~ The Internet Slacker Blog ~

Procrastination Flow Chart

2008-09-05T15:09:17Z

I found a great procrastination flow chart via digg.com:

http://www.projectsidewalk.com/images/flowchart2.jpg

It's... it's like that flowchart knows me...

MIdgets Killed By Lions

2008-08-21T15:10:56Z

http://www.fmft.net/archives/BBC_NEWS.htm

I know it's horrible of me to think so, but I really wish I saw that fight. At least we know now it takes a lot of midgets to even be a challenge to a lion.

Gorbachov by ANJ

2008-07-21T01:22:28Z

Websites to Waste Your Week

2008-07-15T13:36:43Z

I've started a weekly article with the good publishers of Triond called "Websites to Waste Your Week". Here's Issue One, Issue Two will be published shortly. I hope you enjoy!

Website repaired and ready

2008-07-01T15:50:53Z

The past couple of days I had a broken Internet Slacker website on my hands. Using prompt Slacker know-how, after a few days I figured out how to repair it, so welcome back. I've also updated my big list of articles on other websites for your reading enjoyment. And in a few days I'll publish an article here, too. So much to do... fooooor YOU.

Romans Used 20-Sided Dice Two Millennia Before D&D

2008-06-17T22:13:11Z

Read the Wired article here.

Makes you wonder if the Romans had a role-playing game set in the future, where they played accountants and convenience store owners and stuff like that. Maybe the archaeologists will eventually dig up the rulebooks, too.

And yet, another article for your reading please...

2008-06-12T22:23:15Z

Ten Completely Time-Wasting Websites to Enrage Your Boss

I'm just surviving

2008-06-11T13:58:56Z

ADHD as a survival trait?

Obviously, I'd be doing better allover in my life if I could hunt down my own food. Problem is, attacking the meat section of the grocery store will only cause me grief, not valuable foodstuffs for the tribe. Still, I do sometimes have the urge to hunt... but hunt what? There's no tasty deer in Toronto.

Beware...

2008-06-08T16:42:56Z

Beware the Crystal Skulls.

Cool story, and even cooler skulls. Wish I owned one myself, even though they're purported to be filled with some sort of eerie psychic energy. But, still, admit it, you'd love to own a crystal skull, too.

Hey, I can see my house from up here...

2008-06-04T15:07:31Z

The Largest Picture of the Milky Way Galaxy.

Cool.

An interesting article and discussion on Slashdot...

2008-06-02T13:46:39Z

China's All-Seeing Eye

It's scary to think that something similar is happening in Toronto. Almost wherever you go now there's a CCTV camera staring down at you. I could go on and on about how we're tracked by our cellphones, too, but that's not necessary. We already know we're entering The Age of Intense Scrutiny.

But, as ever, who is watching the watchers?

Anyone Need a Dead Moose?

2008-05-29T18:03:01Z

A Dead Moose for the taking on craigslist.

Seriously, help this guy out. Oh, sure, he's up in Alaska and that may be a teensy-bit out of your way, but c'mon...a free Dead Moose! It died of natural causes, so don't worry that there's some American maniac up in Alaska shooting moose so he can offer 'em for free on craigslist.

I wonder if he has unloaded the thing yet. I should find out... stay tuned.

-- SlackerDan

Windy But Nice

2008-05-27T22:20:18Z

The subject line of this topic does not refer to a polite person with gas, but the fact that the weather here in the great urban blight known as "Toronto" is, AS WE SPEAK NOW, experiencing sunshiny weather. However, a strong wind is stripping the warmth out of the spring day.

What's the weather like where you live? Assuming you've actually unlogged from the 'Net to actually go outside to experience the weather.

You'll have to excuse my fascination with weather. It's a Canandian thing, you see. Heck, I think there should be a bloggers website about weather, where bloggers all over the world post the current condition of the outdoors in the area in which they live. And their opinion of said weather, of course. It would bring a more "human" feeling, an escape from merely looking at the temperature of the day on yer television or monitor.

Well, that's my weather report. For your Internet link for today, here's an addicting game to play when it's raining outside: VR Defender, tough game at the higher levels but a lot of fun.

Call Me The Opinionator

2008-05-18T23:21:07Z

What is there to to blog about?

One could blog about topical news, but what's the point? The major websites already cover everything we're meant to be fed, and we rarely see the real news anyways, so blogging about the news is, at its heart, repetitive.

Oh, sure, a blogger can always give his or her opinion on some small facet of the news, which oft-times starts a big war in the comments section. But I've been hearing lately that "spin" companies often visit many popular blogs' comment sites, to leave positive opinion about whoever the hell they're paid to make look good. I know it sounds hard to believe, but I heard it from somewhere and that's good enough authority for me.

Going from one extreme to another, bloggers often blog about... themselves, which personally I find much more interesting than anything offered in the news media. I myself have posted embarrassing, emotional "friends-only" entries on my Very Bad Emotional Days. Fortunately my blogger friends offer their support and, of course, opinions.

So when you get right down to it, blogs are opinions. We shouldn't be called "bloggers", we should be called "opinionators". That's a much better word.

-- SlackerDan

Summer Days and Jetpacks

2008-05-08T23:44:48Z

The warm days of '08 are here (well, almost) and what's to do for the season? Hell if I know.

There's sticking around in the city, which don't get me wrong, isn't such a bad thing in the fascinating urban blight known as Toronto. But I do need a break from T.O. every now and again. T'rona gets oppressing and I'm glad when I can get a break from its grey embrace.

One big problem is, I don't travel well. Well, my guts don't anyways, and that never makes for a fun time. But I do want to go to Ottawa to see my Mom and friends, so I'll have to grimly bear the trip somehow. Traveling on the bus is always an incredibly fun wacky time, filled with genuinely friendly people who never, ever stare at me like I stabbed their grandmother in the duodenum. I don't get it - people look at me with an odd expression a lot. Oh, sure, maybe I'll be doing something inexplicable like yodeling in the mall food court, but everyone does that doncha know.

Semi-seriously though, traveling by bus usually sucks, especially doing it alone because invariably some weirdo will sit beside me. Okay, that's being judgmental, each and every person on this planet is a unique and wonderful being, but why must I bear at times, as a bus seat neighbour, some flatulent, semi-brain damaged idiot who wants to engage me in conversation about the latest celebrities, or monster trucks, or why they like "Slipknot", whatever the hell that is (joke).

I'm just ranting about some bad bus experiences, don't mind me. Admittedly at times when I dare the Greyhound (hey, there's a new cool slogan for that bus company! "Dare the Greyhound!") I don't get a seat neighbour at all, which is great, because then I can litter the empty aisle seat beside me with all the various crap I travel with - waterbottle, bland sandwiches, non-salted peanuts, digestive cookies, Tums(tm), Extra-Heavy-Duty Gravol, cellphone, headphones, Flying Spaghetti Monster prayer beads, Cheez-in-a-can to make designs on the window, you know, the regular stuff everyone takes.

And then there are the cool random seat companions I've had the pleasure of which to share time. More than once I've had a great conversation with an attractive woman, of whom no doubt in the back of her mind was thinking, "Who is this bald FREAK", but there you go. And other times I've met people of my own caliber of intelligence, which is both incredibly high and amazingly low at the same time, in a strange oscillating pattern that makes EEG machines have nervous breakdowns.

I suppose I could travel to Ottawa by train, which I've done before. It's only about four hours, and they have a nice cheese snack package on their menu. And traveling by train is, well, fun goshdarnit. And there's no stopping for traffic, even if they're on the tracks!

I could also go camping this year, but I'm not what you'd call a great camper. Me and the outdoors have an understanding: when I camp in the great outdoors, the great outdoors tries to, at the very least, maim me in some manner. I always forget to bring a flashlight, invariably causing me to trample on other people's tents, styrofoam coolers, or heads in the dark as I try to find my own camping spot. And swimming - I've had fish attack me in the water, okay? Ontario FISH.

So what else can I do this summer, besides staying in the city, visiting Ottawa, and/or camping? I dunno yet - I wish I could just teleport out of Toronto sometimes to see my dear Mother, or visit some non-hostile forest grove. But I can't teleport (and I've tried), so to get out of this city I'll have to physically propel myself somehow. Like with a jetpack. Why don't they have jetpacks available for everyone YET?

Record-breaking Mentos & Coke explosions

2008-04-25T15:03:55Z

Hundreds of Coke & Mentos experiments go FIZZ at the same time.

Now, that's what I call real science!

We are the last to know...

2008-04-19T19:47:21Z

It's a beautiful day outside and I'm in my apartment, plugged into the 'Net.

How many countless millions of people are also doing the same as I at this very moment? Impossible to tell. I think of all those people, myself and maybe you included, who stay indoors all the time hooked on the Internet. It saddens me to know just ten years ago people used to go outdoors more often, no Internet to tempt them to login to a simulated reality.

There's a whole generation that remembers what life was like without computers. I was born in 1968; for a large part of my childhood, computers were mysterious, imaginary, inaccessible. The stuff of movies, I thought computers had large display screens that flashed various sequences of lights and sometimes went evil. Instead of the Internet, I'd go outside and play with my friends no matter the weather. We never needed a virtual reality because we'd make up our own.

And then I was witness to the explosion of the home computer market and became a part of it: my first computer was a Vic-20 with a blazing three-and-a-half kilobytes of memory. Nowadays we talk about computer storage in terms of megabytes, gigabytes, and terrabytes. Computers have grown incredibly powerful over just a few years, and yet I have computer nostalgia for that old Vic which taught me the basics of programming and gave me hours of fun gameplay.

The younger generation has grown up with computers, they've never known what it was like without the Internet. Technology is so ubiquitous now: everyone has a cellphone or Blackberry, you can access the 'Net from almost anywhere. Those born in the 80's and up have grown so used to computers because they have no memories of a time when computers were the sole province of governments, universities, and big businesses.

But I remember. I remember using a typewriter to write my stories, writing letters by hand letters I'd send through the mail to friends. Pretty archaic sounding now, eh?

We in our late 30's and up are the last generation of the pre-personal computer era. Is there any wisdom we can pass on to those who have always known computers? What could we tell them? "You should get outside more often"? No... any advice we might have is colored by the fact that we ourselves are now hooked onto the Internet.

I can't forget those days, though, before computers were everywhere. Children running around the neighborhood playing, people sitting on their porches and talking, neighbours actually getting to know each other. All of that is fading as we, the last generation, grow older and computers grow more ever present in, and ultimately controlling, our lives..

When next you walk underneath the sun, friend of my generation, take a moment to remember the days when, in a certain sense, we were free.

Six Great MMORPG List Websites

2008-04-14T15:44:34Z

If you're "in-between" playing MMORPG's or otherwise looking to find a new one, check out the websites below. All of them have excellent lists to both free- and pay-to-play massively multiplayer games. There are certainly a lot of other MMORPG list websites out there on the 'net but many of them are not kept up to date or are purely for advertisement purposes, and so have been excluded from this article. Many of the following MMORPG websites also have gamer reviews and listings to open and closed beta online games, too.

MMORPG.com

Pretty well the leading website in MMORPG news, this website has an excellent list of online games. MMORPG.com also lists games in beta and development, handy to keep track of the release dates. This website pretty well has it all when it comes to multiplayer online games: an active forum, game videos, and even comics, just to name a few.

Wikipedia's MMORPG List

Wikipedia is certainly a great resource for information, and wouldn't you know it, they have a list devoted to massively multiplayer online games. What really makes this list great is the healthy debate taking place over the validity of certain MMO's and if they should be included in the list. Oh, that Wikipedia, always arguing with itself.

Free MMORPG List

Not the most eye-pleasing website, but this MMORPG list focuses on games that are free to play and has some games not listed on the other sites. What is also handy are the large screenshots of the various listed games. An unusual website, but worthy a quick look nonetheless.

Wiki4MMO.com

This site has a free to play mmorpg list, a pay to pay list, and a section for games in open or closed beta. Wiki4MMO also has a couple of lists you don't often see on other sites: a list of MMORPG's with cash prizes and a "MMORPG Graveyard". This is another website with great screenshots of the various games; you'll find the picture thumbs to the right of each game's description.

Game Ogre

Describing itself as "the online gaming mega site", Game Ogre certainly has a lot of information to offer about free and pay MMORPG's. Many of the games described on this website have contributing reviews by gamers, many of them quite blunt (read: savage and opinionated). Game Ogre also has a short video section worthy of a quick browse.

OnRPG

Another website with a very impressive list of free and pay to play MMORPG's. OnRPG also has a great browser-based and text-based online game list, although it seems it could be updated more often or maybe possibly nobody plays text-based games anymore (joke... maybe). Also check out the message boards which have a more often updated and absolutely huge free MMORPG listing and free MMO and FPS game listing.

I hope this list helps you find new and fun MMORPGs to play. See you in the game!

Male Restroom Etiquette

2008-04-10T23:55:54Z

Books is just pdf's in solid form.

2008-04-08T18:56:57Z

For the Internet Slacker link for today, check out Telegraph.co.uk's list of 110 best books. It's very comprehensive and certainly worth a browse. I've read some of the books on the list - notably the sci-fi ones - and I'm inspired to read some of the others titles. Do you have a favourite title on this list?

Hello Kitty Online: Too Violent For Me

2008-04-05T22:47:46Z

I'm a fan of massively multiplayer online role-playing games and, honestly, I've played a lot of them. From text-based MUDs to Ultima Online to EverQuest to World of Warcraft to... well, you get the idea. And I've found most of the MMORPG's I've played fun, interesting, and basically good.

But not Hello Kitty Online. I recently received, completely unexpectedly mind you, a beta invite to the Hello Kitty MMORPG. I don't know why it showed up in my email, except possibly that the Universe or God does indeed have a twisted sense of humour.

So, (as if the concept of a forty year-old balding guy like me playing Hello Kitty Online isn't disturbing enough for this plane of reality to handle), I decided to give the game a go. Why not? I thought it'd be nice to take a break from all the violence most online games have today - for example, in World of Warcraft you can play as a Priest and cast the magic spell Mind Control on other gamers, making them jump off high cliffs to their virtual death. That sort of grimness that's prevalent in most online games today.

So I downloaded the Hello Kitty beta game client and created an account and logged into the game. And my first impression was... whoa! There's so much swearing and smack-talking and violence in the game!

My avatar was in a big room with a whole bunch of other gamers; their various characters were kittens and fairies and that sort of frilly crap. You'd think such a scenario would be very peaceful, but when I logged in there was a full Player vs. Player battle taking place.

I learned later the whole battle was actually a faction misunderstanding between two of the prominant Hello Kitty guilds, the Deth2AllLifer's and the HeilMeinKitty clan. I don't know what the developers of the game were thinking when they put guns and knives into the game, because all those Hello Kitty Online gamers were stabbing and shooting and cursing at each other.

Yes, cursing. There's full audio voice chat in the game, and from what I could tell, all the other Hello Kitty Online gamers were young girls. You'd think such a crowd would be all nicey-nice, but no, not this crowd. Here's some of the wholesome pre-adolescent banter I managed to hear in all the screaming and shouting:

"You stole my +5 Teddy Bear! I'll stab you in the neck, bitch!"

"Oh no you won't, you whore! I know where you live!"

"My Daddy has a gun and will shoot you all!"

"F--- you and your whole f----ing family! I'm 12 years old and I rule this guild!"

"I'll pwn you in real life, slut!"

"Stop rez-killing my avatar, you b---- c--- kn-------"

"Ahahaha kill them all! Kill them ALL! Worship the Dark Lord!!"

I was completely taken aback. I've never heard such language from children, especially from supposedly innocent young girls! I didn't want to say anything over the microphone either, but a couple of gamers nearby started challenging me to speak, so I had to reveal my gender and age. And, boy howdy, did things ever go downhill from there:

Me: "Uh... hi. I'm, uh, SlackerDan. Can you hear me over all this fighting and screaming?"

Hello Kitty Gamer One: "Hey! You're not a girl! You're a boy!"

Me: "Yes, uh, I'm just here to review this game and - hey, stop stabbing me!"

Hello Kitty Gamer Two: "GET HIM! KILL HIM!!! MEN BAD!"

Hello Kitty Gamer Three: "MEN BAD! KILL! KILL! KILL!"

All The Other Hello Kitty Gamers: "KILL HIM! TRACE HIS ISP! FIND OUT HIS HOME ADDRESS!!"

Me: "AHHH, GOD! STOP IT I'M SORRY! Look, my character is dead now OH MY GOD you just decapitated my avatar!"

And then all those young girl gamers, controlling their Hello Kitty Online characters, danced around in that virtual world chanting horrible... things while carrying my avatar's head around in a circle, a circle around a pentacle drawn in virtual blood...

At about that point I logged off the game, or fainted from shock, maybe both, I don't know which really. All I know is that now I live in fear of hearing the sound of tiny furious knocks at my apartment door, made by little angry fists, that all those Hello Kitty Online gamers did find my home address by tracing my internet IP address. I mean, some of them have to be hackers, not just leet PvP'ers and virtual Satan worshippers.

I think I'm going to stop playing massively multiplayer games for awhile. If I can't survive in Hello Kitty Online, why even bother playing any game, ever again.

-- SlackerDan

For your reading consideration & enjoyment

2008-04-04T16:31:45Z

Now that various scribblings of mine are being published all over the Internet, I thought to myself, maybe I should make a Big Fun List of Articles for my devoted two or three Readers to enjoy. So without further ado, here is my list of articles. I've also made a permanent link to them on the left-hand column of The Internet Slacker.

I hope you enjoy the articles, and if you have any suggestions for me to write about, please let me know!

The Best Thing on YouTube

2008-04-02T18:07:15Z

You gotta see this...

It's incredible...

Honest....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHg5SJYRHA0

A Web Writer Worth Reading

2008-03-29T19:28:26Z

I've been publishing web content articles through Triond.com and thoroughly enjoying doing so. I've also made a friend on that site by the name of Nelson Doyle; he's a great guy and a great writer. Here is the link to his bio and articles which I heartily recommend. Here's to you, Mr. Doyle; you're an inspiration to a web content writer such as myself, and I look forward to reading more of your articles.

Space, the Final Frontier (after the Internet, of course)

2008-03-25T00:14:06Z

From digg.com, I found this great National Geographic page about the planets in our solar system. Nice 'n interactive, too. Here's the link. Please note that I am not making the obligatory Uranus joke. Believe me, I had to restrain myself physically.