Fac Ut Gaudeam

Fri, 25 Dec 2009 05:39:00 GMT

I recently received a comment on one of my pictures on TLKFAA which read thusly:

I beg your pardon. But Vitani IS Scar's cub. zira and Chumvi mated and had Kovu.

Though this comment was worded rather politely, the commenter was asserting as fact both one thing about the TLK universe which had actually been proven to be false recently, and another which is still pure speculation. Hoping to get these points across as delicately as I was able, I replied with the following:

Actually, Capricornfox got in contact with the head scene checker of SP and asked her to ask the director or the head storyboard director of SP whether Scar was Nuka's father or not. The answer she got was that Scar was not only not Nuka's father, but not Vitani's either.

As for Chumvi being Kovu's father, that is just speculation. Fans just say he is Kovu's father because he is the only lion with dark fur old enough to be Kovu's father that we know of. It's unlikely that the people who worked on SP had ever even heard of Chumvi, since it doesn't seem like they'd heard of Kopa either.

If you want to form your own theories about the characters, that's just fine. Boldly declaring that these theories are true is a very different matter, however.

The commenter then replaced his/her original comment with the following:

LIES!

Well golly, I sure can't argue with ironclad logic like that.

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 01:17:51 GMT

I've hard a hard time motivating myself to get some of my larger projects done over the last few months, but I think I'm finally coming out of it. I was able to finish a lot of pictures I started but never finished over the past few days, including this one:

Area 50.5 "Alternate Ending"

New Irony Meter Needed

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 04:32:52 GMT

I watched the film Silent Running with my parents a few days ago, and a couple days after that, we were talking about it in the car. My dad remarked that he didn't find it as good as it was when he first watched it, and this comment segued into a general critique of the movie from all three of us as we noted how the dialogue seemed a bit amateurish and the special effects were a bit dated by today's standards.

Then my mom jokingly said to me, "I bet Mystery Science Theater 3000 must have had a lot of fun with this movie, right?"

Then my personal Irony Meter exploded.

(For those of you not in the know, the general setup of MST3K [one lone guy stranded on a satellite with three small robots as his only companions] was inspired by Silent Running.)

FAILURE.

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 11:11:38 GMT

Congratulations, Team 17.

After Vivendi Universal attempted to revive a dead adventure game series with a game that failed to keep the spirit of the original games in every respect and made fans think that the series couldn't be violated any more, you had to prove them wrong and create Leisure Suit Larry: Box Office Bust.

This game was not only considered even worse than its predecessor, Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude*, but has recently been placed in the #1 slot on Joystick Division's The Ten Worst Console Games of the Generation (So Far) list.

Bravo.

They say that bad publicity is better than no publicity at all...I'm fervently hoping that that's true in this case and people who read this article are inclined to check out the original Larry games. You know, the ones that didn't suck.

*I still find it ironic that the official VU boards had a built-in censor that blocked out the word "Cum" from their own game's title.

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 02:51:56 GMT

I just finished playing I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream.

I think I need to be alone for a while.

That is all.

Night Noises

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 23:22:58 GMT

Something right outside my window was making this noise in the wee hours of the morning. I couldn't see it, but obviously, I did record it.

It was either a demon from Hell or a barn owl. Either way, it's just a little creepy.

Banned Books Week

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 02:01:43 GMT

I've been looking at several lists of banned and/or challenged books online, with this week being Banned Books Week in the States. The usual suspects appear many times, titles such as Fahrenheit 451, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, And Tango Makes Three, The Catcher in the Rye, The Satanic Verses, The Bible, etc., but there are a few more interesting titles I found on the archived Forbidden Library Page, which I thought I'd share here. The reasons why some of these books were banned range from the amusing to the outrageous to the downright pathetic. Enjoy:

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Lewis Carroll. Ace; Bantam; Crown; Delacorte; Dover; NAL; Norton; Penguin; Random; St. Martin. Banned in China (1931) for portraying animals and humans on the same level, "Animals should not use human language."
[So all parrots should stop it immediately.]

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Roald Dahl. Bantam; Knopf; Penguin. Removed from a locked reference collection at the Boulder, Colo. Public Library (1988), where it had been placed because the librarian thought the book espoused a poor philosophy of life.
[...Huh?]

The Graphic Work of M.C. Escher. M.C. Escher. Pan/Ballentine. Retained after being challenged at Maldonado Elementary School in Tucson, Ariz. (1994) for "pornographic", "perverted", and "morbid" themes.
[Golly, an artist whose work I've loved since I was a kid is "pornographic", "perverted", and "morbid"? Then again, I always thought there was something creepy about all those tessellations... (just kidding)]

James and the Giant Peach. Roald Dahl. ABC-Clio; Knopf. Challenged at the Deep Creek Elementary School in Charlotte Harbor, Fla. (1991) because it is "not appropriate reading material for young children." Challenged at the Pederson Elementary School in Altoona, Wis. (1991) and at the Morton Elementary School library in Brooksville, Fla. (1992) because the book contains the word "ass" and "promotes" the use of drugs (tobacco, snuff) and whiskey. Removed from classrooms in Stafford County, Va. Schools (1995) and placed in restricted access in the library because the story contains crude language and encourages children to disobey their parents and other adults.
[I could nitpick and say that that last statement is ridiculous since James's parents are dead at the very start of the book and his guardians are so cruel that they deserve to be disobeyed...but nah.]

A Light in the Attic. Shel Silverstein. Harper. Challenged at the Cunningham Elementary School in Beloit, Wis. (1985) because the book "enourages children to break dishes so they won't have to dry them." Removed from Minot, N.Dak. Public School libraries when the superintendent found "suggestive illustrations." Challenged at the Big Bend Elementary School library in Mukwonago, Wis. (1986) because some of Silverstein's poems "glorified Satan, suicide and cannibalism, and also encouraged children to be disobedient."
[i'm just laughing here.]

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. C.S. Lewis. Macmillan. Challenged in the Howard County, Md. school system (1990) because it depicts "graphic violence, mysticism, and gore."
[Wow. Now that's irony for you.]

Where the Sidewalk Ends. Shel Silverstein. Harper. Challenged at the West Allis-West Milwaukee, Wis. school libraries (1986) because the book "suggests drug use, the occult, suicide, death, violence, disrespect for truth, disrespect for legitimate authority, rebellion against parents." Challenged at the Central Columbia School District in Bloomsburg, Pa. (1993) because a poem titled "Dreadful" talks about how "someone ate the baby."

Where's Waldo? Martin Handford. Little. Challenged at the Public Libraries of Saginaw, Mich. (1989), Removed from the Springs Public School library in East Hampton, N.Y. (1993) because there is a tiny drawing of a woman lying on the beach wearing a bikini bottom but no top.
[I like the page author's addition to this: "Yes, but did they find Waldo?"]

A Wrinkle In Time. Madeleine L'Engle. Dell. Challenged at the Polk City, Fla. Elementary School (1985) by a parent who believed that the story promotes witchcraft, crystal balls, and demons. Challenged in the Anniston Ala. schools (1990). The complainant objected to the book's listing the name of Jesus Christ together with the names of great artists, philosophers, scientists, and religious leaders when referring to those who defend earth against evil.
[Again, wow.]

Small Victories

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 00:38:11 GMT

A few days ago, my ancient HP Deskjet 882C printer ceased functioning. Upon closer inspection, I found that the belt that the carriage holding the ink cartridges rides on had snapped -- not only that, but it was, frayed and crumbling in several places.

I was tempted to get a new printer, but fortunately, I was able to find an online store that supplied replacement belts for obsolete printer models.

I tried installing the new belt on my own, but ran into several problems almost immediately. The printed instructions that came with the belt differed from the illustrated ones online significantly (and as it turned out later, some of the steps weren't even necessary to installing the belt!) and I was unable to get the side panels off of the printer without snapping one of the tabs holding one of them in place. When I asked my dad for help, he ended up snapping the three remaining tabs.

An online chat with a person from the company that supplied the belt admitted he wasn't a tech and directed us to the company's two tecchies. We were only able to reach one, who informed us that he wasn't familiar enough with our particular printer model to give us specific instructions.

After a couple hours of frustration, confusion, ink staining and unfamiliar technical terms showing up in the instructions that even Google couldn't identify, we got the belt installed, put the whole mess back together, and I tentatively plugged it in, powered it up, and printed a page.

It worked.

It's always satisfying to repair something without having to pay a few hundred dollars getting it repaired or replaced -- and I honestly doubted that poor printer would work again, considering what we put it through.

9-9-09

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 05:14:58 GMT

There is a van that I've seen parked in various places in my town as well the neighboring towns. It has been painted silver and covered with writing warning all that gaze upon it that the end is nigh, along with a number of newspaper clippings and Bible verses to "prove" this. I got into the habit of calling it the Doom Buggy until I discovered that the carriages in The Haunted Mansion at Walt Disney World were called that.

Anyway, several months ago, I noticed a large banner stretched across the top of the van reading "9-9-09: MAGNITUDE 9 EARTHQUAKE." No specific locations or hours, mentioned, just that text. I thought about this a few times and eventually forgot about it until today.

Well, it's almost midnight here in California (arguably the most earthquake-prone state in the union), and we haven't gotten any earthquakes, and according to this site, no part of the world suffered any earthquakes over 5.7.

How disappointing. :(

Sat, 15 Aug 2009 23:23:55 GMT

I discovered one of these little fellows outside my house, and thanks to the Internet, was quickly able to find out what sort of critter he/she was.

A Diabolical Ironclad Beetle. Now that is a cool name. Its scientific name is pretty nice too -- Nosoderma diabolicum.

Trees are good and so are thrift stores.

Wed, 05 Aug 2009 22:50:47 GMT

An impromptu trip to the thrift store where I bought the Roberta Williams Anthology today turned out to be a very good idea: I discovered and purchased a copy of The Neverhood (Dreamworks Interactive made this game? I had no idea).

However, the CD wasn't in its original case, but one of these things. I've never seen a CD caddy before, let alone heard of one. The metal sleeve is similar to the one on a 3.5" floppy disk, and it took me the better part of a minute just to figure out how to get the thing open (by pinching the two tabs on the bottom).

You know you're in for a hard game when it takes you that long just to get its CD out of its box...

Impressive Title twaddle

Thu, 30 Jul 2009 05:59:05 GMT

Today's time on Impressive Title was one of extreme contrasts.

First I come within about two hits of hitting the much sought-after Great Wildebeest when it wounds me. As I'm recovering, my connection times out and it vanishes.

But then I find and successfully kill the not as sought-after but still pretty impressive Overgrown Gazelle, so everything's fine.

Then, after a very long time searching for a Dire Fennec Fox to tame, I finally find one and lead it away from the other players. As I'm trying to tame it, another character appears. I stand between him/her and the fox, frantically typing out "Please don't kill this fox!". He/she kills it anyway.

Then I get obtain of the rarest items in the game from an animal that I didn't think even dropped items when killed.

So all in all, the negative moments seem to balance out the positive ones to the point where this was a fairly neutral IT day.

Gazelles are our friends.

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 05:51:48 GMT

I captured this video of Xandra with a glitchy gazelle on Impressive Title, and it was so mind-explodingly cute that I had to share it here.

How Insightful

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 03:37:05 GMT

A few interesting observations I've made using YouTube's Insight feature:

(Note: The Hot Spots feature displays a graph showing what portions of a video are being watched the most)

The Hot Spots graph for Memorable Lines and Moments from SQ6 shows a dramatic peak right before the clip where the narrator says, "Wow! This makes my nipples hard!", then steadily slopes downwards until the end of the video. Conversely, the graph for Part 2 bounces up and down but doesn't reach its highest point until near the very end.

The highest peak on Memorable Lines and Moments from SQ4 is when the clip where the player is smelling and tasting the Monolith Burger condiments (and getting responses from them) begins.

The Hot Spots graph for my Woodruff and the Schnibble montage trends gently downward for the first half of the video, then spikes at the point where Woodruff is escaping his padded cell.

The KQ7 Intro Storyboard's highest Hot Spots point is at the beginning of Rosella's solo, but it peters out shortly after the last line of the missing verse ends.

The first noticeable peak in the FPFP Outtakes video is right at the beginning of the sword fighting outtake, while the most dramatic dip is near the end of the same outtake. The highest peak is shortly afterward, around the time when Antonio growls, "Thatsa what I theenk of your lousy ants!"

Also, most of my Sierra videos have views primarily from the USA, but for some strange reason, most of the viewers of my Woodruff and the Schnibble video are from Spain, most of the viewers of my KQ7 Intro Storyboard video are from Germany and most of the viewers of my trailer for Adventure: The Inside Job are from Norway.

One more (somewhat related) thing: Death Gate is a damn good adventure game, and I'm not saying that just because I was able to complete it without any external hints whatsoever. It's not nearly as morbid as the title would suggest, and it has to be one of the most original fantasy adventures I've played. The puzzles are equally refreshing and original, and the various worlds of the game are wildly imaginative. This game was based on a series of books, but I'm a bit hesitant to read them, since whenever I've tried reading a book series that a game was based on, I've been somewhat disappointed, and I'm not sure if this third try will have the same result or not.

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 00:26:35 GMT

I think I've mentioned before that I love Roy Zimmerman's music.

So I'm just sharing the love here.

Tue, 09 Jun 2009 21:28:10 GMT

Jainism is probably the most non-violent, peaceful religion in the modern world. Its members believe in inflicting as little suffering as possible on other living beings, human and non-human, in order to reach a pure spiritual state. Jains are strict vegetarians, many of which don't even eat root vegetables like carrots and garlic because that would mean ending the life of the plant.

Some of its more devout members (in the past, at least) only eat fruit once it has dropped from a tree and wear cloth over their mouths when they are outside to keep them from accidentally inhaling flying insects. They even use a broom to sweep the ground in front of them clear while walking, so that whatever crawling lifeforms that might be in their way aren't stepped on.

And somebody has apparently put me on a mailing list for a Jain dating site.

WHAT?

What the phu...!?

Tue, 02 Jun 2009 03:49:21 GMT

Holy flame-broiled mother of Dionysus...

Apparently when Hell got frozen in Telltale Games' last Sam and Max: Season 2 episode, it froze over for real sometime afterward.

"Telltale and who Presents"!?!?

Elaine's eyes are green again! And Guybrush...

...has a BEARD! A visible BEARD!!

Tue, 28 Apr 2009 01:52:54 GMT

One of my High School English teachers said that Walt Disney has become this generation's prime storyteller. For many children (in the USA, at least), their first exposure to classic fairy tales like Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, Aladdin, and Beauty and the Beast is through the Disney adaptations of the stories, which are often considerably different than the original tales.

On a topic directly related to (although not at all influenced by) this, I think that a YouTube video series comparing the Disney adaptations of pre-existing stories to the stories themselves would be a great idea (if such a thing doesn't exist already). Though a lot of the stories like Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella are pretty well-known and have been around for centuries, ones like 101 Dalmatians and The Sword in the Stone are based on more recent books, which are pretty obscure.

I just think it would be a nice way to educate folks who have never read the stories that Disney mangled somewhat in their movies. It may not be the most interesting subject for everyone, but I was interested to find out that Perdita had brown spots and wasn't Pongo's mate, Sleeping Beauty's mother-in-law plotted to eat Beauty's children after Beauty and the prince were married, there were two genies in the story of Aladdin, and Arthur and Merlin confront a giant at one point in their adventures.

Using screenshots or footage from Disney's movies would undoubtedly get the videos taken down due to violation of copyright, so the video would probably have to be made up of original drawings or animations, which doesn't seem like that big a sacrifice.

Just an idea I had.

Now for something completely different: a review of a computer game that is NOT an adventure game.

Mon, 30 Mar 2009 22:39:43 GMT

One evening, feeling utterly bored and not feeling like doing anything productive, I said to myself, "All right, I've played The Lion King PC game enough times to win it with my eyes closed. I want to play another action game with a non-human, quadruped protagonist."

After much searching, I found what I was looking for...

It's called Inner Worlds and was released in 1996 by Sleepless Software. You play a female warrior named Nikita, who is one of the Wolf People, who have the ability to change into wolves at will. Nikita is on a mission to kill a fierce monster who has been ravenging the Wolf People for many years, though as she soon discovers, this is not the only foe she will have to defeat.

This game is a classic 2D side-scroller, although some of the scenes have an interesting pseudo-3D look, with different elements of the scene on various "layers" that scroll at different rates. Despite being made in '96, the graphics are fairly low-res, but they're still pretty impressive -- and there are also some alpha effects (semi-transparent objects, shifting values and colors).

The game is broken up into three episodes containing nine levels each. Each level has the same basic format: explore the location, kill a few monsters, locate the hidden amulet and eventually find the portal to the next level. Each world in the game has its own unique look and more and more new monsters show up on the various levels. Killing the "boss" at the end of certain levels helps Nikita learn a new spell, which she can use to help defeat other monsters with greater ease.

Inner Worlds' protagonist is barefoot, has impractically long hair, wears a somewhat impractical "warrior garment", yet astonishingly has rather modestly sized breasts. While not being that complex a character, Nikita is a unique one nonetheless. I mean, I don't know if there are any other games out there with a hot female werewolf protagonist. True, she's technically not a "real" werewolf, but I suppose she qualifies as one in the loosest sense of the word. An interesting sidenote about Nikita's name is that the star of this game was originally meant to be a man with the same name. However, in the game's backstory, a man named Nikita set out to destroy the monster and failed, and when the long-haired, scantily clad female protagonist appears, she learns about this man and proclaims that she will use his name and succeed where he failed.

One thing I like about Nikita's particular species of "werewolf" is that she doesn't change into a muscular, bipedal, seven-foot monstrosity with a humanoid body with a wolf's head and tail and razor-sharp claws. She changes into an actual wolf, who attacks by biting or mauling. Mauling, incidentally, is a special move in which Nikita whirls around in a Tazmanian Devil-esque frenzy, tearing apart anything within reach. However, this move is nothing compared to the special Ultra-Maul attack that she learns late in the game, which makes even the wolves in "The Blackblood Alliance" seem pretty unimpressive.

Despite these invaluable fighting skills, there are still many things that can only be accomplished in human form, such as weilding one of the many weapons Nikita finds on her journey, throwing rocks, shooting arrows, grabbing handholds, and, perhaps most importantly, climbing ropes and ladders (as the game itself reminds you more than once, "Wolves can't climb ladders, you know."). However, Nikita the wolf can run faster, jump better, and crawl through openings too small for Nikita the human to fit through (incidentally, Nikita the wolf looks really cute when she's crawling).

You can't switch back and forth between forms as often as you want, though: changing from human to wolf or vice versa as well as various other forms of magic (as well as the maul move) requires Mana, which is represented by a tree at the bottom of the screen. Whenever Mana is used up, several leaves fall from the tree, and eventually the tree becomes bare. When Mana is replenished, however (by visiting a Mana sanctuary or drinking a potion), the leaves grow back.

A lot of the game's music is reminiscent of 80s techno, and it is fairly enjoyable once you get used to the quality, which I'm sorry to say is a bit poor. I'm not sure if this is the fault of DOSbox or whether the music really is that grainy. The sound quality is slightly better, and one sound-related oddity I noticed is that if Nikita gets hurt in her human form, she says "ouch!" or "agh!", while if she gets hurt in her wolf form, she yelps and then growls angrily. However, when she is killed she screams like a human regardless of which form she is in. I never understood whether this was intentional or accidental.

Though the number of "pure" action games I've played is small enough to be counted on the fingers of one hand, I think I can safely say that this game is pretty easy. Not only do you have an infinite number of lives, but you can save the game at various spots, so if your computer crashes, you don't have to start over from the very first level. If your reflexes are sluggish, you can even turn on the game's "Turtle Mode" option, which slows the game's speed down considerably.

There is no points system in Inner Worlds. Instead, you are "graded" based on how many spells, amulets and "secrets" you discovered on each level. "Secrets" are elements of the game that are easy to overlook, and can be hidden doors, gems or weapons. You can tell if you've uncovered a secret because a low note plays whenever you've found one, and your rating at the end of the game lets you know how many out of the total number of secrets you found, and if you missed any, chances are you'll want to give that level another go in the mad hope of sniffing the remaining secrets out.

Some of these secrets, however, are extremely difficult to uncover, and there even some obscure elements of the game that don't count as secrets, even if they're just as hard to find, if not harder. I would often be thinking "How the heck was I supposed to know that there was a door there? It was the same effing color as the effing background, for eff's sake!" when uncovering a secret, and "Oh come on! This doesn't count as a 'secret', but that impossible-to-overlook door in the upper left corner of this world DOES!?" when uncovering a "non-secret". Even after replaying the game over and over, I still haven't found all the secrets in the 4th and 8th level of 1st world and second secret in 4th level of 3rd world.

The final battle of the game was a bit of a letdown. True, the final boss is pretty impressive, and like the game's website says, it "has to be seen to be believed", but my astonishment was a bit deflated by the fact that I'd already seen and fought clones of this monster in four other levels preceeding this one! There's even a statue of him in the first level, for crying out loud. There's all this buildup and suspense in the last few stages, and when I finally got to the final room, I was thinking, "All right, where is he? Let me at him, let me -- WHAT?? Another one of THOSE things? Where's the REAL final boss?"

I was also hoping to hear a bit more about Nikita's mysterious heritage. Apparently, she is the only one who can save her people, the story of her birth is an unusual one, and she's the member of a clan that was considered to have gone extinct...and none of these plot elements are ever elaborated upon. It's hard to say if the developers were planning to explain them in a sequel or just ran out of ideas.

While I at first thought this game was pretty good, my appreciation for it increased tenfold once I realized that this game was put together by an Internet team. The people who worked on this game were from Germany, Latvia, Australia, Sweden, Croatia, Finland, and all over the United States. Not only were all these people able to keep in constant contact despite their vastly different locations, schedules and time zones, but this was in the mid-90s -- years before "broadband" became a household term. There are even some odd little bits of text that occasionally pop up that are vaguely reminiscent of Internet in-jokes. Occasionally, some text appears that says "Buy U.S. Savings Bonds" or "Howdy, Partner!" or "What do you mean, no flibbets?". Even the game's catchphrase, "Don't get Fleeked!", takes a while to figure out.

One of the minor issues I had with Inner Worlds is that whenever you restart from a "Save Game" point, all the items you were carrying with you prior to that point aren't in your inventory, but lying your feet, and you have to pick up all your stuff before going on, one item at a time. I never understood the purpose of this. It couldn't be to give the player an option to only pick up the things he/she wanted and discard the rest, since the items are all lumped together, and it's nearly impossible to pick up the items you do want and leave the one you don't want.

Another problem I encountered is that the screen (for lack of a more descriptive term) rattles. I have no idea why this happens, but the screen often vibrates for no obvious reason. It's not the same as when there's an explosion or a huge creature is jumping around nearby, since when that happens, the screen shakes, but it only moves up and down. With the rattling problem, it shakes from side to side. I'm surprised I didn't get eyestrain from playing this game for several hours.

A third much less annoying problem is the mystery of the game's name. It's never made clear why it is called Inner Worlds. The only thing in the game reminiscent of the game's title is the third section of the game, which is made up of a series of subterranean worlds. Perhaps this title might be one of the reasons behind the game's poor sales. A title like "Quest of the Wolf Warrior" might have gotten a bit more attention.

So, where can one get Inner Worlds? Well, for some time, the first section of the game was available to download, while the other two had to be bought. However, Sleepless Software has been kind enough to release the entire game for FREE! Though it's not available on their website due to various reasons, it is available to download elsewhere, such as this page.

WARNING: You need DOSbox to play this game, and you may also have to do some tweaking with the dosbox.cfg file just to get the game installed. There's more info on this issue here.

Hot Newts

Mon, 23 Mar 2009 06:12:57 GMT

There's a canyon on the southern California coast with a creek running through it that apparently has water in it year round. Consequently, many California newts reside in this creek, and every spring, when the time comes for the adult newts to start making more newts, male newts will seek out the nearest available female and glom onto her, forming a large ball of newts seething with cold-blooded passion.

The newts, most of which were around eight inches long, engaged in these rituals mostly just clung to each other without much movement, but sometimes their ball would roll downstream a little when it got caught in a current. This all takes place in a very still, shallow area of the creek, so we had an opportunity to snap a few shots of them:

Newts 1

Newts 2

We also got a chance to get a great look at a young western skink (it's about three inches long). This picture doesn't do it justice; that tail is a brilliant neon blue.

And a frog!

AGS Oddness

Fri, 20 Mar 2009 01:30:52 GMT

Two years ago, someone requested that somebody make a version of Adventure Game Studio without the default font (which happens to be from Space Quest IV), since the prospect of making a free game that uses a font from a 17-year-old commercial one was causing him some moral conflict.

Two years later he resurrects his own thread and makes the same request, this time asking for a version that doesn't have MP3 support, advising all who read the thread to "Repent and turn from sin to God". Remarkably, one of the members of the forum was thoughtful enough to actually do what this person asked, creating an entire new version of AGS just so this person wouldn't have to be tempted to the default font or import MP3s into his game.

Maybe it's just me, but wouldn't it have taken a lot less time and effort for this person to, say, delete the default font and use one of the many others available to download? Or only use MIDIs or Ogg Vorbis files instead of MP3s?

And then he starts another thread essentially asking for a Christian version of AGS. When you start acting in such a way that even other members of your religion start criticizing you, I'd say it's time to step back and start re-evaluating things.

And just to show that I'm not completely full of negativity, after a month's absence, my tablet is finally back, fully repaired and almost good as new. It's been so long since I used it that I had to retrain my drawing hand for a bit.

Wed, 18 Mar 2009 02:42:26 GMT

One of the comments Inscest made on one of my TLKFAA pictures complains that Ahadi being Mohatu's son is wrong because it would create incest when Ahadi inherited the pride. Oddly, Inscest is actually the second person to bring up this point, and remarkably, it is actually a valid one: if a male lion were to take over his father's pride (in real life, anyway), most if not all of the lionesses would be related to him. However, I don't see many people objecting to Simba inheriting Mufasa's pride or Mufasa inheriting Ahadi's pride, both of which are pretty much the exact same scenario.

Inscest also bemoans the fact that my interpretation of Ahadi's mother (based on my speculation that Mohatu is his father) is a female clone of Ahadi, because she has a golden pelt, a black tail tuft and green eyes. Oddly, though, neither the official written nor visual descriptions of Ahadi feature light regions all around the eyes, brown eyebrows, ear stripes (like Zira), a dark nose gradient, a pink nose or toes the same color as the body, all of which I lovingly bestowed upon this lioness in order to make her a unique character.

He also complains that "no lioness in the TLK universe can get that light" and "[a] lioness can't be that gold". However, several lioness and lioness cubs from semi-canon material such as comics and TLK:6NA are indeed that gold -- Malka's mother, a female cub from the comic Tojo appears in, a cub of dubious gender (sometimes looks male, other times female) from the "Shooting Stars" comic and Boga from TLK:6NA are very golden, some almost the exact same shade as the lioness I created, some even lighter. This is partially due to the illustrations having lighter colors than the colors in the movies, but in these illustrations, these characters are often as bright or brighter than Simba and Mufasa when they appear alongside either or both of them. Another claim Inscest makes is that cubs in the TLK universe can't inherit their mother's coloring if their mother "is that gold". However, the semi-canon Malka is goldish in color, and so is his mother (though his father is never seen).

Creating fan art and fan fiction doesn't have to be about strictly adhering to things implied or hinted to in canon material. If someone creates a female lioness character that fits into the canon universe with a red tail tuft who has a male cub that inherits that color from her, you shouldn't tell this person that they are wrong just because they are doing something that hasn't been seen before in canon TLK material. Absence of evidence does not equal evidence of absence. Plus, a lioness with a tail tuft that isn't brown seems perfectly probable compared to, say, a fan-created cub of Kiara and Kovu's with telekinetic powers, purple fur, green stripes, wings and antennae. (By the way: Just out of curiosity, are there any lionesses in semi-canon TLK material depicted with tail tufts any color other than brown? I might have seen an Outlander lioness with a black tail tuft in a scan from an SP storybook, but it might have just been a very dark brown one.)

If SP and the comics featuring Tojo and Tama had never come out, if anyone made fan characters that tied into the canon universe with blue eyes or a lioness character with "bangs", Inscest would probably tell them that they shouldn't do that, since no character in the TLK universe has either. Similarly, if TLK:6NA had never been published, Inscest would probably be forced to admit that there are no lions in the TLK universe that could fit the profile of Kovu's father unless Zira had lied to her offspring about Kovu not being Scar's son. Before SP, cubs with gradients on their noses, male cubs with elbow tufts, female cubs with gold coloring, male cubs with mane tufts on their heads, adolescent males with manes growing down their back with no mane on their chest and pink Outlander noses didn't exist, but SP changed all that. There's no iron-clad rule that says if you're going to create fan material, you MUST limit yourself strictly to what appears and is implied by canon and semi-canon material and tell others to do the same.

Besides, even if some fan material does contradict what is said in canon, canon contradicts itself many times. Nala's eyes change color in SP and are described as being amber in one TLK6NA book, the size and design of the cub at the end of TLK and the cub at the beginning of SP are considerably different, the SP timeline is quite convoluted, Ahadi's depicted design and written description are drastically different, the story of how Zazu became majordomo is different in two separate storybooks and the time of Rafiki's arrival in the Pridelands is different in multiple books as well.

Saying that you should only use "official" characters to fill in gaps in the TLK family tree is also dubious, and attempting to shoehorn semi-canon characters into the family tree can often be like pounding the proverbial square peg into a proverbial round hole. For example, Inscest claims that Chumvi is the only candidate for Kovu's father based solely on the similar color of their pelts (with Kovu's heavier build being a more minor point). By this logic, however, Scar seems to be the only lion who could have fathered Chumvi for the same reason. Inscest's only reason why Scar isn't Chumvi's father is because, in his own words, "because his mane is brown not black" (a fact which he brought up in a discussion which didn't even mention Chumvi's parentage beforehand). However, we never see Chumvi as an adult, and therefore never see the color of his mane. We do see that the color of his tail tuft is brown as a cub, but cub Simba's tail tuft was brown too -- and it turned red in his adulthood. It seems possible that something similar could happen with Chumvi, but again, this is just speculation.

As I've mentioned before, the "Chumvi is Kovu's father" bit also blatantly contradicts Inscest's claim that Vitani has to be Scar's cub because one of the only traits she has in common with him is the dark regions around her eyes. Chumvi doesn't have dark regions around his eyes (or green eyes, for that matter), yet Inscest sees fit to force him into the "Kovu's father" slot and parade around claiming it as fact based soley on the colors of the two lions' pelts.

Additionally, he also says that Tojo, the only blue-eyed male in the TLK universe, can't possibly be Vitani's father because neither Tojo or Zira have dark fur under their eyes. Sure, Tojo may have traits that Vitani couldn't have gotten from Scar or Zira, like a pink nose, blue eyes and a golden coat, but Scar is the only lion she could've gotten those dark eye areas from dagnabbit!!! Even though Kovu has them too and his only possible father Chumvi doesn't! Yaaaay!

Again, there is nothing wrong with making Chumvi Kovu's father, making Ni Nala's father or making Scar Vitani's father, but boldly asserting that such a thing is a fact over and over again is dishonest (and somewhat arrogant). Plus, it makes no-lifers like me type out pointless rants like this.

Mon, 02 Mar 2009 22:08:29 GMT

Egad! Inscest has attacked several pictures on my TLKFAA gallery. He performed the following acts via picture comments:

1) Completely failed to grasp the satire directed at his ideas in a picture, despite the fact that everyone who commented prior to him did and said so (no surprise) and mistakenly stated that cub Vitani is supposed to have earstripes.
2) Posted a multi-paragraph statement saying that my theories are wrong based on his scant evidence (he says that I am wrong since all TLK lions inherit their mane colors from their fathers [even though Mufasa's mane is red and his father's is black]. He also states that Mohatu [Mufasa's grandfather] is Mufasa's father.)
3) Stated one of his unproven "facts" for the umpteenth time
4) Asked who the subject of an older picture is, despite the fact that the subject has already been identified by previous commenters.

Whatever shall I do?

Hmm...

I know! I believe I shall make another "TLK hypocrisy" picture, now that Inscest has inspired me yet again. (I know, it's completely juvenile, but hey, canon art is good, ne?)

Weird Snippets

Thu, 12 Feb 2009 07:06:25 GMT

I had an endocrinologist appointment today. She had my file open on her computer while she was talking to me, and I was occasionally glancing at the screen. Then I looked at the top of the window to see that there were several fields that had been filled in with various information about me: NAME, AGE, WEIGHT, SEX...and SPECIES.

This last field was blank, for some reason.

I recently got an email from someone who was asking my permission to link to WSSQUID Contd. from their page and asking if I could link back. The problem is that the page in question was a blog updated with news about new styles of sneakers being released. What in the world does a blog about sneakers have to do with a webcomic based on an old computer game series, a comic that stars one character who wears boots, while the other one is perpetually BAREFOOT?

(And yes, I know it's been a while since I've updated the strip. I'm working on some more, but my tablet is being repaired, so they may be even more delayed than I previously thought.)

MY mom's birthday was a little while ago, and as part of her party, we had a front page of a major newspaper from a date close to her birthday (no editions were released on the actual date) copied, enlarged, printed out and displayed. One of the headlines on the page reads "Woman Killed by Propeller of Big Airliner".

There's not much more that can be said about something like that.

Book title I noticed in a thrift store: If God Loves Me, Why Can't I Get My Locker Open?

The power of cheese

Thu, 05 Feb 2009 05:02:16 GMT

Our little chicken was being such a character yesterday. She's the tiny black Bantam I might have mentioned before, and yesterday I let her out of her coop to wander around in the backyard while I knelt nearby, watching her. She was about an arm's length away from me, and I was eating a stick of string cheese. I recalled how we used to give the chicken pieces of cheese as a treat, so I broke off a tiny piece and dropped it in front of her.

She then started making this high-pitched, squeaky clucking that she makes whenever she's found something interesting when she's scratching around in the dirt and pecks the cheese up. Then she walks over to where I'm kneeling and starts rapidly pacing back and forth beside me, bobbing her head like an inquisitive pigeon and craning her neck to peer up at the cheese I'm still eating. After a few seconds of this, she flaps up onto my lap, so that she is now only a few inches from the cheese she has been coveting. Of course, I had to give her several more pieces then, and she didn't hop back down until the cheese was all gone.

It's at times like these that I suspect that even chickens, with their minuscule brains, are smarter than we give them credit for