What's up.

So, Good old Games added Ultima 7 to their library awhile back. I personally consider it one of the greatest RPGs ever made, and I still fondly remember spending most of a summer with it after trawling a few abandonware sites and installing Exult.

I didn't realize until just now, however, how long ago that actually was. While looking through my art folder I found a screenshot of Ultima 7 I took that dates back to July of '04. That was over seven years ago. Nearly two years before I first played Morrowind and became lightly obsessed with the Elder Scrolls series in general. I mention that because Ultima 7 was one of the forerunners of the "open" RPG as we know it today, and may not have aged as well as I've assumed.

I'm kind of afraid to play it again. I couldn't play Morrowind without graphical mods after Oblivion showed me what infinite view distance and a lack of constant loading interruptions could do, and now I'm not sure I could play Oblivion after Skyrim showed me the possibilities of NPCs without potato chins.

What do you think? Got any personal experiences with Ultima 7? Can it still hold up as a classic if one keeps an open mind?

So,  Skidd and I, we go way back. We're old friends. And when something bad happens to old friends, I gotta start busting kneecaps!

Haha. No. Not really. But he did get screwed out of a job and is looking to make some cash until something comes up, so I thought I'd point out that he's got a couple of auctions on Furbuy going, ( http://www.furbuy.com/seller/Skidd.html ) which you should totally buy if you've got some dosh lying around.

Have I talked about this before? I'm sure I have. But I haven't actually done anything about it, so I'll bring up the discussion again.

When I was but a wee level 1 artist, I would fill pages and pages of sketch paper with cartoon heads. That was all I knew how to draw. When I got slightly better and could draw simple bodies, I started making up characters, putting them in weird situations, making little comics. Tiny little comics, dozens per page, prolifically. And all I really strove for was to get better, to understand anatomy, perspective, color, etc. And I never stopped drawing. On good days I could fill several pages with the stuff that was bouncing around in my head.

Now? Well. I haven't progressed much lately. I can tell my style is becoming slightly more refined over time, maybe my shading is a little smoother than it was a couple years ago. But I haven't really improved much.

And I'm starting to think ... maybe that's ok? Maybe I've reached a point where I need to stop focusing on technical skill as much? I'd like to go back to a time when I could sketch all day and slam ideas down on paper, but I can't because I worry too goddamn much about how it'll look. Two of my favorite artists recently have been  redic-nomad and  seely because they're both fantastic artists, yet they also draw loose, stream-of-consciousness comics, and they still manage to look aesthetically pleasing, and why didn't those useless art correspondence classes ever cover sketching like that and why do I keep bringing this up when all I need to do it just sit down and DRAW except sometimes I do and it's really neat but then my brain won't let me aarhed6482`093 fdsj row24ew̳̳̗͚͉ͧ̉̑͢f̖̬̲̋̆ͣ̅ͦͣ͡d͑ͧ̇̌͑͑̄͏̟͕̭̪̩̭̖s̐̽̈́̽̿͊̑͝ ͙̞̤ͦ̑ͪͥ̈e̤͔̦̮̖͎̝̍ͫ́ͬ̂4̪͙̓̈́8̹͎͉͇̫͈̘̂͂̕ 2͢3̬̪̞̏̆̑̽̀̓̉͡ ̆̈̎͠f́͡x̲͚͡ ͖̌ͭ͛ͯ̅b̄̄̐̔́҉̯̟̭̠̞̰ļ͓̜̠͎̙̙͕̓u̬͎͑͊̄̉́̈ͨp̒̾҉͎͎̤̜̬ o͟h̙ͬͯ͌ͤ̄ͨ͘ ̲͙̯̣͕̥̥̆̽̏͑̏͂͑n̯̠̟͞ô̲͎ l̠͎̟̫͌̒̆ͧ̒o̱̲͗͛͗̓̐ͤͥo͕̥͉̘̟̞ͬ̽ͪ͋͠ͅk͕̹̰͖͇̜̎́͌ͤ ̖̱̮͚̪͌̋̈ͩ͢w̨̥̍̈ͬ̓h̟͈̬̻̗̾͑a̵͈̘̬̜̺̣͈͊̄ţ̌̋̒ ̺̹͚̦ḫ̵̝a̞̓̈̌p̧̖͚ͦ͋̄̂̀̓̌p̧̻͚̥͐̀̈́̎̚e͙̬̯̲͔̝ͅnͤͦ͛͏͖͈̖͓e̴ͬ̒d̳͍̞̺̼̂̋ͧͧ͐ͮ͠ͅͅ



EDIT: Anyway. Point being, I'm starting to value raw style over technical skill. A picture can be sketchy, messy, poorly planned, but it's the little things that matter. The expression, the way a mouth is drawn, even just the content, or what's happening in a picture. All of that could be improved by technical skill, but it can operate independently of it as well.







OR MAYBE I'M TALKING OUT OF MY ASS I DON'T KNOW

So. Uhm.

I've been pretty much overweight my entire life. Ever since I was diagnosed with asthma when I was 5. Or that's what I told myself, anyway. That I was fat because running, walking or even just being outside on a cold day left me struggling to breathe. That was pretty rough in grade school. They couldn't risk the possibility of being sued because some kid OD'd on his prescription medicine, so I wasn't allowed to carry an inhaler with me. And this was when the health craze phase really started kicking into high gear. Every week we'd congregate in the assembly hall and watch a video about why all your excuses for being fat are bullshit, and then go off to walk several laps on the track field.

When I was older I went on a couple of diets. Diet Center and South Beach. Lost about 40 pounds each time, then gained back more than I had lost. They were fast, they were effective, and they were brutal. The reason their advertised results are "not typical" is because almost nobody stays on them for more than a few months. Lose a few pounds, gain them back, repeat ad nauseum. I remember once going to a store and becoming irrationally angry because being on a diet meant I couldn't eat a tube of raw cookie dough. That's not something I'd ever do normally, but these diets deprive you so much that you start to go crazy.

Well. I didn't get my asthma under control until a few years ago. Now that I could breathe, I took the opportunity to join a gym. I got pretty good on the elliptical. Eventually got to the point where I could run for half an hour, burning 400 calories in the process, or so the machine told me.

In two years, I never lost a pound.

So this has always been in the back of my mind. Always thinking about it, about what I could do. I'd been following r/loseit on Reddit for awhile, just kind of browsing, seeing what other people had to say, when I saw a link to an article on some webpage called Nerd Fitness.

http://nerdfitness.com/blog/2011/01.....actually-suck/

The Reddit submission that linked to this didn't get many upvotes. People there don't seem to like Nerd Fitness too much. But that article really resonated with me for some reason. Got me fired up. I did some more research, on the paleo diet and bodyweight exercises. Figured I could give up cereal without any problem and replace it with eggs. Started keeping a food journal, followed the instructional workout videos on Nerd Fitness and started keeping a workout journal.

Almost considered cancelling my gym membership, but then discovered r/fitness on Reddit. Researched barbell exercises, researched Starting Strength, started doing weighted squats, overhead presses, bench presses, dead lifts and power cleans. Felt ridiculously strong.

This all started in January. As of last Friday I've lost 27 pounds and gained a lot of muscle. That's hardly a success story; it averages out to less than a pound a week. But it's sustainable. It's a lifestyle change. I'm not depriving myself. It hasn't been easy - I've given myself minor injuries during weightlifting a couple of times, and the slow rate of progress is frustrating at points - but, well ... it's working.

So yeah. That's my story. Maybe I can inspire someone else. That'd be neat.

If you wanna add me in the off-chance that I'll log on someday, I've got a new MSN account under the name ZombieCat2001. You can figure the rest out.

... Y'know. I came up with that as an alternate alias when signing up with Yahoo or something back in 2001 when "ZombieCat" was taken. That was awfully shortsighted of me. Makes it look like I'm ten years old. AND YET I CONTINUE TO USE IT. BECAUSE ZOMBIECAT IS ALWAYS TAKEN. I AM A FOOL.

Looks like my old defunct Hotmail account has been used to send spam, and is now locked down. That also means that I can't access MSN, so ... y'know what? Screw it. It looks like getting it reactivated is going to be a pain in the ass. I don't care anymore. I barely log on anyway. Like, twice a month maybe.

So whatever. Sorry if anyone in my contacts got spam.

Take inspiration from everything. Make a folder on your computer and fill it with images that catch your eye or are aesthetically pleasing in some way. From time to time, open that folder, browse through it, and attempt to copy the things in it by eye. Copy the work of other artists. Learn how their style is different from everyone else's. Boil all that down into the elements that make up that style. Take the elements you like the best and implement them in your own work. If you're a young, inexperienced artist, do this to establish your own style and to learn how things are done. If you're an older, experienced artist, do it anyway. You'll stagnate otherwise.

If you're worried about looking like a leech, then credit your inspiration, or just don't upload anything that you think borrows too heavily from other sources. But remember, nothing is original. Even the most inspired piece of work borrows from everything that came before it in some small way. By doing this, we are advancing the state of the art and becoming better artists.

... that I'll reply to all the good, thought-provoking comments, but then it's two days later and I forget.

And then I'll stumble across them months later and feel really bad.

I know I don't always say it, but I really do appreciate the comments you all take the time to write. Thanks.

Been thinking about this a lot lately, but it kind of came to a head recently. I'm kind of a shitty friend, simply because I have a tendency to lose contact with people. I literally can't count the number of friends I've FORGOTTEN ABOUT COMPLETELY, haven't talked to in months/years, haven't even thought about ... It's like, I know I KNEW a lot of people at some point, but it's a hole in my brain. And I'll go through these periods where I'll frequently talk with a few people for an extended period of time, like every night we're having these great conversations, but it's really only because THEY'RE the ones who initiated the conversation, and if they ever stop they'll just kind of fade out of my mind.

But I mean, I'm only one person, right? I can't be friends with everyone. But it hurts to think about all the people I've lost contact with. And it's likely going to happen again, and again ...

All I ever talk about in these journals is weird personal problems, or videogames. I'm not depressed, at least not at the moment. I'm just tired and felt like saying what was on my mind. I guess.

People ask me what's on my mind. I've spent so many years hiding my true feelings in real life that I apparently can't access that part of my mind anymore. What AM I thinking about? Uhm .... stuff? What occupies my idle cycles? Nothing? I have very few opinions. I'm not really passionate about anything. Do I have any hobbies? I guess what I do here is a hobby. But I can't talk about that, because I can't let myself talk about that, so I don't talk about myself.

Please stop asking.

... that I'm starting to wonder if I'm just asleep most of the time.


Zzzz

Sorry I don't reply to comments more often. Sorry I don't upload as much as I used to. Sorry I'm not online to chat much, and when I do I'm either overly enthusiastic or morbidly depressed. Sorry I say I'll draw your request, then do nothing because I can't say no. Sorry I can't say what's actually on my mind or what's bothering me. Sorry I never start conversations. Sorry I haven't talked to you in months because of that. Sorry it takes me forever to reply to notes or Emails.


So, yeah.

Help.

Oh god what is this. 1125 submissions, 608 journals and more tweets than Echofon can handle.

I can't believe I'm actually home. Like I'm gonna wake up and discover it was a CRUEL JOKE.

Going out of town for a week and a half. My online activity will be sporadic at best. Not that it really matters, but I figured I should at least say something. Maybe it'll cut down on the number of people asking me to look at pictures I can't safely view, or join them for a game my shitty laptop can't handle.

BUT PROBABLY NOT.

I'm cool with that.

I'm terrible at cultivating new habits, so my "Sketch a little every day" thing didn't last more than a week. I might've still been able to pick it up again, but this past week has been hell. A surprise roadtrip to Oregon for my cousin's wedding and to visit relatives (which was actually quite enjoyable, but left me mostly incommunicado), catching a cold and then spraining a tendon in my right hand. It's slowly getting better, and at least I can mostly grip things now, but I still need to keep the affected fingers in a buddy splint for awhile, which makes things difficult. But even if that didn't apply I'd still be living in a perpetual fog, so it doesn't matter much.

Uhm. Hey! Fallout 3 GOTY was 50% off on Steam awhile back. I knew something like that would be coming ever since New Vegas was announced, so I'd been waiting to pounce. It's, uh. It's weird finally playing a game like this, that everyone has been raving about for, what's it been, almost two years? You get a preconceived notion of what everything will be like. People talk about events in the game, but without a point of reference it's hard to reconcile that into what's actually happening. Which is why I was completely blindsided when I encountered Vault 112. Surely people must have been talking about this! Did I just miss it? Were journals, blogs and imageboards going "HOLY SHIT", or did it not warrant mentioning? I guess Oblivion, my point of reference, had a few areas like that, just completely off-kilter and different from everything else you'd seen, but ... yeah, I dunno. I liked it.

Anyway. That's what I've been doing, I guess. Among other things. I really want to get back into drawing regularly, I just can't muster the drive to do so. Story of my life.

I know, I've said it time and again. I'm a terrible artist, my productivity has gone steadily downhill for years ...

Well goddamnit, I'm going to DO something about it! For too long I've coasted on prior skill and knowledge, feeding off my own muscle memory! I've improved in the past four years, sure, but I could be doing so much BETTER. I pay lip service to studying anatomy and whatnot, and that lasts for about two sketches. Drawing becomes harder and harder because I'm atrophying, never taking in any new skills, never sketching just for the sake of sketching.

Uploading to FA is a great experience, but it's very much a hugbox. My skills, my imagination, EVERYTHING has atrophied while I've been here. You know what I did a few days ago? I dragged out a sketchbook. A real, honest-to-god sketchbook. And the last time I had drawn in it was in December of '08. Two sketches. Before that? May of '08. One picture. Then December of '07 ... So I sat down, and I drew. I had nothing in mind. Just figure sketches. And it felt WONDERFUL. I felt better than I had in months. No commitments, no preconceived notions, just ... letting it flow out.

It's been four days since then, and I've managed to draw something every day. It's almost a routine. I'm studying again. I'm ENJOYING this, more than I have in years.

So that's it. This is my ultimatum. I'm not leaving, I'm just ... taking a break. You probably won't even notice, considering I barely upload anyway. I have a few requests I need to finish, and I will, but not now. I need to recharge, recuperate.

See you guys later.

Through a curious turn of events, I stumbled upon MS Paint Adventures last night. Yes, everyone and their parasitic worm has been telling me to read this, but no, OF COURSE I never listen unless I'm the one who's telling me to do things. That would make TOO MUCH SENSE.

Anyway I started reading Homestuck and I guess altogether I've been reading it for about ... nine hours? How is it even possible to have that much content in less than a year. It's just crazy. Wheels within wheels within wheels within ARGH

So I thought I'd take a break and read Problem Sleuth instead but I can't see anything from any of the stories other than Homestuck, except for the text, but what's the fun in that, HAHA DISREGARD THAT I SUCK COCKS and Homestuck is getting into my brain and if I don't stop I'm going to go insane and start thinking that maybe I'm just dreaming because nothing in real life could be that large and complex

Spoilers ahead.

I started up a new world in DF2010 late on April 1st, and have been playing it pretty much every chance I get since then. So far I've lost one fortress to subterranean horrors, drowned one adventurer in a puddle, retired another adventurer after achieving local fame, and am currently working on a second fortress.

So what's new in DF2010? Well, for whatever reason, I was REALLY looking forward to healthcare. Dwarves no longer just lie in bed and heal a little every season, but instead require dressing, sutures, stints or casts, surgery or even a trip to the traction bench, depending on the severity of the wounds. This also deals with the new material and biology updates. Creatures are no longer a loose collection of "parts", but have actual anatomy. Layers of hair, skin, fat, muscle, nerves and bone all protect internal organs, depending on the internal geography of the creature in question.

Unfortunately, I never had a chance to see this in action during the life of my first fortress. What I DID see, and what I should have REALLY been looking forward to, was the completely reworked underworld. In 40d, underground features were fairly rare. You could dig down only so far from your starting position, and you'd be very lucky to find anything other than rock. In DF2010, you're pretty much guaranteed to find something interesting if you dig deep enough. I assume you can dig as deep as Z-level 0, but I've never actually gotten that far. In my first fortress I got maybe 50 levels down, from a starting position of around Z-level 130, and in the process uncovered three massive caverns, filled with mushrooms, giant spider webs, giant lakes and the denizens of the deep. This was, unfortunately, my downfall. By the time I had hit the third cavern, my fortress was overrun by blind cave ogres. FUN! =D

I did finally get a chance to check out healthcare during my second fortress. A pterosaur titan had paid me a little visit, killing a few straggling workers, before my axedwarves managed to take it down. One of them, though, suffered a deep laceration to her upper right arm. She's unconscious, bleeding, so the others drag her to the hospital. There, she's checked over by a diagnostician and has her wounds cleaned. I also get to see on her health reports page that the cut has penetrated deep into her muscle tissue, severing a few motor nerves. She'll never quite regain full control of her right hand. The bleeding is staunched, she's prescribed sutures and bandages, and gets sent on her merry way.

Of course, this is Dwarf Fortress, so something completely ludicrous has to happen somewhere, and so it did! While the axedwarf is being treated, there happen to be two other dwarves in the hospital, apparently watching, a mason and a fishery worker. The mason was friends with one of the other dwarves who was torn apart during the attack, and in a fit of miserable rage he snaps and pummels the poor fisher to within an inch of her life. I seriously did not expect her to live. Lacerations everywhere, severe organ damage, both legs and one arm broken ... but she was already in the hospital, and was quickly treated. Now around this time, I had happened to uncover raw adamantine, and was in the process of extracting it into metal strands. Due apparently to the quirks of the new material system, adamantine strands are considered thread, and hospitals will use whatever thread is closest for sutures. So, yeah. This fisher's grievous wounds (including her HEART. Dwarven doctors are hardcore) are being held together with the most valuable substance known to dwarvenkind. She'd better APPRECIATE those stitches, goddamnit. If she, uh. If she ever comes out of her coma. =I

But of course this is the initial release of a major revision, so naturally it's buggy as hell. My first fortress nearly starved to death because dwarves aren't set to haul food in the standing orders by default. Food rots if it's not put into a stockpile, and prepared meals never left the kitchen, so it would all rot away. Also, don't ever tell your kitchens to use booze as an ingredient. They'll just take massive quantities of it and never use it, denying its use to anyone else, even though your stocks screen says you're swimming in it.

As part of a new feature, dwarves will continue working even if they're somewhat hungry or thirsty. This is to alleviate the problem where, for instance, a miner will walk halfway across the map to mine out a few tiles, swing his pick, then decide he's thirsty and head all the way back to the stockpile. This has a few quirks, though. Dwarves view partying as a job, and they're pretty much partying every chance they get. They'll chat and converse and do whatever it is they do until they're all dying of thirst, at which point they'll shuffle together like a hive mind to the stockpile to satiate themselves. This leads to some pathfinding weirdness, which I'll get to later, but mostly this is an annoyance because they view being thirsty or hungry as a mood detriment. My dwarves are right on the verge of snapping from partying so much.

And yeah, pathfinding! Get too many dwarves going through too small an area and you'll get a bizarre traffic jam, dozens of dwarves laying prone in a pile, nothing moving until the guy on top decides to do something, which can take awhile. I've always made all my corridors and doorways at least two tiles wide to alleviate this kind of thing, but it doesn't seem to help here. Any kind of mass dump or hauling order seems to cause this.

And job professions and labor can be a little unclear. Immigrant dwarves will be titled by their highest level skill, but they won't actually have their labor options set to DO it unless it's higher than a certain level. Oh hey, a gem setter just showed up! Let's have him build a jewelry workshop. But oh, no, he's only a DABBLING gem setter, so he won't actually do anything unless we go into his labor options and set it manually.

There are probably dozens more little nitpicks I could write about, but it really doesn't matter. A fix will likely be out soon, and even with the glitches, this is still easily the best game I've ever played. I could play it for ten hours straight and be "wow ... that was really satisfying" afterward. Any other game would leave you feeling drained and hating yourself the next morning.



TL;DR - I rant and rave about Dwarf Fortress because I am a gigantic NERD.

No, seriously. What am I doing? I can't figure it out.

I lead such a boring life that I can't remember what I do from day to day. Maybe I do nothing. There was a book? Some video games? I don't really know.

I guess it's Thursday. There've been a lot of Thursdays lately. It used to be Sunday. I remember Sunday. I remember there BEING a Sunday.

WHAT AM I DOING?

When I was but a lad, I would cheat at video games every chance I got. I had game genies and game sharks for all my stupid little Nintendo consoles with all my stupid little Nintendo games. The first thing I'd do upon discovering some new PC game demo was look online for cheat codes. I'd played one, maybe two "ordinary" games of The Sims. All the rest were bizarre social and architectural experiments using money and item placement cheats. I have a cousin who seems have a new Steam account every other week due to being VAC banned. I look at his activities with a mixture of regret and disdain, but I probably would have done the same when I was his age. I'm just lucky online gaming wasn't as prevalent back then.

Which segues me into Starcraft. I bought Starcraft pretty much the day it came out. I awaited with eager anticipation the release of Brood War. I LOVED that game. I loved the ambiance, the story. One thing I didn't like, though, was skirmishes against the computer. See, I was terrible at Starcraft, mostly because I cheated. Voraciously. I'd cheat my way through the single player campaigns, built custom maps that pitted my powerful forces against a swarm of weak enemies. I never even tried multiplayer, and skirmishes against the computer were difficult because, if I recall correctly, cheats applied to everyone on the map.

The computer terrified me. I'd get a sizable force going in my base, only to discover that the computer had seized control of the entire map. I could never get my head around expanding. Hell, I could never get my head around building more than a small handful of workers, or more than one barracks, or hotkeying a comsat station ... I was so used to cheating my way through single player that I couldn't adapt against an actual opponent (or playing another race, ha. I stuck exclusively to Terran).

And ... that just kind of carried over. I eventually learned to actually PLAY games, and even got good at other RTSs, but Starcraft always kind of haunted me. So when I heard about the Starcraft 2 beta opt-in, I kind of panicked. Oh wow, that looks really fun, but they're sticking to the same mechanics, and I'm just not fast enough, and I suck at Starcraft anyway, etc etc.

So I picked up the original again, and played through single player. And got good at it. And then I played a skirmish, and got my ass kicked. So I watched the replay, learned from my mistakes, played it again and won. I play another skirmish, macro up my economy, nearly fall to an attacking force at my back door, but hold it off and eventually prevail. I play more single player campaigns. I systematically expand across the entire map while keeping up a strong economy, guarding my bases, harassing the enemy workers and attacking with a diverse range of units. I AM READY.

So I opt-in to the beta. FAR TOO LATE. And hope that a new wave of invites happens soon. Hoh hum.



TL;DR: WINNERS DON'T DO DRUGS CHEAT, and I rant about Starcraft for some reason.

I've been on an Angband bender for the past few days. Probably will continue being on an Angband bender for the next few days. Or weeks. Or if when I die.

At this point it's almost a rite of passage. Y'know, pick it up every year or so. Play for a few weeks straight. This time it's straight-up vanilla Angband, no variants. I ... I know I can beat it ... someday ... it's been eight years ... eight years exactly, in fact, since I picked up ZAngbandTK. All those many years ...

I was looking at the leaderboards. There was a kid there. 11 years old. Been playing since he was eight. Beat Morgoth. He won. He won. He's just a kid, right? It should be simple, shouldn't it? ANYBODY CAN DO IT, CAN'T THEY??!