Friday

Battlefield 2 Server/Clan Ratings


The Big =E= Clan:  ****

(four stars)

Good fights, but only allows 48 players and is touchy regarding the very trash talk they brag about on their homepage.  The hacker control is fairly solid -but with all the cranky ole lady mood swings, I think the "E" is for Estrogen.

But they still let me play there after a big trash-talking scuffle, so +1 star for bein classy.  Just keep yer yap shut, and kill them.


 =TAF= Infantry Clan:  *

(one star)

Hackers are reacted upon on a rare basis -so rare, I think the admin enforces it only to inhibit a win.

Worse, the =TAF= Infantry Clan idles with about 18 non-playing players at any given time, screwing up team balances. But as for the people that are playing? I got booted the other night for "inappropriate language," and I didn't have any dialog going at all. Thinking it was a fluke, I went back days later only to be banned for "grenade spam." Imaginary ordinance -oral or otherwise- isn‘t welcome there. So imagine yourself on a sporting server. You‘ll have a better time.  =TAF= also has an excruciatingly slow lag between rounds.

-I would give it a solid "zero stars," but I've only been playing BF2 for two years now … there has to be a worse server somewhere. Right?

-=TAF= is strictly for the lean on talent, weak of mind.


=BOX= Clan [Brothers of Xemption]:  ****

(four stars)

An excellent, hands off, no hassle server. Not a five-star only because the server only handles 48 players, and it crashes about once a week and does not repopulate quickly. Also idles with numerous players, creating "unbalanced" battles.


Thanks for reading!

I'll update this list periodically, so please check back.

-LOBO aka "slicingdevice"

Sunday

Leperball

Predator Press

[LOBO]

People are always asking me, "LOBO, with basketball season over and football not yet in full swing, how does a legendary athlete such as yourself spend your leisure time?”

Well I’m glad you asked me that.

I’ve always believed that people as gifted and successful as myself should spend a lot of time giving back to the community; encouraging the "less fortunate" that they too might become a chiseled physical phenomena such as myself is exactly the false hope today’s kids need to keep them from dealing drugs, stealing my car, or other things 'the community' generally frowns upon.

With Shark Boxing still tied up in pre-production due to a quagmire of insurance hassles, I generally spend my weekends coaching a pee-wee football team I signed up for Pop Warner called the Starfishes -a spirited and rugged little squad of ‘can do’ types, all afflicted with advanced stages of leprosy.

This is my third year -the first of which I am Federally mandated to because of the “Anti-Discrimination Act”: little Timmy's dad used it to sue me when I puked at the post-game pizza party and tried to resign.

Little Timmy is now quarterback.

His little dad must be so proud ...


Don't forget to check out my 2010 Pre-Drafting Tips!


Wednesday

FTWL

Predator Press

[LOBO]

I didn’t even like real football, let alone the fantasy variety.

I started participating in the HBFFL with the simple goal of selfish cross-promotion; indeed the team managers are some of the best bloggers around, and -win or lose- it was an opportunity to rub elbows with others showing glimpses of the inspired braniosity which I radiate.

This year will be my third, and I’m completely jazzed.

And a week or two ago, I contemplated my good fortune. Most football fans that don’t play either scoff at the concept of fantasy leagues, or seem a bit mystified and intimidated by the mechanics of “taking the plunge.” Thus, the HBFFL was a rare and unique opportunity for me to get my feet wet.

With this in mind -and finding the HBFFL had filled up quickly this year- I founded the Fantasy Training Wheels League -or FTWL. For most, it will be a League dedicated to rookie fantasy managers … for me, it will be a chance to experiment with some tantalizing non-traditional lineups.

But I need 5-7 more players. If you’re interested, please leave a method of contact in the comments of this post or send me an email at "carpenoctum at hotmail dot com" before the end of this month.

Thanks!

Don't forget to check out my 2010 Pre-Drafting Tips!

Sunday

Teenage George Lucas: The Lost Files

Predator Press

[LOBO]

“Dude,” says Lenny. “Are you feelin it?”

“Oh yeah,” says George.

“We should maybe go someplace else. That dog is givin me the heebie-jeebies.”

“What dog?” asks George.

“Dude,” says Lenny pointing. “Right over there.”

“That’s a palm tree.”

“Well I hope it’s friendly.” Lenny takes a drink out of his Coca-Cola bottle and winces thoughtfully. “Hey, what do palm trees eat, anyway?”

“I don’t know,” says George. “Dirt I think.”

“Whoa,” breathes Lenny. “Shit there’s a lot of dirt man.”

“Lenny I think I wanna make movies,” reflects George.

“Me too dude. And some waffles.”

“No I’m serious.”

“So am I. Some waffles would kick ass right now.”

“I mean about making movies. I wanna make a big epic science fiction saga about the struggle between good and evil.”

"I told you not to take so much your first time."

“It'll have cool robots an stuff," insists George. “Yeah. In fact it’ll have robots with personality. And I’ll create a handful of memorable and likeable characters to be the heroes.”

“Whoa whoa whoa,” says Lenny. “I would abandon that 'memorable and likeable characters' crap only a few movies in. Nobody wants those in movies with robots.”

“Robots and aliens,” adds George wistfully.

“Aliens too?” says Lenny. “Man that would be cool.”

“-With an evil Dictator, and a whole big Nazi-like army of half-robot lookin’ identical bad guys that can't hit anything they shoot at.”

“Dude,” says Lenny eyeing the palm tree carefully. “One of the heroes could be like a big giant space dog or something. A big giant spacedog that shoots a crossbow.”

“Big giant spacedogs that can shoot crossbows would get along just fine with an evil Dictator and a whole big Nazi-like army of half-robot lookin’ identical bad guys that can't hit anything. They would be in cahoots and lockstep the whole way.”

“You could make ‘em gay or something,” replies Lenny. “And when this ‘empire’ figures out it can’t legislate all the gayness out of ‘em, boom, it’s illegal to be a big giant gay dog that can shoot crossbows."

"Spacedog," George corrects. "How about if they can escape because they can fly the spaceships too?"

"Ooooo, cool," says Lenny. "And because they're illegal, it’s cool to make ‘em slaves or whatever.” He pauses. "I got it. He's a pirate. Or maybe a smuggler even!"

“I don't know," says George. "How could I possibly work in a big giant gay outlaw pirate smuggler slave hero spacedog that can shoot crossbows and fly spaceships? This seems a bit far-fetched. I'll have to scale it back somewhere. Plus I was hoping to keep these movies kid-friendly.”

"Just drop the crossbow then," Lenny concedes. "Maybe let him duel with a cool-looking electric sword or something."

“Huh."

“I’m hungry,” says Lenny.

“Me too.”


 Dibs on the Bacta Tanks"



Mattel Introduces PMS Barbie




Thursday

Little Boots

Predator Press

[LOBO]

-As for Mel Gibson, even as an enormous fan of his work, there is no defense I can offer.






Cobbled together there is roughly thirty minutes of audio -thirty minutes of Mel spitting venom. I haven’t heard the whole thing, but holy crap I'm glad I'm white: I’ve heard enough to know it’s ugly. The fruit basket he must've got from Tiger Wood's 'an Jesse James hadda be incredible.

But consider that thirty minutes of recorded audio didn’t happen by accident. Oksana not only recorded it all, but can be heard “pushing Mel’s buttons” so to speak for maximum effect.

This was pretty calculated, don’t you think?

It‘s like two diabolic forces collided.

But unlike zombies, these two didn’t cancel each other out; instead, I am inundated by a media jazzed at the naked schadenfreude. And this has completely ruined the whole Lethal Weapon series for at least a few months.

Unless, of course, Danny Glover wants to shoot up the courthouse.

Or if a guy that looks like Danny Glover shoots up that courthouse.



-I'm just sayin.

Saturday

Halo of Files

Predator Press

[LOBO]

I made it through acid rain, ozone depletion, contraction of the thermosphere, global warming, et cetera.

So I was neither surprised or impressed that we cracked the Earth’s crust and spewed millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

-What really bugged me, I suppose, is that we did it for the oil.

So our options are 1) Buy oil from countries that want to kill us, or B) Drill our own oil via companies that may make our environment completely untenable?

Shit, if we're negotiating for position on a "need-versus-environment" sliding scale, I would rather have the chlorofluorocarbons back frankly.

My hair used to be awesome.

We claim to be interested in alternate forms of energy, yet continue to elect people with a vested interest in oil. Trusting the wolves to guard the sheep is hardly an effort we can take seriously. Want some real progress? Gather up all the physicists, chemists, and biologists, et cetera, dust off Alcatraz, and lock them all up in it. Give them chalk, calculators, and all the meth they can handle, and don’t feed them or let them sleep until they’ve come up with something. Throw in some anonymous violent criminals (to keep it interesting between the occasional ancillary cancer cures and teleportation devices) and Pay-Per-View the whole thing to finance it. Wouldn‘t it be awesome to see an emaciated, blood-soaked and twitchy Doctor Michio Kaku pulling a shiv from Stephen Hawking‘s neck, screaming “Eureka!” in the comfort of your own home?

Now that‘s fucking science.

But even with the oil leak dubiously closed and subtle stirring of the HBFFL‘s inevitable annual wakening, I may never have emerged; safely ensconced in a womblike fog of alcohol and chain-smoked cigarettes, the raging dissonance is blunted by an artificially-inflated perception distance.

Embittered by the lack of resonance to the mighty Predator Press empire, I let the Arizona immigration issue slide while Mexican drug lords rose to power. Sensing my ambivalence, vast anti-Predator Press networks -having jealously long sought the destruction of the greatest bastion of knowledges and wisdomness humanity has ever seen- seized upon this opportunity to strike: Wesley Snipes faces incarceration, rendering him wholly unable to play me in LOBO: The Motion Picture for another three years. Sweet, innocent little Lindsay Lohan, bereft of my protection, has been framed for witchcraft or something and faces a similar fate. China has set their Dalian oil fields afire in open revolt, and Castro has reemerged, emboldened by my glaring absence. And Predator Press didn't even get nominated for an Emmy.

-Not one!

And nourished by this fertile apathy, a brazen and unbound evil blossomed. Heedless of the desperate cries of the United Nations, the Vatican, and various high-ranking members of the 4-H Club, Predator Press offices remained closed and dark; the massive, once-bustling blog ink warehouses gathered dust -a dust accompanied only by the occasional lonely howl of a lifeless wind making way aimlessly through cobwebbed corridors, looking in vain for tumbleweeds to blow.

Millions of readers camped outside, singing songs in joyous anticipation of my return. But an ominous shadow of cold, hard doubt permeated the throngs, like a big, stealthy panther. Yes -a big, stealthy, fire-breathing, flying monkey-panther of permeating doubt.

Those poor throngs.

In grief and despair, many immolated themselves. Many threw themselves from building tops. Many immolated themselves and then threw themselves from building tops. It’s a good thing I had those suicide pits installed: I love my readers, but they ain’t exactly the tidiest people in the world.

And then -just as it seemed that all hope was lost and the Earth was to be plunged into a cold, dark, LOBOless void for all eternity- a familiar voice boomed across the internet.

“Mel Gibson did what!?


Internet Swag

Predator Press