BitCoin

Does anyone quite understand this BitCoin Fad?

Feel free to mine a bit for me if you feel so inclined.

http://www.bitcoinplus.com/generate?for=11374830

Humble Bundling

There is a new Humble Bundle deal in progress right now. I picked up the last one and it was pretty sweet. Got steam codes for everything too.

If you pay over the average you get a couple extra games in the deal. No steam codes announced yet but it's alpha, I would expect steam codes to be sent out if the game gets up on steam. Looks cool, real old school feel to it.

Why Cryptic Why?

Some of you may know, some may not. I've been a subscriber to Star Trek Online for longer than I can remember. Not because I enjoy the game, but because I was swindled by some of the best con men in the industry. I met Cryptic Developers in Vegas many moons ago in 2008 who professed their love for Star Trek and explained how decidedly awesome STO was going to be. I've got the Free T-Shirts to prove it. And glorious expansions would follow. Glorious they said.

Fast Forward to 2009. Release date of STO has been set for February 2, 2010. Still very excited about the game and the Star Trek IP. Preorder the Collectors edition.

Skip to January 2010. Pricing has been announced, more details of the game have trickled out. The game is looking less and less like Star Trek and decidedly different a game than they had been hyping for the past 2 years. Cryptic offers a Lifetime Subscription for $239. This offer will end February 2nd when the game launches. Still being a rube, I purchase this. This is Star Trek. I'm in it for the long haul. Won't get a chance at a lifetime subscription again.

Game goes into open beta for Preorders toward the end of January. Set aside the technical problems that marred the game's launch. It was now crystal clear that we had been swindled. This was not Trek. Worst of all, it was barely even a passable game! Oh BTW, we are keeping this Lifetime Subscription option and we'll charge $299 for it. Sorry kids that we told this was a limited time offer. We love money soooo much.

Fast forward to a few months later, Cryptic promises new content, new features, they are going to make good on long wrought promises. Lies and slander. The fresh new content? A couple token "season" episodes and a renewed interested in slapping overpriced crap in the C-Store. At this point I mostly give up on the game and ignore it for the better part of a year.

Fast Forward to mid 2011. Cryptic is bought by Perfect World and announces that Star Trek Online is going F2P. Interesting, I'm a lifetime subscriber. When Turbine went this route people who previously supported the game got a pretty sweet gig for being so upfront with their cash. Create a character on the Tribble Test Server. Ok, you guys have made some slight UI improvements but there's still been no new content for over a year. Oh, you're implementing a new currency and economy that is going to force me to pay real money for the most basic of features like crafting?! Ships bought for real money will always be more powerful than anything you can get in the game. My solace for being a Lifetime Subscriber? 400 Cryptic Points a month. HOT DIGGITY DAFODIL, I can buy a ship in just under a year. HOW GENEROUS YOU ARE.

I'm still playing a bit on the test server to see if they renig on some of the the terrible design decisions. Turbine and others have shown how to do a real conversion to F2P. Cryptic, this is not it. In Cryptic's defense, Turbine had actual content in their games they could gate and charge for while STO as a whole barely contains the content of an adventure pack in LOTRO or DDO.

I need a hawk.

 

Beer and Bad Movies

For some time now I've gathered with some folk to watch terrible movies on Friday nights. The worst of the worst. Calling some of these low budget would be doing a disservice to low budget films everywhere. Some of these make the budget of Primer look like LoTR. Of course to tolerate these travesties of film, alcoholic libations are always in order. Often of a much higher grade than the film to be watched.

This past Friday we watched a delectable art piece called Zombies! Zombies! Zombies! - Strippers VS Zombies. Unfortunately, due to the quantity of Joose imbibed on that night I'm having a difficult time remembering the specifics of the film. The cover proclaimed it to be "Laugh out loud", if only because of the ridiculousness of the plot and/or special effects (if one is willing to call cherry juice splashed in good measure a special effect). Though they may have saved all their pennies (literally pennies I assume) for the finale, a Tour de Force of CGI circa 1993 whence the zombies start exploding after biting the man who was the cure.

Overall I give this 2.5 Cans. Not great, not super entertaining. With a couple high powered bottles of Joose and a liberal amount of internal MS3TKing she be entertaining.

Super Mario All Stars

On a lighter note my copy of Super Mario All Stars finally shipped. Looking forward to the goodies in the package as well as replaying some classics yet again ala Nintendo. I will be sure to post a short review and some pictures as soon as it arrives. Makes me all nostalgic, which makes me want to go to Midwest Gaming Classic, which I'm not going to because I have no money from buying a house. Thanks for making me sad classic Mario, Thanks a lot.

Hearts

I wish I was talking about Punchline but I'm not. My father was recently hospitalized with a heart attack and received a triple bypass the next day. The technology we have now is both amazing and creepy, that we can clip clip connect you to a heart lung machine, reroute some pipes, and sew you back up in a couple hours leaves me floored.

Been lazy to update

My list of DS9 episodes but needless to say I'm on season 3. Also trying to finish more games in 2011 but I've only managed to finish 2 so far. Almost done with Alan Wake, that is a hell of a gripping game.