Date:	2010-02-09 01:03
Subject:	AGC #456
Security:	Public
Mood:	it's free!

Next up, it's AGC #456.

Some of you may have noticed empty ads on the AGC homepage (or even in the archives). No, projectwonderful.com hasn't dried up, rather, they have switched to geotargeting. They now have four different advertising regions that you can bid on for each space; the US, Canada, Europe and the last category is "everywhere else".

If you are in the US, you probably haven't noticed a difference, because most advertisers spend their money there. However, because they are dividing up the bids, you can sneak in at the moment with free ads to some of the other regions (at the risk of being beat out by somebody bidding a whole one-cent-per-day), especially right now as advertisers are still adjusting to the new system. Free bids do expire (or have to be renewed) after 48hours max, but once you have a projectwonderful account, you can place bids (free or otherwise) on as many sites as you can find, not just AGC. So if you have a little project, your own webcomic or blog that you want to promote, now might be a good time to get started :)

Date:	2010-02-08 11:08
Subject:
Security:	Public
Mood:	blah

If I want to play StreetFighter IV online, I have to use WindowsLive (the crappy PC version of XboxLive, which unfortunately doesn't link up with XboxLive even if the same game exists on both platforms). But anyhow, I had to pick a "gamer tag" (or for the non-retarded, a user name), and apparently they are ALL taken. All good names are taken. In the universe. None are not taken. Fortunately, WindowsLive provides all kinds of handy suggestions while crushing your dreams. Here are a few that I tried:

Demonac? This gamertag is not available.Available alternatives:
BotheredDemonac | BreezierDemonac | BroodierDemonac | RegentBubbles | WartyRacer

AgentElrond? This gamertag is not available.Available alternatives:
KnockdownCoffee | UrticateWater | CrappyHen | UpturnedTick | AimedShrimp

Nuclear Dan? This gamertag is not available.Available alternatives:
BowedNuclearDan | SteelNuclearDan | TackyNuclearDan | LoopedFall | BlessingAtol

Fatninja? This gamertag is not available.Available alternatives:
NullFatninja | BlamedFatninja | MinusFatninja | ArthriticSun | NumbDig

Wow, Windows, it's like you're reading my mind! We're totally on the same page... only in different books. Like, I'm reading LotR, and you're skimming a Spongebob colouring book. Although, I looked it up and 'urticate' is actually a word. It appears to involve causing stinging and/or itching via a whipping motion.

We get ticked off at TV schedules sometimes (BotheredDemonac), like how Fridays randomly suck for no reason - no Daily Show, no Colbert, but even other things earlier in the day are different and sucky - or how there's so little to watch during most of the weekend. But it was pretty special yesterday when my GF was flipping through the channels. We hadn't been watching the Mythbusters marathon because most of the episodes are ones we've seen many times. But you know one of the variants of the warnings they give, "Don't try this at home... EVER!"

GF [flipping channels]: "There's nothing on TV..."
Jamie Hyneman: "EVER!"

I can't describe how perfect the timing was. It took a minute for the funny to kick in, then we were keeling over laughing.

Date:	2010-02-04 13:26
Subject:	AGC #455
Security:	Public
Mood:	blah

Here's AGC #455.

Helped GF's father move yesterday. Of course, he's in transition right now and his stuff was mostly moved into our basement. When he gets his new place, we'll have to move half of it again, but we're likely going to get to keep a lot of useful things he won't have room for (like the deep freezer), and we'll be garage saling a lot. Nevertheless, I'm sore all over from moving.

Then... a coworker quit without notice. So instead of getting to rest all day, I have to go in this evening and work 2/3 of a shift, and I'll probably be picking up an extra shift a week for at least a while. My boss said I didn't have to come in today if I was busy, or whatever, but she already worked a 13 hour yesterday, and I can't just leave her alone there again today (another coworker had to call in sick, so there aren't a lot of options).

Date:	2010-01-29 23:11
Subject:	AGC #454
Security:	Public
Mood:	blah

It seems like the guys are getting a little short with each other in AGC #454.

Date:	2010-01-27 01:20
Subject:	Freakin' Finally!
Security:	Public
Mood:	BIBLE FIGHT!

I just saw an ad; Important Things with Demitri Martin is coming back with a new season Feb 4.
This is good news because the first season was hilarious, and had only 2 major (and crippling) flaws. First, there were only seven episodes. Second, the second season never freakin' came. So hooray!

Other funny things on TV; Family Feud (not the greatest show, but not bad either) had their best question ever.
"If a fight broke out in a church, name something a person might pick up and throw."
We asked 100 people, and the four most common answers were as follows:
(80) BIBLE
(7) CANDLESTICK
(4) COLLECTION PLATE
(3) HOLY WATER

Our favorite answer that didn't appear on the board: The Pews (Hulk smash!) But seriously, what kind of fight do you think they'd be having that they need to throw holy water on it?

BIBLE FIGHT!

Date:	2010-01-25 10:51
Subject:	AGC #453
Security:	Public
Mood:	evil to be playing

Okay, it didn't turn out to be as 'faster than usual' as I had hoped. Spend too much time at work, but anyway, here's AGC #453.

Now, if you've tried out League of Legends (I sure have blabbed about it a lot), and if you find the philosophies of Dr. Stan intriguing, I found a great marriage of the two. To be clear, I and AGC have nothing whatsoever to do with the creation of this guide, but I find it very reminiscent of what Dr. Stan might suggest (only the guide is probably funnier).

Playing To Be Evil (the actual guide is the PDF file at the bottom of the original post.

A lot of funny things sure do happen in multiplayer though, like the game I was playing the other day (alongside quill18) where at some point (I'm guessing the 20-25 minute mark) I had a ridiculously good score of 12 kills, 0 deaths and 8-9 assists, with quill was doing similarly well (though probably with a few more deaths because he's a good enough player that he knows when to sacrifice himself for a net gain)... and at that time, one of the random people on our team said in chat "we're losing". Now, lots of crazy things can happen in a game, but I can assure you that the Venn diagram showing situations where I'm 12/0/8 and our team is losing looks a lot like this:


That one did turn into a long hard slog (the other team was being a bit more strategic early on, but since we were killing them more, we outgeared them and eventually persevered). Calling out that we're losing when the game is not only very much undecided, but where we actually had the advantage in most ways? Really weird and lame.

Date:	2010-01-20 11:02
Subject:	AGC #452
Security:	Public
Mood:	you have been pushed

Honestly, I was having a hard time finding the funny as I moved the fight forward. I'll probably post the next one a little sooner to bury this in the archives. With that glowing recommendation, here's AGC #452.

Date:	2010-01-18 11:58
Subject:
Security:	Public
Mood:	nameless

A couple days ago, on the way home, a stray dog ran out of an alley ahead of me. He ran across the street stupidly, forcing a truck to break and swerve a little, and from my vantage point it looked for a couple seconds like he may have been run over, but no he was fine. The weird thing, though, was that a couple blocks later, he crossed my path again. I crossed the street, and he was back on the other side running along the sidewalk. He got ahead of me again, marked a snowbank, then crossed the street to the side I was on and ran off down a private drive. It was weird though, we had "followed" each other for about half my walk home.

Anyhow...

One aspect of playing League of Legends is that it's a 5v5 multiplayer game. Unless you organized your own premade team of 5 friends, you are getting matched up with at least some random people every game. So first, you look at their names (and champion and spell selection) to try and figure out if your teammates will be semi-competent, or if they will drag you down like the anchor of the Titanic. Then, once all the choices are made, the game starts to load and you see your opponents' choices and names too, and you try to console yourself that they are at least as horrible as your teammates.

You see a lot of names go by as you play. Many are generic like DeathGod, or D3THGOD, or "Death God" (with a space... you see how that works?), and arguably my game-name Demonac is pretty generic too (note, that's pronounced "demonack", it is not a mispelling of "demonic"). You see lots of things that are your ordinary net-names, just meaningless syllables that sound cool, or combinations of two apparently random words (or a name and a word like Nuclear Dan).

But some names give a strong impression of the kind of player you are dealing with. It's never a good impression. One game, I was teemed with SexualTyrannosaurus, who was playing as Rammus. It turned out that he was a pretty damned good ally though, and not overly weird or mouthy (typed only a couple weird taunts at the other team). And his name stuck with us to the point that my GF and I have pretty much substitute SexualTyrannosaurus for Rammus in all contexts.

Another game, we were prettymuch staring openmouthed at the character selection screen, as I was teemed with Kikemaster and Klan.

GF: I hope they drop [out of the game]... I don't think I want your team to win this one, despite you being on it.

My only hope was that one of my other teammates, weslet (nothing really positive or negative there) and Hunkulese (I believe that's a variant of Hercules) would be good. After all, Hunkulese was a SexualTyranosaurus... But it turned out that although the KKK-sounding guys were a little mouthy, they weren't ridiculously mouthy (or openly racist) in the game, and they were actually reasonably competent.

Then there's the game where I had the privilege of being paired with "the winer". It's made me think of Wheel of Fortune trying to figure out which word he was mispelling "I'll take an 'H', Pat". Winner seemed more likely to be the intention, but considering it was mispelled, we guessed that whiner was more accurate.

Date:	2010-01-16 12:52
Subject:	AGC #451
Security:	Public
Mood:	blank

AGC #451, because there's nothing more heroic that beating on guys in "the cloud".

Date:	2010-01-11 00:48
Subject:	AGC #450... that's 50% more than 300!
Security:	Public
Mood:	stuff

Here's AGC #450. I think Joe just saw a black cat walk by, twice. It's a glitch in the Matrix...

Date:	2010-01-09 11:48
Subject:	AGC... for NON-gamers?
Security:	Public
Mood:	surprised

I was browsing my archives a bit (actually, I was trying to figure out what ads people were clicking on, because Adsense tells me which unit was clicked on, but not what advertiser actually got clicked)... and I happened upon something wondrous:

I found a big section of my comic that does NOT feature arcane D&D rulings, does NOT require you to know the ins-and-outs and the history of the protagonists' D&D characters, or other games, and yet is still lively and funny. Essentially, a section that I could show to family and other NON-gamers (or more casual gamers who aren't interested in D&D) so they could see and probably like what I do. Is it "representative" of AGC as a whole? Not really. But it's funny and a little crazy, and you can get to know a couple of the characters pretty well. Mostly, it's a starting point where the comic looks fairly good, and can be enjoyed without reading 300+ comics to get "caught up". It's the E3 Road Trip saga!

Sometime when I have time, I think I'm going to make a 'portal' for 'non-gamers' that just gives like a paragraph of background, then starts with AGC #311, and I can direct my aunt or a coworker there, so they can see something they might like, rather than reading the first few episodes and getting bewildered shortly after Jill bakes cookies.

Instead of a purely niche gamer comic, for at least a while it seems like some kind of weird, post-modern buddy flick where you learn a bit about the two guys as they go along, have ridiculous discussions and get into weird situations. Now, I don't know if there's a clear ending point for "non-gamers"... presumably at some point (maybe before the end of E3, or maybe around #342 when they start talking about the change to D&D 3.5 Edition) they'll decide this is getting too deep into geeky-stuff or game mechanics. But you can really go quite a ways before that would even become an issue.

Date:	2010-01-06 11:56
Subject:	AGC #449
Security:	Public
Mood:	stuff

Okay, here's AGC #449. Could be funnier, but I'm having this problem that the funnier I aim for, the less progress they make in their campaign. Which is fine sometimes, but I think I need to balance that so there's some semblance of story...

Date:	2010-01-01 11:00
Subject:	Happy AGC #448!
Security:	Public
Mood:	fresh

Happy New Year! And you can celebrate with AGC #448 (slightly earlier than the last one, which was slightly later). Anyhow, I figure it's good to start out the year with an update.

Date:	2009-12-31 11:28
Subject:	New Year's Eve...
Security:	Public
Mood:	tiger!

Well, new year starts tomorrow. I'm at work from 1:30-9:30pm tonight, and I have no idea how crazy it's going to get towards the end. Have tomorrow off, though, and we're heading down to hang out with GF's mother and grandmother (who she doesn't get to see nearly often enough).

Still playing League of Legends. While Fiddlesticks is my man, Karthus is free this week and from the couple of times I've tried him, he is one sick guy. Nothing is as demoralizing as narrowly escaping an enemy champion (possibly killing them while you're at low health), then dying for "no reason" because all-knowing Karthus saw your weakness, and his ultimate skill damages all enemy champs on the map. Cheap cheap cheap... but there's a lot more to him than that, his normal skills are weird and cool, and many people don't realize his innate ability lets him continue casting spells up to 10 seconds after death (hello revenge kills).\

Still playing SF4 online too. My experience doesn't exactly match the following images, but they are pretty funny anyway. My main enemy in reality is a combination of lag (if you can't find an opponent with good connectivity relative to you) and the fact that if you set matchmaking priority to minimizing lag, you run into players who are... well, not your skill level (ow).

Anyway, here's somebody's take on What character select looks like on Windows Live, The AI of the average human 'Ken player', and the AI of the average Sagat player.

That last one should be good for an LOL from anyone who's ever played through Street Fighter II.

Date:	2009-12-28 09:57
Subject:	Finally, it's AGC #447
Security:	Public
Mood:	present!

Sorry about the wait, here's AGC #447. I did get slowed down by holiday stuff (which takes a lot of time when I work a lot during the holidays), plus the first script I came up with wasn't very funny or interesting, and I felt I needed a couple better ones (and back to the D&D) right now in terms of pacing.

Date:	2009-12-25 14:23
Subject:	Merry Christmas/Solstice/Hanukkah/Etcetera!
Security:	Public
Mood:	merry?

So we've had our first Christmas in the new house. Didn't do much, but having time off together is nice, and we've got a bunch of old TV shows to watch later once we run out of stuff to watch on cable.

I've mentioned that I've been playing a bunch of League of Legends lately (my favorite characters to play so far are Fiddlesticks and Tristana, but I'm leaning heavily towards the former since he is freaky and evil, and the latter is cutesy). But I've also been playing my pre-holiday self-gift, Street Fighter IV (for PC, keyboard controls FTW!)

I've got all the characters unlocked now (Seth, the boss, takes a while to do), and I've finally tried online play a bit. The biggest thing seems to be making sure to select matches with decent connections, because laggy = lame.

People who know me may guess that I've focused on Bison to be my main character. Ironically I prefer normal control motions to "charge for 2 seconds" ones, and he is of course all about the charging moves, but as long as his moves don't suck (in the particular version you are playing), Bison's my man in Street fighter games. I'm still a sucker for bosses, and he's an unrepenting, evil, "You can't withstand my power" type, complete with his "I don't care what you think" fascist military dictator outfit. Well, in SFIV his moves are in fact pretty good, and his Ultra move (video here) is a lot of fun. That was taken with the Japanese voiceover option, whereas I use the English atm (I love that I have the choice though); in the English version he says "This place shall become YOUR GRAVE!" as he finishes... very satisfying.

And speaking of translation, I've already sold several items with my Dinosaurs are Disrespectful "Engrish sign" design, which makes me feel validated. I was thinking about it in the shower the other day though, in relation to Christmas - of more specifically, it made me think of carbon dating and Creationists. I'm never a big fan of the full-blown to-the-letter literal interpretation of the Bible, but the arguments that either "god put dino fossils there to test our faith" or that dinosaurs existed alongside humans "in the Garden of Eden"... I don't understand how you can accept technology like the television and brain surgery, and simultaneously deny that science works. That's really what you're saying. Yes, the scientific process means that our understanding of

things can change over time. Like, when we measure "65 million years old" with Potassium-Argon dating (big brother of Carbon dating), it's conceivable that some advancements in our understanding of the exponential decay of radioisotopes could change the estimate to 75 million or 50 million years, or something. It's not unprecedented or beyond imagination that we could discover some radical flaw in long-term radioisotope dating that might mean something we previously estimated at 65 million years might be off by one, or even two orders of magnitude. That would put it at 650,000 years. The idea that our modern understanding of chemistry and physics - of all the tools that let us run a million calculations per second on your cellphone to capture a video and transmit it to your friend in Tokyo who can view it over the internet on any computer regardless of make or model or even language - the idea that we could be off by FOUR orders of magnitude on something so well tested and understood to put the dinosaurs at only 6000 years of age (and those are not even close to as old as the planet actually is) is frankly insane.

And that's what I'm thinking of today, on the day we celebrate the birth of Mithras, which was a convenient festival to rename and repurpose (around 320-325 AD) as the official birthday of the Christian savior. Here's something to think about though; while I'm not a biblical scholar, I don't think anyone else can call themselves one if they don't recognize that many of the details of the New Testament were decided by men (through debate between clergy of varying points of view) at councils such as the 325 AD Council of Nicea. If you deny that, you just don't understand history - even the well-documented parts - and if you accept it, then it's illogical and just plain nonsensical to maintain the unvarying literal truth of the document where it describes mythology from hundreds and thousands of years before it was written.

Happy holidays!

EDIT: Changed to Potassium-Argon dating (from Carbon-14)

Date:	2009-12-21 12:38
Subject:	AGC #446
Security:	Public
Mood:	blank

Living on the age... er, edge, with AGC #446.

Happy holidays!

Date:	2009-12-16 10:21
Subject:	AGC #445
Security:	Public
Mood:	blank

Here is AGC #445, taking things to weird new places - either that, or weird new places coming to them.

Date:	2009-12-14 09:08
Subject:	Big holiday sale at Zazzle.com - one day only EDIT-SALE NOW OVER :(
Security:	Public
Mood:	spammy

I just thought I'd mention, today is the culmination of Zazzle's 12 deals of Christmas sale. As we're getting near most people's online-shipping-by-christmas deadline, they have a single coupon-code that gives you ALL twelve of their deals, just until midnight (PT) tonight (ENDS MIDNIGHT OF DEC 14/2009).

EDIT-SALE NOW OVER :(

Entering 12DEALZAZZLE at your shopping cart gives you:
* 50% off 10+ Cards
* Buy 1 Mug, Get 1 Free
* 30% off Stocking Stuffers
* 5 Bucks off Tees
* 60% off Posters
* 30% off Bags
* 30% off select Brands
* $9 off Calendars
* $10 off Ties
* $11 off Skateboards
* Buy 1 Binder, Get 1 Free
* 30% off hats and embroidered hats

Some of those are pretty good deals. Obviously, I'm mentioning this because Zazzle is the main place where my GF and I design and sell merchandise (actually, it's what she does for a living). I'll stop spamming you now.

My GF's main Zazzle store
My Zazzle Store

Date:	2009-12-12 10:34
Subject:	Some random stuff...
Security:	Public
Mood:	mindboggling grind

I've been playing a lot of www.leagueoflegends.com ever since the most recent time quill18 linked it. If you ever played the fan-created custom WarcraftIII game called Defense Of The Ancients (DOTA) or the many variants, you'll pick it up in seconds. It's the next evolution of the same thing, created by the same people but with their own custom game engine (instead of playing through Battle.net).

If you've never played them, it should still be easy enough to pick up. Basically, the map has two equally matched sets of defenses, and both sides spawn a never-ending stream of npc troops who collide in the middle of the map and slowly kill each other. Then you (five players on each side) come in, each controlling a different hero with all kinds of crazy abilities, and you gain experience and money (to buy from a wide assortment of upgradable gear) and trying to kill the enemy heroes until one side or the other breaks through the other side's defenses.

They have it set up with a couple measures to reduce "leavers" (people who quit too early or just because they didn't get the hero they prefer) which plagued it in Warcraft III, and they give you out-of-game experience level up your account and gain advantages in combat, plus points to unlock new characters. You can pay to get points much faster if you want, but it's totally optional. An awesome free game.

Now, I don't want to suggest that these apply to League of Legends, but it does bring to mind some common advertising phrases that don't mean quite what the advertisers THINK they mean:

Anyone can play! TRANSLATION:

• Stupid people can play
  
• Little of no strategy

• Mindboggling grind
  
• Pay "options" make you feel inadequate. Or, you know... pay.

• Appaling degree of randomness
  
• You'll start to like it, then get stomped again and again by pros

dragonoflife