I don't have a Facebook.
I don't have the need nor the desire to update the entire world every time I have a decent bowel movement, or when my (non-existent) baby doesn't urinate all over my waist for once and therefore find Facebook unnecessary. Myself and the others who share this philosophy - ALL of them - are competing to see who can successfully exist longer without a Facefuck page.
There are strict qualification rules in order to even and minimize the playing field. Eligible competitors must:
- Have a computer with internet access. This automatically disqualifies most third world countries, including but not limited to Africa (and most of France, because aren't French people always like "hawhawhaw, what is le internet? Baguette croissant"). Which is good really, because if they can go weeks without food and still manage to crawl to the stagnant, near-dry watering hole for their daily allowance of liquid, just imagine how long they can keep from "poking" each other.
Side note: Air quotes kind of piss me off. Is it just me?
- Be under the age of 50. Now, I understand that there are some (maybe five) competent seniors who understand and may even have Facebook already. I'm not being prejudiced, it's just that they have the added advantage of knowing how to work a rotary phone and send messages through morse code. Plus, a lot of their friends are extremely easy to reach, because they're either four doors down at the home or neatly packed into a jar on the mantle.
- Be able to type coherently. This automatically disqualifies most people under 18, since a lot of you either can't or refuse to form a proper sentence and probably should stick to the macaroni pictures of your divorced parents that somehow make their way onto the fridge even though there are more important things like, for instance, shopping lists, on there. If you need to abbreviate words that are already one or two syllables, you should either be kept away from the computer entirely or electrocuted after each offense.
- Know what Facebook is. Anyone who doesn't understand what a proper social networking site is (you'll find most of them on MySpace) is immediately cut from the running, and should return to your rock, the depths of which you gelatinously emerged from. The decision to separate yourself from Facebook has to be conscious and informed, unlike the rest of your life probably.
Since this criteria narrows the playing field down significantly (to about twenty people worldwide), it should be a short race. Wish me luck.
March 30, 2012
March 13, 2012
Veil Of Maya's Eclipse is Damn Good
I'm definitely a bit late on this one.
I've liked deathcore since I found out about it in the tenth grade, showing my friend Sam the first As Blood Runs Black video (My Fears Have Become Phobias) instead of doing any actual work in my Multimedia studies class.
It wasn't a big deal, though, because our teacher was more lenient than a sugar cane in gale winds. That is so say, he bent and swayed with our grades like Michael Phelps' coach does with weed intake.
Pot joke.
Anyway, one of the few bands that I've been following from the beginning of my stint into the more destructive side of the musical spectrum is Veil of Maya. They've been consistently heavy while still managing to keep me interested with technical, melodic riffs and original material since their demo.
The first time I heard their "debut", full-length album (The Common Man's Collapse), the orgasmic and sexually confusing love was immediate. Since then, few bands have been able to match their talent, at least in my eyes, and still they remain one of my favourite bands to date. I even mailed away for a shirt; I haven't done that since I bought my own from my store (this isn't a shameless plug and I'm not fucking my own mouth but in case you're curious here it is).
Their newest album (circa 2012 for your late ass if it's late), Eclipse, has managed to deliver with the same intensity as the past three, while managing to keep a fresh sound and slowly adding more and more melody into the lines between the songs (reading is for losers, listening is for bosses).
If I had to criticize one element, it would be that the low, guttural exhales from the vocalist seem to be higher than in the past, which by comparison is weak, but on its own still very, very strong and independent.
I'm a big fan of guttural exhale, and a proprietor of the low inhale (among three or four others on the entire planet; believe it or not, if it sounds good, anyone who complains is a whiny puss who is trying to impress the people AROUND them and not themselves). For that reason, I've stuck to pig squeals longer than just about every one of my friends.
The greatest part about Eclipse, and VoM as a whole, is that they've never needed the raspy inhale to be as brutal as those who use it. I don't want to act as the authority on the subject; I'm just as fallible and human as anyone else. I like what I like, and my point is that even without such a staple of deathcore infamy, Veil of Maya manage to bring the pain relentlessly.
I'm proud of Veil of Maya, I always have been. Eclipse has made me even more so.
Keep it up doods.
I've liked deathcore since I found out about it in the tenth grade, showing my friend Sam the first As Blood Runs Black video (My Fears Have Become Phobias) instead of doing any actual work in my Multimedia studies class.
It wasn't a big deal, though, because our teacher was more lenient than a sugar cane in gale winds. That is so say, he bent and swayed with our grades like Michael Phelps' coach does with weed intake.
Pot joke.
Anyway, one of the few bands that I've been following from the beginning of my stint into the more destructive side of the musical spectrum is Veil of Maya. They've been consistently heavy while still managing to keep me interested with technical, melodic riffs and original material since their demo.
The first time I heard their "debut", full-length album (The Common Man's Collapse), the orgasmic and sexually confusing love was immediate. Since then, few bands have been able to match their talent, at least in my eyes, and still they remain one of my favourite bands to date. I even mailed away for a shirt; I haven't done that since I bought my own from my store (this isn't a shameless plug and I'm not fucking my own mouth but in case you're curious here it is).
Their newest album (circa 2012 for your late ass if it's late), Eclipse, has managed to deliver with the same intensity as the past three, while managing to keep a fresh sound and slowly adding more and more melody into the lines between the songs (reading is for losers, listening is for bosses).
If I had to criticize one element, it would be that the low, guttural exhales from the vocalist seem to be higher than in the past, which by comparison is weak, but on its own still very, very strong and independent.
I'm a big fan of guttural exhale, and a proprietor of the low inhale (among three or four others on the entire planet; believe it or not, if it sounds good, anyone who complains is a whiny puss who is trying to impress the people AROUND them and not themselves). For that reason, I've stuck to pig squeals longer than just about every one of my friends.
The greatest part about Eclipse, and VoM as a whole, is that they've never needed the raspy inhale to be as brutal as those who use it. I don't want to act as the authority on the subject; I'm just as fallible and human as anyone else. I like what I like, and my point is that even without such a staple of deathcore infamy, Veil of Maya manage to bring the pain relentlessly.
I'm proud of Veil of Maya, I always have been. Eclipse has made me even more so.
Keep it up doods.
March 04, 2012
Bejeweled 3 Hates You and Your Mom
Thesis: Bejeweled 3 has about as much faith in your decision-making skills as most fathers have in their daughter's claim that she won't get fucked at the drive-in movie she's going to with her boyfriend tomorrow night.
In your car.
Bejeweled and I go way back. Years, probably. I've been playing that 64-tiled love machine since it was free on the internet (yes, I know, it still is, but not the good version asshole), and I continue to play it with as much vigour as a child in a candy store, clutching his last $5 and holding out for what will inevitably be stale regret.
Maybe I'm not explaining well enough.
You see, in my apparent naivety, I like to think I'm fairly decent at thinking ahead. In this case, at the very least I try to plan my tile swaps two or three moves in advance, based on how jewels will look like they're going to fall. I try my best to set up nova gems and hypercubes, and oft it feels like I'm working against the system...Perhaps, however, it's the system that's working against me.
The hypercubes I plan out are always horizontal. They're most often in the middle, because that provides me with the highest probability that I'm going to be able to match that elusive middle gem. Normally I'll fiddle around just above the two pairs that are spaced, ever-so-daintily, one tile apart, in order to line up some sort of vertical match, bringing a group of three new gems raining down upon the rows above. When I get lucky enough, a hypercube is one move away.
Let me now explain how the world vies for my failure in these moments.
I'll even set the scene.
Imagine a standard 8x8 Bejeweled 3 board. Before you are two pairs of red square gems, lined horizontally with a space between each pair for another gem of the same type. Above that space is a group of three blue diamond gems, moved to stack vertically. Once they line up, three brand new gems topple forth, and one (by the gods themselves) is the one you're looking for. It's the second in the group of three, which means you must eliminate the first in order to be able to manoeuvre it into the proper position. Easy enough task, it just so happens that it's a pink triangle and it's one move away from elimination. Ecstatically, you notice that there seems to be no apparent downside to this decision, so you begin to swap it into position.
That's when you notice.
You can't do it.
You can't do it because Bejeweled 3 was created by kamikaze war pilots who survived and are subsequently bitter that they didn't die with honour. Turns out, one of the other two gems happens to line up with two that match it, setting off a chain reaction that drops down a couple other red gems, connecting one of the two pairs you've set up, destroying any chances you've had for happiness since that one time you accidentally copped a feel on a classmate in seventh grade.
Bejeweled 3 does this because it knows that however good your odds are, you'll never do a single thing right. You especially won't be able to fathom the two swaps necessary to make a hypercube in this instance. That's two too many, and Bejeweled 3 knows that everything you do is a mistake. Why bother allotting you some free will, when it could plan your entire life for you before you get a chance to explode from its hideous vortex womb?
Other times, it taunts you with the opportunity for a hypercube, and then causes another chain of hope-dashing events in the same breath, forcing you to watch as your hopes and dreams crumble, silenty laughing. Just loud enough for you to hear.
Don't bother trying to save them, either. Apparently Satan himself has been hard-coded into the game's binary. It'll see you, sitting there, and think, "The nerve of this bag of douches. What's he/she doing, not setting that hypercube in motion? He/she probably can't even see it. I'll fucking show it to you then." Then it makes a group of four, causing the fourth to explode right beside it, taking with it a meager three, maybe four gems of the same colour.
The world of a bitter, cynical place. War, pestilence, death, and that other one that nobody cares about. You know, where you're really hungry. At the epicentre of the chaos, on a throne of gore, sits Bejeweled 3. Plotting its next maniacal chess move. "Eventually," it says to itself, "you'll break. And when you do, I'll be waiting."
Bottom line? I can't get a god damn break, guys.
In your car.
Bejeweled and I go way back. Years, probably. I've been playing that 64-tiled love machine since it was free on the internet (yes, I know, it still is, but not the good version asshole), and I continue to play it with as much vigour as a child in a candy store, clutching his last $5 and holding out for what will inevitably be stale regret.
Maybe I'm not explaining well enough.
You see, in my apparent naivety, I like to think I'm fairly decent at thinking ahead. In this case, at the very least I try to plan my tile swaps two or three moves in advance, based on how jewels will look like they're going to fall. I try my best to set up nova gems and hypercubes, and oft it feels like I'm working against the system...Perhaps, however, it's the system that's working against me.
The hypercubes I plan out are always horizontal. They're most often in the middle, because that provides me with the highest probability that I'm going to be able to match that elusive middle gem. Normally I'll fiddle around just above the two pairs that are spaced, ever-so-daintily, one tile apart, in order to line up some sort of vertical match, bringing a group of three new gems raining down upon the rows above. When I get lucky enough, a hypercube is one move away.
Let me now explain how the world vies for my failure in these moments.
I'll even set the scene.
Imagine a standard 8x8 Bejeweled 3 board. Before you are two pairs of red square gems, lined horizontally with a space between each pair for another gem of the same type. Above that space is a group of three blue diamond gems, moved to stack vertically. Once they line up, three brand new gems topple forth, and one (by the gods themselves) is the one you're looking for. It's the second in the group of three, which means you must eliminate the first in order to be able to manoeuvre it into the proper position. Easy enough task, it just so happens that it's a pink triangle and it's one move away from elimination. Ecstatically, you notice that there seems to be no apparent downside to this decision, so you begin to swap it into position.
That's when you notice.
You can't do it.
You can't do it because Bejeweled 3 was created by kamikaze war pilots who survived and are subsequently bitter that they didn't die with honour. Turns out, one of the other two gems happens to line up with two that match it, setting off a chain reaction that drops down a couple other red gems, connecting one of the two pairs you've set up, destroying any chances you've had for happiness since that one time you accidentally copped a feel on a classmate in seventh grade.
Bejeweled 3 does this because it knows that however good your odds are, you'll never do a single thing right. You especially won't be able to fathom the two swaps necessary to make a hypercube in this instance. That's two too many, and Bejeweled 3 knows that everything you do is a mistake. Why bother allotting you some free will, when it could plan your entire life for you before you get a chance to explode from its hideous vortex womb?
Other times, it taunts you with the opportunity for a hypercube, and then causes another chain of hope-dashing events in the same breath, forcing you to watch as your hopes and dreams crumble, silenty laughing. Just loud enough for you to hear.
Don't bother trying to save them, either. Apparently Satan himself has been hard-coded into the game's binary. It'll see you, sitting there, and think, "The nerve of this bag of douches. What's he/she doing, not setting that hypercube in motion? He/she probably can't even see it. I'll fucking show it to you then." Then it makes a group of four, causing the fourth to explode right beside it, taking with it a meager three, maybe four gems of the same colour.
The world of a bitter, cynical place. War, pestilence, death, and that other one that nobody cares about. You know, where you're really hungry. At the epicentre of the chaos, on a throne of gore, sits Bejeweled 3. Plotting its next maniacal chess move. "Eventually," it says to itself, "you'll break. And when you do, I'll be waiting."
Bottom line? I can't get a god damn break, guys.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)