happy 3rd of July!

I've christened today "Last Day of British Stewardship Day".

Stewardship might not be the right word, though, so feel free to replace it with overlordship, controllership, or any other ship-related word.

Also, enjoy it. It's the last day before we have to fend for ourselves for the whole rest of the year.

-s

From the Homebrew Quotes Division

"It's not the size of the bug in the code, it's the size of the code with the bug."
-s

Penicillin!!!

Script Frenzy is a month-long script-writing activity. 20,000 words, one movie or play script, 800 cans of mountain dew.

I will be writing a zombie movie starring oranges. I'm calling it Penicillin!!!.

Stay tuned - I'll be posting the whole thing here as it comes together.

No promises of quality, though. I have no intention of making a live-action movie about oranges that isn't really, really, really bad.

-s

Script Frenzy

Get in a frenzy!!!

www.scriptfrenzy.org

I AM!

Thanks YTMND!

Click Here.

It is among the funniest things I've ever seen.

Hand Stand Land

I might edit this later, but I wanted to make sure I didn't forget until then.

Hand Stand Land: The only theme park to combine rhyming and physical activity in a fun and highly absorbent package.

Google! What the hell??!

Hmm? Fungafoidal?

One or two of the zero people who read my blog might be wondering what's up with the previous post. Well, I'm making a game, and we're seriously considering calling it Fungafoidal.

Partially because it's fun to say, and partially because before this blog there were ZERO occurrences of the word on Google.

Well. For now.

Anyway, it's sort of like... ummm... bejeweled... plus explosions... and circles.

That's pretty much what we've got so far. Except that it's actually going to be completely awesome. It'll always have that many ellipses, though. And the word "umm" will undoubtedly feature prominently.

Stay tuned for more. I'll link a testable soon(ish).

-s

Fungafoidal

adj. of or pertaining to a fungus or fungi. fun-guh-foy-doll.
The funguses exploded in a fungafoidal manner.

Happy April Fools Day!

Today is April 1st, the internet's oldest, greatest holiday.

Don't believe anything you read online today, except for this blog, and this:
http://www.thinkgeek.com/stuff/41/wiihelm.shtml

-s

I Read Blogs Backwards

Do you do this?

I suppose it's the nature of blogs to be a bit out of order. When someone recommends a blog they're not suggesting you read everything up to the point where they decided it was good enough to pass on, they want you to read the one thing they found hilarious or poignant, and share the experience. Sometimes it's good enough that you go back and read the whole blog. Example: waiterrant.net

But I don't hit the "first" button and start reading - I read from exactly where they are at this moment, and then the previous moment, and then the one before that. Pretty soon I'll be looking at their first post, and think "hey, what an interesting concept for a blog, I wonder how it turns out... WAIT! I already know!" And I also already know that everything works out at the end. Because I have foreseen it, you know, literally.

The thing about reading the end of the blog first is this: blogs don't tend to be about being happy. Most people don't think to themselves "wow, I am so content right now I could bitch about it to the internet for hours!". But there's really only two directions one can go, unless you're maddox and somehow remain fastidiously cynical for decades at a time. Things either get better, or they get worse.

And therein lies the beauty of the backwards blog. If things are getting better, you can read the reverse-tailspin, until you get to that initial moment where things were just so crappy that this person (whom you now share this powerful literary connection with) looked around at their empty apartment and realized that the only person they had to talk to was a few million complete strangers. Then you click on that "latest post" button, and read about their book deal, their new job, their significantly attractive other, and your own crap is suddenly just a little easier to take.

If it's getting worse? Well, then you just don't click that "latest post" button. And hey, check back in a few months - there'll be a different story then with a completely different ending. That's just the way these things work.

-s

Whew, Been a While...

Sorry about that. Been busy with side projects and work. I interviewed for a new job, and although it went very well, I haven't heard back yet. Turns out it's tough to blog when you're staring at your computer screen waiting for the inbox to update.

Then I started playing this game called Fall of Nations. Don't play it - you just click a button every 15 minutes, and if you forget to click, someone else will click for you. It's more complicated than that... well, a bit more complicated, but that's what most of my time playing it has been like so far.

The GF is in town this week, driving down from San Francisco to take my kitty away. It might be her kitty, technically, but in California, once you start paying for something, it turns into yours. And if it sits on your lap and purrs for hours, well, how can you break up such a wholesome picture?

But apparently she misses her kitty too. And her roommate has a fear of cats, and since Mookie here is less a cat than a malnourished cow, she's probably the perfect "starter-cat".

I have more to say, but I'll put it in a different post.

-s

I Didn't Watch the Oscars

I didn't watch the Oscars, and I'm ok with that.

Call me old-fashioned, but awards ceremonies seem like the kind of thing that should only matter to those people who are potential winners of the award. It's something to look forward to, to aspire to. For the rest of us, it's really, really, ridiculously rich people patting each other on the back. Is that so important to you that you have to spend 4 hours watching it? I mean, it's no Lost marathon. It's not even a Dougie Howser marathon.

I'm an Eagle Scout. When I had my awards ceremony, meeting other new Eagle Scouts from around the state, I didn't expect to see anyone but other Scouts and their families. I didn't expect it to be televised (despite the fact that these people would likely be doctors, lawyers, and businessmen someday), and I didn't expect anyone to place bets on who would win the "best project of the year" award. That, to me, just seems a little silly.

That said, there are some nice headlines coming out of it all. For example, it seems that Martin Scorsese is finally being recognized for decades of great movies. It's about time. He should have won the year that Clint Eastwood won for Million Dollar Baby. I'm pretty sure that a one-armed doxen (weiner dog) with massive brain injuries could have won an award for a movie based on that screenplay. My God, it's perfect: the crux of the plot is a female Rocky who is senselessly, permanently, debilitatingly injured, and then killing herself! That, my friends, is the 3-ply of cinema.

-s

Remarkably Concise Criticism

I'm not a huge fan of the show The Office.

It's funny, I'll admit, but seriously people, the single camera concept only has one thing going for it: it's cheap. Am I the only one who's getting tired of shifting back and forth and zooming around? This is not edgy, chic camera direction, it is a lack of good camera direction.

Anyway, here's what got me on this topic:
I've got to agree with Dwight on this one. Battlestar Galactica is pretty 3-ply.

I'm Pretty Freakin' Sick

I've been ill for 3.5 days now, and it's getting less and less fun by the day.

The worst part, though, is how stupid it's making me. I honestly couldn't add two numbers in my head now if my life depended on it. I've clicked on the link to my own blog 6 times so far today, and each time, I completely expected something to be there. So this is for next time. Next time, there will totally be a new post for me to read.

-s

in case you were wondering

In case you were wondering what I look like.

This is much closer than anything I could ever draw for myself.


Although I should note that sometimes, I wear a hat.



images courtesy http://www.becomeanmm.com , which, disappointingly, does not actually turn you into chocolate.

-s

Metroid Prime 2 Echoes - Reviewed!!!

Now that I have a nintendo Wii, I'm going back and playing all the gamecube games I missed along the way. First up, Metroid Prime 2: Echoes.

Video game review:
Metroid Prime 2: Echoes

You may have missed the after-credits shocker at the end of Metroid Prime, but nevertheless, if you played the first game, this disappointing sequel is your fault.

Because I don't like to lay into games right off the bat, let's start off with some things that I like about the game. It's still Samus, and Samus is still pretty darn cool. It's also still Metroid, and Metroid, despite having the kind of music that makes me want to curl up into the fetal position and cry, is pretty darn cool. Puzzle design: excellent. Art: completely sweet. Weapons: a little contrived, but honest to its predecessor and well executed. In fact, almost all of the things that earned Metroid Prime my "Greatest FPS of all Time" award are, in fact, in MP2:E. Which is why it is so painful to say that this sequel is not, at all, the greatest FPS sequel of all time.

That honor would have to go to Half Life 2, maybe Quake 2, maybe even Time Crisis 2. But now is not the time to be giving out awards to the heroes of bygone days (Hector would sweep the older brother awards); now is the time to severely critique the design of the game I am currently enduring the frustrations of.

Frustration 1: Difficulty. Difficulty in itself is not something to judge a game on. If it is too hard throughout, it's probably not designed for you. If it's too easy throughout, you are probably not the target audience. Difficulty deserves nothing more than a passing mention by a reviewer, used more to establish their own level of skill in case a reader wants to buy everything a reviewer likes/thinks is just right on the difficulty-meter.
But Echoes, oh Echoes. Echoes has badly designed difficulty. One of the first enemies that you meet in the game is the Lego version of the bugs from Starship Troopers. It is small, it is nearly unable to kill you. It takes 12 shots to kill.

TWELVE SHOTS.

This little bug thing takes almost as much damage as a metroid before breathing its last.

Also, every enemy has learned the magnificent skill of juking the z-targeting. So you get maybe 3 shots in before it's dodged to the left, and you're no longer locked onto it. Juking is not new to the genre. I firmly recall those big guys from Unreal dodging everything I shot at them. Heck, the Cyberdemon walked out of the way when I shot at him. That might have been random, but I missed a LOT. But you know what was different about those games? There was a way to MOVE SIDEWAYS.

There's a reason why the xbox and ps2 had 2 analog sticks. YOU NEED TWO STICKS TO AIM AT MOVING THINGS. Metroid Prime, realizing that it had but a single stick at its disposal, added the best part of the 3D Zelda games: Z-targeting. Echoes is the evil stepmother of Z-targeting, forcing it to clean the fireplace instead of going to the ball where it could make some handsome prince (me) very happy.

And I can guess why. It's right there on the main menu screen. Right next to options. It reads "Multiplayer." It is my firm belief that Metroid Prime didn't have multiplayer because of Z-targeting. Where's the fun or skill in clicking faster than your opponent? Echoes doesn't just make the enemies wise to z-targeting either. Targeting itself is ruined. You don't just have to be close to the enemy to lock on, you have to already be on it. And if you're off by the tiniest amount on the y-axis, hitting Z will just mess with your view, with no attempt at all to target something.

In Prime, I used to be able to walk into a room, hit Z and the fire button a bunch of times, and kill the shriekbats that flew from the ceiling. In Echoes, doing the same thing fires at the floor several times as shriekbats stab me in the face.

At least multiplayer will be skill-based. But I can't help but think that positioning and strategy would have made multiplayer fun even with z-targeting. Isn't the strategic element what makes rainbow six multiplayer, and gears of war multiplayer so much fun? Meh, I don't even know anymore.

But enough about that, here's the real problem: built-in-lag.

Who makes a game where the environment hurts you? Where you have to go stand in a certain spot for a minute and a half to regain your life after every 20-second fight?

And what the hell made them think that was a good thing to mix with loading-timed doors?

The doors in Prime were brilliant. There's no visible loading of new areas, because you have to wait for the doors to open. They don't open until the next room is loaded, but it's easy to believe that it's just an old door that needs to charge up some power to move (or something). I loved it.

But in echoes, while you're waiting, you're losing health. I literally DIED waiting for the door to open, because the door was around the corner from the nearest safe spot, and I didn't want to wait at the health spot, since I was returning to the light world anyway.

That probably made very little sense unless you've played the game.

Basically, if you loved Prime, and want to know what the hell was up with that hand thing, then you have to play Echoes. But it should have been called shadows, because it is a pale facsimile of Metroid Prime. Oh man that was clever, I love me.

Final Score: 2 plys.
Memorable quote: "I'm probably not going to finish this."
-s

Happy Valentine's Day

I've been in one of those serious relationship thingies for a few years now, but before that, I can't help but recall being blindingly single for a good 21 years. (If you can believe anyone whose prose is as devilishly handsome as mine would ever fly solo.)

In grade school, we did what I have to assume is the standard valentine's day thing: everyone brought valentines for everyone else, and we walked around the room in a circle, putting the Batman valentine in one envelope, the Superman valentine in another envelope, tossing the Venom valentine in the class bully's envelope because he would feel a kind of kinship with a soul-sucking alien, keeping the Hulk valentine for myself because it looked so cool.

I got zero girlfriends out of this yearly ritual, (maybe because I was thinking of the process as "getting" a girlfriend, and I've since learned that ladies tend not to like getting gotten) and with every passing annum I grew a little more disillusioned with the day celebrating Saint Valentine.

But despite a general lack of interest in the holiday, I never reached that plateau of loathing that so many other folks seem to. I can actually remember the first time someone told me that they hate Valentine's Day, and I was so taken aback that I stammered "why?" Turns out he was not in immediate possession of a special someone. I told them I didn't either, but not to get any ideas.

But really, hating V-Day because you're single is like hating Easter because you're an Atheist. (The eggs are pretty, but they're really a lot of work. Just ask that Faberge dude.) Or like hating National Talk Like a Pirate Day because you're a Ninja. It just doesn't make a lot of sense. Wishing that other people didn't care because you don't care is really kind of a bad policy.

Valentine himself, by the way, was a pretty run-of-the-mill martyr, dating back to 280 BC or so. He restored sight to a blind girl right before being beheaded by the Roman Emperor Claudius. The whole "be my valentine" thing was invented by Chaucer (rhymes with saucer) presumably because he had been gifted a stack of tiny paper hearts by a lady he didn't like, and had concocted a plan to turn them into a much more attractive girlfriend.

Hmm, this is getting kind of long. I think I'll just wrap it up now.

So if you're alone today, (as I am - the lady friend is in San Francisco while I languish in LA) don't scowl at everyone who's smiling and burn holes in every paper heart you see. Be like Chaucer instead, and make up a story to get people to like you.

Err, or, just celebrate love and life and stuff. That's what the day's about.

-s

Great News!!!

We no longer have to avoid worldwide cataclysms. We have a backup plan.

You Wouldn't Like Me When I'm Bored...

I'm bored.

Do you ever get bored? I mean antsy, easily excitable, turning green and making disappointing movies bored?

I'm bored like that right now. And while I'm not about to freak out and kill the whole town, I am about to write a big long blog post about nothing in particular.

This time, it's going to be about humor.

I love puns. They're the purest form of wit. I could spend all day turning phrases and juxtaposing letters.

Puns, although so easy to revile, help us realize that everything about life is the tiniest fraction away from being hilarious. Language is civilization, and comedy is built into language at its most basic level. Maybe that's why people hate puns so much - it's tough to take yourself seriously when someone's standing there showing you that it's futile. And who doesn't want to take themselves seriously now and again? Especially when civilization is concerned.

I love double entendres. When I'm in an actual conversation with you, I'm going to interrupt you with another one several times a minute. Why? Well because let's be honest here: if your mom didn't say it last night, it's probably not worth saying.

Double entendres are really the sirens of the comedy world. They're soooo easy. But as soon as you start to rely on them, BAM! They drag you down into the sea. It's impossible to get away. They cling to your neurons like (aptly named) silly putty. Pretty soon, everything anyone says is being retrofitted in your brain, and when you start laughing they ask what's so funny. You either admit that you've added "in my pants" to their statement about their daughter going off to college, or come up with something on the spot that is not only equally funny, but less terrifically inappropriate. (Hmm, that last one might not have been an accurate example. If anyone can tell me what "in my pants" jokes are called, please do. Hopefully they're not just "jokes". That'd be kind of sad.)

I love irony. Irony is typing something into your blog, and having the automatic spell-checker tell you that "blog" is not a word. It says "view blog" at the top of the screen! Why isn't there a little red line under that one? Maybe only large multinational corporations are allowed to use fake words. Maybe it's an oversight. Maybe it's... ironic. "Hmm" is also not a word, even though I find myself saying it frequently, even in text. I'm probably just more reflective than the computer. Probably the anti-glare monitor. (Buh-dum-bum! Man, it is just Raining puns today!)

Coincidentally, this is the first time (!) that anyone has ever uploaded the phrase "it is just raining puns" onto the internet. Seriously. Check Google. I hope you can appreciate the momentousness of this occasion.

And that's about enough to unbore me for the day. (Unbore: also not a word. Debore maybe? Nope. Oh well.) Catch you all later.

-s

3 projects and counting

Ok, here's the deal: I've currently got 3 projects going on.

I'm still designing the Oblivion Mod. That's going quite well at the moment - only one more main character worth of dialogue, then finishing the maps and putting together the flowchart. That should be about it. I'll post more when it's done. If someone out there wants to actually build the thing, drop me a line.

Project 2 is what I like to call "Evil Katamari Damacy." I always felt that it was kind of cruel the way you just swept up cute animals, children, and whole cities in that game, so I'm working on an asteroid version of that, except you're supposed to feel pretty bad about consuming planets full of people. Also it has the space thing going for it, so that's a plus. Everyone loves space. Hopefully this guy I know from college will be interested in helping build it. It's 3D and a largely gravity-based game, so I could definitely use some help.

Third is the webgame. If www.infowars.com wasn't already taken, I'd probably be calling it that, so instead I'm calling it Darknet. It's effectively a cross between the topic of Uplink with the web-based gameplay of Kingdom of Loathing. Do yourself a favor, and play both of these - there's a free demo for the former, and the latter is super free. They're models of their genres. (Not at all cheapened by the fact that they may be the only games in their genres.) This one I'm hoping to convince a former co-worker to help me design and build. I think the premise has potential, but it might get... complicated... along the way. I'll definitely need to make some math.

Oh yeah, and I'm doing some editing work for a friend's database of stuff. But that's a side-side project, so it doesn't count. :)

-s

On Wii. (haha!)

[It would be easy to call this post "NSFW". Even though there's nothing offensive in it at all. -s]

If John Keats were alive and penning his works today, I like to think that "On Melancholy" would have been titled "On Wii". Not because it's a title for the ages, but because I like to think he would have really been into games.

The Wii is a scary name for a console. Not just because you'll get beat up after school if you're overheard inviting people over to your house to "play with your Wii". High fives abound if you say it to the hot teacher, but then Zero Tolerance gets you expelled. And we can all agree that high fives from your mother when you're being home schooled just isn't the same.

But that's just one case. Lives can be ruined. Wii is a bad name for anything.

I don't have any problem with Nintendo selling Wii's. It was only a matter of time before their marketing team decided it was necessary to appeal to a more adult demographic. Maybe it was the right move, maybe it wasn't. But I know a lot of older men and women who stood in line for hours to get their hands on a fresh new Wii. To get their hands on their very own Wii? To finally learn why everyone wanted a Wii so badly? Whatever their motivation, it was winter, and most people went home with a frozen Wii.

But why does everyone want a Wii so badly? (Evolution?) And why does it only come in white? I'm sure there's a market for a black Wii, a pink or a yellow Wii. I'm fairly certain that there are people out there who would purchase a green Wii. Maybe a Wii with the triforce tattooed on it?

And why are they all so small? Aren't there people out there who want a Wii with a little more heft to it? Something more satisfying to look at, something that will impress house guests.

"There's my Wii," you tell your friends. "Whoa," they stammer, "that's a big Wii". Their wives tell you it's the biggest Wii they've ever seen. That they hope you hold these little get-together's more often.

As it is, it's like you need more than one for anyone to notice. Virile young men are desperately seeking Wii's for their girlfriends. "She wants to play Wario's Woods," they tell me. "What do I do?" I feel bad for them, sometimes tell them to just go into it with an open mind. "Maybe you'll enjoy yourself" I say. I know I am lying, but I can't crush what faint hopes they still cling to.

Maybe she doesn't need the Wii after all, maybe it's just a phase she's going through. And if it's not, you can always record her playing Super Monkey Ball and sell the videos online. You can use the money to entice the kind of woman for which security or commitment is more important than a shiny electronic Wii.

What really worries me is that Wii's cost more on eBay than in stores: the so-called "grey market," (the one color that you'd think no one would want their Wii to be). Nevertheless, these auctions shoot through the roof, sometimes costing upwards of 50% more than the suggested retail price. Maybe it's a grass-is-greener thing. Everyone wants the Wii that someone else has already got.

Now that I think about it, isn't it illegal in America to sell your Wii? Maybe that's what's so popular about it - a Wii that could be "hot" is worth more. Maybe that's why Amsterdam isn't as interested in the Wii, despite the critical shortages in Europe.

But despite it's evocative name, I'm not convinced the world would be a better place without the Wii.

Someone flipped and inverted a photo of their Wii remote control(!!) in photoshop, so that it says "M!!" I think the concept is clever, but I'm not sure I could stand to give up my Wii, especially not for the enthusiastic half of a candy-coated chocolate. I'm quite fond of my Wii.

It's become a part of me.

In fact, I haven't bought anything non-wii related in weeks now. Due to the shortage of remotes and nunchuks (ninjas, as usual, are making a killing), finding 3 more remotes consumes my every thought. All purchasing decisions are met with a stern and final qualifier: Could I use this to control the Wii?

Xbox? No. Gasoline? No. Candles? Yes. Shoes? No. Menorah? Yes. Steering-wheel-shaped-piece of plastic? Yes. Wavebird? Yes. Wendy's? No.

The refrigerator is quickly emptying. My friends told me that without food I couldn't lift the Wii Remote. I replied matter-of-factly that I clearly still retain all faculties, but when I am low on battery, the Wii will inform me, and I will recharge.

My girlfriend argued the longest, so I bought her a Wii of her own. She stays mostly in her room now, which is for the best, as I don't believe I need her anymore.

If I can save a princess with my Wii, then together Wii can do anything.

It's still a silly name, though.
-s

My Oblivion Mod

...doesn't exist yet.

But it's in the works, and really, that's what matters.

Why am I making a mod? Because I'd like to be a game designer someday, preferrably before I turn 27, so it's high time I got off my tookus (sp?) and do something. I've had long enough to recover from NaNoWriMo and it's time to start a new project.

So what's the mod, then? You might ask. Well, I might tell you, it's kind of complicated, so allow me to start from the beginning.

I played Oblivion for about 85 hours - I finished the game, completed every side quest (except collecting shadowbanish wine - I've never collected bugs in Zelda either), bought every house, finished the game the right way and the stab Dagon until he melts ending, I even looked up how to min/max stats and magic items so that if I played through again, I wouldn't have to keep turning the difficulty down every few hours.

When it was done, I was very, very sad. It was the same separation syndrome that anyone gets when they finish a really good game, but this one hit a little harder. I was still wandering around in the world. I still had stats to max out, but I had no reason to do so.

I had literally solved every problem in the world.

IN THE WORLD.


I was head of the Fighter's guild, and told them to do a balance between recruiting and making money. That seemed like a good way to keep the giant rat population down indefinitely.

I was head of the Assassin's guild, so I could just neglect my duties and the death rate of the realm would plummet.

I was head of the Mages' guild, and had Mannimarco's soul trapped in a soul stone. And since I don't age, he was pretty much going to be trapped forever.

So I watched the clouds go by for awhile, then installed a mod that added new cloud textures and watched those for a bit.

I installed a couple other mods, but both of them did strange things to my character. (Like deleting all of my possessions one by one.)

I bought all of the currently available Bethesda mods, and realized that although they were lovely, they were extraordinarily light on the content front. Sure I had gotten the Razor (and mad cow disease), and seen some very cool level design, graphics, and AI interactions. But it didn't actually make the game much better. It had hardly any of the character-character interaction that had made me play every single damn quest. I simply didn't want or need another sword.

So I took one of the common gripes about the game: there is no romance, and intend to change that.

Now, I'm a big softy. So my first idea was this whole big thing about actually getting some girl to fall in love with your character (I'll bother with the reversals later.) It was this whole big thing that, while cool, is probably too much work for me to do right now.

Instead, I'm going to do something far less extravagant, and far less complicated. I'm going to have some Nord chick that likes strong guys, and if you can prove how very very strong you are, she'll marry you.

No, I don't know exactly what marriage will mean in the game yet. For now you'll just be engaged, and she'll travel around with you or sit at home. I think it's important that she level along with you, so that you don't consider her a burden after a few quests.

And for right now, I'll just be working on the wooing angle. Everyone loves to woo, am I right?

So that's the plan. More later, but there'll be at least a bit related to the arena, the fighter's guild, a side quest or two, and a part of it will probably involve killing that semi-invisible thing in the North whose quest seems to have been canceled.

-s

I'm pretty sure this is what happened in Russia, too.

In case you were hazy about how shampoo helped promote capitalism and democracy.

It's only a matter of time, people.

-s

And Thou Shalt Be Repaid 3-Ply

I have discovered something simply marvelous: 3-Ply Kleenex.

I'm sure that you're thinking "You're kidding, right? I use 2-ply, what difference can an extra ply make?

My friends, this third ply makes every difference. It is the stuff of dreams. It's a little like blowing your nose in a bedsheet. One of those really nice 17 hundred thousand thread count bedsheets.

Now, I am not an uncongested individual. In fact, I would refer to my olfactory expression as unbounded, given a suitably temperate environment. I have destroyed paper towels with a single vicious blow to their supple centers.

But this third ply, it rebukes even my most vehement expressions. It is the stuff from which legends are born.

A guy I work with borrowed one to take home to his fiancee, I presume to end his farce of a relationship, as she had never indulged him with such a wealth of ply.

But even more important than the what is the How. How, you must be asking yourself, how did I get this box of miracle material?

Did I go to some high-end supermarket, or order direct from the manufacturer? ("And add an extra ply to it," I might have said. "We already supply a second ply, sir," the attendant would respond, startled. "No no, my good man," I would reply, smiling knowingly, "I mean, of course, an extra extra ply," evoking naught but shocked silence followed by the telltale scribbling of genius on paper.)

No.

I gave my box of tissues to some dude I hardly know. Because he was sick. My crappy 2-ply stuff. He used all of them. This man was airplane sick.

This morning, I was startled to find myself repaid with more than double the cumulative layers I had originally given.

But it was more than just the count, let me assure you. It was this breathtaking triumvirate of assembled plies.

Another co-worker displayed, I believe, the most appropriate sentiment when, after requesting a tissue for himself, began ever so lightly... to cry.

Happy New Year!

I'm not actually one to get all riled up for the new year, it's just a day, right? And as much as everyone loves saying hi to the new one, it's tough to let go of your good buddy 2k6, tragically cut down in his prime.

But since I have a blog now, I have a responsibility, no, a duty, to post my new years resolutions. Let's start with an overview of last year's resolutions:

2006 Resolutions:
1. Think up some resolutions for 2007.

It's not exactly Samuel L. Jackson's "Continue being badass," from back in the 90's, but you have to admit, the list has charm. And it's concise. Everybody loves concise.

But really, that list pretty much sums up 2006 for me: make a new plan. Yeah I started a blog, but it got lost in the rush. Sure, NaNoWriMo was fun, but really, at the end of the year, all I had was a hangover and a Nintendo Wii.

Although now that I think about it, that's a pretty solid list.

But most important, I'm sitting here looking at 2007, and thinking I've got a pretty good idea of what I want out of the new year. So with a clean conscience, I'm checking off #1 from last year's list.

So, without further ado, here's my list of ...

Resolutions for 2007:
1. Post to the blog religiously. If you're not at least doubling Hands In the Air's output, not even "quantity over quality" will be able to save it.
2. Don't buy a PS3. You're not retarded.
3. Start your damn webcomic. Find an artist, draw freakin' stick figures if you have to. Just... do it.
4. Edit your damn novel, and then put it online.
5. Make a damn video game.
6. Use "incongruency" in a sentence other than this one.
6. Continue being badass.
7. Think up some resolutions for 2008.

It's a long list, I know, but I'm a pretty tall guy.

Happy New Year, umm, again...
-silver