Friday Night Internet Fight: Round 36

 Shit, I don't know what is worse: the fact that the thread you're about to see "highlights" from exists or what a pain in the ballsack it was to try and edit anything remotely coherent out of this non-stop quote fest.  I apologize if some things in this just plain don't make sense, but it's not really my fault: deal with it.  Advanced apologies aside, I'd like to give Katie Drake a shoutout for sending me this one and participating in the fight as well.

Up Yours Spambots!

Well, it's official- spambots are driving me batshit crazy.  Ever since I took the word verifications off of the comments section, I've been bombarded with spam comments.  They've mostly been on really old posts, but I'm sick of seeing e-mails from blogger about them.  This might not be relevant by the end of the week, with the transition to the new site, but for the time being Word Verification is here to stay.  So I'm sorry if you were interested in meeting local signals, getting a free iPad, learning the secrets of working from home, or buying prescription medications from Chechnya, but you'll have to do all of those things elsewhere.

Blood of Kittens Network

Blood of Kittens is now offering a social network-like/ mother of all webrings/ community pow wow/ whatever service.  In an effort to "save bloggers from blogger," Tasty Taste has set up a number of slick customizable templates and other fun things that you can use to spruce up your blog.  By joining you'll also get access to a host of useful (and ordinarily not cheap) editing features and plugins for FREE.  I've known this was coming down the pipe for a few weeks now and am pretty excited about the opportunity to continue to help build the community and attempt to unify things.  Dick Move will be moving over by the end of the weekend.  My account is live and ready to go, I just need to sit down and finalize things and port over all of my data.  Unless something goes horribly wrong, this shouldn't change the way you access Dick Move, other than that it should put me in touch with an even bigger audience.  So, you know, more chances that I'll piss somebody off who takes something I say too literally :)  I also understand that the transition should be pretty painless and things like links, blogrolls, and the like will transfer over seamlessly.  Links that you have to Dick Move should also re-direct automatically.  If this turns out to not be exactly correct, I'll se what I can do to fix it.

Expect more updates on this as I play around with the new format and get used to things, but I'm very excited to get access to Wordpress.  Their editing features just plain old blow blogger out of the water.  I've been using it for a while through Blood of Kittens for my FNIF: Extra Innings series and I've fallen in serious like with them.

I honestly can't provide too many more coherent details about this myself as social networking and the dizzying array of options offered in this project are largely over my head.  Sufficed to say, joining the network should only make things easier for you.  If you're interested in joining the BOK network or reading more from somebody who is not a bumbling idiot when software is the subject, check out Tasty's announcement over here.

For now the HoP will be remaining a separate entity, as we have our own URL and somewhat parallel, but not competing, goals for the site.  Lauby and I are looking forward to a continued great relationship with the new incarnation of BOK and will be looking into some collaboration, cross-promotion, reach-arounds, or whatever down the road.

FNIF: Round 34 Results Show

Looks like I forgot to put this one up over the weekend as I'd intended.  There's not a lot to say about this one other than that I'm disappointed.  Sure nobody actually won, but Kaiser Wilhelm came damn close with 39% of the 64 votes, losing by a hairs breadth to "screw the fight let's all have tea" (42%).  I was really hoping for a much larger margin of victory in favor of apathy on this one, as I thought everybody was kind of a jackass. 

Just goes to show that these things are hard to predict sometimes.  All said and done though, FNIF: Round 34 is among my favorites in recent history.  There was a lot of great shit happening there and just so much room for snowmobiling.  I think this might also be the best showing ever for "whoever wins, society loses," with 10% of the vote. 

Is there a moral in all of this?  If anything it is that Dick Move readers don't mind somebody who makes a good point and then craps all over their own thoughts.  Way to go guys.

Dick Move hits 100 Followers- Sporeginae for Everyone!

Hooray for momentous occasions. The impossible, finally appears to have happened- we've hit 100 followers.  Never mind the fact that Strictly Average is about to lap our readership, but fuck it.  Not Brent still wins forever.  Seriously though, thanks to everyone who's still reading this blog.  You're the reason I keep plugging away and dredging up all the shit I can find on forums, blogs, and the like.  We're not even a year into this site and I'm not feeling like giving it up yet, so keep those e-mails about dumb shit you fin coming- they help make my job possible.

Friday Night Internet Fight: Round 35

This week MagicJuggler was kind enough to e-mail me about a fight he was involved in over at 40kOnline.  Being the painful read that it was, I knew I had to use it for this week's FNIF.  The thread is called Tarrins Take What You Want (TTWYW) thread: 1K Sons and it will make your eyes want to crawl under a how shower for hours on end trying to wash of the foul stench of the raping they have received.  The highlight of this thread for me is that the OP is not only completely belligerent and ignorant, but also is blind to when people are contributing to his discussion productively.

SWANS

This review should have been done weeks ago.  I was actually ready to write this at the end of September when the new record was released.  After all, it's not often that your favorite band ever that happened to have broken up in 1997 releases a new album for the first time in 15 years.  I've gotta say that usually this type of wait usually results in a huge let-down.  Bands often over-think things and wind up producing shit albums (see G 'n R).  So, it was with mixed feelings that I approached the release of SWANS new album, My Father Will Guide me Up a Rope to the Sky.  Expecting the worst, I was blown away by the record.  It's painfully loud, absolutely sublimely primal, and hauntingly beautiful all at the same time.  It's also not overly long.  The new album clocks in at just over 40 minutes, which is just about perfect.  Every song on it is a gem and there isn't any cheap filler material.

It's going to be one of those nights

Dr. Girlfriend just came home with a case of cheap beer and is blasting the dead milkmen.  Guess that means it's pumpkin carving time. 

Ps that big fucker clocked in @ over 50 pounds

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Ch Ch Ch Ch Changes

I apologize for the title, but Ziggy Stardust was on Paladium last night, so I've got Bowie on the brain.  I've made a couple of updates to the page to hopefully make things easier to deal with.  I have disabled secret words for commenting.  We'll see how long that lasts, but I appear to have been avoiding spam for the most part for quite a while now. 

I have also, sadly, done away with post reactions.  They were adding a lot of clutter and weren't really being used too much anyway.  If you want them back, feel free to throw a shit fit, but it'll take some convincing for me to begin to care about what you think :p

Why all of these changes?  Meh, it's been a long time coming.  I've had a long week of coming to terms with some things- such as it turns out I might really like the upcoming Kanye West album... oh and that bipartisan politics are fucking up the country- and I just needed to spice things up a bit. 

So join me in one last sendoff for the boner city reaction.

Drumroll......brrzzzzzzzzzz: THE ROTOROOTER!

Over the past few months I've hinted in the most vague of possible ways that I have been working on a new IG list to highlight my Cadians.  I'd like to play test this a lot more, but time constraints being what they are, I'll go ahead and post what I've been working on so far- understanding that this is still going to be subject to a lot of play testing.  In order to dispel the myths that the Leafblower is the end all be all of IG lists, I've tried to create something that eschews a lot of the usual suspects that are most guard armies.  Specifically I wanted to avoid a few tournament stand-bys: the Hydra, Manticore, and Vendetta.  I'm not at all trying to play a fluffier than thou card or any shit like that because I still think the Leafblower is pretty unified in its fluff.  Neither am I trying to find a way to make Ogryn or Rough Riders viable.  I think that would be a completely fruitless effort.  Being the tread-head that I am, my list will still include a number of Chimerae and a shit load of other vehicles. 

The Blogging Oedipal Complex

In writing up the announcements for the House of Paincakes today (an honor which usually falls on Lauby's shoulders, but apparently he was too busy with things that he'll no doubt assure me are not in any way related to Fallout New Vegas) I realized something- its readership is about to surpass Dick Move and in record time, no less. 

Friday Night Internet Fight: Round 34

This week an article on Comp went up on BoLS.  Sometimes an article is so obviously going to result in a fight that I can't bring myself to use it.  Sometimes an article is so obviously going to result in a fight that I do have to use it.  This feel into the latter camp.

FNIF: Round 33 Results Show

For a while there during the first couple of days it was looking as though there might be a 4 way tie for winner amongst the participants.  That didn't last long though, as we all learned something and "Not going back to that Forum Any Time Soon" Pulled out way into the lead with 33 or the 64 total votes (51%).  If this thread was evidence of what business as usual looks like over there, that might be a safe policy. 

Amongst the fight participants, RedsandRoyals somehow managed to prove to be the least moronic of the lot with 12% of your votes. I am still shamed and astonished by this.  Trickstick and dedrier managed to pull some respectable numbers amongst the rest of the buffoons with 10% and 6% of the vote respectively. 

I think if nothing else, this fight has proven the value of having somebody in your forum who has at least read the rulebook all the way through and knows that GW publishes FAQs for all of their codices. 

Return of the Math!

It has been a while, but I think it's high time to resurrect the Dick Move Mathlete of the Week Program.  I just stumbled across Zheilt's blog Custodes and was pretty well blown away by what I found there.  It's a damn shame, but it looks like he's been at it for a little over a month now and doesn't have much of a following yet, in spite of some pretty good content- whore yourself out more.  Join the HoP, we'll get you some readers :)

Whoring of the blog network aside, Zheilt appears to have a pretty good grasp on stats and excel and has made some pretty easily readable charts, such as this one showing why melta lances are not really going to be the end of gaming as we know it.  He does similar things for several other topics, so take some time, poke around his site and make sure to follow it if you like what you see- I know I did.  Nice work Zheilt.  I'm looking forward to seeing more of your stuff.

Rock and Roll Diary- The EP is mastered and ready for print

Last night we wrapped on recording the Rise of the Templars Ep for Hoagy and my band, Crusader.  Unlike most of the days I've spent in the studio, I didn't snap any pics and upload them here.  We were basically just adding synths, mixing, and mastering the 4 tracks, so I can assure you that it wasn't so exciting.  No midget porn, strange donut frosting incidents, large body/regular sized guitar hijinks, or any of that- just 4 dudes sitting around a mixing board with my trusty MIDI controller in tow.  Trust me, as exciting as it was to hear the finished songs for the first time, it would only have ended in a "you had to be there" scenario. 

Other than being about 20 hours over budget, I have no real regrets about this recording session for the first time ever.  I think being a loud mouth jerk on the Internet has helped me to be more vocal about how I want things to sound.  It might be weird for a drummer to be so involved in the overall process, but I like what I do and I want that to come through in harmony with the rest of the band.  I've got to give it to the whole group, I think everyone was in top form. 

I was hoping to have more versions of 2 of the songs, showing how a track is built in the studio- from scratch tracks and demos all the way to the finished product.  Sadly, that would have eaten up a lot of expensive studio time that was already running very thin.  It's too bad, as I set out on this endeavor originall to let you all share in the experience of hearing something come together, but I guess it wasn't to be.  Regardless, I'll re-post the original scratch tracks for 2 songs that I've put up previously set against the final versions from last night.  That should give you some idea of what a little spit and polish will do to a track.  Enjoy.

Here is the scratch version of track number one (labled as #3 for some reason)- the title track "Rise of the Templars"



03 rise of the templars unmixed by dethtron


.....and here is the final version



01 Rise of the Templars by dethtron


Now for track number 3, Asgard's Fire, formerly known simply as the Viking song. I'm glad it finally found a name. This is the original scratch track



04 untitled unmixed viking shenaniga by dethtron


......and here is the final version. You may find that it ends a little abruptly, but it bleeds over into the next song, so it makes more sense in the context of the album.



03 Asgard's Fire by dethtron

That's it.  Enjoy these while they're up; I will be taking the tracks off of Soundcloud in a while, but all of this should be on disc and iTunes by early December.  Feel free to comment, but if it's about Hoagy's voice sounding nasal, I think you might be smoking crack.  I've got 4 other bandmates and a very experienced recording engineer that will all disagree with you.

FNIF: Extra Innings is up

I just wanted to update everyone quickly on a few things. Since I've had/am having a busy week.

1. Finished mixing the Crusader sessions last night (only 15 hours over-budget, thanks to our recording engineer being very generous with a few things- should have been 20ish hours over in reality).  I'll post final versions of the first two songs I put up in the rock and roll diary series later tonight because...
2. Have a managerial financing exam tonight- should be a joke, but am still compelled to study
3. participated in some 40k this week for the first time in too long.  Got to thinking about the next "game breaking" IG list and think I'm getting close to revealing what will become my main tournament army
4. getting 2 super special HoP posts ready to roll- one is a hobby article by me and the other is an interview with a well known gamer about his sweet ass army.  Those will be out over the next week and a bit.
5. Went to a pumpkin patch and saw a civil war reenactment with Hoagy, Dr. Girlfriend, and Hoagy's fiance, son, and mother-in-law.  Good times were had by all and Uncle Dethtron taught Hoagy's spawn some bad habits- win!  There will probably be some pics up on Hoagy's When Cannons Fade shortly. 
6. Last but not least, the newest installment of FNIF: Extra Innings is up on BoK in all of its ill formatted glory, check it out.  But seriously, if any of you word press users can figure out why the fuck it jams a bunch of shit that I had properly spaced together, I'd appreciate a heads up.

Friday Night Internet Fight: Round 33

There was a hard fought battle of the wits this morning as Dethtron fought Dethtron in a no-holds-barred steel cage death match to determine which of three absolutely ridiculous forum threads to use for this week's fight.  I think I figured out how to use one of them for my FNIF: Extra Innings series that no one reads, but ultimately I decided on going using one from a newer forum, Imperial Guard Message Board.  For some naive reason, when I found out this forum existed a while back I actually got a little excited.  Being a Guard player myself, I'm always on the lookout for some new info.  You don't have to be a rocket surgeon to figure out how this brief love affair ended:  I read a few posts and realized that not only is everyone there full of shit, but Melissia is a frequent poster...shit.

Why Comp Sucks: Inspiration Strikes

Today while doing my grocery shopping, I was struck quite unexpectedly with an image that got me to thinking about comp in gaming tournaments.  Somehow I've managed to run this blog since last winter and never really go off on one of the things that infuriates me most in the hobby.  Maybe others have beaten this dead horse into glue already, but I think I found a way to articulate what bothers me about comp: not that it drastically alters a game system, but that it is entirely counter-productive.  Now, I will preface this by saying that I do not intend to step on any toes culturally or offend anyone.  I know that sounds fucked up coming from me, but you'll see why in a minute. 

Rock and Roll Diary: Iron Forge

You can almost taste the maple shells and gold hardware- would you believe this kit's 14 years old?

I was planning on returning to writing about gaming today (I still might later), but Hoagy just sent me another test mix 12 minutes ago- I've now listened to the song 3 times, so that's how I know so specifically :). Apparently he finished up his vocal takes last night under the radar. 

Unlike the last "finished" song I posted, this sounds a lot more like the rest of our material.  "Engine face," previously posted, was written in the very early days of the group, so we're probably retiring it soon.  It's fun as shit to play, though, so we wanted to record it for fun and posterity's sake. It will not be making it onto the full length album, sadly.

Anyway, here is the test mix of "Iron Forge" including the controversial new chorus*.



Iron Forge by dethtron


======================================================
*for an early demo featuring the original chorus, check this shit out, recorded 6 bass players ago when we were a 4 piece with a different name....

Of Cocktails and Gaming

One of the many reasons I like playing at home would have to be the booze.  Usually when we get a game together at my house somebody brings some beer with them.  Now I'm not saying I have to have a drink to have a good time, but if you're going to get a relaxing game in, why not do it up right?  In reality I only really drink beer when gaming or playing gigs these days.  Too many calories in beer that actually has taste.  The rest of my casual drinking involves whiskey these days.  Hell I rcently decided that scotch plus ice cubes qualifies as a mixed drink.


This is neither here nor there, however.  In trolling the blogosphere looking for ways to not study for tomorrow's FIN 408 exam, I ran across a HoP related post and almost crapped myself.  Over on Crew Shaken, Not stirred, DaveHowitzer, the author was so tickled by being included in HoP's weekly top X list that he made up some cocktails dedicated to Lauby and Brent.  Now we're not doing the whole HoP thing for Internet fame, but I see this as a positive sign that we're helping to empower gamers and bloggers and perhaps inspire people to new heights of insanity.  This has gotten me thinking about what would be in a Dethtron themed cocktail.  Hopefully it involves raw egg. 

Anyway, that's it for today.  I should probably start studying a little bit.  If you're reading this and still haven't friended, followed, or joined the HoP blog network, make sure you do so today.  I'm sure there are still a few of you readers out there that need to check it out.

Steppin' out with dethtron

Commence speculation

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Rock and Roll Diary: Engine Face Drums

Hoagy was kind enough to record some video of me playing, with me only being partially aware of it.  So here is, I think*, part of my first pass at Engine Face, the song I posted last night.  My favorite part is when I clearly go into the chorus a phrase early and am visibly pissed at myself.  Thanks for recording me playing like shit Hoagy :)






*It must have been pretty early, since I still had my glasses on.  I usually ditch those as soon as I start to get sweaty.  I'm pretty new to the glasses thing- anybody have a way to prevent them from fogging up?

Friday Night Internet Fight: Round 32

Fucking blogger just ate nearly all of my fucking post and now I'm re-fucking doing the whole god damn fucking thing.  Hey blogger, thanks for wasting 2 hours of my fucking time you piece of shit.

Re-enter the wall of text.  This week's fight comes from Black Matt's blog, where he wrote a highly confusing article about the upcoming battle for salvation for no obvious reason.  Apparently it was supposed to be an extreme argument for comp, since -duh- not all codices are created equal.  I honestly didn't get that from reading the article, but Matt himself admits that he "lack(s) the literary prowess to communicate everything effectively."  True enough, because they only thing that I got out of this whole thing is that you're a fat cunt.

Friday Night Internet Fight: Results Show- Rounds 30 and 31

It seems as though I forgot to post last week's results.  Whatever, it was a busy day, as that's when I started recording.......  Luckily I was kind enough to myself to accidentally leave the closed poll up all week so I can just lump the past two fights into one post.  Booyah!

Round 30
We had a pretty damn big turnout for this one, with 76 voters contributing.  In the battle of who is less of a jerk in the realm of pivoting to "gain extra movement" there was a pretty clear cut winner.  Corrode roped in 42% of your hearts and minds, just by making sense and adhering to what's written in the rules- something which too many posters seem to neglect in life. 

15% of you liked Frosty for talking about real world tanks to get his point across and even bringing video evidence to the table.  I'll have to admit that this is one of the only times I didn't want to punch somebody in the dick for comparing real life to 40k (or vice versa).  Additionally it would appear that 18% of  you are getting sick of arguments about and perhaps the entire concept of WAAC gaming.  You can lump me in that category as well.  The next few posts will hopefully not really invovle this topic- I think it needs a rest.

There were some other votes in there as well, but due to how long ago this fight was, it's barely relevant to discuss the minutiae.

Round 31
In the case of ZombYes v. Everyone else, it looks like the ravaging hordes of the un-undead have prevailed.  Fueled by rumors that pretty much every Dark Eldar unit will be able to take long ranged poison weapons, the entire Internet went into panic mode.  Thank god some level headed people in the YTTH comments section were able to finally bring some sense into the equation.

Sadly, though, I feel like I'm preaching to the choir here to some extent- or at least to the 55 of you that voted.  Fuck, I think that the votes even show this; we had lowish turnout and 41% of you would rather go club baby seals than give a shit about the fight.  In more "tell me something I didn't already know" news, Tarik clearly summed it up perfectly and sarcastically and managed to eke out the win among participants with 36% of the vote.  If I really must confess, Tarik's post was 90% of the reason I used this thread for FNIF.  In other obvious news, it would seem that even I don't see a connection to the works of Jonathan Ames and the fight- I think it maybe had something to do with his writings about being an amateur boxer and obsession with fecal humor, but really I think I just watched too much Bored to Death last week.  Meh, whatever, it's my blog things don't have to make sense.  In any case, the good news is that only 3% of you were with the Internet Chicken Little majority and feel that poison weapons en masse will shatter the already shaky game system.

Rock and Roll Diary: The Brutality continues....

Sadly, due to a number of guitar related issues, we are officially 4 hours over our recording budget with 1 track still needed vocals and a number of other touch ups needing to be done here and there.  We've got the time and $$ to make this happen, but it sucks watching the cost of recording skyrocket before my eyes.  But at least we all know how things will be when we go to flesh out our full length down the road.  In hindsight I'm honestly going to blame a lot of this on the fact that all of us have recorded exclusively with 4 piece bands in the past and underestimated how long recording 5 people would take.  Live and learn I guess. 

Rock and roll diary: vokills

Hoagy bunkers down to nail his vocals.  This should be our final day of recording.

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Rock and roll diary: the muscles from... Schaumburg

Brad clomps out some guitar solos

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Rock and roll diary more buried treasure

...and it was about that time that we found producer dan precision of 88 fingers louies squats.  Hoagy just peed himself!

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Rock and roll diary buried treasure

Digging through the studio and found this

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Rock and Roll Diary: Day 2 Sneak Peaks

Finished up the second day of recording a few hours ago and after taking time to decompress a bit, sat down to twiddling my knobs, as Hoagy would say.  By which I mean I started on a rough rough rough mix of adding synth to live elements to make sure everything jives. It's sounding good so far.  It'll be even better when I export everything for our producer to tweak (Dan from 88 Fingers Louie), but you can get the basic idea here. 

We finished up 1 (of 2) guitars today and all the bass parts.  I think we're a little behind schedule for tomorrow, so looks like we're going to be over budget shortly.  1 guitar and Hoagy's vox are set to begin tomorrow morning.  Hopefully we can knock out all the recording tomorrow, but I have my doubts that we'll get any final mixing done.  Who knows though, we might have some "1 take wonder" tracks for tomorrow.


This is what the guitar and drums sound like for the still as yet un-named song about vikings.  As with yesterday, there is pretty much no mixing or studio magic involved in this yet- I'm just showing you all the process as it progresses.



Viking ROUGH by dethtron




Here we get on to an extremely rough edit with adding the synths in to what you heard above for the first time.  I left the levels where I had them while I was still writing, so the synths and such are still at a much higher volume than the will be in the final mix- well except those chimes, those may get louder.  Also upon hearing this again, I think I forgot to mute the synth bass, but it's no biggie since I didn't have time to grab a wav of the live bass for his anyway- which is a shame, because Ian blew us all away with his playing today.  I promise this won't be one of those bassless metal albums you're used to.



Viking song first rough draft w synth unmixed by dethtron

Rock and roll diary denim edition

Guitar 1 is done.  Ian gets bass underway festooned in his canadian tuxedo featuring a jim beam hat and trout embroidered jean jacket.

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Rock and Roll Diary: Sneak Peaks

It's been a long, yet surprisingly fun day for me.  I got all four of my tracks knocked out in the studio in slightly less time than I was allotted.  Set up was a complete bitch, but I think it will all be worth it when everything is mixed.  Our producer says I had $17,000 worth of mikes hooked up to my shit today.  That kind of blew my mind.  It's always depressing blowing 2+ hours of studio time on setup and level checking though. 

Anyway, my hands feel like they've been run over, trampled, and then run through a wood chipper, so I'm just about done typing.  Below I'm going to post 2 tracks from the day.  Bear in mind these are VERY VERY VERY early mixes.  Nothing has really been eq'd, had effects added to it or been particularly cleaned up.  My takes have been edited together into a final rough mix and that's it.  There hasn't been much studio magic yet and my kick sounds really weird since it's been eq'd (ok so some things have temporary eq on them) to cut through better so everyone can hear it.  The guitar was laid down yesterday by Joe and while it is super helpful to have a scratch track, there are many parts that will probably sound off to you.  Rest assured, my shit is pretty much spot on with the click track though (metronome).  If you don't know how albums are recorded here is a basic order.  A quick throwaway guitar, vocal, or bass track is laid down set to a metronome.  The drummer then plays over that, again along with a metronome.  From there the "scratch" guitar or whatever tracks are removed and the rest of the parts are layered on.  we got rhythm guitar done on one track tonight, but I don't have any of that available for your perusal.  If I get a chance I'll post these same two songs with more stuff mixed in tomorrow, so you can hear how things evolve.

Up first is the ep's title track: Knights of the Templar.  The guitar at the end was way off, so it was cut out of the rough mix, so just imagine that it's there.  Actually listening to it now, the guitar is a little off throughout, but the end was especially not good.  Again I will remind you that this is a very rough mix and only barely represents how the final product will sound.



03 rise of the templars unmixed by dethtron


Last but not least here is the as yet still untitled song about Vikings that I had previously posted synth parts for. This should song more metal than the all synth mix :)



04 untitled unmixed viking shenaniga by dethtron

Rock and roll diary

Let the destructification begin

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Brad gets down to some serious business

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Friday Night Internet Fight: Round 31

As you know, I'm pressed for time, but since I completely forgot to arrange for somebody else to do FNIF for me this week, I came up with something slightly different- a one sided fight with nobody representing the opposition.  Unless you're living under a rock you probably already know that the Dark Eldar are getting a new codex soon and probably don't smell like rocks.  If you're extra savvy and cutting edge, you may also have heard some rumors that the DA might be able to fit poison ranged weapons on just about every unit.  This has erupted in the inevitable shitstorm of morons running around claiming that 'nids are screwed, DA have broken the game (before they're even fucking released), and the sky is falling. 

Rock and roll diary: Tetris

After a rousing game of irl tetris all my gear is packed for the morning and day 1 of recording.

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Testing

Suck my balls blogger

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

How I Got Hooked on Warhammer and Why I'm Glad Island of Blood Wasn't Out Then Part 2

To refresh your memories, in part one of this two part series, I discussed my humble beginnings in wargaming, growing up in a medium sized city with few resources to offer the novice gamer.  Without the help of my dad's model railroad experience and learning with friends, I would have been screwed. 

Fast forward to today and we'll see if things have gotten better for the community.  My hometown had at least one dedicated, still solvent game store with GW support, last I knew.  That's an improvement over what I had.  FLGSs are a great resource for novice players, giving an environment where staff and patrons can teach game systems, show you assembly, and give painting tips.  In a brief and completely unscientific survey, it looks like most moderate sized towns have some kind of game store within a reasonable distance.  That's pretty good considering the average FLGS is hell bent on running itself out of business. 

Rock and Roll Diary Part II

Had a fairly  boring day on the music front.  Due to my getting ahead yesterday, there wasn't a lot to be done.  I got my drums tuned where I want them.  Thanks to recording the head tensions prior to changing heads yesterday, though, it took me longer to set everything up than it did to tune the drums.  My Premier kit has always been exceptionally good at holding its tuning, so I'm not worried about them slipping out of tune between now and Friday, when we start recording, or even after I start playing them.  Just in case, though I have a printout of my head tensions stowed in my snare drum case.  Additionally, I have a spare head for every drum now, because of yesterday's almost unwarranted change.  I've never broken a tom head in 20 years of playing, but I do periodically blow out snare heads, so it's nice to have a good extra handy.  I hit fairly hard, but mostly use my wrists and fingers, like you should, so it's not so much the power of my playing that busts heads as it is the fact that I crank my snare way the fuck up to get the sound I like. 

Finally, you may have noticed the bad ass artwork up top.  That is going to be the EP cover.  We commissioned an artist to paint that for us about a month ago and he brought that to us in record time.  I almost got sex wee all over my leg the first time I saw it.  This is probably the first time that I've been truly happy with album artwork on any of the 5 or so albums I've been involved with in the past. 

PS, to clarify some questions/statements from yesterday regarding the demo backing track I put up.

1. Sounds Symphonic- what I posted was just strings and a couple of odds and ends (chimes and a filtered synth).  This will be low in the final mix, adding depth to the 2 guitars, bass, drums, and vocals.
2. Doesn't sound metal- see above, but also note that we have a far more classic sound than what's big with the kids today.  I like a lot of the more modern stuff just fine myself, but I'm becoming increasingly disillusioned with the studio magic that goes into producing a lot of that stuff.  Faking drum parts, over producing everything, and pitch correcting vocals is not only unimaginative, but takes away the human element of the songs.  In short, we're less Dragonforce/Dimmu Borgir and more Iron Maiden/Judas Priest/Motorhead/Bolt Thrower/Cathedral

Rock and Roll Diary Part I

This week is going to be crazy busy for me.  As such I'm not going to have a whole lot of time to talk about 40k or WFB.  That doesn't mean that I won't be posting though, but that I've got something different on my mind.  I will still finish part II of my IoB rant, though.  As I've alluded to in the past, I'm in a new metal band, Crusader, hot on the heels of dissolving the Psychobilly band that I was in, the Massacres.  This weekend we're going to be in the studio recording 4 tracks for our first EP entitled Rise of the Templars, which has been inspired by the mythology of the Knights Templar as well as the Blind Dead films.  I won't go on, but I'm sure my singer, Hoagy, can go into more detail in the comments if he cares to. 

Friday Night Internet Fight: Round 30

What up bitches?  It's Friday again, let's have us an Internet fight.  Comcast came out and replaced all my cable wiring outside the house, so hopefully I'll be able to write this shit without my modem resetting every ten minutes.  That would be totally tits. 

For today we turn our attention to the home of snarky comments and mega trolling (all in good fun and taste, of course), The Warhammer Forum for some tactical discussion.  Now who would ever expect a conversation about using pivoting to gain extra vehicle movement would turn into an argument?  Well I never....

FNIF: Round 29 Results Show

Looks like we've solved your quandary Brent: it is not ok to use the name of a brutal, genocidal maniac for a screen name.  A scientific poll has now proved it.

This week we had a near record voter turnout with 93 votes.  Brent being Brent, he had links out several places asking for people to vote for him.  It wasn't quite as crazy as the first time Brent got a poll, but it still amuses me to no end.  I think we also got more readers because I kept the fight short too.  Let me know how you guys feel on that.  I know the FNIFcan get kind of long. 

It was a complete fucking blowout in Brent's favor, with he and his faux-hawk receiving a bone-crushing 72% of the vote.  How did the lovable, charming Warboss_Stalin fare, you ask?  Well he didn't get a single vote at all.  Justice.  He did get a 7% share if you count the "not Brent" votes for him, though- a fact that 11% of you guys realized.

GW Acknowledges WAAC Gamers; The First Rule Can Suck My Balls

Yesterday GW's What's New Today Blog, home of a daily dose of pretty pictures and no useful hobby information, acknowledged and possibly defined what a WAAC gamer is.  If you read far enough into the 9/22/10 Throne of Skulls Survival Guide, you would have run into the following after being bored to tears by the most obnoxious survival guide ever:

the temptation to play to win at all cost can overtake the best of us. However, any unscrupulous play will not earn you many friends and may eventually lead to retribution. If you can't swim I'd be extra friendly just to be on the safe side

There you have it, a WAAC player, according to a published GW contributor, is unscrupulous (a cheater) and acts like a dick. There is no mention whatsoever of bringing a good list, playing by the rules as written, or playing a tight, hard game (no homo, not that there's anything wrong with that). So everyone that I've argued with in comments threads, forums, FNIF's, my mind, in person, or whatever can officially fuck off. Invoking the first rule (have fun, or some bullshit) is likely to earn you a swift kick (or maybe a kwik kick) to your shriveled little testicles. Playing a good game with a good list does not make you a WAAC gamer; being a jerkoff and ruining somebody's "fun" does.

How I Got Hooked on Warhammer and Why I'm Glad Island of Blood Wasn't Out Then Part 1

My copy of Island of Blood just arrived, and as I expected, it is chock full of sweet sweet miniatures and has a rulebook that is actually functional.  This is a welcome departure from the 9,000 page monstrosity that I have been using.  Be that as it may, something doesn't sit right for me, and maybe never has.  How do you prevent a novice player from being overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of the hobby and rules aspects of the set and game in general?

Friday Night Internet Fight: Round 29

In this week's fight, two men enter and one cup leaves.  Wait, I think that's another thing entirely.  Back to the thunderdome!  In truth, though, this week's fight only involves 2 people for the first time I can recall.  This is a huge first for us here and a great feat considering the fight is from BoLS. 

FNIF: Round 28 Results Show

You guys officially all suck balls.  "Worst 200th post ever" appears to have won by a wide margin, snaring 39% of the 53 votes this week while decimating my feelings.  It wasn't that bad, you're all just jerks.   Just kidding, I still love you all... except you, you know who you are.

Saint Hazard was able to snag 21% of the vote, destroying the other actual participants even though he squandered what should have been an easy victory by turning into a jackass halfway through the ordeal. 

Time to write up the next fight, so stay tuned.

Return to the Ogre Kingdoms

After a couple people pointed out that my previous Ogre list was illegal and Randroid pointed out that it also sucked, I've made a few changes.  I was able to use better equipment on characters and upgrade my Butcher to a Slaughtermaster while only losing a total of 2 models, both of which are leadbelchers, so probably nothing really lost there anyway ;P  I think the real accomplishment here is that I've resisted the urge to mention Shrek.... shit!

Grinderman

Nick Cave has been busy as of late.  Hot on the heels of a new novel, a critically acclaimed Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds Album, the first record from his side project Grinderman, and scoring a handful of movies such as The Road and The Assassination of the well whatever the rest of that title is, Mr. Cave and co released the second Grinderman album, Grinderman 2 yesterday.  Of course I already have it and of course I got the deluxe edition.  For the other two of you out there that still buy cds, the deluxe edition is totally worth it, even if there are no extra tracks.  The packaging kicks ass.  You get 64 pages of sketches, lyrics, and liner notes that don't come in the regular edition along with a poster. 

In case you're not familiar with the work of Nick Cave, he's an Australian native who has been working in the music business since the early 80s.  He got his start fronting The Birthday Party before forming Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, (and now you know that the Johnny Cash version of that song is a cover) whose revolving cast of members has included more people than I can possibly list here.  Highlights of that roster would have to include Mick Harvey, Neubauten's Blixa Bargeld, and Warren Ellis, though.  He's also written two novels (the first being better than the latest, but both are good), penned the screenplay for the excellent film The Proposition, and scored quite a few other movies as well as lending his voice talent to the short film The Cat Piano.  Tired of links yet?  Sorry, but the fucker is prolific if nothing else.  Thankfully, he is also a god damned genius.  I can't say enough positive things about most of his work, although there are a few Bad Seeds albums from the late 90s/ early 2000s I could have lived without.  He got into this weird sort of gospel music, ultra-mellow religious thing that I don't get.

 Luckily, he's learned to rock again.  The last two bad seeds albums set the tone which he continued in the first Grinderman effort and through into an amplifier again for the newest Grinderman.  The album is like getting punched in the gut...in a good way.  As long as you don't hate rock music, you'll love the album.  Grinderman is composed of Long time Bad Seeds Nick Cave, Warren Ellis (not the comic book writer), Warren Casey, and Jim Sclavunos.  Warren Ellis' guitar work puts a lot of hack players attempts to stretch the limits of their effects pedals look amateurish at best.  The man is a virtuoso on the violin and guitar, although he's actually playing a fendocaster rather than a guitar, which you'll probably see later.

I could try and describe the sound for you, but would no doubt come up short.  The closest I can come is imagine Ministry playing blues rock (but not Ministry playing this, because it was fucking awful and far too literal an interpretation of what I was trying to convey).  Probably best just to let the music speak for itself.







and because Warren Ellis' fendocaster is the craziest thing ever- so much noise from such a tiny little thing (and the entire band collectively look like Jesus), here's a live clip from the first Grinderman record

2,500 Point Ogre Kingdoms List

It's official- I've been bitten by the fantasy bug.  After getting in a game with my Empire army, I'm really excited about playing more fantasty.  While I like the Empire, it's not a radical departure from the type of army I normally take.  Grab big guns, set up a cheap meat shield of piss poor troops, perhaps throw in some combos and sneakiness, et voila- sit on your ass and throw templates at people all day from the comfort of your own deployment zone.  Let's look at a brief history of armies that I play/played regularly: Mech IG, Semi-mech IG, airborne IG, Protectorate of Menoth (template/combo city!), Empire, and a deep-striking shooty Tyranid list.  Lots of camping and shooting with a shitload of models.  The pattern should be obvious.

Friday Night Internet Fight: Round 28: Post 200 Bonanza: Longest Post Title Ever: Colon

Woohoo, I've made it to my bicentennial post and even got it to randomly sync up with FNIF.  Hooray for me.  It's seriously been a fun ride guys and gal, so thanks for reading and sending me e-mails about all of the stuff/people that are pissing you off in the hobby.  Isn't catharsis great?

Friday Night Internet Fight, Round 27 Results show

Well that was barely a contest as it turns out.  With 58 votes this week we were up from last week slightly, but down from where I know we could be.  I'll blame my inability to maintain a posting schedule these last few weeks.

With 44% of the vote, The Paint Monkey had no problem pulling out the W this week.  His only stiff competition came from the joke votes about 'shrooms and adults controlling all of the money in gaming, with 25% and 24% of the vote respectively. 

You'll all be happy to know that late yesterday evening, I replaced my cable modem, so I am fully functional again.  Hopefully I can make a better account of myself this week.  Ps, fuck Amazon.  I buy A LOT of shit from them and pay to be an Amazon Prime member to get free 2 day shipping.  Increasingly, however, this has run well over 2 days.  Case in point- I just bought a TI BAII+ calculator and modem, both eligible for 2 day shipping, which took 4 and 5 business days to arrive.  Glad I'm paying for that great service.  I probably won't be renewing that (much like my Barnes and Noble membership that I let lapse recently- seriously, $25 to get a 10% discount in stores and online and free shipping and then they go ahead and extend member benefits to everyone on their web store?  That's a fucking dick move right there.  Not to mention, their prices aren't even competitive with the discount...)

I'm not dead, but my cable modem is

I apologize for the lack of posts of late, but as I have alluded to previously, I'm having Internet connectivity issues at the moment.  Specifically, my cable modem is completely jacked and I only have a connection briefly and intermittently as it spontaneously resets itself (according to my isp it reset 50 times in a 12 hour period).  Woo hoo good times. 

My new hardware should be here later today or tomorrow, though, so I'll be up and running again soon.

In other news, I got to bust out my empire forces for my first game of WFB since 1997 against Hoagy this past weekend.  I had a blast in spite of the forces of fate conspiring against me.  I did learn some valuable lessons though

1. Pistoleers are the shit
2. That Tomb Kings spell that gives you extra shooting or close combat attacks is crazy annoying
3. Always give expensive wizards some type of ward save
4. Never trust probabilities (I'll be posting a brief article about this on the HOP later this week)

To check out a brief battle report and see more pictures of partially painted minis from the event (like the above) check out Hoagy's blog When Cannons Fade and then go listen to some Bolt Thrower.

Speaking of metal, my new band, Crusader,  is playing its first show tonight for free at the Exit in Chicago at 10:00 if you're in the area.

Friday Night Internet Fight, Round 27

If you had asked me this time yesterday what the FNIF what going to be about, I would have told you it wasn't happening.  I'd been dealing with my cable Internet being down for nearly 2 days followed by a day of my modem being responsive for about 15 minutes every hour.  Hence my general lack of presence on teh intertubez this last week.  But, the problem appears to have been on my ISP's side rather than a problem with my modem, and everything is working fine now, so we'll just move on.

Friday Night Internet Fight, Round 26 Results Show

The polls are closed and we have a winner!  For the second time in recent history, somebody actually won a FNIF- pretty definitively this time too, if I may be so bold.  Sadly, this poll was also one of the least active we've had here in quite some time with only 49 votes.  I blame my utter lack of having time to post anything of substance to drive traffic this week.  Oh well, better luck next time.

Back to the subject!  PagingMrHerman managed to corner the market on win this week with 42% of the vote, so congrats on that one.  Even though he clearly started a thread to get in a fight and be a dick, he still managed to win your hearts.  jmurph managed to grab 14% of the vote and "whoever wins, society loses" snagged 20% of your votes.  Everything else was scattered around in clusters of 1-2 votes that were probably mostly sarcastic or people with google alerts voting for themselves. 

Stay tuned fight fans, round 27 is coming up shortly.

HOP's First Article, Self-Promotion, and Self-Loathing

Today sees the first actual article being posted on the House of Paincakes blog.  It's from Kirby, and I think you'll all like it.  There will be a link below.  Actually, half of Kirby's first article is up, to be more correct.  We split it in two at the last minute- shit was long, yo. 

Just to update everyone, the HOP is still moving along at a pretty good pace.  This week will see us working with a daily post schedule.  If you're interested in writing for he HOP, e-mail us with your ideas and we'll see what happens. 

In other news, my second FNIF: Extra Innings went up on BoK and nobody seems to have noticed :(  Please go check it out and comment so I can stop feeling bad about life.  Thanks to Brent for being the first and only commenter thus far. 

Here are some links for you guys:

Kirby's Article

FNIF: Extra Innings

Friday Night Internet Fight, Round 26

This week's fight was brought to my attention by stormy.  I'm glad he e-mailed it to me, because with setting up the House of Paincakes and needing to look for a FNIF: Extra Innings fight as well, I've been pretty busy.  Add to that needing to find textbooks, get shot down for a job I was feeling good about, and my step mom's partial paralysis at the hands of spinal inflammation (she's getting better after steroid treatments), and it's been a busy week or so.

Friday Night Internet Fight, Round 25 Results Show

Another week has gone by and with it another fight has entered the annals of history. With a total of only 60 votes, this fight was down a little from the norm (high 70s+).  No worries, we'll get them next time.  More importantly, we're back to normal with nobody winning the fight.  Kraken got close with his 18% of the vote, but could not compete with the non sequiturs.

We had a tie for the winner at 26% each.  It was conclusively proved that, in spite of a noble effort, Brent is not Cormac McCarthy and that many of you clicked on the e-mail about the spider and never came back.  If I didn't have to write the damn thing, I probably would have never returned from that e-mail either; that guy can troll.  Keeping with the fight's pervasive nautical theme, 21% of you thought that all of the participants should be sent to Davy Jones' Locker.

Activity Time...  As you all chomp at the bit over this next hour or so While I finish FNIF round 26, here are some things you can do.

1. Check out and join the House of Paincakes
2. Read up on the forthcoming movie based on Cormac McCarthy's novel Blood Meridian.  Fun fact: the film's director played 'ol Drippy on Aqua Teen Hunger Force
3. Check out the David Thorne (the Australian responsible for the spider e-mail) website.  Note, at the time of writing, the site was having DNS issues, but should be up again some day.