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Masterbating until Christmas (aka Queen Penelope AFK) [aka the least interesting blog in the world]
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Masterbating until Christmas (aka Queen Penelope AFK) [aka the least interesting blog in the world] I know what you're saying to yourself "What's this , I thought 40 wasn't blogging because he was playing Diablo obsessively like loser . I wonder why he's a fat smelly liar ." I'll get to that in a minute , but because I don't want you to have clicked on this totally for nothing here's a few quick hits . Since I have received a sternly worded e-mail from the FriendFinder-x gods about stealing other people's blog name (part of which was in Korean for some reason) I'm thinking about changing to A Conspicuous Cornucopia of Concupiscence . Somehow I want to wedge another C-word in there . In my office we pretty much speaking entirely in acronyms - which is kind of annoying . One of our new partners is Commercial Loan Insurance Title . "When did we do the last LPIE MANC ANAL on CLIT ?" It's no secret to anyone who knows me or reads this blog that music is completely responsible for the way I speak . I looked at and accepted the "establishment's" vocabulary , sure , but I knew there were other ways to express myself . So I let music , and all of the words invented by rappers , augment my personal vocabulary . I have a little something called street cred you see - or skred as its known . Where did the K come from ? I leave that up to god . In the world , danger lurks around every corner . It's a scary life full of thieves , drug dealers , crooked cops and other nefarious characters up to no good . Obviously , one must protect oneself (including one's neck) from these types of ruthless villains , which is why many rappers carry around guns (or claim to carry around guns or surround themselves with armed bodyguards) Obviously they couldn't legally carry around guns so they'd in code , referring to guns as "biscuits". In the Outkast song "Red Velvet," from their 2000 album Stankonia , rapper Big Boi very clearly refers to his gun as a biscuit . He warns his opponents that , while they might have bodyguards , he lets his n-word "tote the biscuit". He goes on to explain that the biscuit will get blood on your hat and leave you slumped in your Cadillac . A biscuit can kill you , and the biscuit is obviously a gun. In the first verse of the Eminem and Dr. Dre hit "Guilty Conscience," Dre and Em play the good and evil halves of the conscience of a man who is considering robbing a liquor store. Eminem , irrepressible rogue that he is , encourages the man to rob , while Dre , always the voice of reason (he kicked the shit out of Dee Barnes and her for good measure) advises the man to "drop the biscuit" as "it's not worth it to risk it". The man agrees (thank goodness!) and abandons his scheme. Contextually speaking , it would be absurd to assume Dr. Dre was referring to an actual biscuit , or anything other than a gun. Clearly "biscuit as gun" bounced around in the world for a while , but it never quite broke into the mainstream (there's no scene in any movie where a stern police chief orders his brave but reckless cadet to "hand in his badge and standard issue police biscuit" [except for the movie I'm writing currently]). "Gat" and "piece" both caught on as gun slang, but "biscuit" never made the cut . As is often the case with rappers , the problem is that folks in the community weren't communicating with each other , and as a result , wires got crossed . While some artists were working hard trying to push the whole "biscuit is slang for gun" angle , a few others had an agenda to make "biscuit" a synonym for "attractive lady" (fourth definition down on urban dictionary I think) Obviously , this leads to confusion . It's why I've always said that lack of communication is one of the biggest problems in (after all of those other much bigger problems). When Wu-Tang Clan's Inspectah Deck assures me that he rolls "with groups of ghetto bastards with biscuits" does he mean that I should fear the firepower that his associates carry , or be envious of all of the attractive women they've managed to acquire ? I live every day of my life assuming I'm going to run into Inspectah Deck , and I'm still not sure if I should run from him or ask if I can be one of his ghetto bastards . "Bring Da Ruckus," the song from which that lyric springs , is conspicuously vague about this . Inspectah brings up the fact that his buddies are just straight loaded with biscuits , and then he quickly switches gears and describes his method on the microphone (it's bangin'  .And that's why we , as a society , will never adopt "biscuit" as slang for "gun". The industry just couldn't get its act together long enough to agree on a definition. (Also it's kind of stupid) Now for the dumb part - stop reading now unless you want an excessively detailed reason why Diablo III sucks (but is awesome) If given a choice between going back and living in the year 1982 and sitting in a chair made of living dicks , most of us would choose the dicks . After all , back then you had almost zero control over your entertainment - you watched shows and movies when they wanted you to. (This was even before everybody had VCRs - if you missed it live you missed it forever) All technological progress since then has been devoted to letting us watch shows or movies when we want . Video games , however, are going the opposite direction . For a prime example , let's take the just-released Diablo III . I haven't been excited about a video game in a long , long time . It's not because I've hit some magical stage of adulthood that makes me hate fun things (entirely) or that I'm so busy that I can't find time for simple entertainment . Give me a good enough game , and I'll make time for it . Give me something spectacular , and I'll call in sick for it . Give me something I've waited 12 years for , and I'll burn down my grandma's house for a copy . The smoldering charcoal on my grandma's scorched lawn means that Diablo III came out two days ago . Unfortunately for her , I didn't realize until later that arson in no way affects the game's availability . Especially since you can just download it directly from their website instead of camping out in front of the store on opening day . So I did: I just bought something in my underwear and didn't have to go to court afterward! I filled out the information and downloaded their installer . Then I moved it to the upper right hand corner of my screen so it would look like my desktop wallpaper was licking it out of pure joy . I did this for about an hour, pausing every couple of minutes to weep softly into my hands , until the game was fully downloaded and installed . So far , so good ; "Ready to Play Your Single-Player Game Alone ? Please Log In ." When that bar turned green and the "Play" button lit up , my dong rose like 20 tiny Amish guys were pulling on it with ropes . I clicked "play" and then "I agree" on not one , but three "User Agreement" screens . That's when the first smoke alarm went off in my head . Wait , I have to sign a contract to play the game that I just paid for ? Do I need to get a lawyer ? Can I do something in the game that could get me into legal trouble ? I mean, I don't plan on playing public games or anything - just me in my computer room , killing evil and screaming curse words until I lose my voice . But I convinced myself it was nothing to get worked up about . It's just there to save their asses in case some random jackoff finds a way to make money off of them via lawsuit . Fine . I got through them all and was immediately taken to a screen that pulled the alarms from the back of my mind directly to the front , and cranked up the volume to "nuclear attack" levels . A login screen . It's commonly associated with multiplayer online games like World of Warcraft and . . . . whatever other multiplayer games exist . Except there's a problem: Diablo III isn't a traditional MMO . You don't sign in to the game and immediately find yourself surrounded by a hundred other players shouting racial and homophobic slurs . You are in your own world. By yourself . Single player . It is a single-player game with multiplayer options , just like all the other Diablo games . If you choose to play with your friends , you can . If you choose to join public games , you can. Otherwise , you're on your own - and contrary to what MMO fanatics believe , this is the way millions of gamers prefer it. But for the second time , I had to take a breath and remind myself that it's nothing to get worked up about . We've been fucking the gaming industry since the very first video game was invented . They put up with piracy for decades , and so far nothing has worked to stop it . This is just what they've come to , and if signing in to their servers helps prevent theft , then I'm all for it . The more money they make , the more resources they have to put back into expansions and content . Fine . "Now Customize Your Single-Player Character as You Please ... Wait, Not Like That." I logged in and created my first character: a demon hunter named Captain Asshumper Assy McAssass (in honor of my grandpappy and his insatiable butt lust) "That name contains restricted or offensive words" Oh , come on ! Really ? You can't give me the option to name them whatever I want and then just ban me from entering public games ? You can't give me the freedom to make a mage named Assfuck Cockthrob on the game that I never plan on playing with other people as long as I live ? OK , it's not the end of the world , but making computers utter profanities against their will is the reason I got into video games in the first place . In the Reagan era I played arcade games purely so I could get the high score and enter my initials on the leaderboard as "ASS" I replayed an entire RPG because I knew that there was one specific point where the female love interest would have to say the line, "Father, I want you to meet my new boyfriend , CUNTBLASTER". How have the decades resulted in less freedom to be childish ? OK , so I decided that I wasn't going to bitch about it . They're clearly trying to prevent piracy while masking it with a "social" setting that's barely there in the first place . I've been giving this game a liberal amount of leeway , and if it's as good as they say , then it's a necessary evil that I'm willing to live with . Even though I have so few friends , I never have to worry about accidentally exposing my perverted , juvenile name to the guys who absolutely expect that sort of thing from me ... and who do it themselves . The more I played , the more I realized that my cynicism was for nothing . I was just being a whiny , complaining about change . The game is impossibly fun , and if all I had to do was succumb to a simple social network , then I was - "Sorry, You Can't Play Your Single-Player Game Because Our Computer Is Broken." Wait , what ? Why is my screen going black ? Is it some surprise cut scene ? Maybe some Easter egg that triggers when you laugh at gravestones ? I tensed in anticipation . Nope , I got booted back to the start menu . Well , shit . No biggie - that happens from time to time when you're playing something that's hosted on a remote server . I'll just sign back in and pick up where I left off . I sighed , clicked the "OK" button and attempted to sign in six more times . This is also common with disconnects , and I tried to cool my slowly heating blood by reminding myself that when you get booted , your character is still active on their servers until their software recognizes that you're no longer connected and kicks you out on their end . A mousy voice in the back of my head started whispering a soft chant of "Single-player game ." I signed in for the seventh time . Server outage Oh . Well , that's ... really ? I mean , I understand why it's happening . It's launch day for a game that's being hosted on a set of servers designed to handle a certain load of players. After the initial rush of people settles down , there won't be nearly as many people playing the game at the same time . So it's not smart to buy enough servers to handle the entire player base all at once because you'd only need those for the first week . You set up enough to handle your average load so that when things do settle into a rhythm , you don't have a bunch of useless, idle machines sitting around , collecting dust and wasting money . "For your single-player game that has no offline option". No , stupid voice ! Stop that ! Let's just exit the game and go in from scratch . Sometimes , it's just a simple bug that's fixed by going in fresh . Server exploded MOTHERFUCKER ! This is bullshit ! I just paid 64 goddamn dollars for a game that - No . You can't let the game turn you into that screaming sack of shit type of personality that permeates the Internet . You hate that person , and you won't become it . "Sorry , You Can't Play Your Game Right Now . Somebody Else's Game Is Broken ." I looked back at my Diablo III screen and burst into hysterical , borderline-insane laughter . Their brand new game, totally unrelated in any way to their other established games (WoW and StarCraft I  had destroyed the ability for any of their players to play any of their games . Because they all required a login to play , and that login server was directly connected to their system . So when one game crashes the server , even if you don't play it , your other completely separate game is fucked .I had to see the player backlash for this . It was going to be awesome . So I pulled up the main site for Diablo III , and went into their forums . Or at least that was the intention. Forums exploded At this point , I was 100 percent certain that if I decided to make a sandwich , my refrigerator would be replaced by floating text that read, "We're sorry for the inconvenience . Diablo III has encountered an error that temporarily removed all electrical appliances from your house . Please check back in a few minutes". The only place left to find out any information . And I couldn't imagine being the poor bastard who had to deal with that shitstorm: Informing people that the situation was being looked into , and that they had no idea when the servers would be back up . Trying to reassure people that they "hope it'll only be down for a few minutes" followed by a time stamp of "53m" Finding new and creative ways to say, "We have no idea, and we're sick of answering your stupid fucking questions" and make it sound professional . When their site did come back online an hour later , it was a good sign , because it showed that at least some of their servers were now working . I tried to sign in again: And again ... And again ... The whispering voice in my head was growing louder by the second . "Yep it's got the option to play multiplayer . Option . As in 'You can choose to do this if you please' Just like virtually every other modern game in existence . It's a single motherfucking player game. Give in and just explode . You know you want to explode" "We Thank You for Your Patience . Also , This Is the Future of Gaming , Fucker" I went back to their site and looked through what Blizzard fans refer to as "Blue Posts" which are messages left by administrators of the forums . People who are directly connected to Blizzard , and have information before anyone else . Their posts are written in bright blue to separate them out from all the others: "If you're playing a demon hunter and you give the shield to your templar , blah , blah , blah entire world ruined ." No ! God Damn , that's enough . We as consumers have gotten to the point that we just accept this bullshit as "normal launch-day bugs" when it should have never gotten to this point in the first place . I read through those forums , and you wouldn't believe the number of people defending Blizzard through this whole ordeal . Throwing out arguments like "It's going to happen . You can't expect the servers to handle that many people logging on all at once". And "Every MMO in existence has these problems on launch day". And nobody is getting the core point: The single-player version of this game should have never been hosted on a remote server to begin with . I and millions of other people bought this game because we love the Diablo franchise , and we have been waiting for 12 years to jump back in and throw fireballs at evil . There is an absolutely enormous amount of us out there who couldn't give two flying fucks about an auction house or a chatroom or even the ability to play the game with our friends . We just want to play the goddamn thing . We handed Blizzard 64 dollars and said , "I would like to be a demon hunter named Asshumper , please" And in return , they took our money first and responded second , "No , that name doesn't quite sit with us . Take out the cursing , and you can play . Well , for an hour or so , that is . Maybe . We'll see how it goes". Sixty-four dollars is as much as some people make in an entire day . For them , handing that over to play a video game is not a minor event . All they want in return is to use the product they just fucking paid for . If any other company in the world sold you a product that didn't work , and then refused to hand over some sort of compensation in return , you wouldn't even need a lawyer . The judge would tell them straight up "Give them a working product , or give them their money back , or go to fucking jail" But for whatever reason , the video game industry gets away with this now ? Every time they have a problem with their servers , I can't play the game I already bought ? In an era when people carry their entire music<b> library </font></b>around with them on their phones , I have less ownership and control of my video games than I had in 1979 ? And make no mistake , we have every right to bitch . We don't want to hear condescending assholes telling us , "Calm down. It's just a game . Be patient". It's not just a game. It's the principle: We paid for it . We get to decide when to play it . But ranting aside , the game came back up three hours later , and I had the time of my life with it . It's seriously one of the best games I've played in years - not even Skyrim got me excited about gaming the way Diablo III has . It's just too bad that the model we've had to resort to in order to prevent piracy is exactly the model that's killing the genre of PC gaming . Oh , wait , did I say just "PC gaming" ? I meant all video games . Putting first by putting employees first, immediately after prioritizing fiscal responsibilities and leveraging profitability towards exceeding by empowering our employees to put (and themselves) first, in a diverse and respectful environment of only those that come first, first. |
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There's a movie called "Human Centipede" and it was parodied on South Park. The South Park version talks about those user agreements. Crosswords increase your vocabulary. Cross words increase your blood pressure.
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No , but I could have found out if I did some research first Putting clients first by putting employees first, immediately after prioritizing fiscal responsibilities and leveraging profitability towards exceeding by empowering our employees to put clients (and themselves) first, in a diverse and respectful environment of only those that come first, first.
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There was a warning label my sweet biscuit Putting clients first by putting employees first, immediately after prioritizing fiscal responsibilities and leveraging profitability towards exceeding by empowering our employees to put clients (and themselves) first, in a diverse and respectful environment of only those that come first, first.
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Strangely enough I did take a picture , but as a mere Silver member I can't post pictures in replies . Probably for the best really . Putting clients first by putting employees first, immediately after prioritizing fiscal responsibilities and leveraging profitability towards exceeding by empowering our employees to put clients (and themselves) first, in a diverse and respectful environment of only those that come first, first.
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There's a movie called "Human Centipede" and it was parodied on South Park. The South Park version talks about those user agreements. Putting clients first by putting employees first, immediately after prioritizing fiscal responsibilities and leveraging profitability towards exceeding by empowering our employees to put clients (and themselves) first, in a diverse and respectful environment of only those that come first, first.
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I think you should send this blog post verbatim to Video Game Company HQ. I can't believe that there isn't an option out there for them to "rent" some extra servers just for the first week of operations, when the server load is astronomical. But, clearly they don't give a shit as long as they can get your $64. Probably one of those user agreements that you clicked yes to said, "I acknowledge that there will be server outages during the first week and I probably won't be able to play my game."   
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