• RSS
Payday loans
RedShirts 2 Ad Banner for Kickstarter

Archive for June, 2008

I’ve Been Wanting To Get This Off Of My Chest

Wednesday, June 18th, 2008

There is something that has been bothering me for a while now. I think that now is as good a time as any to get it out.

Iä Iä C’thulu ftagn

Iä Ph’nglui mglw’nafh

Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn

Iä Shub-Niggurath n’sawp tk’li

Ya Shub-Niggurath K’n-yan Cybele Exham

Exham Shub-Niggurath io p’ag gof’nn hupadgh

Iä Tsathoggua naf’k y’el p’ag Dholes

Ya Tsathoggua Yaddith Eibon Yuggoth

Yuggoth k’el gurath io Byatis

Iä Azathoth g’ta k’teel

Ya Azathoth gof’nn Nyarlathotep

Nyarlathotep p’ag N’gi

Iä Yog-Sothoth p’ael Yibb-Tstll

Ya Yog-Sothoth s’slo Tawil At-U’mr

Tawil At-U’mr s’slo Aforgomon

Iä Idh-yaa pyg’nn C’thulu

Ya Idh-yaa m’threo n’sawp

N’Sawp Ghatanothoa n’sawp Ythogtha

Iä Idh-yaa pyg’nn C’thulu

Ya Idh-yaa m’threo n’sawp

N’Sawp Zoth-Ommog n’sawp Cthylla

Iä Dagon gof’nn C’thulu

Ya Dagon S’othis Thoosa

Thoosa p’ag C’thulu

Iä Iä C’thulu ftagn

Spoiler Alert: You should probably not have read any of that out loud.

The Dangerous Side Effects of Gatorade

Tuesday, June 17th, 2008

No Shit there I was, Ramadi Iraq 2005, actually wait….. Back up. I can’t say “no shit” for this story as it’s central theme is just that.

I don’t know about your tours to the desert, but from my experience, H20 was never in short supply. It was located in huge bottles, on massive aircraft pallets located all over the FOB. It sat in the 110+ degree heat, and was like drinking fresh McDonalds lawsuit coffee only without the delicious coffee taste, and foamy clumpy shits that followed.

Ice in coolers did not hold up on three hour convoys, and the massive 2 liter water bottles took up way too much cooler space.

Gatorade was never plentiful, and was considered a rare treat when we could get our hands on it. One day the mess hall received three connexes full of grape flavored Gatorade in the 20oz bottles.

My Armorer, Young Specialist Wesley Green, whom you may or may not recall from my back scratcher story from a few weeks ago, took it upon himself to wheel and deal for a pallet of this grape-flavored nectar of the Gods. It cost us a broken Nautilus ab cruncher (but we had two in our gym and one was not on the property books).

This pallet was enjoyed by my orderly room staff exclusively for nearly a week.

That is when a few of my guys started noticing that their fecal matter color was changing. Bright hues of florescent green and yellow began to fill our Job Johnnys. Then one day our NBC Private, PFC Powell, whom you may remember as not being the smartest of privates, whom mistakenly purchased a douche for a female medic on my orders, decided to mess with Top, and try to get some free time off. He took a green chem light and a turkey baster (where in the hell he got a turkey baster in Iraq I have no clue) and inserted glowing green chem light juice in, on, and around his latest drop.

He came in and asked Top to take a look at the glowing pile of nuclear waste shit, and asked if he could be excused from duty to see the Medics and get some “bed rest”. Top was one of the brighter First Sergeants that I have dealt with, and made PFC Powell scoop out his creation to take with him to the medics. Since the medics hadn’t been aware of the tactically acquired Gatorade they were in for quite a shock when PFC Powell came in with his glowing sandwich baggy of poop. They immediately called the PA and the FOB surgeon. It was only when they were preparing to order an emergency Medivac did Top step up and say that his troop was simply sandbagging, and that the poor dumb bastard had just drank too much Gatorade, and added chem light juice. For some reason these Medics, the PA, and FOB Surgeon were all of the mindset that my young PFC had grew up in Chernobyl or discovered Saddam’s secret stash of WMDs. It wasn’t until Top, just through his “Top Glare”, made PFC Powell admit to what he had done that the FOB Medical staff relented.

What form of perverse punishment that Top gave PFC Powell eludes me at this time, but I’m sure that it was fitting. It does roll downhill after all.

Yet Another “Do Not Do This” Update

Monday, June 16th, 2008

Here it is, allergist you Monday morning list of things you should probably not do.

(Submitted by Kennes Hendrickson)

  • Not allowed to send soldiers to the motor pool for a can of air.
  • Not allowed to send soldiers to the 1sg to ask for the pricky-8 for the radio
  • Even if the platoon sergeant thought it would be funny
  • Must not remove a soldiers canister from their gas mask
  • Even if they are sleeping on duty
  • Not allowed to send soldiers to range control to get keys to the drop zone
  • There is no such duty to paint the flight lines
  • Not allowed to refer to subordinates as my minions
  • Not allowed to refer to subordinates as my little bastards
  • Not allowed to tape corporals to chairs with 100 mile hour tape during lunch hour
  • Nor allowed during duty hours
  • Not even if they flunked out of jump master school twice
  • Can not order soldiers to throw rocks at the same corporal
  • Can not set up trip wires in the scif at Ft. Bragg in order to make the roving gaurds trip
  • Not supposed to laugh at the NCOIC when she trips over the trip wire
  • Not allowed to sell TA-50 on e-bay
  • Not even if it is your annoying room mates TA-50
  • Not allowed to call your 1sg a LEG even if he is one
  • Can not laugh at your 1sg for being a reservist, pills because they have feeling too
  • Must not tell locals in Hawaii that your MOS is Sub-terrain Pineapple growers, even if you work under a pineapple field and can not say what you do
  • Not supposed to tell people they hate me because I am black, especially if I am white
  • On Sicily drop zone at 0100 when the platoon sergeant is looking for his poncho, not supposed to take the token Mexican kid to him
  • Can not hide your platoon sergeants poncho from him on jumps
  • Not allowed to ask the battalion CSM why you always have to remind him he is a sergeant major
  • Can not inject the “Army, it’s so easy a caveman can do it” picture into a power point presentation intended for the battalion commander
  • Even if he thinks it is funny
  • Can not even attempt to DX my neighbor
  • Not allowed to have an EPW camp of field mice in an MRE box
  • Not allowed to execute mice that were captured during time of war
  • Birth certificate and high school diploma do not count for promotion points
  • During war fighters can not brief the ACE chief on enemy activity in Rhode Island
  • Even if you believe they are communist
  • Can not fuel a generator while smoking a cigarette
  • Not allowed to ask your CO for beef jerky, even if he did horde it on the show Survivor
  • Not allowed to put a bumper sticker on a religious soldiers car that reads “WWSD” with small print reading “What would Scooby Doo”
  • Not allowed to link all laptops together to play 2 vs. 2 command and conquer generals
  • Not allowed to take the CO’s proxima projector to make a movie theater inside the t-scif
  • It is frowned upon to teach a private MP that is 4th general order is to guard his post from flank to flank and take no shit from any rank
  • Even if the MP NCOIC taught it to you
  • Not allowed to hide in shelter halves to avoid work
  • Can not perform an L shaped ambush on your SGL at PLDC with blank rounds
  • During a brass shake down can not tell the drill sergeant “Your ass, my ammo”
  • While as a drill sergeant can not give your soldiers ecstasy

Skippy’s Dream MMO Part 1

Monday, June 16th, 2008

Over the years I have played many online games. I have current accounts on City of Heroes and Age of Conan. I experimented with Pirates of the Burning Seas, Auto Assault, Eve, and Lord of the Rings, and D&D Online. I was on the Star Wars Galaxies and Tabula Rasa betas. I had a World of Warcraft habit that lasted for years. And in fact it was when I was introduced to Dark Age of Camelot while I was still in the Army that I decided that I want to make video games for a living.

So basically I have spent a lot of time thinking about how large scale online games are put together, and how to make them more fun.

So for this installment, I want to talk about crafting, and how I think that it could be improved.

At the moment, most crafting systems worked in one of two ways.

1) Static Recipe System

The player has access to recipes, and by providing the exact components the recipe calls for they can assemble an item that is identical to every other item created from the same recipe. This is how most of the big MMOs have handled it. It has the advantage of being very easy to understand, but it is a grind based system, which can get boring quickly.

2) Varied Recipe

The player has access to recipes, and the ability to create experiment with small parts within the formula. Star Wars Galaxies had a system like this, where there was a large variety in the stats possible when an item was generated. Various factors ranging from character skill level, the the quality of the materials, and even a certain amount of luck could effect the end product in a variety of ways. This had the advantage of being a lot more interesting for the crafter. But many players found this to be too complicated, and it was difficult to predict how any particular item would turn out. Player would frequently have to make several items in order to randomly generate an optimal one.

So the biggest complaints that I always hear is that every crafting system is either too static and simplistic to be fun, or too dynamic and complicated to be fun.

My solution is a system which I call the “Assembly” crafting system.

The idea is that the player still has recipes. But the recipes aren’t for completed items. The recipes are for the individual components that go into into a finished item.

To demonstrate I have made this quick example, using a retro sci-fi theme

Each ray gun is made up of three components. A Firing Mechanism, A Power Supply, and an Emitter.

Each component has a variety of ways that it effects the stats of the final weapon.

Firing Mechanism
Repeater – The pistol gets an increased rate of fire, but reduced accuracy and damage.
Charger – The pistol gets an increased damage, but reduced range and accuracy
Phaser – The pistol gets an increased range, but reduced rate of attack and damage

Power Supply
Heat Bank- Weapon does 5 points of heat damage per shot
Atomic Battery- Weapon does 5 points of Atomic damage per shot
Neutron Compiler- Weapon does 5 points of Neutron damage per shot

Emitter
Beam- Weapon gets increased range and armor penetration, but reduced damage
Blast – Weapon gets an increase to damage, but a decrease to accuracy
Ray – Weapon has severely reduced range, but gains area of effect attack

ray guns

A player would be able to make 27 different weapons from the sample components I’ve shown so far. And in each case the weapon would be significantly different, both in game use and appearance. So if we had an expanded list of components, say 20 in each category, we’d have 8000 possible combinations. This would give the players who want to craft more than enough options to be able to make weapons optimized for the needs of any other player. And it has the added effect that players can also craft to get a specific desired appearance, in case they are more into the role-playing and dress up elements of the game.

This Is For Fighting, This Is For Fun

Friday, June 13th, 2008

story by Donny, abortion written with help by skippy

One bright spring day our platoon was tasked with some combat training. specifically we were assigned to attack a fake village that would be populated with other soldiers pretending to be third world residents. Our goal was to neutralize HVTs. For the benefit of the non-military readers an HVT is a High Value Target. In other words the guys that we want to do bad things to.

The training village was a cluster of six buildings, illness ranging is size from a small single room dwelling to a large 2 story house. This building was practically a mansion by the standards of the other buildings, shop with several interconnected rooms. There was even an escape tunnel leading out of the village.

These buildings, like all urban combat simulators were constructed with thick slabs of concrete, to create a maximum of durabilty with a minimum of cost. Which are two desirable features for a building if you plan on letting soldiers run amok without any serious adult supervision.

My squad was the main effort, and so the large two story building was our target. We dismounted our Bradleys, sprinted to the building, and entered through a window. As we climbed the stairs we encountered light enemy resistance, which we quickly and professionally put down.

Once on the second floor, we began clearing all of the rooms. Within a short period of time we had swept through the area, and had already captured or killed every HVT except for one. And we only had one room left to check.

So my squad stacked up and I got the be the breacher. Again for the non-military types here, a breacher is the guy who gets the break the door down. As soon as he does that everyone else runs in, the goal being to put as many soldiers through the door as quickly as possible.

So I forced the door and watched my squad storm in to the sound of gunfire. As I tried to join them in the assault I collided with a team-mate who was standing in the doorway laughing. Despite the clear presence of an armed hostile my squad instead of opening fire, was doubling over with laughter. Feeling disgruntled I shoved my way into the room while shouting “What the hell is so funny?”

And then I saw.

Remember how I mentioned the nice thick walls in this place? Well aside from being durable thick cement also blocks sounds. And so the nice Sergeant who was playing the role of enemy combatant had not heard the raid starting. And having been left with some privacy for a while, he decided to conduct a private “weapons inspection”.

He was in fact rather enthusiastically in the middle of said inspection when my squad, rather rudely, broke the door down and barged in.

Now to his credit, he was able to change gears, and weapons, rather quickly. He dropped his gun, grabbed his rifle, and began what could under the circumstance only be referred to as a valiant last stand.

Unfortunately for him he had been caught with his pants down, red handed as it were.

The Couple That Preys Together, Stays Together

Thursday, June 12th, 2008

I saw a news story a while back about a couple that had kidnapped people, kept them as sex slaves and then murdered them when they were done with them.

As disgusting as that is, it got me wondering, how do these people find each other? I have had a hard enough time finding a normal chick that will tolerate me playing video games.

So how do people like this hook up with someone else that shares their interests? You can’t exactly place an ad in the paper.

SWM seeks woman with open mind. Must enjoy trying new things, meeting people and able to carry up to 175 lbs. Van owner a plus.

Or maybe this.

SWM seeks woman into BDSM, mostly the B, D, and especially the S, not so much the M. Must enjoy the light hearted romantic comedies of Voorhees, Kruger, Myers and John Holmes. Must be into threesomes and/or voyeurism. Not squeamish around blood. Previous criminal history not a problem. Van owner a plus.

Or maybe this.

Do you get off on finding that special someone, and forcing them to perform unspeakable acts, against their will, and then “disposing” of them when they no longer amuse you? Would it be more fulfilling if you had someone to share the experience with? Then I am the man for you. Van owner a plus.

Obviously you can’t do that, so at what point in the relationship do you make the suggestion to your significant other that you want to spice up the sex life by committing three of the most heinous crimes you can commit?

I see the conversation going something like this…

A husband and wife are having another quiet, uneventful Friday night together. While surfing the channels on the TV, he asks, “So honey… what do you want to do tonight?”

“I don’t know. Want to go to a movie,” she replies.

“No… I was thinking of something a bit more active.”

She pauses to think for a moment and offers up, “Bowling?”

“No.”

He pauses for a minute then says, “Hey, I have an idea. It’s a little weird, but hear me out.”

With an intrigued look on her face, she says, “OK, this sounds interesting.”

The husband continues, “What if we went out and found some random stranger, kidnapped them, kept them in the basement as a sex slave for a while, and when we get tired of them, we can kill them and bury them in the back yard, and start all over again?”

She stares at him with a shocked look on her face, as if she saw her mates soul for the very first time and says, “Do you know how long I have been waiting for you to ask me that? I’ll get my coat.”

Romancing the Pwn

Wednesday, June 11th, 2008

While I was in Bosnia I got to witness some truly awe inspiring disregard for appropriate conduct.

Now to preface, many of the rules and regulations the military inflicts on its soldiers are ridiculous. And a silly regulation should probably be mocked. But you should still follow it, especially if you are a leader. And if you are going to ignore it and just do what you want, you should at least have the courtesy to attempt to hide it from your soldiers.

So while I was deployed in Bosnia I got to work with Reservists for the first time. In fact, about half of the PSYOP forces in Sarajevo were deployed from the Reserves. My section lucked out, in that the most senior of the illustrators in country, a man who I will call Specialist Dart, had extensive training and experience with graphic design from his civilian job. So he taught me all about Photoshop, vector graphics, and Quark.

Unfortunately not all of the Reservists had similar amounts of applicable job experience. But most of them where willing to sit down and learn their way around the software and other job requirements.

But the video productions section had an NCO who I will call SGT Screecher. Now SGT Screecher was a very nice lady who had a few issues. The first is that she had absolutely no idea how any of the equipment in here section worked. She had transfered from some other area and received on the job training for her current assignment. Her on the job training more or less consisted of someone waving a pencil and shouting: “Abracadabra….you’re now qualified to lead video production!” And unfortunately for everyone, she didn’t want to learn. Basically, she had too much of an ego to allow a bunch of lower enlisted types to teach her how the equipment worked. So she just sat around her section being annoying until a higher ranking NCO kicked her out.

So she was now banished from being in the same office as the soldiers she was technically “leading”.

Which was no big deal to me, because I was in another section entirely.

Which leads nicely into my problem. My section leader was a man I will call SGT Horndog.

As you may guess from the name, SGT Horndog took one look at SGT Screecher and decided:

“I’m going to hit that so hard, whoever can pull me out again will be the next King of England!”

As nearly any soldier who has deployed can tell you, these “deployed romances” happen from time to time. And by “time to time”, I mean “near constantly”. In this particular case it was notable because weren’t particularly good at hiding it. But that special kind of “not hiding it” where they act like they are concealing their real actions with an almost ninja-like ability.

I named her SGT Screecher for a reason.

So besides keeping other soldiers up at odd hours, she would hang around my office making goo-goo eyes at Horndog and basically acting like an infatuated teenager. Seriously, she usually referred to him as “Honey” or by his first name while in uniform and on duty. (For purposes of this story I will say that his first name is Pookie.)

You know those people who are going through the nauseating “Yay I just started dating someone” phase? That was her. Except that she had rank and wasn’t above throwing it around if someone was mean to her “Honey”. I actually got chewed out once for trying to demonstrate a better way to make a layout to SGT Horndog. (Please note: I was an illustrator. This was my job.)

Aside from clogging up our space, and giving us a serious case of cooties induced diabetes, she also made an email account on every computer in our office.

Now this was in the mid-nineties before computers had multi-gig hard drives. We did graphic production and had itty-bitty drives to store it on. We had to use external storage media, such as Jazz and Zip disks, simply because we couldn’t fit all of the material we were working with onto our system at the same time.

So we had a special (read: crappy) computer just for email accounts, in the back.

Unfortunately for us, SGT Screecher didn’t like that computer. So she would just help herself to the workstations. She would even try to kick soldiers who were working off of the workstations so she could spend her afternoons sending emails to every person she ever knew.

And our NCOIC wouldn’t do a damn thing about it because he wanted to keep getting some.

One day SPC Dart (remember him?) had enough.

“SGT you can’t keep using these workstations for personal email. There’s no room for files we need already, plus we need the system to get the next magazine print set-up.”

She gave him a petulant pout, “Well Pookie would give me access to this system whenever I want!”

“SGT, would you like a quick rundown of all the things that SGT Horndog will give you whenever you want that I won’t? Because orgasms are pretty close to the top of that list.”

And with that she turned red, and ran away, never to bother us about email again. And my section lived happily ever after, except for SGT Horndog.

Soundtrack To Your Life

Tuesday, June 10th, 2008

This is a fun meme that I found floating around the tubes.

Instructions:

1. Open your MP3 player

2. Put it on shuffle

3. Press play

4. For every section list whichever song comes up

5. Repeat to get the full soundtrack

Here’s my soundtrack:

Opening Credits: Gulf War Song – Moxy Fruvous

Waking up: Know Your Enemy – Rage Against The Machine

Falling in love: Blister In The Sun – Indigo Girls (Cover of the Violent Femmes song)

Fight song: Escape From The Flesh Eaters – Zombie Motion Picture Soundtrack

Break up song:
Designed By Satan – The Vandals

Making Up:
Americana – The Offspring

Life’s Okay:
Parsons’s Farewell – Burn Witch Burn

Mental Breakdown: Fields of Athenry – Dropkick Murphys

Driving:
Go Your Own Way – NOFX (Cover of the Fleetwood Mac song)

Flashbacks:
O Do Not Forsake Me – They Might Be Giants

Happy Dance: Bad, Bad Leroy Brown – Jim Croche

Regret:
Science Fiction/Double Feature – Me First and the Gimmie Gimmies (Cover of the Motion Picture Soundtrack)

Final Battle: Furry Old Lobster – Jonathan Coultan

Death Scene:
Why Doesn’t Anybody Like Me – No Use For A Name

Final Credits: Jumping Cat Boogie – Red Elvises

What did everyone else get?

Name Explanation

Tuesday, June 10th, 2008

A quick note on names.

Just in case people haven’t noticed up until this point, I never use real names when telling my Army stories. This is because of two reasons.

The first is to protect the innocent. And guilty for that matter. I figure that some of the people I am telling stories about might still be in the service. Some might be in military-related jobs on the civilian side now. And not everybody has a sense of humor. I’d hate to see someone start getting crap or miss out on a promotion opportunity because I told a story that put them in an unflattering light. Or even just because they have a grouchy commander who doesn’t think Skippy’s List was very funny.

Even if they were in the habit of saying really stupid things, or acting like an idiot, I like to imagine that they grew up and got over it since then.

Also I try to remember all the idiotic things I have done, and how much I would hate it if someone put those all over the internet for everyone to laugh at me.

The second reason is that many of these stories happened a very long time ago. And I used to drink a lot. And I honestly don’t remember everyone’s name. Now get off my lawn.

On another note, I am beginning to reach empty on my “Magical bin of hilarious guest stories”. Which means that you guys aren’t sending any in. So get on that.

Australian For “Things You Can’t Do”

Monday, June 9th, 2008

This weeks list of bad military ideas comes from an Army Cadet in the Australian military. Which should probably be terrifying if you are a soldier in the Australian military.

(Submitted by Cadet Who?)

  • Must not refer to a lanyard as a “ropey thingy”
  • Must not use a lanyard to hang an NCO, salve no matter how much I hate them
  • Must not use wit to come up with “funny” rhymes about NCO’s
  • The chain of command doesn’t care how long I have played PS2 for, medic I still have to do drill
  • Ghostmas is not a real religious holiday and I shouldn’t take time off cadets for it
  • I am not the crazy cat lady
  • I must not make my personal army of cats
  • I am not in charge of the zero gravity universe
  • There is no such thing as the zero gravity universe
  • I am no longer to do the “Eden” dance
  • I am no longer allowed to dance the “Krystal”
  • Walter the bank guy (deal or no deal) is not my home dog
  • Using large amounts of hair gel causes cancer and hair loss, doctor think about it
  • I am not the president of Uzbekistan
  • I am not to cover the parade ground with sand and create a Zen garden
  • I am not allowed to re-enact anything from Jackass
  • I am not to see how many marshmallows I can shove up my nose
  • When in cold conditions, I am not allowed to lick poles
  • I am not allowed to steal the company’s flag, this achieves nothing
  • I am not to push that button on the radio while someone is talking
  • I am not to inquire how to make “cadet cocaine”
  • I am not to flatten my face against windows
  • I am not to convert people to “The Dark side”
  • “The Dark side” does not have cookies
  • I am not to go into the Q store and become “The Magical Scrim Monster”
  • I am not Fergalicious
  • I am not to encourage other cadets to irritate the NCO’s
  • “Point and laugh” is not a drill move
  • I am not to go on a mission based solely on pushing over sleeping cows
  • I must not put the bandages used for First-Aid lessons in my mouth, I don’t know where they’ve been
  • I cannot fly and I should not test this
  • There’s no such thing as “scrim attack”
  • Manikin look-a-likes of me don’t replace me at lessons, camps or parades
  • I don’t know kung-fu, and I should not say this
  • I do not have an evil twin
  • I am not to get other sections lost on purpose, even if it is funny
  • The SSGT is not a member of Al-Qaeda
  • Saying that I was dropped on my head at birth does not justify anything bad I have done
  • I am to speak English at all times, Not German, not Chinese, English
  • I am not bringing Sexy back
  • If I start seeing Leprechauns, I’ve drunk too much coke
  • I am not to do anything I saw in the movie “Jarhead”, especially “field f**k”
  • I am not to taunt the air-force cadets anymore
  • The SSGT is not a ferret, even though with his new hair style he does look like one.
  • New recruits are not “cannon fodder”
  • I must not itch myself with a loaded steyer