Slipstream

12:44 pm:

What superhuman team you'd be a member of by seductionjunkie
username
favorite color scheme	Black and PurpleBlack and SilverBlack and GoldBlack and RedBlack and GreenBlack and BlueBlack and WhiteRed and WhiteRed and BlueRed and GreenRed and YellowRed and PurpleRed and SilverRed and BrownBlue and SilverBlue and GreenBlue and WhiteBlue and PurpleBlue and YellowBlue and BrownGreen and YellowGreen and PurpleGreen and WhiteGreen and Silver
favorite clothing style	Skintight spandexTights and a cape/cloakLong robes and a hooded cloakLeather trenchcoat, shirt and pantsScantily cladcompletely nakedGoggles and oversized gloves and bootsfancy suits and tiesbondage gear and naughty stufftattoos and face paint
your superpowers:	the ability to shoot webs
and	heat vision
and	the ability to grow
your codename	SlipStream
your greatest weakness	you have a curfew
your sidekick	sylf
your own particular idiom	screaming at the top of your lungs before battle
your favorite quote	"this is going to SUCK!! AAAAAAAAAAUUUUU!!"
you would be a member of	The X-rated Men
Quiz created with MemeGen!

Look at the codename. That's kinda freaky. XD

02:33 pm: If you want me to interview you, post a comment that... hey, you all know the score by now. XD

02:52 am: After finally finding my camera - USB cable...
July 17, 2005. Hyde Park. 8pm - 10.15pm.

( Rock You. )

10:34 am: In need of Ghibli spoilerism...
One of the cinemas on Santa Monica Boulevard was showing Howl's Moving Castle on a late-night slot, which I knew nothing about save that it was a Ghibli film and that it came recommended by Tenken. I thought it'd be well worth a look. Wonderful film (I really need to see more of Ghibli's works), but it was a late night showing (the film started at about 11.30) and I'd been up really early that morning. Somehow I nodded off in the seat near the end - suddenly look up near the end of the film and the credits were rolling.

AAAAAAAAARGH! XD

So can someone please spoil the ending for me? What happens after Sophie returns from her dream sequence thing where she sees Howl and Calcifer's pact.

11:21 am: Vive l'Angeles! Yay for jetlag!

For those who missed the AX planning thread, I arrived in Los Angeles yesterday to do some sightseeing and exploring before heading down for AX. Should be staying here for three more days (including the rest of today), then heading up to San Francisco on the 26th, then finally down to Anaheim on the 30th.

Given that I've never flown before, departure at Heathrow went pretty well. Of course, to balance the universe out, everything that could go wrong at JFK did so. :p Finally arrived in the late evening, and booked in at my hostel in Santa Monica before going out to explore a little. Haven't seen much else of LA yet (or America, for that matter) but I like what I see so far.

Updating will be sporadic - if you need to get in touch with me, please reply to my latest post or use a PM.

05:33 pm: Three months exactly after the fire, I have a PS2 again. So I can play any of my games that survived, plus any of ten new ones that came with the console. This the day before SXVI begins, when I really don't have the time to spare for them.

I'm convinced somebody upstairs has it in for me. :P

06:46 am: Eh, what the heck.

Ask any character I write for/as a question. I'll get him or her to answer it for you.

11:30 pm: Only two days into my latest job, and I already get the distinct impression that I'm bollocking it up. I mean, what I said about Survivor canon is no more than my personal opinion - I'm certainly not going to try and use my Council position to force it on to people. Am I supposed to write a disclaimer before every post, or what?

08:49 pm: ( This is a (fairly long) excerpt from Dan Brown's 'Angels and Demons'. It's fictional, idealistic and distinctly biased. It makes assumptions and generalisations it has no right to make and I certainly don't agree with most of it... but I haven't seen anything that made me question my faith and morality for a long time before this. )

---

Apparently, Suikoden III and IV are going to be released here soon. I am mucho happy, especially after I decided not to import an NTSC PS2 or get one modchipped to play imports.

Recently finished watching Full Metal Alchemist which, despite the ending, I thought was a pretty decent series on the whole. Looking forward to the inevitable Tenken/Wayne debate on the matter, as I've a great deal of respect for both of them and they seem to have wildly different viewpoints on it.

Oh, and I know this isn't the meme of the moment, but I don't have anything I particularly want to rant about.

(A) First, please recommend to me:
1. a movie:
2. a book:
3. a musical artist, song, or album:

(B) I would like everyone who reads this to ask me three questions, no more, no less. Ask me anything you want.

09:03 am: - Bedroom Reclaimation Project Update: -
Actually, we more or less finished a few days ago. After clearing up all the worthless junk that's been cluttering up my room for years, it wasn't too difficult to sort out what we needed to claim on for insurance purposes. It mainly consisted of boxing up the stuff I wanted to keep and would try to clean myself, books and CD's for the most part with some personal momentos, and stacking everything else on the shelves to make the job easier for the clearance people.

If you've never had that kind of thing before, basically they note down everything you have on a list to price up later and then throw it all into a large skip. All the books I'd read and didn't want to keep, all the junk that was still worth something that I didn't want or need anymore, the electricals, the burnt and charred manga, basically anything that was damaged in some way.

The men were pretty grateful that we'd saved them a lot of work, so they put down the stuff that didn't go into the skip on the list anyway, which means we'll get a little more money back from the insurance. Broke apart the damaged furniture, stripped the smoked wallpaper, took up the carpet, basically cleared the entire room so we could start fresh. After they left, we went dustbin diving - fishing through the skip for the consoles, games, DVD's and manga which were already claimed for.

...what? It was MY stuff and I'll do what I like with it. :)

Surprisingly, the PS2 still worked for the most part. The AI/BIOS came up, the controllers work and the memory card is still fine. Sadly it looks like the laser unit fried, so I'll be needing a new PS2, but I think most of the games actually survived. The slight smokemarks on the discs have been removed and I can easily get new boxes to replace the heat-warped ones. Same story with the Dreamcast, although I won't be replacing that.

All in all, it's pretty good. We should easily get enough money back from the insurance to repair the building (floorboards, window, wall and ceiling plaster etc.) and replace all the furniture with something better. I won't be replacing most of the claimed-for contents because they was just taking up space in my room, and I'll be able to improve on the things I do want to replace. (Finally, a larger TV! Goodbye, ancient 14" portable!) Even the manga was mostly salvagable, as it's still readable despite the damaged covers.

Survivor XV is now pretty much over, and I can't really say much about it because I wasn't in it much. :p I knew from the start that I wouldn't have much time (SIX and SXII proved that) as I'm generally busy throughout all of December. I did enjoy reading it, though, so kudos to both the hosts and to the other participants for a pretty good tournament. I would have liked to start writing again in the later rounds, but because I'd written so little and without any interaction, it seemed wrong to play Johnny-Come-Lately, barging in on the remaining characters and the rest of the ongoing storylines. Does that sound strange?

Spider was the last in a recent line of poor performances, I hope. For a while now I've been choosing to play fairly complex characters, and while I may be getting their personalities and perspectives right for the most part, my interaction has been abysmal because I get too caught up in detailing them to do much else. I mean, four posts and zero interaction with anyone in SXV? That's pathetic. I'm going to try a 'back to basics' approach to SXVI, no matter what character I end up playing. Someone fairly archetypical that's easy to write, easy to describe and easy to interact with in both dialogue and fight scenes. My writing may not be as 'good' as usual because of that self-restriction, but I'd like to think I'll enjoy it more, and it isn't as though the tournaments are lacking good writers to create the grander stories and characters.

Anyways, navel-gazing over. You can all get back to sweet ONGST now. :p

06:47 pm: Thanks for all the concerned replies to my last post, and quick update:

If I ever hear anyone badmouth the fire service for striking, I'll definitely have something to say to them, They arrived really quickly after the call, were very professional in putting the fire out and came back this morning to do a safety follow-up check. Sure, they had to cause damage to stop the fire from spreading, but without them it would have been far worse.

They told me on damage inspection that it WAS the deodorant cans that set it off, but that they were on the window-ledge above the fire instead of actually on the fire like I thought. That's both gratifying and terrifying; the former because it was an accident and could have happened any time, not due to some mistake I specifically made yesterday. The latter, because my deodorant's been sitting on that sill for years and it could easily have gone off when I was in the room - which is usually where I am when the fire's turned up high.

I'll say this, though, I'm using roll-on from now on. :)

The damage isn't, on the whole, too bad. The bed, curtains and carpet are all write-offs because they caught fire, and were subsequently drenched in water and thrown out of the window. The wallpaper's totalled from smoke damage and the shockwave from the detonating cans took out wall and ceiling plaster as well as scattering stuff across the room. As for the contents, I still have to sort through it all - some of my manga and comics are severely burned or charred and I have no idea about my games, consoles, CD's or DVD's yet because the heat might have damaged them without it being visible.

On the other hand, it was entirely contained to my room, so I don't have the guilt of destroying other people's things. There was nothing there that was truly irreplacable. The insurance should cover it all, and given I won't be replacing everything I lost I might even end up better off out of it. We have a spare room, so I have somewhere to sleep until we get things sorted.

And, of course, nobody was injured or killed, which is the most important thing of all.

A few pictures, from the ones we took today for insurance purposes:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/cdacombe/fire1.jpg
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/cdacombe/fire2.jpg
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/cdacombe/fire3.jpg
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/cdacombe/fire4.jpg

Not the BEST entry for a 'post pictures of your bedroom' thread. :p Shame, really, I'd had a really big clear up not too long ago.

Might update again when I know more about what's going on with the insurance. Just wanted to say what happened, to say that I'm okay and this isn't going to get me down or anything.

07:31 pm: Two cans of deodorant on my bedroom heater just exploded. My room is a fireballed mess. And I was in there only a few minutes before - only a few minutes from being burned alive.

Holy mother of fuck.

10:52 pm:

10:58 pm: The PAL release of Shadow Hearts: Covenant, according to Amazon, has been delayed to May 2005.

Excuse me while I break things.

01:01 pm: That handwriting thingy IS surprisingly accurate. Bold for the most accurate things, as usual, although the amount of emphasis on the sexual stuff makes me wonder. ( Thank you, Dr. Freud. )

12:18 pm: I stopped at Game in town today and, much to my surprise, Star Ocean 3 is being released here soon. Given that I haven't played either of the first two games, how much am I going to be missing? I'm not talking as much about in-jokes as actual parts of the plot that I might not understand. Is it a direct sequel (eg. FFX-2, SH: Covenant) or is it more the set-in-the-same-world thing?

10:37 pm: That five questions thing. I'll bite. Anyone wants to ask, I'll answer.

04:24 pm: Y'know, looking back at what I've said over the last few days (IRC, my LJ, LordLocke's LJ), I realise I've been neither entirely fair or entirely honest. Yes, this is another Survivor spiel. This is my LJ and I'll write what I want to here.

I'm aware that most people who enter the tournaments play to win, and I don't have the slightest problem with that. I also don't have any real problem with a lot of underhanded tactics, despite my recent comments on how disgusted I was with certain people. Private voting, vote swapping, backstabbing, targeting threats to yourself instead of those who deserve least to go through and vote dumping (hell, most of us are guilty of this one) are all legitimate ways to try and win in my view. As I put it in IRC yesterday, underhanded is fine. Unfair is what I have a problem with.

I defined a game as something you enjoy playing, and it's often something that each competitor tries to win, but it's also something that each competitor should have a chance of winning. It's entertainment, not politics, and the sides should not be so imbalanced that some people will never do so. I'm not naive enough to assume every sponsor is equal; some people will always make it further than others. They might be better writers, they might be posting more often, they might be more popular or better-known, they might be better strategists in using the battle system, or any combination of the above. All I ask for is that every sponsor has at least a CHANCE to shoot for the brass ring.

To use a fighting game analogy, using tactics like cheap combos, cheese moves and corner trapping and are all fine in my book. For a strategy game analogy, tactics like attacking from behind, or attacking from range when they can't counter, or sabotaging their forces with strikes at their weak points are all fine. It's a more or less equal competition and your opponent has exactly the same potential of doing to you what you're doing to him, even if he/she doesn't have the skill to pull off the same tricks. But what the alliance did was like facing Gold Sol with only a fixed number of blocks, evades, counters or special moves allowed before you get raped. It's like being outnumbered three to one on open ground, attacked from multiple sides so that all the strategy in the world can't save you.

THAT is why I objected so strongly to the alliance. THAT is why I consider it the worst thing to happen to a tournament for years, if not Survivor's entire history. The alliance single-handedly turned SXIV from a game into a rigged competition, where only the fixers had any chance of winning at all. As Krizak is renouned for reminding people, it's only a game, but a game that can't be won has no real reason to be bothered with for the people who play to win. Incidentally, Kriz - it hurt when everyone nuked Perky, didn't it? How do you think Badong or Fast and Danger felt when they were being hammered from three sides?

If anyone from the UU is reading this, be honest - would you enter a competition where you knew from the start that you had no chance of all at winning, because the game was set against you? The very fact that you formed the alliance proved you all wanted to win - would you play a game in the certain knowledge that you would never and could never win because it was fixed? Well, people, imagine how your various targets felt about it. It's easy to claim it was the fault of the team system, or the amount of people who went out per round, but the fact remains that the alliance would probably have formed despite that. You people wanted to win so much, you were willing to screw over every other player in the game to do so. And, much as I hate to admit it, I may be the one who ensured this kind of tactic will appear in the future.

Let's say, hypothetically, that I had not called for the AAA to disband in round 6. Whichever team we targeted would likely also be targeted by the other team, ensuring their own survival by nuking the hell out of our target. Zero Hour would have advanced to the final. And despite the fact that Carly asked for the voting to be based on writing merit and no politics, there's still a large chance that enough of the AAA would vote for ZH to make them us the winners. But we wouldn't have deserved that victory; we would have got it not because of our writing and interaction, but because we had the most voting support behind us. We would have been no better than that which we opposed. As the saying goes, when fighting monsters, one should ensure one does not become a monster. Even if somehow LPB and QM managed to put ZH out and advance to the final together, most of the AAA were intending to abstain from voting in the final if two alliance teams made it there. It would have been a very dismal result - I'd have been surprised if either team broke double digits.

On the other hand, by calling for the end of the cloak-and-daggering (as Mith put it) in round 6, I knew with absolute certainty that I was putting my own team out. Both alliance teams, even if no longer allied, realised that they would rather we went out than the other, and I wasn't surprised in the least when both teams nuked us. The purpose of their alliance was to get the two original teams to the finals, and it worked because I basically stepped aside and took Zero Hour with me. In a way, I proved them right - their tactic DID work. And because it worked, I can see it appearing in future tournaments to be used by anyone who cares more for winning than the game being fair to all participants. I alone made the decision to end the counter-alliance; there was no team or AAA consultation. But in doing so I may have betrayed not only my own team, but everyone in the AAA who stood against the Unholy Union out of principle.

I just wish I could know if I made the right choice. Or if, as I suspect, there WAS no right choice, which of the two evils I chose.

01:44 am: The 'Slip gives up' post.
I am giving up two things that have been a part of my life for some time; the Survivor/RT tournaments and Final Fantasy XI.

If anyone wants to know why, feel free to ask. I'll not clog up the friends window with what I have to say unless anyone wants to know.

11:09 am: Back online.
Nothing to see here, move along. Move along.