Hey all. Back once again, ranting about the usual life stuffs.

Started copying my DVD collection into my tower for storage/playback purposes. I now REALLY see the need for more hard drive space. I’m gonna run out REAL quick.

I was told by a friend about a program called My Movies, which is a plugin for Windows Media Center (both XP and Vista versions work) which allows you to play back any movie with all its’ information (e.g. cast, crew, DVD art, etc.) downloaded automatically from the internet. It also works with ripped DVDs as well, and has pretty good recognition software built in too. The thing recognizes by title or by the DVD XML file stored on any disc, which will normally get copied when you do a direct rip of the DVD contents. Admittedly, it was trying to go through my video folder and start gathering information about videos and things that I have stored that was completely off base (especially for music videos) but I had turned on the "ask me" mode so I was able to head it off at the pass.

If you’re interested in checking it out, head to My Movies and download the Server edition for whichever PC is going to be hosting the collection detail database. You can then install Client versions on any Media Center PC available on your network and it will (once set up) talk to the Server one and pull the database information and allow you to stream the video with little to no effort at all.

Our friends at Growing Up Geek have released Episode 2 of their podcast this week, and it is chock-full of awesome. I recommend downloading it (either from the site or via iTunes, where is it also published) or at least listening to it on the site via streaming.

I’m headin out to play some Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance for a bit, and I might write a rant/infoblog about the game later.

Well, I promised it, and here it is. The list of webcomics I find most amusing, sorted by category (well, primary category, anyway.)

Videogames:

Ctrl-Alt-Delete – A webcomic that has been going on for some time, drawn by Tim Buckley. Has actually spawned a holiday, Wintereenmas.

VG Cats – Scott Ramsoomair’s webcomic about a couple of videogame-playing cats and the antics of them and random other characters.

PVP/Player Vs. Player – A webcomic about the employees of PVP Magazine and the zany antics that befall them. Drawn by the most awesome Scott Kurtz.

Penny Arcade – What list of videogame webcomics would be complete without Tycho and Gabe’s runaway success, Penny Arcade. Good for lots of singular laughs as well as long-lasting discussion material.

Sprite Comics:

8 Bit Theater – Based on Final Fantasy sprites, this monster has been going on for years and hasn’t lost a bit of humor yet on its way. "Drawn" by Brian Clevinger.

Bob and George – a Mega Man sprite-based comic that has broken the 4th wall more times than I can count. I think they’ve even managed to find and break the 5th and 6th wall too. Assembled by Dave Anez.

Romance/Life Comics:

Real Life – Drawn by Greg Dean, this is a massive collection of genres based around the lives of the characters and their day-to-day dealings with, well, life.

Questionable Content – Drawn by Jeph Jacques, whose art style continues to improve to this day (and we all thank him for it!), it blends the indie music scene with romance, robots, and psychoses.

Three Panel Soul – Done by Matt Boyd and Ian McConville of Mac Hall fame since said comic has ended, updates on a semi-frequent basis. Art style changes to suit Ian’s whim, and all of them are good.

Tech Comics:

User Friendly – Who can ignore Illiad’s (in)famous comic? The art may not be good, but the jokes usually are, and any comic that includes Great Cthulhu is awesome in my book.

Applegeeks – I listed Hawk and Ananth’s comic under Tech because how else would you describe Eve? Seriously, check it out. The art style is just awesome.

Random Other Comics (aka ones I couldn’t really designate in other categories):

XKCD – Comic about random things from Randall Munroe’s mind. Can be really amusing or really disturbing depending on your view on math, the world, the blagosphere, or just anything.

Pilgrim Century – A comic drawn by my friend Jeff. Usually contains videogame references, but not primarily about videogames, which is why it’s here.

Megatokyo – Last but not least, there’s Fred Gallagher’s masterpiece, Megatokyo. The quest of two gamers has stranded them in Japan, and this is their story. You can either love it or hate it, but I wholeheartedly love it.

Now that that’s overwith, I also have an announcement. You’ll notice along the right hand side of the page underneath all the other widgets that are there that a new one has been placed containing Google Adsense ads. I just really felt like they belonged, and maybe once I get enough traffic to the site I can use it to pay for my hosting. Not likely anytime soon, but hey, you never know.

Well, here I am, posting a new blog entry. I’ve just downloaded Windows Live Writer, and holy balls is it slick. I’m constantly surprised nowadays at the quality of non-operating system software that Microsoft is producing (Windows Live Onecare excepted, that software is crap.)

Just got back from a stint at Grotto Pizza, had some chicken bites (not too hungry) since I really just went there to play the national trivia game with Stacy and Kevin. It’s rather enjoyable, and I heartily recommend that anyone who has a restaurant in their area that has this (It’s usually called Buzztime Trivia or NTN) goes to play it at least once. It’s addicting to people like me whose brains are wired for trivia.

Now for a small test: How I can place images in here (I’m still getting used to this…):

Mwahaha, feel the power. (Picture I kinda stole from the Applegeeks web store, great webcomic to check out. I’ll post a rant with my list of favorite webcomics a little later on. Picture not used with permission, so if they catch wind of it and want me to take it down I will.)

Off to check out some of the internets, and I’ll be back to post that webcomic list in about an hour or so.

Peace!

An internet friend of mine I met through Twitter put this up on Digg:
“I got to looking around this morning and noticed I have some Beta invites to spare. I have extra’s for all the sites and software below. If you would like an invite please leave a comment with email address and which invites you would like, and I will send them out.”

The digg link will let you digg the whole thing, or check out http://tw3nty3ight.blogspot.com to see what programs he has beta invites for.

read more | digg story

Just got done vacuuming the hallway and steps because the cats have this annoying tendency to track litter all over the place. Now my parents’ carpet is nice and clean. Yay!

The last few days have been rather dull. The D&D game on Thursday was nice, and we tore some shit up (I surprised the fuck out of some giants with a triple fireball blast) but otherwise it’s just been work, home, work, home, etc. Thankfully I have today off, but our game session tonight has been canceled because one of the players won’t be there. Ah well, maybe shoot for Thursday.

I’m tempted to go up to Radio Shack today to see if I can pick up a speakerwire to RCA cable converter so I can use my damned subwoofer for my home theater system. I tried splicing an RCA cable that I cut onto the speaker wire, but that had no effect, so I’m wondering if it would work at all. Maybe my sub isn’t capable of this? Who knows until I try. Worst case, I need to go buy a new sub.

I also really need to get in contact with EA. I have the wonderful game that is Rock Band, but my guitar sucks (one of the fret buttons sticks/thinks it’s pressed when it’s not, making me miss notes), my drum kit has a faulty red pad (sucks!) and the kick pedal broke (not sure if they can fix this one, but I’m gonna damn well try!)

Off to hit the intertubes, might post a new rant later today if something interesting happens or if I get bored and need to vent about it.

EDIT: Just finished up with EA’s Rock Band support webpage. I now have 3 (yes, 3) RMA boxes shipping to me. At least I still have my Guitar Hero 2 guitar that I can play with. Hrmph.