No sleep

March 16th, 2010 by Mike | Posted in random | Comments

Today I’m running on zero (0) sleep.  How about that.

Last night I decided that since I was no where near tired at 5am and had to be at work at 10am that staying up all night was my best bet. So here I am in hour 24 of my sleepless pursuit. The funny thing about all this is, I feel like three days have passed since I last slept. Things that happened less than 12 hours ago feel miles away. It’s insane.

I did manage  to watch two episodes of Archer, eat some microwave Chinese food (Spicy Kung-Pow noodles) followed by some Deer Tracks ice cream, and I finished off the night/started the morning with three cups of diluted coffee.

Word to the wise: Don’t do what I’m doing.

We’ll see how today goes. I may update again sometime later.

I’ll be tweeting my sleepless day randomness/delirium with the hashtag #nosleep. Follow it.

Spring break… what a waste

March 12th, 2010 by Mike | Posted in random | Comments

I have been nothing but a lazy bum for the last week now. Literally, one week worth of laziness.

Sleep at 6am, wake at 3-4pm. It’s a terrible cycle. I feel like a lot of my day is gone when I wake up. Plus I’m tired.

It’s just getting frustrating. This week has really been a waste (save some awesome D&D here and there). I really haven’t done much, but I guess that’s what Spring Break is all about.

Hrm.

Marvel comics coming to the iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad?

March 3rd, 2010 by Mike | Posted in comics | Comments

I’m reading 10,000 times into this and I’m far from a reputable source, but! one little tweet this morning from a “higher up” gives me an indicator that Marvel may be pushing comics to the iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad medium.

Here’s the tweet I read:

I think I want an iPod touch now.

- Jeff Suter, Senior Art Director @Marvel, permalink

The thing that gets me is that there’s no explanation to the tweet and then shortly after, we get this:

OK, rush job in hand… digitally of course. SECRET rush job that is!

- Jeff Suter, permalink

So what does this all mean? I know people from Marvel are always tweeting “ooh this is a secret!” but I think this may be something to think about. Marvel (well, Disney) striking a deal with Apple to put comics on the iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad? Perhaps through the Book Store app? Who knows. We will see. I’m waiting for all the cool stuff to get announced after the iPad launch *cough*March 26*cough*.

PS. Then I found this link that was published on February 2, 2010. Talk about crazy.

The way to destroy your weekend

February 22nd, 2010 by Mike | Posted in random | Comments

I wish they would have used this to preface the movie...

Not in a bad way. Let me just say, that I spent my Saturday night getting absolutely blitzkrieged. It wasn’t my intent to do this, in fact I just wanted to sit around and casually drink some drinks with friends, but that didn’t happen. Instead, we turned on Twilight and did the only thing you can do with that movie: drink.

Our rules:

• Take a drink when there is a close up

That’s it.

40 minutes in, I was on the ground–mind you we had been slowly drinking before the movie, but wow.

We hit close-up-combos of 12 and 13. That’s 12 and 13 in a row.

So, word to the wise, do not do this unless you plan on killing your liver. Whew…

D&D podcast

February 16th, 2010 by Mike | Posted in nerdy | Comments

Last night was the first night of a new D&D campaign I’m DMing for. We have 5 people playing (Brian, Kait, Katherine, Ben and Nathan) with possibility of adding in Jared later–if he manages to find time to play.

But the biggest part of this is the idea of podcasting the gaming sessions. Thanks to a handy little application I found (via TUAW) called iPodcaStudio, we can record and run the whole podcast from my iPhone. How flipping cool is that? It records pretty decent audio (quiet at times) and is overall exactly what I was looking for for podcasting on the go. I highly recommend the application

Brian and I had tossed around this idea of podcasting our D&D sessions for some time now–given Brian’s love of the official D&D podcast–but all of the games we were in were already too far in for people to really get all of the references and jokes, so we waited. Then BAM: this campaign came into being and Brian mentioned to me, just before we started playing last night, that I should record the session. We’ve got combat, joking, inner party conflict and everything that makes a campaign great. Let me just say that it was a fantastic idea.

I’m currently in the middle of editing and splitting the ~70 minute session we had into listenable portions to eventually be put online and on iTunes (2 parts done, 2-3 more to go). I may throw it on a subdomain of some I own, but that probably won’t be decided for a few days. Be sure to keep and eye out for it.

This is the beginning of something awesome. I’m sure of it.

Zombie wallpaper

February 12th, 2010 by Mike | Posted in random | Comments

I came across this on Reddit earlier today. Wanted to share with those who appreciate very well drawn/painted art… and zombies.

Zombie Playground by Jason Chan

Click the image for the full size (1400×805) and click here for more art by Jason Chan.

h4xed

February 10th, 2010 by Mike | Posted in blog | Comments

So, this site was “compromised” earlier today.

When you came to the blog, it redirected to random advertising/spam pages. I don’t know whose fault it was, but all is fixed now.

To everyone who reads, I apologize.

So I’ve strengthened my passwords for this site and ftp info in hopes that that will fix it. If not… then it’s either Wordpress being faulty or Dreamhost being screwy. Let’s hope it’s Wordpress. I’ll be waiting to update this site to the next version asap.

For those interested, here’s the rogue JavaScript that was causing the screwey redirect: stupidspam.txt — it was injected under the </head> tag in my header.php file in Wordpress. Any ideas as to what did this would surely be helpful.

A gift from my brother

February 10th, 2010 by Mike | Posted in blog | Comments

On Sunday, I was at my parents’ house to grab dinner and say hi. It was the Super Bowl and I really couldn’t have cared less.

If you haven’t been keeping up, I just recently moved into a trailer in Allendale. I had moved a lot of my stuff from my parents’ house but not 100% of it was gone. So! I was at my parents house, eating and chatting when Brian and Katherine (who were with me) decided it was time to go and we started packing some of the random stuff (including a sofa and a desk chair) into my mom’s van to drive to my new place.

Just as I was leaving, my brother called to me from his laptop, “Hey, you can take my Xbox if you want. I don’t ever play it.”

My jaw dropped.

An Xbox 360?! From my brother?! What in the hell!?

Yeah. After some discussion and my gaining assurance that he wanted to give it away, I packed up his Xbox360–with COD Modern Warfare 2, Gears of War, and Marvel Ultimate Alliance.

So. I have an Xbox 360 (and a small couch) at my trailer now. I’m borrowing Jeff’s copy of Fable 2 and I think Nick is going to lend me his GTA IV. Hell. Yes.

Any ideas for cheap Xbox/Xbox 360 games?

On being sick and the last four days

February 3rd, 2010 by Mike | Posted in blog | Comments

It’s been a crazy past four days.

• I moved into my new place in Allendale with Brian and Josh on Saturday
  • This includes moving a bed, a desk, a TV + stand, all of my comics & trade paperbacks, a bookshelf, stereo & speakers, all of my DVDs and books, all of my clothes and other odds and ends
  • I also helped Brian move his bed, desk, dresser, desk chair and other things into his room
• I acquired a cold after unpacking 80% of my said moved stuff in my room (I blame the dust)
• I’ve watched at least 8 episodes of Supernatural with Katherine as well as the last few episodes of The IT Crowd, series 2
• I’ve sorted 200+ comics and filed them in my longboxes
• I’ve washed all of my clothes and arranged them in a functional way in my room
• I picked up last week’s comics on Saturday
• I shot some of Jeff & Mike on Sunday in the blistering cold over at Whitecap Comics with Jeff and the rest of the J&M crew
  • This only made me more sick

I’m sure there’s some more in there, but overall it’s been a long four days; so long, in fact, that my body decided to give me a big middle finger yesterday by keeping me in bed instead of going to work and class.

So, I’m still battling this cold and I’m making myself go through class and work today sniffling and coughing–oh yeah, I acquired a cough last night/this morning. DayQuil to the rescue!

This week is going to go by quick, I assume. Rest tonight. Comic Book Club, tomorrow–we’re watching Batman. Friday will most likely mean D&D. Saturday will be dedicated to shooting Jeff & Mike. Sunday is the Superbowl–which I really don’t care much for, but will probably be spent drinking beers and eating chili with Jeff and some people. Whew. This should be fun.

I hope everyone else’s past four days have been good. I’ll be around with more random updates.

The drag and drudge

February 1st, 2010 by Mike | Posted in blog | Comments

This is what I wish I could be doing... sleeping in a wagon...?

I have a cold.

What I wouldn’t give to just not be sick this second. I could do any day but Monday. Monday is my worst day. My longest (11am-9pm) day of the week including 3 of my 4 classes and work.

I’m just tired. This pseudo-fever I have is making me groggy and being bored in my two CS classes doesn’t help.

The prospects of playing D&D later tonight are keeping me going though… Slowly but surely…