Aleph Ersatz

I know where all my bandwidth is going this christmas!

PLEASE SEE MY OTHER POST ABOUT LoL AND IGNORE THIS ONE.

http://leagueoflegends.com/

League of Legends is the next version of Defence of the Ancients (DotA), a game which combines team play, soloing and other tactics in a Diablo-style tower defence game.  LOL has many aspects of Demigod combined with the art style of Warcraft 3, creating a smooth but deep gameplay.  It’s also a free-to-play game, with some items being unlocked by playing more, and others by purchasing online points to spend.

The gameplay itself is clean, functions well, does not lag much for me and is easy to work with.  However, the login and setup screens are a bit clunky, especially once entering a game, which can make it a pain.  Rounds themselves only last 20 - 40 minutes at most, but a huge kicker is that once in a game, you can’t quit out.  This is great of you get disconnected, but ultra shitty if you want to leave because the game is going down the tubes.  The offset, of course, is you game experience for winning or losing, and a decent amount for both.  So even sucking up a round isn’t a huge waste.

The other huge kicker is the game has a nasty learning curve.  There is the wonderful option to play pactice games with others, but learning exactly how to setup a champion takes a bit of work, and there are 20+ champtions to choose from!  The wekely rotation of unlocked champions is a good idea, though, so long as you don’t get too attached to one.  Gives you a chance to learn new champs and cycle the game play for a while.  Plus, you can buy any champ with game-play points, or buy the collector physical box to unlock them all!  Not bad for $30.

All in all, it’s a decent game with plenty of replay, multiplayer team based, and rewards for winning or loosing.  The single-game at a time and learning curves are going to be major turn offs for some people, but for others it is just part of the gameplay.  And being free to play the whole game, it is totally worth downloading and trying!

My account there is AlephErsatz, feel free to add me as a friend if you join.

Ok to follow up on my two-day-old previous post.  I went to the Statio Square pub and got to see Distracticon / Jackie Treehork / Grapefuit (three projects with the same major players) and Damage Inc., a local Metallica Tribute band.  $6 ass kick and a half!  It was awesome.  Got a wee drunk and they were competing against the Festival of Lights, so there was like 25 people at the bar, but I’m glad I went.

I really like Distracticon and the crew, so that was what I went for.  Damage Inc. was icing on the cake, and damn was it good cake.  I highly recommend seeing all of them if you get a chance, and like those styles of musics.

Updated the Otaku List again.  Been far too long, had tons to add.

Found one of the best metal music videos ever.  Meshuggah is this really talented experimental metal band, with crazy math-metal esque licks, and they made the following their OFFICIAL video for their song.

Yes that is the real band in the video.

Finally finished The Talisman.  Was a pretty good book, very interesting, and I can see how the styles of King and Straub converge, but generally had a  good idea of when King was he predominant writer.  His work just burrows under the skin of one’s imagination, creepy as hell, but absolutely fantastic.

With that is done, I’ve been pounding away and the local libraries’ manga collection.  Found a few interesting ones, and updated my otaku list to match waht I’ve read recently.  Insert sigh here. It grows, always growing…

Got my hands on The High End of Low.  Jesus fuck, was that ever a load of shit.  Not that I expect much from a Manson album, but that was pure, uninspired, crack induced crap. Not even worth a once-over listen too.  Couldn’t do more than three songs at a time, at most.

Gladly, though, a couple other good albums may be coming out soon from artists I enjoy alot more than Manson.  VNV nation has a new album on the 23rd, and are touring.  Now if I could only get to Seattle for July 1st!  30 Seconds to Mars may also have a new album soon, which will also be pleasing.  There are a couple more, too, I just cannot remeber whom!

After getting stuck, once again, in downtown thanks to the stupid Skytrain, I’ve realized it would be really easy to paralyze the Olympics.  If three jumpers simultaneous hit Granville, Burrard and the downtown station for the Canada Line, it would effectively shut down the Expo/Millenium line, and would cripple the Canda line.  This woulc ause huge commuter chaos, breaking the entire system and showing the fatalities of our stupid system.

Wouldn’t that just frost our lame asses?  Not that seal-skin Olympic outfits are any better…

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As for answers, I’ll have them, once again, behind the break.

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The Grid Mural has picked up rapidly.  Three pieces up in the last two days, and the next few spaces being divided and conqured soon.  Check back tomorrow and I will have the B2 piece added in then.

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As promised, although slightly late, the answers for March below the cut.

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I was recently told that a friend of the family is very impressed by mine and my wife’s parenting skills.  I’m sure that that opinion probably changed today some, due to a problm the eldest one caused, but is not the biggest concern.  She was being overly rough in her play, because people were over, and ended up biting my leg enough that it hurt.  So I sent her to her room brielfy, and tried to talk it out with her.  No dice…and thus, three hours were spent arguing while she had a tantrum for overdoing it and being treated like the 10-year old child she is.

The point, however, is that I hate compliments on my parenting.  I am not the worst parent, but I certainly could be much better.  I wish I was and hate part of myself for being such a crap father.

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My great uncle is 90 now.

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As I mentioned, I was using song references for titles for my different posts.  The “answers” for January are behind the break.

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They tell you as a kid to make you into an easier victim

Fucking Catholics.

Anyways….

Someone is finally doing it right: Guitar Rising.  A music game that actually uses a real instrument!  I’m starting to bore of the repetativeness of guitar hero / rock band.  While I still enjoy it immensely, I don’t get DLC, so I’m “very” limited in my song selection.  However, while this may be the same, the concept seems excelent.  I play guitar daily, so it’s even better!

Well I got me the DVD for Sacramento for the NIN LITS tour. Very nice quality, fast torrent download, just excelent! One single angle from the back of the crowd, but it nicely captures the whole expereince!
If you missed it, grap the torrent here if you want it.  Stupid Demonoid and their limitation of torrent downloads when they are popular!