Alpha and Omega

With this year coming to close and a new year dawning I figured I should probably tie up all my loose ends, also known as, things I said I would blog about, but haven't. So here's a summary of the year that has passed.


Art n' Shit
I combined photography and digital painting to make "Souls", starting with Condemned Soul, Chapter I. By the way, the eyes. Yeah, they're Adolf Hitler's. But alas I only got so far as to chapter II, which means there's one missing. I might get to that at some point, but don't wait with bathed breath.
I also used Adobe Photoshop to add myself to a movie I obviously wasn't in, still funny though. Then I of course went overboard with it, and ruined the joke my making another one.

Some Call it Music
Several (here, here and here) times during the year, I promised to upload something I had written to youtube. I kind of kept that promised with Unstabbable Feet and Prozac. But I still want to upload something a bit more serious, so yeah, I will, but just not right now. I'm still writing music and have made nice progress. Speaking of which, I could probably record Last Curtain Call. But we'll see.

I ♥ Herbs, but Herbs don't ♥ me
In April I tried growing my own herbs, I did to I small update regarding they're status after wards but kind of let it hanging there. Especially since I might have made a big deal about it with my cliffhanger; What happened to Basil's home? Is Tarragon really as innocent as he looks? Will Thyme ever find the love she rightfully deserves? Also, we finally get to find out why Lemon Balm left his two wives to look for his parents.
So here's it actually is, the thrilling (?) conclusion. The died, all of them. One by one they perished to mistreat and me being generally uninterested. So, ooops!

The Nerd Within
I waited for some games, played some and ignored others. I played Command & Conquer, got my ass handed to me by the AI on easy and just never looked back. My save is still probably around somewhere within the depths of crap called System partition. I was eager to get Stuck in Limbo, but never actually did, at least not yet. Fable III was, well nice I suppose even though I haven't finished it yet. Halo: Reach surprised me in some good ways and ended up getting a 4,2 which later got upped to 4.5.
Fallout. New Vegas is still on my "to buy list". Batman: Arkham City is also there, but that's will be for next year, since it's not coming out yet anyway.

Rants & News
During the year I also ranted about religion and why people need definitions. People have not answered me yet on that one by the way, but it's cool, we're all friends here, right? R'iight? Anyways. In my rant of definitions I might have (almost like I wouldn't know) said something about totally proposing to my wife-to-be within a couple of years, tops. Then later we had our Feast of Winter Solstice, at which I totally did. Hussah!


The Random Remains
I said I would cut my hair and sculpt a Hobbe. I did one of those, and it wasn't the sculpting one. Again though, not yet, as I still might. And finally I talked about movies I would watch. Well, so far I haven't. But that's okay, it's not like they're going anywhere.



That should be all of it. So yeah, Happy New Year and may you be smart enough not to make new years resolutions thinking you could somehow change yourself in a fleeting moment of drunkenness, when in reality, change takes time and patience. If it's even possible. Yeah, these will be words I leave you with, a good friend of mine once gave me a card with this text and it sort of stuck ever since.

God, grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change;
Courage to change the things I can;
And wisdom to know the difference.

Feel free to replace the word "God" with a deity of your choice, I kept it in because it felt right despite my agnostic ways.

EDIT: And because no blog post would be complete without a picture, here's the latest from Penny Arcade. Suits rather nicely wouldn't you agree?

I Would Build A World For You Too

I would build a world for you too. But mine would be even prettier, and with Champagne coloured Rose bushes instead of Daisies.

Ridding the Addiction(s)

Hello, My name is Carlos, and I'm an achievement whore who also is addicted to Coca-Cola.
...
Eerie silence. Someone coughs.
...
Or at least I used to be. Like a month ago or something, I started (all of us actually) to take D-Vitamins. I've always kind of suspected that I suffer from Winter Depression or SAD (stupid I know) as it's more commonly known as. So by random chance and having been sick on a higher frequency I just "happened" to be at a local pharmacy with my dear mother, whilst I was minding my errands she was checking out the Vitamin section. And since we had actually discussed my possible need for D's (I can't be bothered to continue writing D-Vitamin all the time, hence I will just call it D's, live with it..) she thought she would buy me some. It just so happened that they were having a sale on a random brand and thusly the D's were purchased.

And you know what? I actually feel better. I've been kind of known to have a hyper activeness going on, but winter has always been "off". Winter time I've still always had energy I suppose you could call it but it's always been very unstable, or more accurately I always feel a bit exhausted bit still with a lot of physical energy. If that makes any sense? Anyways, I feel better. I generally feel more rested even though the amount I rest hasn't changed at all. So hurray for D's, and I'm going to continue with that until Springs rears it's moist and succulent head.

But this wasn't going to be about D's. *reads title again*. Right... Ridding the Addiction(s). By an odd stroke of luck, let's at least call it that, I also cut down my Coca-Cola intake ranging from an average of 4-6 liter per week to.. well.. nothing at all actually. Yes, obviously I can not thank the D's alone, for my well being, but I am sure they've contributed their fare share. So yeah, I stopped drinking Coke, which also means, as it turned out, that I need something to replace my default hungover-drink. Suggestions? And I feel better, I don't even want Coke in the same way anymore. Right now, a glass of freezing cold water feels more alluring. Which is nice, 'cos.. well yeah, it's cheaper and I can indulge myself in it without feeling a bit gross. Today though, I did have a 0,5 liter bottle when I ate. But even though I actually had some left afterward I really didn't feel like drinking the rest. So hurray! Addiction free-ish! I not going to claim that I'm totally addiction free since that would be.. simply put.. moronic.

I still have to find something to drink when I'm hungover though and that will be a problem since I enjoy the carbonated water -part of this particular carbonated soft drink. But I'm sure there's something out there that could work as an adequate substitute.

So why plural on Addiction(s)?

Because after reading the delightfully interesting thoughts of Chris Hecker and having an thought provoking experience with Fable III I have decided to try, emphasis on try as I don't know how successful it will be, to ignore achievements in games. Simply because their presence disrupts my gaming experience as they force me to subconsciously (or consciously) play the game in a way that might not be in tune with how I would naturally play it, had I been given the choice to set my own internal goals. Epiphany Unlocked! And yes I'm being ironic or something..
Sure I might still post the occasional Achievement Unlocked image, though I suspect I will be more likely to post an Epiphany Unlocked image instead, and I reserve myself the right to post these. They were more or less ironic to begin with and since that hasn't changed, we're all friends here, right?

So with all of this in my now, newly re-packed baggage I bid you farewell. I feel better than I did two months ago. But rest assured, I still loath humankind and have no faith in humanity's ability to not screw itself over like a rerun of a bad sit-com.

Bye for now!

Music and Me

Am I writing music, or is music writing me? Nah, never mind, that makes no sense. I'm trying to take a creative break from things, or more accurately, I'm taking a break from board game creating to well... create other things. Funny thing with being creative, there's never really any break from it. I'm never actually having a break from being creative.. never. All I'm ever doing is shifting my focus from one area of creativeness (actually a word according to Firefox spell check) to another. I'm not complaining in any way, I don't mind working like this. But it's interesting that what I consider a break isn't actually a break at all. And even if I'm not doing anything at any particular moment in time, my mind is still creating. It just never stops getting ideas from different things in life. I suppose that's the penalty one pays for having a hyperactive brain. I've had several different ideas whilst writing this so far.

Anyways, back to the point or one of the points I suppose. I'm back to writing some more music at the moment, or maybe it's called composing, I'm not quite sure. It's going quite nicely at the moment even though I'm not actually writing anything right now obviously since I'm writing here, but I wrote some earlier. And I liked it, so now I have at least two songs that I really should finish writing. I'm calling them "Rest in Peace" and "Her Soul Consumes Mine" right now, but I'm open to changing the titles as I see fit later on. They're more of some sort of placeholder or project titles anyway. I like having project titles, it helps me stay focused on the primary goal. And whenever I really, really change my mind regarding the goal I can always just change the title.
Side note; Now I've finished updating OpenOffice. And I'm going on a celebratory smoke in honour of this most awesome-est occasion.

And I'm back, not that you have any awareness of the passage of time in this context, since you're reading all of at once. Hmm, sort of makes this whole paragraph moot doesn't it? So, I'm really excited about writing a little music again since I've had quite a long break from it. I've still picked up the guitar every now and then but I haven't really written anything in a while. But today I think I managed to nail the verse part of "Rest in Peace".. bare in mind though that I've thought so a number of times before, and been wrong. But this time feels right, so I'm hopeful and I like being that occasionally. I thought about taking a picture of one of my notebooks for music, but I was struck by sudden case of "Fuck it!". So I googled a picture of sheet music, just pretend that my notes look like that. Of course they don't as I don't even know how to write in notes. When I was younger I used to take piano lessons (short story, got bored) and then I was able to read notes.. alas that ability has been forgotten for now, so it might as well be in Arabic. I wouldn't understand anything anyways.

But I do understand music, or at least I'd like to think so. Yiruma's River Flows In You is beautiful but so is a lot of other things, like Negative's live performance of Jealous Sky at Keskustori, skip to 4:10 and onwards if you just can't be bothered with the whole thing. And Pain of Salvation's live rendition of Hallelujah is different. But the good kind of different, not the "smelly weirdo next to you in the checkout aisle" -different. Eva Cassidy singing Time After Time is eerily fragile, but then again her version of Somewhere Over the Rainbow is better than Judy Garland's.. at least in my opinion. So yeah, these are all a bit more towards the softer end of the spectrum I suppose, but then again I also really, really like this.

Watch the whole thing.. trust me, you'll thank me later. Or you'll hate me, either is fine.

EDIT: I just realized that I might've posted this video before, but in case I haven't I'm keeping it here. So yeah, enjoy!

Holiday Movies

I have some "new" movies to watch during the Holidays. "New" as in two of them are actually from -96. But they're obviously new to me since I haven't seen them before. I've also decided to add The Nightmare Before Christmas, Coraline and Corpse Bride to my phone for those days of "stuck in a bus" or something. I don't know if you're being beginning to see a pattern here, if you don't, well too bad. I'll give you a clue.. it starts with stop.

Anyways, here's my Holiday movie list in no particular order. Which also follows the same pattern, except for half a quarter of the movies, because... well.. I'm evil? I'm not sure if I can find the time to watch all of these, but I can at least hope and/or try.

Oooh, and with red text backgrounds.. because.. I feel like it?

Also.. just in case you haven't noticed.. I love that I just remembered how to do line-through in CSS.. I've wanted to post-edit my own post like this for a long time, but I've suffered from zombie-brain which I don't anymore.. So Hussah for everyone..

Also.. I'm totally drunk doing these edits, so I might end up having to edit my edits..

Merry Xmas

And a Happy New Whatever to all of you. I have a Sgt. Headache and don't feel very inclined to blog a lot right now. Boons is eating breakfast whilst watching Futurama and I'm going for my second cup of coffee, hopefully no. 2 will sooth the headache.

They are out to Fall in Vegas

or just Fallout.. you pick. I figured since I haven't blogged in a while I should get to it. Not wanting to bore you with more stuff about my board game (at least not right now), I decided to share with you, dear people of blogiverse, that I'm still excited about Fallout: New Vegas. Despite the fact that I haven't acquired the aforementioned game yet. Hardcore mode sounds like the best thing ever, I remember Fallout 3 fondly, but one thing that irked me was that half-way through the game I was already blasting Super Mutants in the face with two shots. Not much of a challenge there, though in a way it was also fun to feel like king of the world. So yeah, Fallout: New Vegas, I'm still excited about it and I am going to get it some way or another.

For next time I hope I can come up with something interesting to write. Albeit, at this point, I would settle for writing something.. regardless of interesting or not.

Prototype #4

Inspired partly by reading so many interesting things by Sirlin. He writes so many things that to me, are profoundly well thought-out and inspiring. So I thought, "Hey, maybe all three of my readers would also like a sneak peek into the mind of Carlos?" Because believe it or not I have actually spent a great deal of time doing what would be called "real world simulations" and computing statistical probabilities before I even had a name for any card. If I can find the original sketches for the probabilities I calculated in my head (some 3 years ago) I will add it to the spreadsheet and post I picture again some time in a not so distant future (link to my wife-to-be's blog). But for now, this will have to do.

Yeah, so I probably already told you that I haven't forgotten my board game, since I mention it in "A Small Step For Carlos". Why did I say "probably"? I sound like I have no idea whether I wrote about it or not, despite linking back to myself, again. Early signs of dementia perhaps? Anyways, I glad to.. announce? That work on my board game to be, Island of Eternity (no "the") is back on track! You can all now cork the champagne and celebrate, I know you wants to. Prepare yourself for pictures, and enjoy!
So here's some quick comparison statistics, comparing prototype #3 to prototype #4.

What you are looking at here are the statistics for total number of card types and number of unique cards by that type with probability of drawing that card type as the first card in a game, excluding of course Island Curse and Book of Eternity -card since they are removed at the start.

As you might notice (or ignore, if that's your fancy..) the statistical probability of drawing an Event Card has drastically changed, what used to be 40,4% has now decreased with 23% to 31,1% of drawing an Event Card as the first card. What I've failed to add into in is the number of available cards the percentages are based on, so here. Prototype #3 had 54 cards, 52 at the start of game. Prototype #4 has 76 cards and 74 at the start of the game. Don't try to count the statistical probability for the special cards, it won't make any sense to you since the percentages are arbitrarily based on conditions that will never occur, unless you change the rules. So there's that.

EDIT! Yeah I know that the probability of drawing a Reaction Card has changed even more, with it's 30% decrease. But those cards have also been altered so that the probability of have use of a card has increased, I'd like to think they even out, testing will tell.

I also have some examples, which I will leave for now. I hope people will like the "Dark Ritual!" -card. To tickle your curiosity gland, here's the names of some other new cards.
- Sticky Fingers!
- Silver Tongue!
- Peeping Tom!
- Armed n' Dangerous!
- Le Chakal!
- Amnesia!

Here's a screenshot of some actual work, not just numbers that make no sense to anyone. What you see here is a partial shot of the new rulebook design, which I'm quite pleased with at the moment. Also, another new card called "Oh, So Close!"... which does... *drumroll*... nothing!
Tad'aaa! A card that does nothing, but can be made to have a function with an optional rule, because I'm just so nice today. Currently rulebook "protoFour" is a stapled 8 page A5 in full colour.

I'll finish up with a good look at Flesh Wound!, a card that has managed to stick around from a very early stage. This picture features the very latest revision of the design of the card, although the illustration is obviously a placeholder mock-up until I actually start doing the illustrations. Which I will not until all the cards are locked down. But now, I'm going to join my lovely wife-to-be and her legendary awesome loins.

Until next time, don't you go readin' someone else blog now!

Plastic Fantastic

I am speechless because of how awesome I think this is!

P-P-P-Poker Table

Hello again.. or something..
Inspired by thinking about random things I just remembered (and by just I mean several hours ago) that about a year and a half ago I actually built an eight-person poker table. This project was not done on my own though as I was serving my civil duty under Kårkulla at the moment, and supervising their wood working department or something like that I suppose. We had done different kinds of stuff to sell and were a bit out of ideas at the time, I asked my supervisor what we should do next? And then she did the "mistake" like many others have done in the past, she said; "Just come up with something.."

- Muahahaha!

Nah, but all jokes aside. I love being told to come up with something, it's how I work best. Anyways. So I thought, Hey, I have almost zero experience with wood crafting, not the best tools available but a wild imagination. What to do? Oh, I'll build an octagonal poker table for 8 people. As side reference I can tell you, that I'm actually not entirely sure how you play Texas Hold 'Em, normal poker I can do, but not Texas Hold 'Em. So I asked them if that was okay, and strangely it was.

Construction-wise I would think it's quite poor, not in that it's badly made, but just since I had/have no experience or knowledge regarding wood crafting I didn't really know what one should think about when designing a table sturdy enough to support the evenly distributed weight of 8 grown men. Do you see where I'm going with this? The legs were constructed out of European Spruce at first. Anyone with enough experience is probably laughing their brains out right now, thinking (with a snobby French accent) "Ha, anyyy'one whith half a brain would know not to u'uuse that". Well I didn't, but I do now. Needless to say, I leaned on the table, heard a loud crack as the legs broke completely. They were re-constructed out of Birch wood, when I found out that interior furniture are better made from Birch wood.

Design-wise I feel very pleased with my p-p-p-poker table. I simply think it's stunningly beautiful. Feel free to disagree and send me an email at BlowItUpYour@ss.com.

Now, enough talk (write). Enjoy the slideshow I made especially for you. Oh yeah.. sli'iiideshow.

Petite Cuisine D'amour

Aaah. It's done, and for a being the first of possibly more books, I am actually quite pleased with the result. Yeah sure, I cheated here and there, because, well.. I can.. but I'm still pleased with it.

Here's some process pictures of the making of the book. I don't really know if anyone else likes process pictures but I'm a big fan of how to make shit. Sorry for the inferior quality but you know, camera phone and bad lighting isn't a very good combination. I touched them up using Adobe Photoshop but "shit in.. shit out..".

And for your viewing pleasure. Here's the final book! Yeah, I'm very certain that the title is all kinds of wrong, but I feel it looks better this way. Feel free to judge according to your own taste.

I might miss you Mr, Nielsen

In honour of your achievements in life, I will watch Airplane! later tonight. Because for some uknown reason, I've never actually seen it, at least not as far as I can remember. Me and my wife-to-be frequently on the other hand, enjoy Dracula: Dead and Loving It. Leslie, you will be missed.

What if?

... I wrote a childrens book. That's an idea that occurred to me yesterday. Every now and then we (me and my wife-to-be.. and also our son) have Creativity Days at my mom's place. I can imagine what you might be thinking but it's actually something we all enjoy, some perhaps more than others but fun nonetheless.

This time I had decided to try watercolour painting. If never really been a fan of watercolours, the somewhat slow drying time and my severe lacking technique means it's never something that's stuck with me, even though I've tried it before. Anyways.. but because I've never been into it I thought I would try my hand at it again, yeah I do that with things sometimes, try them, don't like them, try them again later in case things have changed. So after painting some; kind of okay mountains, and ugly tree and shitty grass I tried experimenting around. Basically everything was a bit ugly and not to my standard.

But then I got the idea that I would cut the paper to square sized pieces and I started thinking about making some sort of Greeting cards. Did some of that, some of it sucked monkey-ass, another one actually got kind of nice, which I gave to my mom. I didn't think it was nice enough to keep I suppose. Finally though, I was getting somewhere.. an idea formed in my head and I just went for it.. and painted this...

For some reason, I'm actually not quite sure myself, this little bastard appealed to me. So I decided to paint two more. I haven't scanned them yet, so you'll just have imagine them being equally awesome... even though they're not, this one is actually the best one. This painting in turn inspired the idea of "What if I wrote a children's book"?

Yeah, despite what you might be thinking, I am actually being serious. I not quite sure how the story would play out yet, in fact I don't know the story at all. But if you are interested in pre-ordering, I have managed to make a mock-up of the book in Adobe Photoshop. I really feel like "Yeah, I would really like to write a children's book!" Also the pre-ordering part was totally a joke, I doubt anyone would pre-order an idea, but you have to admit the book looks nice, doesn't it?

Look out for "Gluffen som ingenting visste, men ville veta allt" an autobiographical drama by me in book stores near you.. Nah I'm just joking, obviously, like I already said it's a children's story not an autobiographical drama.

That will be all this time, stay tuned for more scenes from next weeks episode of "I wonder what the 'eff he's gonna write next"...

On next weeks episode of "I wonder what the 'eff he's gonna write next" we witness the thrilling conclusion of I ♥ Herbs, what happened to Basil's home? Is Tarragon really as innocent as he looks? Will Thyme ever find the love she rightfully deserves? Also, we finally get to find out why Lemon Balm left his two wives to look for his parents.

A Small Step for Carlos

Personal Beije message: tl;dr, just look at the shiny pictures.


Yeah, that probably sounds a bit more cryptic than intended.. or was it? Past tense, present tense, I really mix those too much.

Irregardless.. because I wanted to update those who are interested, I am happy to announce that "No I haven't forgotten my board game", it's just been on the back burner for a while. I been focusing a lot on My Fabled Outfit (which I've linked to more than enough), and since I still have a somewhat limited amount of time on my hands, I can't do everything all the time. It's too bad, but alas that's life for you... I suppose.

So my board game, yeah. I'm still working on it, kind of. I haven't done anything for months but it's still a project very dear to my heart. It should be since I've already invested over three years into it, on and off again three years but three years nonetheless. Some friends of mine, me included did get together and played a game not so long ago, two of which had never played it before and that was quite productive. So with that in mind I decided today that I would go through some of the feedback I've gotten and see... really see.. where do I need to improve this? Why does it take so long to play? And the question which spikes my curiosity the most, "How come people think it takes too long to play it, yet they never stop playing it, they just continue for hours and hours at end. What detail am I missing?

I have decided to makes the rules stricter for a lot of, because as of right now I honestly feel that part of the problem is that the rules are too flexible, they're too forgiving, where they shouldn't be. I want the game to be fun, obviously, but the fun stops when a single game lasts over three hours, especially since it's been designed for 90 minutes, and obviously seems to work very well for about 90 minutes too. So, stricter rules in certain places.

More cards.. Not a lot, but a couple of new cards. Modifying some of the cards that already are. And also, I've decided to scrap three cards altogether, I liked them, but most people seemed confused by their existence and had severe difficulties even grasping the concept of having a difference between "a turn" and "a dice roll". So it's been scrapped now, you can stop worrying, I know you have been lots of sleepless nights because of this. *Sarcasm*

I also started to update the board itself, made a sketch, started painting (digitally) the different "places of interest", than I lost interest in doing that, ironic? In other words all I managed to do to the board itself is that I made sure it's perfectly symmetrical, as far as game mechanics are concerned at least. It's probably for the best since a friend I have offered to do some concepts for a game board. I'm actually more eager to see what he comes up with than anything I can think of at the moment.

I am quite excited to see some of the new cards in action, right now I'm calling them "Triple Threat" and "No Thank You". As soon as I have some rough concepts for them, I will try to remember to post about it.

Now I feel like I've written enough, I can only imagine the agony of having to read all of this. If you've made it this far I must congratulate you on having a surprisingly large amount of time to kill per day. Congratulations!.. and also, you should go now, bye.

I'll be clever tomorrow

I can't think of anything remotely clever to blog about today. We'll see if I can come up with anything tomorrow instead.

Fable III [a kind of review]

I suppose this was inevitable, at some point I would have to say what I think about Fable III. As you might (or not) guessed by earlier posts I'm a bit of a fan, or at least used to be. Right now I'm a bit torn, because although I do like Fable III, it took me a while.

The first hour or two I was not pleased with what I saw, or should I say touched. Actually what I saw was quite nice, sure Lionhead went a little overboard with Bloom-effects, it feels like I'm too stupid to squint when I'm looking straight into the sun. And the characters are much more detailed than they were in Fable II. I never liked the villagers in Fable II because they always looked, how should I say this nicely, butt-fuckingly-ugly.. Yeah, that outta do it. But in Fable III they are much more pleasant to look at, meaning I no-longer feel the strong urge to stab myself in the eyes every time I have to talk to someone. Sure the cut scenes are way nicer, but then again they usually are so I can forgive you for that.

But back to what I touched...and how I wasn't pleased with it... Lionhead, seriously? I actually believed you when you said you wanted me to feel more emotionally attached and all that with the new touch system. But alas, you failed almost entirely with it. When it works the way it's obviously intended it's really quite nice. There's nothing quite like having a stroll with your loved one and holding hands but when my loved one always seems to hang a bit behind me like I'm walking too fast and she (or he) just can't be bothered to tell me to "go slower douche bag", the level of immersion quickly fades away and I'm left with the feeling that for Fable IV you should really give me the option to carry my loved one instead. At least that way I wouldn't have be annoyed every time they get stuck in a tree or an oddly shaped rock and let go of me like I have leprosy only to seconds later running quickly to catch up to me in a pathetic attempt to say, "I'm sorry I let go earlier, I totally do love you despite your leprosy and I won't happen again." But it will.

And to interact with a villager I end up watching more "fade to black" -screens than anything else, why is that Lionhead Studios? I would really like to know.

My dog is dumber than a.. well a dog I suppose.

Weapon types have been scaled down to a bare minimum and my selection of clothing has been limited to a level where it feels like the next step would be; "This is what you wore when you were born, deal with it". Doesn't Lionhead know that I easily spent hours in Fable II just nitpicking over which shade of red my bandanna should be.

And my butler keeps nagging me about that there's new crap in the Sanctuary Shop, oh rly? There wasn't last time I looked and since I didn't buy the crap that was there in the first place, I'm obviously not interested in buying it.


So with this in mind. Did/do I like Fable III?


The answers actually a short, yes, yes I do. The world is bright and colourful and it's people is incredible charming, in a genre where most developers seem to think RPG means "Defeat the greatest evil the world has ever seen". The quests range from the so serious "Find my missing child" to the ridiculous "Fart on people because you wants to". (No I don't actually know if the second quest is a real one, but I sure hope so). The combat feels appropriately challenging even though it's a bit of a button-mash-fest.

Despite several flaws, I like Fable III and I will give it 3.5. But I do sincerely hope that if Lionhead Studios continues the Fable legacy, that they stop changing things just for the sake of changing things. As for their Title Update, I hope they will some of the more severe glitches Fable III has.

Sometimes you might miss a good idea because you're so busy changing it.

Respawned!

Thanks to an awesome stranger from the xbmc community, Fiinix Design is back! I'm ridiculously happy about this despite the fact that it feels a bit unreal in a way. I had to update some include references but everything should be working just fine if you find anything that doesn't please let me know.

The new adress is
www.fiinixdesign.eu

And for the friendly individual who so kindly has provided me with hosting.

Now that's what I call a Happy Me-Day!
(Originally referred to as Father's Day)

Garden of Eden

I was going to write a long complicated post about a lot of different things, including vague references to the Garden of Eden. But I took me a lot longer to Adobe Photoshop the picture than I had anticipated.

So instead of my usual long rants (yeah I know, it's a shame..) I'm pretty much just going to post the picture, you'll laugh at my futile attempt of humor and/or Adobe Photoshop skills, we'll both have a good time and you'll press the like button next to the title. I mean, let's face it, you totally wants to, don't you? Take notice of the extra awesome-ness that is the fact that this is my first post ever, to include a partial picture of my wife-to-be. She's the one with the attached hamster, because let's face it... but even in the Garden of Eden, there are hamsters 'a lurking.

In Loving Memory of Ted Bear

In loving memory of Ted Bear. You will be missed. In honour of your untimely (like we didn't see that coming) death in hereby declare this post to you. May your ingenious advice help anyone of us survive the wilderness in case of sudden "airplane meets albatross with poor eyesight" -scenario.

We will always remember to look for the bacon tree.

The Feast of Winter Solstice

My wife-to-be and by the extension that is "ooh, I also wanna" we're planning on having Christmas Feast. She's always hated Christmas and well within her rights to do so, I think, but maybe not as much anymore. There's always been numerous reasons for her hatred but none so true as the fact that Christmas has always been ruined by other people, and it's still very much that way. I won't go into details as to exactly why but I've always accepted her dislike secretly hoping that maybe, just maybe, if we could create new traditions and just ignore other peoples need for theirs... then maybe, she would like it more. Not theirs, but ours.

Well, as it turns out, she's "discovered" what she would like her Christmases to be like. I say "discovered" with fluffy bunny ears because I'm not sure if that's the appropriate word for it. But I digress.

In my mind it would look a little something like this.

I'm really excited about it too, a lot (not alot) because of the fact that I actually kinda like Christmas.. yes I said, I like Christmas. Not everything about Christmas obviously, but there's a lot things about it that I enjoy. For instance the Advent wreath lighting up an otherwise dark and gloomy winter is something I've always enjoyed. So it makes me very happy that my wife-to-be is excited to celebrate something that I hope to call our kind of Christmas.

But I know what kind of Feast she wants, and on a serious note, it sounds really awesome so I'm just as eager about it. Besides I'm also going to get a flamboyant vest, so hell yeah!..

...

I think I'm the first person ever to include the words flamboyant vest and hell yeah in the same sentence.

The Feast we're going to have is probably going to be more like this. Which I'm fine with, in fact I'm equally eager about it. Since things that I like about Christmas can still be included and as long as I get my flamboyant vest I'm cool.

And a huge codpiece wouldn't hurt either.

Pumpkin, Fable III, MacGyver & Inspiration

It's sometimes difficult to blog, because I feel like blogging but I don't reeeee'ally know what to blog about. Sure I can always come up with things to say but most of it lack importance, or so I feel. So because of this I have decides to never blog again...

..awkward silence..

Nah, I'm just kidding, I might have very long breaks occasionally and only blog a couple of times in a month but I always bounce back and then suddenly blog three times in the same day (like yesterday..)

The reason for the title this time actually makes sense, all of the things mentioned in the title will be featured in this post.. starting... now!

Our Halloween pumpkin is starting to look.. well.. more creepy than when it was fresh. Unfortunately it's also starting to smell a bit funky so I don't think it will last much longer. But I'm glad I took a picture of it before it goes in the trash.

My Limited Collector's Edition Fable III, it's really nice looking, albeit I'm still a little frumpy that the Limited Collector's Edition Fable II got so badly nerfed that almost none of the things "promised" appeared in it. But at least my Fable III LCE has got stuff. And to top it of, I got a surprise gift yesterday from the friend I went for a coffee with. I hope he doesn't mind that it's included in the post/img. In the picture you might notice a man-bag and leather cup+dice... Yeah those.. They aren't included in the LCE, I got them from him. So thanks, it's very appreciated.

I really need to go get a haircut. My hair is long and untamed and it's annoying the crap out of me. So yeah I'm comparing my hair to MacGyver's and I stand by my comparison. I feel like I have the ugliest mullet in the history of mullets. If there was an award for Fugglet (Fucking Ugly Mullet) of the Year.. Let's call it FOTY... I think I could/should be nominated..

I almost wish Tommix1 would steal this and nominate his choice for this years FOTY.

And lastly, as a tangent to Fable III.. I'm thinking about sculpting a Hobbe, seeing as Fable II LCE should have included a Hobbe it only makes sense that I would just make one myself. This is one of the reference pictures I have chosen as inspiration for the sculpture. I don't actually know if I'll ever make it, but one (I) can always hope I find the time and inspiration for it.

And done. Now go away.

Furious Avians

Don't get me wrong.. I love the Android platform (platonic love of course). But games for Android have always been a bit, how should I put this... ugly.. yeah, that's the word, despite some games having excellent mechanics and smooth gameplay such as Gem Miner.. most of the games suffer from what I sometimes think of as the open-source curse.. Yupp, feel free to quote me.. again, don't get me wrong, open-source is awesome and in anything developers should be kuded (my make-believe verb of "kudos") for giving away their blood sweat and tears, asking nothing (usually) in return. But where open-source developers often have enormous amounts of technical expertise they often lack in the graphical area. Like Gem Miner... I have that game, it's a really good game, but I can help but think that it's not a very pretty game.

Cue Rovio, a Finnish developer even, and their Furious Avians more commonly known as Angry Birds. A game that not only has excellent mechanics and 98% smooth gameplay (sometimes it lags) but it also has beautiful graphics. Not Crysis beautiful obviously but the visuals of Angry Birds work extremely well with the theme of the game.
So kudos Rovio for giving us Android users an (albeit ad-enabled) free version.

I've played through all the levels already, haven't managed to get every golden egg quite yet and I'm considering if I should try to get three stars in every level just for bragging rights. A part of me wishes there would be a reset button (without uninstalling) so I could start over unlocking the levels. Nonetheless it was a good three weeks of casually playing it at lunch & smoke breaks.

All and all, it's a very casual yet occasionally relentlessly difficult game.
Should you buy it for iPhone? You should.
Download it for Android? Absolutely!
Hope for other platforms such as PSP and Windows Phone 7? One can always hope.

So it's with these parting words I'll leave you for now; "The red birds sucks, but it gets better!"

Breakfast for Champions

With the lack of better things to do/blog about, I have now sunk to the level of "Here's what I ate for breakfast". Yes it's sad, and yes no one really cares (well at least I wouldn't).. but alas, here we are. I can't come up with anything else to blog about, so here's what I ate for breakfast. Obviously I had to give it the Adobe Photoshop treatment, with hopes of making it less boring. But regardless of how you bend it, it's still a picture of my breakfast and son.

Yay, Croissant's and coffee... oh how I do enjoy a sugary sweet breakfast ready to send me spiraling into an early type II diabetes. Well, obviously hopefully not, but one has to be aware of the risks when one eats this type of breakfast. And one should never refer to one as "one", it's a standard coping mechanism for externalizing a behavior for which the person is at least partially aware of the possible consequences. So dear readers, let's do that again.

[ ‹‹ ]

...Well obviously hopefully not, but I have to be aware of the risks when I eat this type of breakfast...

[ › ]

There we go, much better. Anyways, I don't have much else to say, didn't have much in the first place. I'm currently torn between playing Fable III or Minecraft (not at this exact second though as I'm having a boons in the morning). I'm having a break in my Fabled Outfit [1],[2] & [3] (until I get the fabric for the boots). I'm thinking about calling a friend whom I haven't seen in a while, he called me last weekend but I was unavailable for coffee at the time. I'm also dying to see the next Fringe episode.

That'll be all. [ ▪ ]

Legend:
[ ‹‹ ] rewind
[ › ] play
[ ▪ ] stop

Stay tuned for more interface buttons.. maybe..

REM-5-NOV

Remember

My gift to you on this glorious day. A bit of Adobe Photoshop, minimalist style. There's a designer who does movie posters in minimalist style, but I can not for the life of me to remember (yes, I sense the irony) his name. If anyone can, please let me know.


EDIT: Yeah, technically 34 minutes late, but it's the thought that counts and also I started making the poster before 00:00 and also my socks are dirty.. excuses excuses..

Happy Halloween (for real)

A picture says more than a thousand words. And also, none of you would have the patience to read a thousand words. So here you go, Happy Halloween. I hope you enjoy this magnificent picture of the pumpkin I carved this year.

Happy Halloween, Tomorrow!

Yeah, it's tomorrow.. I know it, my wife-to-be knows it, how come everyone else has so many difficulties knowing it. It's not like the date changes every year, like some holidays. Yeah, I'm looking at you All Saints' Day. Halloween is celebrated the 31st of October, every god damn year. Remember it for 'effs sake. I don't care if you get drunk on a Saturday (like I will be doing today) in celebration of Halloween, but for the love of anyone's God.. know that Halloween is on the 31st of October.

That will be all of my ranting for this time. I'm dressed (as a pirate again, could find the sheep fur to go Faun on their asses) and ready to p'art'ey..

To like or not to like?

Like, god damn it!


The Like button is back, one of my many (three) readers pointed out to me that the Like button got lost in the "design" upgrade. Well it's back now, so now you can all like things all over the place again. Yes I saved your day, you are free to thank me now and/or bow before your all-knowing master.. me..

Umm.. Also..

I updated my blog using the "new" templates they have. Obviously I still modified it, but I quite like it, it seems more consistent yet retains the feel of my old blog. I also got my background picture back which has been missing for months thank you very much I know even though none of you have said anything. <-- Longest single sentence whine ever. Nah, probably not.

Anyways. Again.. bye.

Phase One

Aaah. Phase One of my Fabled outfit is complete. Alas Fable III will be released in Europe on Friday, so I obviously I'm not going to be able to to finish it before the launch of Fable III which is too bad. I was hoping/aiming for it, but oh well. I'm still going to continue onto Phase Two.. I don't actually know what Phase Two will be, but my love of naming things just gives me an awesome opportunity to have good name for what I've just done, as well as a good name for whats to come.

Yeah, I kinda got lost in that explanation too. Anyways, because I have a burning need to play some guitar right now I will be brief.

So here's the picture for Phase One. As you can see the Sabre/Cutlass is done now. I've also "updated" the pistol. And may I present Fate Cards. No, I didn't design these, there the "actual" Fate Cards from Fable II. They were supposed to be included in the Limited Collector's Edition, but alas they were cut. Thankfully though Lionhead Studios released the cards as a.pdf and well.. I work at a printing shop so the step from "ooh, pdf" to "ta-daa" was very small. The size of the cards were (based on my calculations) supposed to be bigger than mine but I felt they would become too big, so I shrank them down a little. Of course they have a backside as well, I just forgot to turn a card around when I pictured them.

And in case you would like our own Fate Cards.. well you can't! Suck it! Nah, just kidding, here's the link to projectego.com, where the cards are hosted nowadays since Lionhead Studios don't have them available anymore. I thought about direct linking, but that's just douchey..

So much for being brief. Bye.

I crafted something of mine

Minecraft. If you've ever at some point in life enjoyed building with Lego, but always felt that you needed a few pieces extra. Or just want to support the "buy once, own forever" -mentality, at 10€ (euros) this is worth every cent and then some.

You need to check this out.

Minecraft is awesome. Why?

Because you can build things like this.

Collective Reviews

So here we have it, as per requested. I don't actually know who it is that requested it but anyways. Any excuse to blog I suppose, despite the fact that I am really really sick. Like fever and all kinda sick. So to be lazy I just going to post the picture.. Enjoy my mini-reviews of all the 360 Xbox Games I own.. N/A means I haven't actually played.. But I hear both N/A games are shit. Well that's not actually true, allegedly Mass Effect is a really good game, and truth be told I've tried to play it a little but not enough to warrant a score about it, hense N/A. I don't know if I will ever play it though.. let's just say that I was not impressed at all.

Click for larger picture...

Pics or didn't happen

As promised, here's the pictures of my current "project". The pistol is done but I forgot to take a picture of it in it's "before" stage. I tried googling the 'effin thing but alas I was unable to find a picture depicting the specific pistol I used. I found that look kinda like and that will have to do, just imagine it all plastic-fantastic looking "oh so fake".. oh, and with the ever present orange-red tip that all fake guns have to show how fake it is. Anyways. I did however manage to find (forgot to picture it too) an image of the sword/sabre I used. The image is exactly how the sword looked like, I like that.

And here we have the pictures of the flintlock pistol. Not to blow my own horn (too much at least) but it's 'effin awesome. Or to say it differently.. I am very pleased with the end result. Anyways, here's the the pictures of the pistol, including my googled image of a pistol that is kinda similar-looking. Enjoy! Stay tuned for pictures of the sword when it's done!

Say hello to my little friend

I think I'm going to call her Ruby.. or 'Ol Faithless. I will let Fable II's description speak for itself.

Rusty Cutlass
Only the most pathetic of pirates, or one who had spent a great deal of time on the bottom of the sea, would be seen holding a sword like this.




There you have it. I bought a cheap, 3 € or something like that, Sabre sword for our Pirate themed party we had last weekend. Of course the cheap plastic fantastic shitware broke by the end of the night. Oh my, what an awesome opportunity to make it awesome. Ergo, some leather, hot glue and bronze paint later. I'm not quite done.. To be accurate, my Rusty Cutlass, needs to be.. well.. rusty, which it isn't yet. I'm still going to post a progress picture later, just wanted to let you all know (all three of you) that it isn't done yet.Yes, I'm making a Fable themed outfit. You already know that but I just wanted to remind you. Not much else has happened the past couple of weeks. I've been mostly home sick with the flu or something, it's better now although I'm still feeling the effects of it.


Until I post the picture you're going to have to settle with a cover of Oasis: Don't Look Back In Anger, this is seriously the most beautiful cover of this song I've ever heard...

How often do you get to have rusty cutlass and Daniel Norberg as labels? Not very often, that's how often.

Bye's for now... (pun intended)

Reach out and Remember (pun)

Because I'm sick.. again.. but I feel like I should blog a little, since it's been awhile and also because I feel like blogging. So here's a (very short) review of Halo: Reach



I liked it, the gameplay is, as per usual by Bungie and therefore smooth and awesome. It really is, say what you will about xbox, Bungie knows how to make multiplayer good. The game is intended as Bungie's swan song, their final Halo of all Halo's that coincidentally doesn't contain Halo.

The campaign was.. hmm.. good? No, I mean.. it was good. The story played out nicely and all. I just feel like something's missing. I'm still not quite sure what that is, but I can get back to you.

I will say one thing though. Marty O'Donnell, I am a bit disappointed. After the soundtrack to Halo: ODST which blew my mind in new ways of awesome. The sensation of solitude I felt when playing ODST resonating through the soundscape was on a completely new level. However I didn't quite feel the sensation of despair and hopeless epic struggle, gameplay-wise.. yes.. musically.. not quite. Hense Marty I'm sad to say that I'm a little bit disappointed.. Feel free to contact me if you wanna hear my extended constructive criticism. Anyways.
All in all;
I'm giving Halo: Reach 4.2 grenade stickies to face out of 5 (84%)

So there. Batman got a better score. Hmm.. thinking about this gives me an idea. Maybe I could give a quick rundown of all the games I have. And no, no reviews of them, just a quick score for all of them. I have 14 games, so it's not a lot.

Thoughts people?

Too tired.. to dream?

... I'm too tired to blog. I've only slept a couple of hours last night. On the other hand I've also seen Inception now, so here's a quick review of that movie.

SPOILER-FREE, read cautiously but safely.

Inception.
I liked it, I don't really feel like it lived up fully to the hype surrounding it. The concept was nice, I've always been a fan of dream vs. reality thinking and questioning. It reminds me a little of an idea I've had for years too, and no Nolan didn't steal my movie idea or anything (don't worry, there will be no Photoshoppin'). But the questions asked in this movie are questions I have asked myself and others every now and then for years now. It's nice to see that someone else has thought about it too. Leo did a good role, I prefer him not doing his now famous (and quite shitty) accents. See Blood Diamond (clicky) for what can only be described as atrocious. Everyone else did equally good roles, though I wish I could've seen a bit more of Michael Caine, who is awesome! The ending was //*$EDITED FOR SPOILER-FREE-NESS&*%//.

All in all.
Was it a good movie.. yes!
Worth seeing in theaters.. possibly!
Bonus-points for omission of 3D-shit.. hell yeah!
DVD-must-buy?.. yes!

4.5 Spinning totems out of 5

Home sick & Behind the scenes

Home Sick

Yupp, I have it too. Whatever my son had earlier we all now have. Probably just your common household cold, but annoying nonetheless. So I'm home from work today, but I'm gonna go there tomorrow so I think it'll be fine. Besides, thanks to the wonders of modern medicine I can now be productive regardless of illness.
Thankfully though like I posted yesterday, I've got the "studio" working again. But not only that, today I managed to get everything working, so now I can produce bad quality 720p videos, including title screen and all. You'll get to see it later, now I need to focus on audio, since the music will always come firsthand I don't really care much for the video. I say much and I mean it, but that doesn't mean I can't try to make something pleasing to watch.. pleasing for me that is, not necessarily for you.

Behind the scenes

And for your viewing pleasure, here's a peek behind the scenes of my work flow for making the shit that you have to endure on youtube.

See how nice I am?

How many people would go through all the trouble of illustrating the work flow in such an incredible high resolution. (I remember the camera taking a big picture, which I rescaled to 590x443) and to such astonishing detail (I spent at least 2 minutes drawing this turd of an illustration). And let's not forget post-production (I photoshopped a black box over a thingy that will remain a secret until the video goes viral) And by viral I don't mean it spreads like wildfire and people can't stop talking about it, I mean.. more the genital herpes kind of viral. So yes I said it, my videos will give you herpes.. that's how nice I am.
I can sense your admiration all over the intertweb tubes, that's it.. let it all out, you know you want to..

Enjoy your STD...

Back to the Studio (?)

Hurray! Despite having a major migraine and/or headache right now I managed to figure out why my audio equipment wasn't working. So now I'm back in business, figuratively of course since my business isn't actually music.. at least not at the moment. Nonetheless I as happy as one can be a Sunday morning without a hangover, wife-to-be sleeping and a 2-year old scuffing about being sickly and sensitive. Yeah and the headache of course.

Because I don't really feel like writing a long post this time. I'll just post pictures of my "studio" equipment for those of you that are interested is knowing what it looks like.

Roland UA-4FX



RØDE NT1-A

Enjoy your Sunday and kids.. remember...

It's never wrong to slap a stranger if they were totally asking for it..

Carlos Nabb, a moment ago