hermiene.net

I have made a web interface for myself that enables me to painlessly add and modify news posts, add new abbreviations, and add new random quotes. Hey, I'm human, and humans will gladly spend hours of hard work in order to make their lives just a little bit easier and a little bit more convenient. I have also split the books section off the Random page and made it into a full-fledged page of its own. Incidentally, I have read Fantastic Voyage. Yes, there are no fragment identifiers on the headings, and yes, the summaries are short. I will work on that.

I discovered the proper name for the alternative to military service. It's not community service or civil service, but civilian service.

I have read through two web comics, no less, since the last update. They are Piled Higher and Deeper and Machall and both are hilarious.

I'm becoming more and more proficient with Dvorak, but switching between Qwerty and Dvorak is a hassle (I use Qwerty at work).

I have played probably insane amounts of StepMania. I now survive Heart of Asia and Rhythm and Balance with an A on both. I considered these impossible only a few months ago, and I now consider P8107 impossible. (How long before I can survive that?)

During the weekend, when I wasn't home and couldn't be informed, No-IP.com decided to revert the IP address to the one of the computer on which I temporarily hosted the notice stating that my site would be down during my move. Uh-huh. It's back to the real one now (evidently).

I re-watched The Fifth Element and re-realized how beautiful it is.

My web comic rampage continues, and the victim this time is Questionable Content. A link is as usual on the Links page.

I've finished Fantastic Voyage II.

Read the essay What You Can't Say by Paul Graham.

"The people you can say heretical things to without getting jumped on are also the most interesting to know."

Mr. Schrøder is working on something which gets abbreviated to BS, and is not bullshit. The reason I'm writing about it here is that I'm looking forward to it and I want him to finish it.

You should play BloodRayne 2. This game is pure fun and the attitude of Rayne (the protagonist, a female dhampir) is badass. (Don't bother with BR1 unless you're curious; most of what they did wrong in BR1 is culled in BR2 and everything that made BR1 fun is even more fun in BR2.) If sucking blood from the neck of a punk, cutting off his head, and impaling him on a sharp object is wrong, then I don't want to be right. The level design is so awesome, and on par with that of, say, Max Payne 2. (In fact, I suspect that BR2 is heavily influenced by MP; there's the NPCs' banter, the slowmotion camera when you finish off an enemy in a cool way such as throwing him off a high vantage point, and a slowmotion view with similar post-processing effects as those in MP2.) The art is also fantastic, and the design of your opponents is simply beautiful. One of the things that makes this game so fun is the death traps into which you can thow your enemies. My favorites are a fan that you encounter very early in the game, and Tesla coils (the scream they produce when you throw them into a Tesla coil is simply classic).

When you finish the game, it unlocks, among other things, several new outfits for Rayne to wear, among which is a schoolgirl uniform complete with a short skirt (feminists would object), a penguin backpack, a dangling cellular phone, and katanas instead of the normal blades. This is truly dolls for geeks, and should give you an incentive to finish the game.

"How is living away from your parents," you say? Infinitely better, of course. I can't believe you even had to ask.

Friction burns like a hot fuel rod cannon.

I have moved! I now live in an apartment together with Niels-Henrik. So instead of being a disgruntled nerd living in his parents' basement, I'm now a disgruntled nerd living with a slightly less disgruntled nerd. This place is technically underground and beneath a fellow human being's dwelling-place, but I prefer the term "apartment" over "basement" (even though in reality, it is both). Because of this, my site has experienced a rather extended hiatus, and for this I am sorry. I expected that the apartment would have Internet connectivity relatively quickly after we moved in, but this was not so. Still, the hiatus was caused entirely by my own incompetence; I should have thought ahead. My site is now hosted by Mr. Schrøder, and I am extremely grateful for it.

I've read Forward the Foundation and The Alternate Asimovs. I have also made my very first book purchase, and the books I bought are Consider Phlebas, The Player of Games, Use of Weapons, Inversions, Look to Windward, and Against a Dark Background, all by Iain M. Banks. Now I just need a book shelf upon which I can neatly position these newly acquired items. I bought them from a store called Outland, which sells all kinds of esoteric artifacts ranging from science fiction books (obviously) to manga comics to kung fu movies to board games. To my knowledge, this chain only operates in Norway. Do these kind of stores exist in other countries? I hope so.

Halo 2 is utterly fantastic. The only complaint I have is the Cortana makeover, but that's overshadowed by the sheer coolness of getting to play as a Covenant Elite.

Site-wise, the random quotes are sourced, I have a web comic pipeline that I will eventually churn through, I have a new favicon, and I've actually gotten around to working on that page I promised. Have patience. I'm getting there.

Thomas Sydorowski asked me to do a social commentary. I can't comment on much when it comes to "social stuff" (see, even my otherwise massive vocabulary fails me here), but I can comment on things that bug the crap out of me. Like commercials and some of the dumb slogans they have. An example is that of a TV station (I say "a TV station" because stating its name would deface my site) that we have here. Its slogan is, "What you'll be talking about tomorrow". As if a TV channel has the right to dictate what I'll be talking about the next day. Their shows are crap, too. (Not that I watch much TV in the first place.) Another example is the slogan of an electronics store: "Paying too much is stupid." Well, duh.

When will Norwegians learn that their language does not have the possessive apostrophe except for words ending in s, x, or z? I blame the fact that English is slowly taking over Norwegian. I don't mind that at all, of course, but if you're going to use the language, please do it properly.

I have switched to Dvorak, and my typing speed improves slowly but steadily. Incidentally, I really want an OLED keyboard.

I finally watched Angelic Layer. I think it's extremely cute. I also finished Real Life, and as usual, a link is on the Links page.

I have mastered the Way of the Yellow Arrow.

Karan Sjet has the cutest voice ever. Hers even beats Cortana's.

I want Phanum Yeerum to play the protagonist in Prince of Persia the movie.