Chuck-ese

Arthur C. Clarke was sucked out the pod bay doors of life last week. That’s the third literary setback the world has endured in the past 365 days.

Oh yes, make sure you Match It For Pratchett.

This is related to my earlier post about GEWar.

My financial overview and list of my fourty-five cities on 15-March-2008.

A list of my armies effective the same date, with the creative names and everything. Every army that’s shown traveling to Canada will get me in trouble a few hours after this.

More on cities, recent attacks on my cities, and a chronological listing of my armies.

My status four days later, after PeonBoss took 2/3 of my cities and most of my wealth. Status is mostly current.

My good friend Stephen succeed in getting me back into GEWar a couple of weeks ago. I have, as my personality dictates, gotten sucked in. Which is a pisser, because it’s not even that great. If you started the original version of the game at any point after the reset, you’re boned; you will never be as powerful as the last powerful player who started, unless you’re a rabid jewel hunter. And the people, my God! Some of them are just downright obsesive! PeonBoss (my arch nemesis, as explained below) the number one player, has contol of 1047 cities. Second place La_Noce has 82. There are, in fact, only ten unoccupied cities in level one so far. They’re all pretty much worthless except for Durban, South Africa.

The new level system helps players get started and build up resources so that they can compete in the game, but also allow the players an unrealistic expectation of what the game is going to be like. The relatively few players allow each player to have a large slice of the Earth (or did, until PeonBoss started his batshit crazy approach to the game.) Unless you’re an unwashed loser who started at a reset, you will never have anything. Ever.

On to my personal narrative.

When I started, I was able to use the street name layer on Google Earth to place my home base very nearly on my house. (Aside: why are parts of the Alaskan wilderness at higher resolution than my county?). I attacked the two closest unoccupied cities: Marquette and Traverse City. Both fell, and I expanded into Canada. I was on a pretty good roll, and when PaidAssasin (the first-ranked player at the time) was bumped up, he left me some of the larger cities. Then another player left and I gobbled up his turf, including New York City, Chicago, and San Francisco. I was very nearly finished with my total conquest of Canada when I made a stupid mistake.

I had sent my forces to a few small towns in Canada that were at the time unoccupied. When I attacked them early the next morning, they were occupied by PeonBoss, but I unfortunately didn’t see that until after I had already taken one of the cities. I then faced a dilemma: should I assume he’s a rational, understanding person and appologize and abandon the city? Or should I assume that he’s a dick like everyone else on the internet and keep fighting this war before he comes at me with everything he’s got whether I apologize or not? I chose the latter option because…well…have you been to a forum?

My suspicions were confirmed when I next logged in. The exact transcript:

As a future reference, attacking me was a bad idea.
in fact it almost always is…

I am the freak who will spend 36 hrs straight on here and take over the whole world, i know since i have done it a few times… but i do not attack folks till they hit me.

so you can learn and keep some cities or not and be zeroed. your choice. I am pretty relaxed about it.

Grade A dick right there. Anyway, he wasted me and took nearly all of my good cities, leaving me with Chicago, Detroit, Toronto, and a buch of inconsequential cities. Now my strategy is to sit, soack up the taxes, and have Stephen infuse me with cash right before I upgrade to level 2.

So, yesterday was the most beautiful day I’ve seen in a long time. Spring is breaking and winter is fading away. I thought to myself as I was getting out of school: “This is the perfect day to get the Cavelier out and take her for a spin.”

[Break of a week in writing.]

Long stoy short, my ma was a total bitch and told me I couldn’t drive MY property until I got a job, while just two days before had decided to micromanage my life to the point where that would be impossible.

I’m not exactly over it, but I’m not as pissed as formerly. Just a little less. But I’m managing it quite well.

This is, by far, the worst designed website I have ever seen. Ever.

One of the best lists of religious comandments I’ve read thus far in my life. I especially dig 1, 2, 3, 4, and 10.

From Terry Pratchet’s Men at Arms:

“…the Captain Vimes ‘Boots’ theory of socioeconomic unfairness.” It all makes perfect sense if you think abou it. (Pg. 29)

The paragraph on dwarf religion at the bottom of pg 76 and top of 77.

Bottom of 110-top of 111, about the rich who “could hardly commit crimes at all. You just perpetrated amusing little peccadilloes.”

This is a Pi-ku I wrote in honor of Pi Day (today). I was supposed to read it at an assembly today, but my fear of speaking in front of crowds got the better of me. Mr. Heid read it in my stead. I got a few complements out of it, and one of the louder applauses.

The pie flies

high

in a circle

o’er

refrigerators

recently put out to pasture. It,

among

these majestic beasts, soars.

On four tiny feet

The machines,

hungry as they are,

persue the majestic baked good.

All who gazed upon the pie rejoiced.

(3.141592653589…)

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3: The whole premise has been cancelled due to the fact that I have no time for anything, least of all an international debauchery-fest. Even writing this is costing me valuable time.

This article was inspired some time ago (back in the days of the Old Chuckese) by an article that I can no longer find.

The point of it was that voluntary polls are worthless because the only people who respond are those who feel passionatelym about an issue either way, so you lose the middle-of-the-road people and the rationality. You also become convinced that something is an extemely polarizing topic, when in fact the non-exitant active-neutrals aren’t being counted into the equation. You see this alot on the internet.

(By the way, I mean “poll” to mean any method for commenting on a particular topic, from a blog comment, to blog articles, to public awareness campaigns, etc. Why did I do this? Because I couldn’t think of anything else to title this article that sounded as good.) (This post brought to you by the Campaign to Clean Out Chuck’s To-Do List.)

Let me tell you a little bit about this post. Way back on the 17th of March in the year 2006, I anounced to my non-existent readership that I would be doing a post called “What’s the Deal with Blogs?” I envisioned it as a sort of article or essay where I could provide my view on a subject which was getting lots of coverage.

It ain’t gonna happen. I’m cleaning out the “Your Drafts” bar at the top of the Administration screen, and this has to go. Granted, now that I’ve semi-fulfilled this part of the prophecy, look for the Three Kingdoms wargame! (Don’t, actually. You’ll die of disappointment.)

Call me paranoid, but the first thing I heard in the morning when NPR announced that a bomb had gone off at an Army recruiter in NYC, the first thing I thought wasn’t “Was anybody hurt?” but rather something along the lines of “Oh God, we’re going after Iran.” Is that so far fetched? We all know how George W. Bush thinks! It wouldn’t be out of character for the government to declare it a terror attack and use it as justification to start putting a harder squeeze on the American people.

In a shocking turn of events, the Department of Homeland Security and Army are not treating it as an act of terrorism! Kudos to the stormtroopers for acting with a little restraint.

(Link)