The Best Super Hero Ever

I just had a great idea while walking home. The logo on my T-Shirt got a lot hotter than the rest of the shirt, and so I thought of the best thing ever:
T-SHIRT MAN
One day, after visiting a print shop and having a custom Logo shirt made, his shirt got really hot in the sun. Because it was just printed, the Logo burnt to his chest. The next day at school, T-Shirt Man had to take off his shirt for gym and all the other kids noticed his chest Logo, so they threw rocks at him because he looked weird. That's his inspiration for fighting bullying and crime.
So he goes to try and stop a bank robbery but he gets beat up by robbers and limps home. Then, he goes to drown his sorrows at the local Super Juice, but on the way (to mirror his sadness) it starts to rain. Then, he gets struck by lightning, and his chest symbol is supercharged with electricity powers.
This gives him the ability to store static electricity in his chest symbol, then chest-bump bad guys and they get blasted with electricity. Also, the symbol is bullet-proof because it was a cheap print shop and there was lead in the paint.

This is the best idea ever.

Why The Mass Effect 3 Character Unlock Picture is Fake

Today I saw this picture, allegedly of a character unlock screen accessed after opening an item pack from the store on developer servers.

Obviously, I wanted to know if the pictures were real or fake. Since I couldn't figure out how to access these Mass Effect 3 "developer servers" in 2 hours, I decided to open the picture in Photoshop and look for signs of tampering. The first thing I noticed was when I was looking at the title (to see if there was a default windows font that matched the text). Look at the difference between the photo I think is fake, and the one I took myself:

Look at that fuzzy distortion box, around the name on the unlock card for the Batarian Soldier. Then look at the title on the picture on my Drell Vanguard unlock card. While this could be attributed to poor image quality, it isn't the same anywhere else on the picture. It looks pasted in. That distortion can actually be seen around all the text on every card, leading me to think it should be there, but then I compared photos on full scale, and noticed that the Batarian Soldier card is too small anyway.

Everything looks fish-eyed or something. Nothing is to scale. I've lined up the two brighter golden squares in the bottom left corner of the cards to show the proportions. Remember that both these pictures were in widescreen aspect ratios, so they should be of similar size. But this isn't particularly compelling proof on it's own.
And on that note, I'll say that this is all just speculation. It's not like there aren't biotic Batarians somewhere out there. The picture could be real, and so could the classes (even though the fifth Soldier slot it occupied by the Battlefield 3 guy already, and the Asari Vanguard has the Justicar Class as a skill). All I'm saying is that nobody should get their hopes up. The Geth are already enemies anyway. Half of this picture doesn't even make sense. So I think it's fake. But that's just my opinion.

EDIT: On April 10th 2012, the resurgence pack is being released with all these characters. This means that Bioware has been done the characters for a while, and it also means that I was wrong (or maybe Bioware liked the idea).

The Perfect Game (Or not)

So I was just playing Kingdoms Of Amalur: Reckoning and I couldn't help but notice the bits and pieces of Fable 2, Dragon Age: Origins and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion  in there. They even ripped the dialogue wheel right out of Mass Effect, which is the first thing I noticed.

The control scheme in Reckoning is simple enough, and I can't complain about the user interface. There is some interesting lore behind the land as well. Yes, it seems they have finally created the perfect mix of all my favorite games.

The only problem I have is with the way they played off the story. The game throws you right in to the fray, and I was accidentally completing quests all over the place. It needs to explain itself better for it to turn out good.

And then there's that confusing maze-world they plop you down in. Every area is like a maze, and if it wasn't for those generic circular quest markers, I might have to wander for 5 times as long as I ended up having to anyway to accomplish anything.

The game has everything it needs to be good, it's just sloppy. I hope they refine things before release.

Cyclone Party

I had a very strange dream, where some kids I knew and my Grade 5 teacher went on a class trip to 2 facilities where some bad things happened. In the second, they were cloning people to test acid on them. Nothing really happened there so we all left an somehow fit in to a convertible. We left, but we started seeing weird stuff, like every cloud was suddenly a small cyclone and there were tornados and falling rocks everywhere. So this convertible got stuck under one of those falling rocks, and it formed a convenient cave over us. Some boulders started falling around but an opening formed itself after about 2 minutes. Then my teacher started to go crazy saying that "Our lives are a story, and this rock IS the story! We can't leave until it's over!". So I left with some people to go look for survivors, but everything was apparently fine outside the rock and the sky was back to normal. Apocalypse averted. I started to look for work because I needed a way to complete the journey home, and I was offered a job at "Jesus loves jars".
About 1 year later (according to a magic timecard) I went back in to the rock to tell my friends we could leave, but they didn't want to because the rock was the story. So one of them showed me a game he had been making called "This rock is" and then I woke up. Like what the hell.

I think I know what this means. The clones they had been launching through acid jets were like curled up jar babies, and the jesus loves jar place had babies on the sign poster. All the day before I had been animating babies in jars for a project.

Moral: I need to play Mass Effect more and get all its achievements.

Quitting Tribal Wars

I've had an account on this Real-time-strategy browser game called Tribal Wars for a number of years, and I've been on World 59 since October 11th, 2011 (the day it opened). So far I've gotten 5 villages and numerous medals (including accidental self-conquest), but I think I'm going to quit. It's just not a game I can get in to. I also didn't get nearly enough villages nearly fast enough. I'm not in any situation where quitting is the only option (although I am surrounded by enemies), but I'm going to start working on a flash game or something, and I don't want to be worrying about which train I should be sniping, or faking at the right times.
It's also a little irritating playing with people in different time zones, we're always awake at different times or something. it's also helpful for just that reason, but communication is definitely an issue.
So yeah, I think I'll be quitting that world. I also won't be joining World 61 when it opens in 2 days.

Edit (Feb 6 2012): I did join World 61, and these are my final stats from 59

Rank 630, 36653 points, 8 villages, 27 awards
26002 ODA + 119653 ODD = 145655 OD, 1145 ODAS
1 Self-Conquer

Minecraft On The Mind

Last night I had 2 dreams. One about my cat finding a small squirrel-like critter in our house and trying to use it as a chew toy, and one about Minecraft. I was walking around in a marsh with 7 or 8 new plant types (including carrots, beans and some other random stuff), non-blocky rock formations (volcanoes) and some red flower people. The whole thing was damn well vivid, hence the title of this post.

Moral: STOP PLAYING VIDEO GAMES!

Independance

A guest speaker came in today to tell us about his condition, Cerebral Palsy.
He told us the usual stuff (don't pity us, and don't mock us) but he told us so many stories of all the times he had to deal with his condition in ways others wouldn't have to.
They're not my stories to tell, but anyway, this guy was hilarious. The second question on the list he made was "will you die". His answer was "yes. but i got news for you. So will you".

The message was that disabilities are normal, and in every society and country, people have them, and it's been that way forever.
He wrapped up with 3 rules (I forget 1, so here are 2):
1: Value your diversity (Of course)
2: Seek the story in a stranger

That second one is all about not dismissing people based on how they dress, or talk. It's about finding common ground and making connections, so you can co-exist more happily (a good message).

On the subject of wanting to be accepted, I say "don't join a group, make your own."
That way, you'll never be caught deciding between one group or another.