If you value your sanity, do not visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rifts. I just tried to open it on my Blackberry and it started loading it. Just plaintext, a few images, nothing to worry about, right? Well about 80% in, something happened. I think my smartphone became sentient at that exact moment, which was the most unfortunate time for it to do so.

As it slowly became aware of what it was parsing, it began to slo..w…d.o.w.n… I could imagine its newborn mind trying to comprehend the madness of it all, and only being able to keep eating what it was being fed.

I think right about here is where it gave up hope:

The second greatest power is “Free Quebec“. At one time it was a Coalition State, but constant disagreement with Chi-Town, over everything from Glitter Boy production to informant of the populace, led to secession and eventually war. A cease-fire was signed (mainly due to the CSs bigger problem with Tolkeen), but the distrust has remained.

Mexico is ruled by a group of vampire kingdoms, who treat humans as little more than cattle to feed upon. North of the Rio Grande, west of Texas and roaming most of the American South West are large nomadic bands/tribes of bandits collectively from the “Pecos Empire” which incorporates the cities of El Paso, Los Alamos (formerly Austin) and “Houstown”, its unofficial capital, though the nation is not part of a cohesive power structure or political organization, “Emperor Sabre Laser” is attempting to unite the city-states under his banner.

An hourglass popped up on the display, turning endlessly, but I knew it was too late, there was nothing to wait for. Sure enough–only a minute later–it finally succumbed to its fate and displayed a white screen with the following text:

App Error 523
[Reset]

I hit the reset button and it began to reboot. Luckily, it survived–this time. I’m sorry, Blackberry, maybe next time you gain self-awareness I’ll be reading a nice sci-fi eBook or something.

For the first time since the year 2000, I played Dungeons and Dragons last night. Fourth edition. That means I completely skipped 3.0 (other than owning the Player’s Handbook) and 3.5. I slipped right in from AD&D in my head. It was actually really fun, even if I did have brief flashbacks to high school. Also, my dual-wield eladrin ranger missed on five of his first six attacks. That was kind of ludicrous when you’re trying to feel like a badass.

Also yesterday I scheduled my appointment to have my recurrent corneal erosion fixed next Tuesday. They are going to laser off the entire outer layer of cells on my right eye. The alternative being poking it a lot with a needle.

Finally! Contacts again after a year, hopefully. Thank god.

As of this afternoon I officially have tickets for WEC 36 in September in Hollywood, Florida. Urijah Faber, Jens Pulver, Paulo Filho…the whole lot. My dad and I are going. I’m pretty damn excited. I know the UFC in Atlanta is going to be awesome, most likely, but tickets are also $insane and the arena is huge, meaning I’ll have a better seat from home. I do, however, want to try out the live MMA experience finally. If it’s anything like other sports there will just be ’something’ about going. Trying it out in a smaller venue like the Seminole Hard Rock, in a town where my dad gets free hotel rooms, will be perfect. I liked that casino the last time I was there anyway.

Plus, Urijah Faber > Chuck Liddell. It’d be different if BJ or GSP were fighting in Atlanta.

Let’s just say WHOOOOOO. Make sure you scan the crowd for me when it’s on Versus.

Sadly, the IMAX projector never recovered. We only got to see just over a third of the Dark Knight in megavision. Regal did reserve a 3:10 showing in a normal theatre for us, which we saw, and gave us two free passes to any Regal anywhere for any show, including IMAX. So, at least they made up for it.

Dark Knight, by the by, was completely awesome. Almost without reproach. Almost.

I’m sitting in the Buford IMAX. Dark Knight has just short circuited via projector overheating. We’re about to be back up though. Time to bug them about free passes!

So Graeme and I were on our way home from work today when I suddenly got the urge to eat an entire carniceria, partly due to the fact that I skipped lunch. This being physically impossible, we settled on Taco Bell.

As we came to the intersection, a police car blared its sirens as it drove by, and kept going right past a fenderbender parked in the median. It was a little odd that he left them there, but we pressed onward.

My visions of crunchwraps and grilled stuft burritos quickly vanished, however, when we pulled up to the Taco Bell and found what can only be described as a situation. Police cars surrounded the Taco Bell, and a line of drive-through cars wrapped around the building. With access to the parking lot cut off by another cop car, we drove around in a curious daze trying to get our bearings. Police were standing a distance away, just eyeballing the place. We decided not to drive around the barrier as it seemed these folks weren’t driving through anytime soon.

Graeme had spotted a Willy’s earlier, so we headed there to pick up much tastier food.

We still wonder just what could go on at a Taco Bell to get that kind of response but still have a drive-through queue that long.

Gordita Banditos?

I don’t usually write about it, but this photoshop made talking about Rampage Jackson being arrested all worth it:

That is all.

Game over, man. Game over.

Or, as I said in IM when I heard the news:

(5:57:31 PM) Kenny Knapke: http://arstechnica.com/journals/thumbs.ars/2008/07/14/final-fantasy-xiii-coming-to-xbox-360-in-simultaneous-launch
(5:57:49 PM) Graeme Hefner: HAHAHAHAHAHHA
(5:57:51 PM) Graeme Hefner: HAHAHAHAH
(5:57:54 PM) Graeme Hefner: HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAAHAHHAH
(5:58:00 PM) Graeme Hefner: WE SHALL NOT WE SHALL NOT BE MOVED

With Final Fantasy XIII’s exclusivity dies your last hope at getting me to buy your Great Mistake, Sony. Please make the PS4 not suck.

My drug of choice is information. I consume it. When I was a kid I read the encyclopedia. As an adult I read Wikipedia. I can’t sleep if I’m thinking about something and don’t know the answer. I have a problem with essentially jacking in to the internet and slamming my hooks into it like a monstrous Lovecraftian parasite, draining it for all I can before dragging my gorged body off to the next locus of trivia.

Fun mental image, isn’t it?

As you might guess this drive not only served me well as a historian, it probably made me one in the first place. It’s also one of the reasons I’ve always joked bitterly that if they can ever place a modem directly in a person’s brain I’ll be one of the first in line, just so that I never have to spend a bare instant not knowing who was in that movie that one time. I will drive myself mad with power.

Reality is getting closer and closer to making that happen. I now have a broadband internet connection on my person at all times. I’m resisting it so far, but it’s there. Taunting me.

It’s amazing how things become commonplace. A decade ago 56k was still awesome. Then broadband at all was good. Then Wi-Fi was amazing. Now, I don’t even think about having a 6 megabit connection shared throughout my entire domicile accessible via my laptop wherever I am. But once…once it was magic. And in my pocket is more bandwidth equal to what my family’s DSL line was for the first year or so we were in Jasper. It’s still ‘cool’ for right now, but in a few years, at most, it’ll fade. Hopefully by then my sunglasses will have Firefox.

As of today I have been living in this apartment for 2 years, and alone in it for 1 year. July 11th is my Kenniversary.

Since that looks scarily like the name ‘Kenny’ and this post is mostly devoid of content, I shall post some highlights of today’s conversation with the man himself:

(2:00:15 PM) Kenny Knapke: Demos PS3: Siren Blood Curse PS3: Monster Madness Grave Danger PS3: Wall-E PS3: The Chronicles of Narnia Prince Caspian
(2:00:22 PM) Kenny Knapke: wooot… demos galore!
(2:00:40 PM) Graeme Hefner: I thought that said ‘Grave Digger’ at first.
(2:00:45 PM) Graeme Hefner: and that seemed like a way more interesting game.
(2:00:59 PM) Kenny Knapke: that would be a sweet game
(2:01:13 PM) Graeme Hefner: In fact
(2:01:20 PM) Graeme Hefner: Let’s combine all of those to make the best game possible.
(2:01:47 PM) Graeme Hefner: Siren Blood Curse: Grave Digger - The Chronicles of Prince Wall-E
(2:02:18 PM) Kenny Knapke: Wall-e would make a decent grave digger

(4:19:37 PM) Graeme Hefner: Before I die I want to sleep with one of the Donnas.
(4:25:44 PM) Graeme Hefner: I’d take the drummer or the lead singer.
(4:26:23 PM) Kenny Knapke: i’d take the one with the blue light on her head in that picture
(4:26:36 PM) Kenny Knapke: or the far left
(4:26:43 PM) Kenny Knapke: but preferably the bluelight
(4:26:52 PM) Graeme Hefner: That’s the guitarist with the blue light. She would not be kicked out of bed.
Far left is the lead singer.
(4:27:11 PM) Kenny Knapke: and the blond is drummer?
(4:27:18 PM) Graeme Hefner: Yeah
(4:27:21 PM) Kenny Knapke: she looks too much like one of my sisters
(4:27:49 PM) Graeme Hefner: Luckily I don’t have that problem.
(4:28:14 PM) Kenny Knapke: yeah.. it’d be kinda awkward if you looked like one of my sisters
(4:28:45 PM) Graeme Hefner: Not nearly as awkward as if I dated one.
(4:29:10 PM) Kenny Knapke: thank god that’s never going to happen
(4:29:20 PM) Kenny Knapke: kim was saying she wants to move down here though
(4:29:30 PM) Graeme Hefner: Hey, they could do a lot worse.
(4:29:48 PM) Kenny Knapke: yeah, and i wouldn’t feel a bit bad about “correcting” that situation ;)
(4:30:11 PM) Graeme Hefner: Pfft. I’d totally ask you first. And you’d say no. And that’d be that.
(4:30:24 PM) Graeme Hefner: I wouldn’t feel ‘em up in a tent while drunk or anything. *cough*
(4:30:48 PM) Kenny Knapke: big sister is a whole different ballgame
(4:32:18 PM) Graeme Hefner: I’d hook you up with my sister.
(4:32:43 PM) Kenny Knapke: no thanks
(4:33:11 PM) Kenny Knapke: besides, that goes strictly against your new policy of not setting up your friends anymore :-p
(4:33:25 PM) Graeme Hefner: I didn’t say I wouldn’t set up my family.
(4:33:48 PM) Kenny Knapke: that situation would involve both which would still violate the policy
(4:34:26 PM) Graeme Hefner: I’d probably cancel that policy if someone worthwhile came along again.
(4:34:34 PM) Graeme Hefner: At the moment I’m more worried with setting up myself.
(4:34:47 PM) Graeme Hefner: So any hot girls you know but aren’t using, send ‘em my way. Unless they’re stupid.
(4:35:35 PM) Kenny Knapke: ok
(4:36:07 PM) Kenny Knapke: should i chance upon one, i’ll box it up and mail it to you
(4:36:23 PM) Graeme Hefner: Nah, I’ll come get her.
(4:36:27 PM) Graeme Hefner: You like to use cheap shipping.
(4:36:36 PM) Graeme Hefner: She might get fat or dead in transit
(4:37:21 PM) Kenny Knapke: i just don’t see a point in paying $50 to ship something “zomg 2morrow”