I have bought Starcraft 2 and I have no regrets. Sure I’m posting this comic at 3 am in the morning on a work day, but the single player is just too damn good. I started off playing “brutal” and man is it BRUTAL. So I had to step it down a notch and play hard. The strange thing is Normal mode is actually at a slower game speed then hard and brutal.

There are tons of new units in single player. The Medic is back, as is the Firebat, Goliath and Vulture. Also a couple of new ones like the DiamondBack that shoots while moving. Also units have a ton of upgrades that keep them alive in single player that are not available in multi-player.

As for the real wood knocker, I just need to finish the iphone application, and submit that bad boy to apple.

Unfortunately I still have an ass load of stuff to do this weekend, so I’m not sure how this is going to work.

Danny

Starcraft 2 comes out tonight!!!!!!!!!! I’m so addicted to the game that I have decided it would be unhealthy to buy the game. As such I have opted to abstain from the game, until I am done 3 of the major projects I am working on.

For many of the female readers who have gamer partners, I have bad news. Today is the day you become a starcraft II widow. Your boyfriends will suddenly become “too busy” with “work” to hangout. They will be “too tired” staying up til 3 am trying to get into double diamond league with 2 or 3 of their closest friends. They’ll start talking in obscure code like “7 pool” zerg rush. Or talking about the sick ass avatar they unlocked.

Don’t worry we be back to our normal selves after about 3 or 4 weeks when we realize we are not and will never be Korean.

Danny

I’m also doing things

Playing Dragon Quest IX. No one else around me is, though, so that makes the multiplayer aspect of DQIX kind of moot. There is a Gamestop/EB Games event this weekend downtown, so I’m thinking of lugging myself down just so I can trade items and whatever. (They’re holding DQ events in select cities in Canada and the US that day, check out their website.) I don’t know how that trading thing works yet, I’m only about fifteen hours into the game.

– Alex

All Canadians (except maybe southern B.C.) know the bane that is licking freezing metal objects. It’s less of a clear and present danger during the summer, but it’s hot, and the freezer looks so comforting. The frost is just begging to be licked, but you know if you do, you’ll end up in the moron section of the local newspaper.

Incidently, the Internet knows how to get a tongue off of a frozen surface. Liberally pour warm water until everything warms up enough to pull off the tongue. Do not use boiling water. Hilariously enough, it recommends using urine as a last-ditch solution. Lollerskates.

So this week staycation I’ve been on has been rather unrelaxing. People are all like “What? You have a week off? I don’t think that’s fair, so I’ll give you a brazillion tasks to do.”

– Alex

I’m almost done making my robotic knocker. This bad boy will wait for knock request over the internet, and tweet about them once the knock has been physically performed. I had to use soldering, my shitty circuit knowledge, arduino board programming, php, mysql and python to get this project off the ground. To finish I still need to finish the iphone app and polish my shitty server side authentication code and make the damn website.

Total time spent working on the project 8 hours. Total time spent making a team, trying to get them motivated to work on a crazy idea and ending up having to do the damn thing myself, 2 years.

Note about the comic, I was inspired by this commercial, which I’m sure you have seen, if you haven’t your in for a treat.

Alex is on vacation right now, but he’s a pro, and still draws comics, unlike some japanese manga writers…

Danny

I remember my uncle keeping a “fighting fish”. He didn’t arrange duels or anything like that, but the name just sounded cool. The moniker belongs to the esteemed group of “things that do what you expect” like the Mexican jumping bean, the pistol shrimp, and Snakes on a Plane.

Here’s a little creativity exercise: what would you name a fighting fish? Here are some examples to get you started:

• Fighting Nemo
• Orange Roughly
• Drinky MacFinn
• Lungebob Squarepants
• James Pond
• You’ve Got Scale
• A Swimmer Nightly
• Feed the Troll
• Moby Dick Jr.
• Gone Thrashin’
• Fish-o’-War
• Just Sleeping
• Alpha Betta
• Fancy Feast
• Humuhumunukunukuapua’am Gonna Knife You

– Alex ^.^()

This guy lives life more than most:

The Double Rainbow song:

2001 version:

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go win one or twelve medals in exotic car throwing competitions. One handed fish catch.

– Alex

Some Asians have a low tolerance for toxic chemicals such as alcohol. It is believed that the reason for “Asian glow” comes from the fact that China discovered drinks such as tea and soups many generations ago. These hot beverages were very effective at killing the bacteria in the water, where as in west they relied on alcoholic beverages to sanitize their water. Over time, people in the west developed higher levels of the enzyme needed to break down alcohol.

After reading the wiki article on this topic I think I’m going to stop drinking as much alcohol. I lack acetaldehyde dehydrogenase and as a result I’m at higher risk for esophageal cancer according to this article.

But I won’t quit before I have some of this amazing 9000 year old beer, ironically from China…

Danny

I know the blackout happened last week, but we just can’t make comics that fast.

I meet up with a bunch of entrepreneur once a month, to chat about get rich quick schemes and the why some of them don’t work. I find it very important to meet up with people who share the same passions that you do, just being near them can generate a lot of positive energy which I use to keep my crazy ideas going.

As I was eating my cold quiznos sub, I didn’t eat it during the meeting because it felt rude, when I came to the realization of something important. You need to “Find your canvas” in life. Just like any great artist, if you don’t have the tools to express your art, you will be forgotten. It could be programming, blogging, strip tweeting, it doesn’t matter, what you need is a medium, and to become a master at it. Only when you are really good at something can make an impact on the world. Like that dude that tried to hat the world cup.

Still got to find my canvas.

Danny

Saw Toy Story 3 yesterday, it brings back memories, a great movie. Not a fan of the whole 3D glasses thing, and how the theater basically just jacked up the price of movies. We had movie passes, but still had to pay 3 dollars extra a head to get in.

It’s sort of understandable that they added this 3 dollar fee. I used to work at a theater, and it turns out they don’t really make money from the seats they sell. All the money they make comes directly from concessions, which explains the massive prices for pop and corn.

Also watched Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, a dark movie about Swedes and their deep dark secrets. I highly recommend it. I started disliking Swedes, because they beat us in curling this year.

Going to see The GaGa this weekend, I’m so going to wear a TOBlender tshirt that says, TOBlender loves the GAGA.

Alex is away white water rafting… *tear* he’s all grown up now

Danny

I read Naruto. There I said it, is it such a crime? My introduction to Naruto was about 2 years ago, and I watched all 134 episodes up to the point of Sasuke’s and Naruto’s first epic battle. I did this all in one weekend, about 38 hours of anime. I tend to binge these things. I did the same thing with Battlestar Galactica, I ended up catching a fever, not one for more cow bell, but one where I thought I was a cylon. I did the same for Firefly, and found myself looking for fan fiction after it was cancelled. I read 500 chapters of One Piece over the course of one week. I had to port it over to my PSP at the time, so that I could be mobile while reading it.

So after binging all these years I’ve learned one very useful tip, Wikipedia summaries. Using this wonderful short cut I’ve binged Star Trek Voyager/TNG/TOS, Doctor Who, Lost, Dexter, to name a few. It is just so much faster. Just as reading the manga is so much faster and fulfilling then watching stupid fillers, reading summaries is so much faster then sitting and watching everything.

I get bored easily.

Danny

RE: “Epic” anime

It took me halfway in the Soul Society arc before I realized Bleach was going to be the next Dragon Ball Z. Now, I watch series which don’t spiral onwards into infinity. I have a compulsive nature to watch everything, and I don’t want to be trapped watching a series which doesn’t end. It’s kind of a bittersweet policy though, because I’d watch a series, it’d end, and then I’d wish there were more =/

– Alex