Mercenaries Guild

The "popular" servers really have gone downhill.  I said they had gone downhill berfore but wows! I join SST tonight (other servers were full or empty) and it's a 4v4, with 260BP mind you. Ug, what a pointless waste of time. Who was it who said that they play to fight people, not bases?

So I go and join DretchStorm, right into "Rampage", or as I call it, Campage. I join aliens and find I can't even spawn. From previous experience I know that Rampage is 10-15 minutes of waiting around with my finger up my ass, even if I'm in the game. Noone does anything cause noone wants to die. Ug. I've seen some pretty good matches there brought to a complete halt by Rampage Mode.

Off to TJWs where there is a good, even match going on. I didn't want to unbalance it though. A good match can be hard to find sometimes, so take care not to hurt someone elses good match :)

Back to DretchStorm, where I realize (after questioning what I'm doing for quite some time) that only admins can use public chat. I can still hit t and say things but it will only broadcast to teams. I'm really starting to dislike this server.

Throw in a couple kill whores and it's no fun.

I then move on to Battle for Wesnoth, where I don't have to get worked up over silly server configs and/or being treated like a second class citizen for playing on someone's server.

I really can't wait for Tremulous 1.2, when servers will be set to a baseline.

 In the last couple days I have seen some of the worst builders I've seen in a long time.  Not just the brand spanking new put hive and trappers on the floor to block any stray humans from walking in type bad building either.  I'm talking the use every available bp to build eggs (with one acid each) all around the human base.  Aparently someone thinks the humans need more money!

Then there's s11.  For the love of all that is holy, if you ever want to pwn noobs to pass the time, go to s11.  I am certainly not the best player and I regularly dominate that server, having 20 kills or more than anyone else on the teams.  I love being accused of hax!  But then I find myself bored again.

 Of course, s11 lost the helm of the noobist server when sup came along!  What is sup server you may ask?  Its the top of the server list without a name but showing all boxes.  When you connect, the MOTD says nothing other than "Sup".  There is no share or donate, no !listplayers, !admintest, or any other command that would indicate it's not a stock tremulous 1.1.0 build.  I haven't tried any of the stock 1.1.0 exploits, though it seems like a good time to try the battlesuit bug!  Think of groups of naked humans who move slowly and can't aim and are unafraid of the tyrants they call when they constantly run out to do battle with the 3 goons waiting just outside the door.

Sadly, all these servers have a core of good, somewhat experienced players who speak as if they are the wise men of the town, which I have to admit is at least partly true. Though they make the matches interesting, they can at times be the most annoying.  So used to being surrounded by idiots, they are quick to assume that you are one too.  Many of these people are admins on their respective servers and rarely play elsewhere, it ever, and so aren't exposed to different tactics as quickly as some of us who seek out new servers to explore.  :)

I'm not very good with blogs, but I'll just let it go.

Does anyone realize how history is being repeated by itself?

Seriously, remember in Social Studies class about how the Romans saw themselves as "indestructible" and "undefeatable" and the "strongest ever?" However, they weren't that strong. Even though they conquered Greek, Egypt, and controlled some more countries, they could not conquer Persia. The Persians fought back at the Romans and Romans couldn't defeat them. For example, I read a book called "The Last King" which is about the Persian King and how he kept defeating the Romans.

Now lets see the present time. Americans believes they are "really strong," "undefeatable," and in noobish talk, "oh-mai-gawd l33t." However, there are some events that proves that wrong. The Americans couldn't defeat Vietnam. They failed poorly and shamed them all. Right now, they can't defeat the Iraq. George Bush keeps saying he will send more men to Iraq when people feels like they should give up; and soon, in my opinion, George Bush will give up and stop attacking Iraq.

History is repeating itself, "Superity rises and falls."

Soon, Americans will be in a weak state, and lose, like how Romans lost to barbarians inside Roman.

Right now, I am thinking... how will USA lose? Who will defeat them? China? Russia? North Korea? In my opinion, I think China will. I think North Korea will never send nuclear bombs unless someone else does. Russia... maybe, but I don't think so... they have no dictatorship there, and have no bad relationship with USA that much. China, yes because 1) they are still communism 2) they are freaking huge and strong 3) they are... well, strong.

Either way, we are all going to die.

Happy day

Since the dawn of the new millennium, the people on this planet fortunate enough to own and operate their own personal, internet-enabled computers have been forcibly changing the delivery of digital media. Napster, Gnutella, Kazaa, and Bittorent were each new and innovative technologies that delivered content, but were each also rejected by companies, corporations, and associations that made it clear that business would not support them. Apple Inc. was and is one of those companies.

Recently, Apple head honcho Steve Jobs surprised everyone when he stated "If the big four music companies would license Apple their music without the requirement that it be protected with a DRM, we would switch to selling only DRM-free music on our iTunes store." Jobs’ offer to rid iTunes of Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology is great news for the consumers of digital content, as it would free us to trade songs with friends and make as many backup copies of our legally purchased music as we wanted. It is, however, terrible news for the association currently providing Mr. Jobs with his beloved content. This association is regularly mocked on Tiny Mix Tapes and the Internet Tubes in general, and they responded to Steve’s DRM comments with, "Apple [should] license its DRM to other technology companies. We think that’s a great solution." The Recording Industry Association of America has made foolish comments in the past, but this one takes the ultra-ignorant award of stupidity for failing to note this method would be impossible to implement with the current restrictions placed on Apple by the recording companies.

According to Jobs in his letter, if the iTunes software is cracked, Apple has a limited amount of time to fix the issue before each recording company can remove its catalog from iTunes with absolutely no legal repercussions. So, licensing Fairplay, the DRM that Apple uses, would likely be even more cumbersome than using the software itself. It would be in Apple’s interest to at least attempt it, as it would be able to charge whatever it wanted for Fairplay, because the iPod has a hidden feature: it’s able to print money in any currency. Including Monopoly money.

Jobs made his statements early last week, and we’ve been patiently waiting for the recording companies to come forward with statements. Edgar Bronfman, the chief executive of Warner Music, stated Jobs’ ideas were "completely without logic or merit," and he desperately wishes that was true. Sony, the heartless, cum-stained bastard it is, has declined to make a comment, most likely in fear of embarrassing itself any further. How are those PS3 sales coming? Universal, in its tireless efforts to never comment on anything, has not commented on anything. EMI is playing a different hand, and it’s one that supports the utopia Mr. Jobs dreamed of in his manifesto¹. The courageous label has decided to try selling more of its music without the DRM restrictions, after it ran a successful pilot program last December. EMI’s announcement may be purely coincidental, but I like to think they’re related.

While a world without DRM would be great, that reality is not yet upon us. And until Apple removes DRM from their iTunes store, Steve Jobs will be a hypocritical prick that is using the music industry as a scapegoat for his growing business concerns in Europe (iTunes recently became illegal in Norway). And if he shoots his wad too early and drops DRM before the association wants to, he risks them packing it in and supporting the Zune or whatever shitty service Sony is currently hawking instead. The industry still has the power to treat iTunes just like Napster or Kazaa, so it took balls to do what Jobs did. And for that, this hardened open-source advocate will give him a shred of respect. He’d better not screw up.

¹ Manifesto was used by Edgar "Sand In My Vagina" Bronfman.

    Last night a played a bunch of good matches on the MG MercenariesGuild server.  Ironically, I think I also played more beta maps than I ever did when it was the Beta Server!  It was a great deal of fun and I am very greatful that it happened.  It's very refreshing to see that there are a lot of people who just like a good game.

    I have a tendency to want to wander.  In all things. I will learn about it and then wander off into the wilds.  Sometimes it's a great thing, I'll find something new or find a little used path to an interesting place.  Sometimes I get lost though, and can't find my way home.  The first time I got (literally) lost I was 4.  My parents found me about a mile from home, pretty far for a 4 year old.  I am like this in all things.

      I'm pretty sure I wandered from the good servers, the MG servers, the other clan servers.  I even wandered from myself, which is a strange though common occurence for me :)  I used SpiritHawk or Cranky Franky or, one of my favorites, "a proverb".  Tuple was gunned down by a proverb still makes me chuckle. :)

      I think I looked for mindless fun.  Noone begging for recs, scrims, etc.  As they say, the grass is always greener on the other side.  Uh, in this instance, it's not :)  I really missed playing with the other members and the server regulars.

    The larger public servers have become a cesspool anymore, sadly.  Oh for the days of playing on the big server, AKKA.  The fun thing then was that there was 1 or 2 servers that were always busy.  16 slot servers actually, AKKA may actually have been an 18 slot server at the time.  You could ALWAYS count on just about every match being fun and challenging with a good mix of us noobs learning the ropes and the old guard showing us the ropes.  This is what the clan servers feel like to me, Old school tremulous! (Old school for me anyways :) )  I certainly am glad that it still exists.

    Last nights games did bring something to mind though, I need to update the server!   I've gotten SVN 894 as well as Vcxzet's backport patch, so I think I may load that up and see how it does.  Some of the "add ons" appeal to me and I would like to have the option of enabling them, but generally I wouldn't have them on.  I guess maybe I'm a bit of a purist in that way, though some may say prude :P

    Some of them affect how the game is played in unforseen ways in my opinion. 

    For example, share and donate.  If I am a great player, I will be donating/sharing evols/money with my team to help them advance more quickly so that we can win.  However, I am also less likely to help my teamates to improve there gameplay so that they can get more evols/money since my suggestions are not likely to help significantly on any particular match, at least not as much as my focusing on getting more money/evols to share.

    If I am a poor to mediocre player I can count on the superstars to donate/share at least some and my motivation to seek out ways to get them will be slightly less if not a great deal less.  I will definitely improve in the begging category though :)

Anyways, enough for now, back to work!! 

    UG!  Good players looking to do nothing but pwn noobs.  Knockback that launches dretches so far that you can't even move around larger aliens.  Layouts that change per map, but are silly and put nodes all over or start everyone without reactor/om, not to mention 12 version of ATCS with different layouts!

    Lots of other things are driving me crazy about them.  It used to be that you could always find a good, straightforward match.  Recently though, it seems the  novelty servers are the rule.  It doesn't help that some of the more experienced players seem to be out of control, caring more for showing how l33t they are than actually playing a good game.

      Playing ATCS yesterday.  S1 aliens against S3 humans.  I am dretching a bsuit'd lucy who just runs up and down the halls killing dretches, then runs back to base to heal up/buy ammo.  WTF?  Aliens had 1 goon!!  1!!!  4-5 jetpackers in the center section just taking pot shots at dretches and the lone goon.  The bsuit in the hall occasionally went into base, occasionally.  Give me a pulse and I coulda taken out the entire alien base but they are screwing around deathmatch style.  Give me a break, I have better ways to waste my time.

      What happened to joining a server and having fun by playing an actual match?  Sure, the novelty servers are neat to check out.  For a little while.  But how can you run a server like that?  If the core game bores you that much, why are you playing it?

      While I'm in a horribly bitchy mood, can I ask why crappy admins from one server are suddenly admins all over the place?  Have these operators never seen them acting like asses?

      I really miss the scene from last summer, when a good 10-16 person game was easy to find and everyone played tremulous, as opposed to quake 3 deathmatch with aliens. 

    Betafest.  Being owned by great players who proceeded to help you out by pointing out how/why they owned you instead of bragging.  Helping new players to the point where they matched you, even exceeded you and contributed to some great games.  Having regulars visit cause they say it's just a nice server.

    I shouldn't complain, a lot of the "known" names aren't actually great players, they just get high kill scores though they don't help there team outside of the new sharing features, if that.

    All I want is a good, solid match.  Sometimes it seems that that is too much to ask for.

/bitch 

Hello, I would like to tell you about the risky but fantastically useful world of lucy jumping.

What Is A Lucy Jump?

Its pretty simple really. You charge a lucifer cannon (human weapon) to some level (most often full), aim down, and release.

To get more height (substantially more height, seems like as much as 1.5x as much), simply time it so that your shot from the lucy hits the ground as you are just beginning to jump. Another option is to overload the lucy instead of releasing it. What this does it makes you in the air when you get blasted, and for some reason that really adds to your distance/height.

Furthermore, when you do a Lucy Jump, you will take damage. However, its less than you would think. I estimate that it is roughly 25 damage to a lightly armoured human and about 10-15 to a bsuit. It also, of course, costs 5-10 ammo from your cannon, which I find to be the worst part. You only get 90 ammo as a Bsuit+Lucy, so that is one ninth of your total ammo -- you have to plan when you can spare it.

Why Lucy Jump?

The Lucy Jump is nearly as useful as a jetpack in many cases. Here are some examples:

1. Jumping onto a high ledge -- to do this stand still below the edge, then propell yourself strait up. Hold forward when in mid-air.
2. Escaping -- Tremulous uses the powerful Quake3 engine. It is very good with in-game physics, in my opinion. So, here is why this is important for Lucy jumping. Imagine you're in a large outdoor area in Tremulous. You are running away from a tyrant and you need to cover a large amount of empty space quickly. You have a lucy. To escape, simply sprint forward (usually x to sprint), charge your lucy as you run, then aim down and release as it beeps. The upward force of the Lucy mixed with the forward momentum of your sprint will make you fly! Its an amazing distance, try it sometime. Also for escaping, you can run up to a ledge where something can't reach you, lucy up there, and you are safe.
3. Jumping over things -- this one isn't used as much, but you can actually jump OVER objects. You can give a tyrant the slip, or jump over the enemy's defences. This is roughly the same as the previous example which involves running and then firing down. See previous bullet.
4. A lot of fun -- man, you wouldn't beleive how fun it is. Its like pouncing, but more technically brilliant.

Examples From Experiance

Here are some of the amazing things that I've managed to do with this supreme piece of technique. You'll be amazed how handy it is...

1. At one point, I was at the end of my rope, the aliens were winning, and there wasn't much hope. All I could do was hope that I could rush their base, and save the day. I had looked at their base, and it consisted of a high cieling, an overmind boxed in by walls and barriers (no way to walk in, aliens did not need to), two eggs back there, and a tyrant guarding it. The insane man that I am, I run in with my bsuit and my lucy. I run strait at the tyrant who is in my path, charging my lucy. I dodge left, I run around him, take some damage, aim down, release, blow myself right over the barriers and boxes. I land near an acid tube, the om, and the two eggs. The tyrant can't get at me because he is blocked out by the buildings and boxes. I release some shots at the one of the eggs, drop my grenade, feel the rush, then get killed by a dretch+acid+self-damage. So, I died and didn't kill their base, but I got one of their last two eggs... the hard one... and did it in style!
2. The aliens are camping a ledge near human base. Humans just got stage 3 (lucy). I figure I'll give em a bit of a shock. I run up to the base of the ledge, blow myself onto it and start firing. After a kill or two, the ledge is secure -- things either died or ran. Remember, you can charge in the air...
3. The aliens have a base on the ledge, where you need to fly to or get killed while trying to use the slow elevator. A tyrant is down there. I run in with my bsuit+lucy, blow myself upwards. The tyrant nicks my feet, but I land on the ledge. I run strait past a booster and egg (undefended, no one expected humans to come up from that way), and run strait behind the overmind. I do 500+ damage to the overmind before I get killed by my own shots, acid, and the overmind's small damage. We quickly wreck their base after that.

Conclusion

So, those are some of the basics of the awesome technique called Lucy Jumping. I hope that you have enjoyed reading, and will try the Lucy Jump in a server near you!

I know you're thinking "well, that goes without saying", but I don't just mean practicing your headbites. Getting in and going for the head is only a small part of dretching. Hell, the dretch is already designed to be perfectly equipped to do that. Darting into a group of humans and taking down one before you go is about the same as randomly spamming your rifle down a hallway at a bunch of dretches. You wouldn't do that, would you? Like everything important in the world, the right equipment can be provided -- it's how you use it that counts; and when it comes to the dretch, it's all about the movement, baby.

There are a few things to remember while playing a dretch:

1. Aim for the head. Always.
2. Travel on walls and ceilings when closing to attack range.
3. Remember the saying "Nature abhors a straight line". Though it's usual meaning doesn't fit here, maybe it'll help remind you to never travel in a line towards your enemy, unless they are a S1 human, and don't know you're behind them.
4. Ground headbites are satisfying, wall and ceiling headbites doubly so.
5. The dretch is not a tank, nor is it a suicide bomber. Do not rush those blue dots. Learn your maps. Learns the holes, learn the indentations, the vents, even the ceilings and the possibility to hide behind a rafter. Against S1 humans, utilizing these will allow you to wait for your prey, which is what you should do. Wait until the human leaves his base before you attack. A group of three to four humans can be utterly obliterated by a single dretch that gets the drop on them away from their base.
6. After your team gets S2, keep your poison on. Constantly. If you run out, head back to the booster for more. Poison vs. a naked human is as good as insta-death, poison against S2 and S3 humans is the only thing a dretch is essentially good for. Getting in, dropping some poison, and getting out. Most humans will use their medpacks the instance they get poisoned. This leaves them away from their base without a medpack, which means they're lunchmeat if they meet anything bigger than a marauder.
7. The best thing you can do is learn your bite range. You don't have to touch your enemy to score a hit, and can in fact do some hefty damage from quite a decent distance away.

What you need to practice is getting the drop on a group of two to three humans, avoiding them within melee range -- don't worry about hits right now -- for five to ten seconds, and then getting away alive. At first, against decent humans, this will seem nearly impossible. Learn your maps. Pick your battleground. Know your escape route beforehand. Once you can do this every time, begin to try the same thing while aiming for the head.

I survived for ten minutes as a lone dretch today on Karith, against eight S3 humans, and even took one out before timelimit was hit. This was after a game on Niveus where I scored 17 unanswered kills as a dretch against S1 humans within 3 minutes. The dretch is a subtle weapon of potent destruction. To anyone that hasn't yet learned to utilize it to it's full advantage, I suggest that you stop practicing your headbites, and start practicing your dretch.

So we "filmed" a few more takes of the MG Demo Project's first entry (The Rifle) this evening. Khalsa, Exclamation, K-Otic and myself took part, and it was a lot of fun.

We're up to 11 takes now, mostly because of minor screwups (FF being on, I killed the dretch instead of a turret), but we're making solid progress. Once we solidify the first demo, it'll be easier to keep a consistent tone and feel with the subsequent demos. 

The next demo up for "filming" will most likely be the introduction to the dretch. Doing the next demo from an alien perspective will help us plan for other alien demos, as well as provide a fresh view on the demos in general. I'm thinking about re-writing the alien script to have a different feel, maybe make the aliens really seem evil. There's too much of a "noob" bias to join the human team, and I think if we can make the aliens seem "cooler" at first through a more "badass" attitude, it might sway more players to try the aliens first.

Just some thoughts really. 

Hello.

I wanted to test a "long" blog entry to check for minor inconsistencies and such. Instead of just putting spaces, newlines, or random characters I've decided to include articles that I've written for TinyMixTapes.com, an independant music review/news website. Note that some of these entries contain "curse" words, just in case anyone is sensitive to them.

Pirate Bay Shutdown, MPAA Connection Under Investigation

'Yarr it's drivin' me nuts' is the punchline to the only pirate themed joke I know of, so rest assured that the ha ha's will be kept to a minimum from here on.

The Internet moves at a breakneck pace so in the two or three days it's taken me to move, there has been a torrent of news (excuse the horrible pun) surrounding the shutdown of the Pirate Bay. On May 31st in the wee hours of the AM, the Swedish police force broke into PRQ(a Swedish Internet provider) and confiscated every server in the building. The total number of domains(web sites) affected by the raid is close to 300, and the list includes a few e-commerce and business related sites that are still down as of this publication(and are hurting because of it). One of the affected domains was the Pirate Bay, the world's largest BitTorrent tracker/search engine destination for Music, Movies, TV Shows and everything in between. The site is said to have over 1.5 million page hits a day and is notorious for spitting in the face of the MPAA, RIAA and gaming industry through the 'legal threats' section of their website, where the threats are posted and mocked in a wonderfully hilarious fashion.

The Pirate Bay was (and remains) legal in the eyes of Swedish law by not actually hosting any of the aforementioned files on their own servers, but instead hosting small BitTorrent files that contain connection information for users hosting the files off their own desktop machines. So when Swedish police forces acting under the guise of the Swedish government broke into PRQ, it raised a few eyebrows. When the MPAA conveniently released a press release on May 31st congratulating the Swedish government in stopping the 'pirates,' people got angry. The Pirate Party, a political party vying for election in Sweden(I'm serious) was among the sites affected by the raids, and in retaliation organized protests in both Stockholm and Goteberg that drew nearly 1000 people combined and included youth members of the Swedish Liberal, Green and Communist parties. In time with the protests, hackers brought down the Swedish Government and Police websites for nearly half a day, using Denial of Service(DOS) attacks. The Swedish press has been all over these events and is accusing the government of bowing to US and Hollywood intervention. Rumour has it that someone from the MPAA met with Swedish Justice Minister Thomas Bodstrom days before the raids, and two members of the opposition party have called for an investigation into set meeting.

The MPAA's victory celebration may have been slightly premature however, as the Pirate Bay is currently back up and running off servers in the Netherlands, with plans to open locations in both Russia and Belgium in the near future. Search features are still offline, but that hasn't stopped nearly 1 million people from returning to the service and frequenting its wares. During the protests this past Saturday, Pirate programmer Fredrik Neij concluded a speech he made with "I am happy to announce today that The Pirate Bay is back up! After not much hard work everything that was up before the incident last Wednesday is back up again. This time we're firing with the big cannons and say "IN YOUR FACE, HOLLYWOOD!"

The tragic part of this scenario is out of the 300 domains crippled by this raid, the Pirate Bay seems to be suffering the least. The other 299 domains are mostly likely still down, and may remain that way for weeks or months. With the pirate tracker already operational and plans to further decentralize the process in motion, the Pirate Bay seems here to stay and there's nothing Hollywood can do about it.

What did the Pirate say after his friend pointed out he had a steering wheel in his pants?

- posted by munroe

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iCON the Mic King's IndieInBurns Leave Permanent Scarring

Do you remember your first paycheck? Oh man that was fucking sweet wasn't it? Standing there with a cheque in your hand that contained more money than you'd ever seen in real life. Wasn't it awesome to just cash the mo'fk and spend it on whatever was in your immediate vincinity? I purchased the first RAGE album, a case of beer(small towns rule) and a used copy of Super Metroid. What a zebe-bustin' night I had.

But have you ever been shafted on a paycheck? A straight kick to the dick(or box) is what that is. You work your ass off for two weeks at a commissioned based job at Christmas time, but right at the last minute some douche decides to withold your cheque indefiniately because you forgot to do the corporate training. That's right Radioshack, fuck you. Well how about being an MC for a living, and someone promises you big bucks to come hold down a show, but at the last minute they feed you excuses like there isn't enough dough to pay you, or the ticket sales weren't strong enough, or you should just be happy for the exposure. If I ever showed up at work and was told I wasn't gonna get paid because I should be happy with the exposure, I would reply exactly as iCON the Mic King would, "Fuck You, Pay Me." Which is coincidentally an excellent cut from iCON's "debut" album, "Intricate Spectrum." I slapped those sexy quotes around debut because he's actually released more material, but it's not available on any label.

The summer months are looking up for iCON who has two albums in the works, one is a collab project with Chum the Skrilla Guerilla dubbed "Mike and the Fatman", and another is a solo joint entitled "Rent Money Music II." You can catch the first single off the Fatman collab <a href="http://www.myspace.com/mikeandthefatman">here</a> and I highly suggest you do. He's also recently signed to Uprising Records, home of Amir Sulaiman and Blood Money. Oh and he's planning a tour for June, has three dates schedules for May, two of which are in Hawaii. Check back in a couple of weeks and I'll hit you cats up with some tour dates for June. I've seen him live and I can attest that his claims of grandice (four times that of Kanye) are quite accurate. There's a tracklisting below for the collab album but iCON didn't quite want it released yet, so I've decided to go all nerdy on you and encrypt it.

Tour Dates
05.19.06 - Phila, PA - World Cafe Live
05.26.06 - Honolulu, HI - Detox
05.27.06 - Honolulu, HI - Detox

Cryptic Tracklisting for Mike and The Fatman
zbqhf bcrenaqv
fcrnxf sbe vgfrys
obea nybar qvr nybar
znqzna
nyy cbvagf ohyyrgva
zvxr naq gur sngzna
znfgre bs gur havirefr
ba ubyq
pbzzvffvbare'f bssvpr
xvat zr
obahf genpxf
cbiregl sg. Oyhr Enfcoreel
ynj naq beqre sg. Xvyynu Cevrfg



-posted by munroe

 

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The Look You Get From Co-Workers After Mentioning You Enjoy "Blackalicious" Is Absolutely Priceless.

There are few (if any) pitfalls to avoid while <Crossout>slaving</Crossout> working for TMT. Rule # 1 is to ensure that nothing you write could be construed as libel. Calling some dude a Nazi because of his humourous moustache, or pointing out a dudette's stiking resemblance to Chewbacca are both considered no no's. Calling someone a smelly doo doo face is acceptable, if not slightly encouraged. Rule # 2 is to write about a tour before it happens. Doing so provides music fans with the opportunity to see an exciting live show that would otherwised be missed. Neglecting to do so garners a week long "vacation" in the cavernous depths below the crust of the earth at the TMT mine. That <italics>sounds</italics> pretty horrible, but P lets us wear those totally wicked miner hats, so we don't mind.

Recently while cowering in a damp and shadowy corner for taking forever to report on the OneBeLo tour, Wolfman sauntered up and asked me to be his date for the upcoming Blackalicious show. Which is a fairly innocent proposal on its own, but when you couple it with how I negligently handled reporting on the matter, it was an immediate cause for concern. I didn't want to spend another week in the mine, those stalagmites give me the willies.

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Pirates! Blood! Codeine! OneBeLo! Touring!

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The Lyric-What-Cles of Bornia

Dear TMT reader, are you interested in a career path that will leave you burnt out and useless before you even learn the required material? How about a field were the knowledge you've spent your entire life acquiring will be rendered useless in a matter of seconds, if the career so chooses? How about your wonderful colleagues, which include a collection of overweight and undersexed males that have social skills on par with that stammering homeless guy down on Dalhousie.  If this sounds like the life for you, I would like to introduce the world of software design.

If you understand where I'm coming from, you may sympathize, but you most likely think I'm a whiny dick-face that can't take the heat(otherwise known as FI-AHHH!). And you may be right. However, this is my news article and not yours, so I'll bitch and whine about whatever I damn well feel like, including real-time programming. Fuck you real-time, with your forking, spawning and covert message passing. That's right QNX, you heard me, Fuck you...<bold>hard</bold>.

For those still reading I would like to present a shiny trinket, but alas, the TMT budget does not cover such frivolous giveaways(unless you enjoy smart-ass comments, those we have in abundance). In exchange, I offer details on the upcoming Lyrics Born tour, which begins in march, and happens to conclude the very same month. Inspecting the tour reveals almost a week in Colorado, which leads this disgrunted writer to believe that somebody's gonna get their Ski on.

Mr. Pibb + Red Vines = Crazy Delicious...bitch.

03.03.06 - Santa Clara, CA - The Avalon Night Club  
03.11.06 - Sunrise, FL - Langerado Music Festival       
03.16.06 - Salt Lake City, UT - Egos   
03.17.06 - Steamboat Springs, CO - Levelz 
03.18.06 - Denver, CO - Cervantes Masterpiece Ballroom 
03.19.06 - Aspen, CO - Belly Up       
03.20.06 - Breckenridge, CO - Sherpa & Yetis 
03.21.06 - Vail, CO - Club 8150      
03.23.06 - Bozeman, MT - Zebra Cocktail Lounge  
03.24.06 - Missoula, MT - The Other Side 
03.25.06 - Boise, ID - Neurolux       
03.26.06 - Crystal Bay, NV - Breeze Nightclub

- posted by munroe

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The Avalanches Are Forging their New Album Entirely Out of Adamantium...and a few Pop Tarts.

Remember Frontier Psychiatrist? A silly question when you consider the talking coconut with googly eyes, a turtle with an old-man's head, and singing ghosts. Oh, and a giant parrot, a mariachi band, cowboys, and a chorus of old people. Haven't seen the video you say? Have you even heard the song? You haven't? Well listen up clown-shoes, I've had enough of your rampant tomfoolery. How dare you do this to me. <Link to the Video>. Now there's no excuse is there? I just gave you a link to the video. You don't have to move or anything. I've done the leg work for you. Go watch it. I'll wait.

Pretty cool eh? I love the part at the beginning with they act out that old sample. You still haven't watched it? Are you fucking with me? You wanna read to the article first? Fine.

*END OF ARTICLE*

- posted by munroe

...


Okay, now that I've distracted the riffraff with shiny things and youtube, let's talk about what these crazy Aussies have been up to since Y2K. They've been making another album. ISN'T THAT CRAZY? I know, it's just out of this world. Apparently the album required a bit of re-tweaking since they initially thought it was done. Hopefully this means the album will be good. I'd like to hear a good record. I like good music. Do you like good music? I would certainly hope so. So yeah, the other day I was chatting with your father while your mother was giving me he..

HEY! You're back! How was the video? Yeah I said you'd like it. Sorry for deceiving you like that. No...hahaha, of course I didn't call you bad names, that's just a filthy rumour. A filthy, filthy rumour. No don't! I urge you not to read the last paragraph. You already did? Dammit...okay, if I told you that I was put up to it, would you believe me? I didn't think so...how about some kind of monetary compensation for the emotional damage?

HEY TMT OWNER DUDE, CAN I PAY OFF THE STUPID MOONINITES THAT I ACCIDENTIALLY CALLED "RIFFRAFF?"

IT'S NOT EVEN A REAL WORD YOU SAY?

Okay, so it turns out what I called you isn't even a dirty word, unless you're some kind of late 1800's gold miner. You are? Wow...that's actually pretty cool, so do you have like... a time machine or something? No? You're just 150 years old? I don't believe you. Where's your time machine? In your pants you say? I have to reach for it you say? Well, since I'm incredibly gullible I think I'll venture a grab down here...*rummaging noises* hey! I found a burrito! Cool. I like burritos. Awesome, this one is still warm, I think I'll just have myself a taste here. eww...this sorta tastes like your mom's [ed. Removed that word...we got too many complaints last time]...cooking.

We have no idea when the album is coming out, but it's "on the way." Whatever that means.

- posted by munroe