En'Garde, sir!

Sorry for the lack of posts last week, but my head felt as though I had a six-inch iron spike driven through my temples. It was not fun.

I saw 300 last night, which was fun. While the movie was a bit overdramatic at points and took liberties with history, it was very visually entertaining. The fight scenes were some of the best I've ever seen. Very bloody!

So, Casey sent me a link to this little piece of news. While this is not the strangest thing I heard of last week, it's still pretty surreal. Swordfights are pretty much a thing of the past (guns being more user-friendly, as they are all pre-installed with an easy-to-use point-and-click interface), though there have been several reports over the past few months of blade-wielding shenannigans. First there was the kid that actually made a katana and chopped some people up for no reason (then tried to blame his mother...classy). Then there was a report of two policemen that were actually saved by a sword-wielding man, who vanished shortly thereafter and could not be identified. Then there was the guy two or three weeks ago that broke into his neighbor's apartment with sword in hand, intent on stopping what he thought to be a rape in progress...but turned out to be nothing more than very loud porn (much to the embaressment of all involved, I'm sure). I wish I had links to those, but I don't. I'm a sad panda.

Anyway, this story is so cool because not only did the ex-boyfriend come in swinging a sword about, but the current boyfriend actually crossed swords with the mofo and disarmed him! Man, I would have given anything to see the look on the ex's face!

Casey also sent me a link that will show you if your website is blocked by the Great Firewall of China (this blog, by the way, is blocked. I guess Chen Shui-Bian still hasn't forgiven me for that falling out we had). If you don't know what the "Great Firewall" is, I suggest taking a gander over here. Censorship is pretty crazy in China!

I played a lot of Medieval 2: Total War this weekend. I mean, I played a lot of it. Wicked battles + political intrigue = pwn. Battles take on a whole new meaning when there are thousands of units on the field! Thus far I have erased Scotland and destroyed France. The Dutch are next (the bastards keep starting shit. It's time to teach them a lesson!).

Oh, something that pissed me off so bad this weekend that I thought I'd mention... Battlefield 2142. The motherfucker has an expansion out. How did I find this out? I decided to give it a spin and see if they'd patched it again (since the game really, really needed it). Yeah, they patched it alright...a patch that costs you ten fucking dollars! "But it's okay!" EA Games says, laying a soothing hand on your shoulder, "You get new levels and stuff too! Isn't that exciting?"

No. No, it's not. Tell you what EA, you fucker! How about you fix Titan battles? You know, that game mode that was broken on release that never got fixed? How about you tune up the online code so that I when I shoot a stationary target in the face, my bullet actually connects? How about you fix your game so that I can find a server with an halfway reasonable ping?

I know that EA has been doing this shit on consoles for a little while now (they call it "incremental content" or someshit), but I had always just shrugged it off. Now that I'm affected by it, I have to say that I'm pretty fucking pissed. It's borderline extortion. Hell, I was (actually, I still am) livid when D&D 3.5 came out, and I play that game all the time.

And finally, you make me touch your hands for stupid reasons.