Continued existence
May. 17th, 2007 03:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mythicfoxSometimes I feel like, news-wise, I'm in the eye of the storm. I go out of my way to not keep up and everything just swirls around me and I snatch glimpses of it out of the air.
Okay, for those of you who didn't roll their eyes at that and go away here's the rest of the post...
Sony's lost a metric fuckton of money on the PS3. Can anyone say with a straight face that they're legitimately surprised? Now, Sony's probably going to make a bunch of that back when a game worth playing comes out for the system, but their insistence on getting the PS3 to market at Christmas and expecting online play to keep people distracted until MGS4 releases is what is colloquially known as "dropping the fucking ball." In a gaming market where system loyalty has been more or less bred out of the fans by the combined factors of the N64's failure, the loss of Sega as a console manufacturer and the subsequent takeover by the Playstation, has any individual company been helped by establishing competing launch dates where all of the launch titles are ported to every other system anyhow? Especially when your console costs almost as much as the other two put together.
What's going to establish dominance in the console market isn't who gets out a machine just in time for Christmas; it's going to be who gets a game that no other system has that is worth getting the system for. I haven't bought any of the new systems yet because I'm not seeing any games that grab me (hell, I only recently bought a Nintendo DS). I haven't seen anything out for the new systems that has gotten my attention[0]; I'm not going to get a system just for MGS4, there's nothing on the Wii that's caught my attention, and I couldn't care less about Halo.[1] As soon as they come out with a few decent games for the system that the other consoles aren't going to get, then I'll drop money on them. But either way, I'm not dropping five-fucking-hundred dollars on a console.
Also, I myself neither have nor plan to get any of the paid radio systems (Sirius or XM), but I still respect all of the protests headed XM's way from the Opie & Anthony incident. If I was paying for radio for the sole purpose of hearing filth that I can't hear on regular radio and the pay-radio people say "No." I'd be pissed too.
Okay, where we left off, the throng had put together plans to use Rudolf's Electrification Transmutations with a weird homemade gadget to try and boil away the water in the quarry's pool. They regrouped and got some supplies from the hardware store (including a pickaxe for Ander, just in case something happened since a melee weapon would be more useful in his hands than one of the firearms the group has picked up) and drove down to the quarry.
Evie Matskalla (the fortune teller) was standing by the pool of water, gazing out over it with her eyes glazed over. Ander was sent to talk to her and get rid of her while the rest of the Throng started getting the stuff together. I can't recall off-hand if he just volunteered or if he was chosen because he was the only one who hadn't met her before and thus wouldn't seem as suspicious.
He managed to snap her out of her daze, and she said she was ruminating on some strange visions she'd received... her premonitions had come under some limitation, where she couldn't see anything past 4 days into the future. She didn't know why. She suspected it had something to do with the quarry, but it wasn't to be drained for a good long while. The only event she could think of scheduled for that time was an impending thunderstorm predicted by the local weathermen. Ander took note of this and was able to talk her into contemplating the issue someplace away from the quarry.
Needing a quick recharge before the plan is put into action, Rudolf and Steve went out looking for a power transformer to screw around with. With the help of Electrostatic Recharge, Rudolf got a recharge of his Pyros for the throng's little experiment. As he did so, the transformer let out a loud crack that could be heard at some distance, and despite the clear sky everyone was sure they could make out what sounded like the rumble of thunder.
They returned to the quarry (Steve insisting on parking the van on the small cliff overlooking the pool rather than right next to it) and Rudolf grabbed the lightning rod attached to the device that was going to try to boil the water away. He gave it three good bursts as more thunder rumbled and clouds came from nowhere to cover the sky. They could see the clouds come together and leave a hole just above the quarry, and at the same time a glow formed beneath the surface of the water. As the third lightning bolt went into it, a beam of light shot forth right through the hole in the clouds. Then the throng heard something, barely a whisper but loud enough to hear...
"What rises may fall. What has fallen may rise again."
They had just long enough to realize that the whisper came from the mute-up-to-now Derek-Hans, just before there was a deafening crack of thunder. It shattered the windows on the van and was accompanied by hail. Now, two minutes before, the sky was clear. But now it was clouded over and hail the size of softballs was falling from the sky.
Steve and Derek ran for cover under the nearby trees, while Ander took the punishment for a few seconds before joining them. Rudolf insisted on standing out there until it was clear that the pelting of big hunks of ice was going to continue until it killed him, at which point he dove into the pool of water and swam over to the cave (the water seemed to be blunting the impact of the hail almost completely).
The inscription on the cave wall was glowing, and he tried to scrape it off to no effect. He was still in there, beaten nearly to the point of falling apart a few minutes later when the hail ended. Ander swam across and saw the inscription in its full glory as he pulled Rudolf out and helped him back to shore. He helped to set Rudolf's damaged limbs to assist in the Tammuz' use of Regeneration before diving back into the water to check the equipment.
Well, presumably to check the equipment (which was still working). While down there, Ander cut his hand open and bled into the waters to silently wish for 'a great destiny' for Derek.
After Ander surfaced, Steve opted to take a drive around in the now-beat-up van to see if the town survived the hailstorm intact. Derek went with him. While they were out there, Misty pulled up in the car. She'd heard the thunder and at the request of Alexander went to see if everything was okay. She offered to heal some of his damage with one of her own abilities, and Ander and Rudolf were surprised (and a little disturbed) to notice that when she did so she started developing visible wounds that resembled the ones that were disappearing from Rudolf's body.
Ander, now realizing what the effort cost, declined to have his own damage (albeit minor) taken care of. Misty gave Rudolf a drive out to the transformer again to recover (with no rumble of thunder this time) and took him out to Alexander's. Shortly after she left, Steve and Derek come back and Steve tells Ander that any sign of the hailstorm's existence ends about 300 feet from the pool. Steve goes to catch up with Rudolf while Derek and Ander keep an eye on the equipment at the quarry, as it would take a while to work.
Steve, Rudolf, and Misty all get back to the cabin at the same time. Alexander is waiting for them, and after a description of what happened he explained in a nutshell what exactly happened... They'd just experienced a 'Firestorm,' a massive storm of energy often caused by a surge of unstable pyros into the environment. Something at the bottom of that pool of water was reacting to the lightning, but because it was 'unnatural' (having come from a Transmutation) in the same way that it can't heal other Prometheans it tainted the experiment. Alexander said that he'd heard there was going to be a natural thunderstorm in a couple of days, and maybe they could repeat the experiment then.
Steve picked up Ander and Derek and started to fill them in on what happened. Ander revealed, though, that in the meantime his own knowledge of alchemy and the science behind Prometheans had led him to the same conclusions (although the term 'Firestorm' was a new one to him). Steve brings Ander and Derek back to Alexander's while they discuss backup plans. We left off with the group discussing maybe breaking up the rest of the rocks in the quarry and trying to fill in the pool since that might not count as 'draining the water down.'
Oh, that reminds me, now that the DVD set for Venture Brothers Season 2 is out, I need to get around to updating that 'Nuclear Promethean' icon of mine now I can do a decent screen capture from the DVD and not a Youtube-type website. Although since I don't think there's a way to replace an icon's image without deleting it and putting it back, I'm probably just going to create a new one and only use that in new posts so I don't have to go back and edit all of the past entries that use it. Maybe I'll do that and then go back and edit the old entries to match the newer icon, and... I dunno. I'm overthinking this.
Later.
[0]-- I'm sure anyone who's actually been paying attention to my LJ remembers my "Six games" rule, which contributes to this.
[1]-- I got tired of first-person shooters sometime between the release of Quake 2 and the time I completely dominated a Deus Ex multiplayer match simply by taking over the automated turrets.
Okay, for those of you who didn't roll their eyes at that and go away here's the rest of the post...
Sony's lost a metric fuckton of money on the PS3. Can anyone say with a straight face that they're legitimately surprised? Now, Sony's probably going to make a bunch of that back when a game worth playing comes out for the system, but their insistence on getting the PS3 to market at Christmas and expecting online play to keep people distracted until MGS4 releases is what is colloquially known as "dropping the fucking ball." In a gaming market where system loyalty has been more or less bred out of the fans by the combined factors of the N64's failure, the loss of Sega as a console manufacturer and the subsequent takeover by the Playstation, has any individual company been helped by establishing competing launch dates where all of the launch titles are ported to every other system anyhow? Especially when your console costs almost as much as the other two put together.
What's going to establish dominance in the console market isn't who gets out a machine just in time for Christmas; it's going to be who gets a game that no other system has that is worth getting the system for. I haven't bought any of the new systems yet because I'm not seeing any games that grab me (hell, I only recently bought a Nintendo DS). I haven't seen anything out for the new systems that has gotten my attention[0]; I'm not going to get a system just for MGS4, there's nothing on the Wii that's caught my attention, and I couldn't care less about Halo.[1] As soon as they come out with a few decent games for the system that the other consoles aren't going to get, then I'll drop money on them. But either way, I'm not dropping five-fucking-hundred dollars on a console.
Also, I myself neither have nor plan to get any of the paid radio systems (Sirius or XM), but I still respect all of the protests headed XM's way from the Opie & Anthony incident. If I was paying for radio for the sole purpose of hearing filth that I can't hear on regular radio and the pay-radio people say "No." I'd be pissed too.
Okay, where we left off, the throng had put together plans to use Rudolf's Electrification Transmutations with a weird homemade gadget to try and boil away the water in the quarry's pool. They regrouped and got some supplies from the hardware store (including a pickaxe for Ander, just in case something happened since a melee weapon would be more useful in his hands than one of the firearms the group has picked up) and drove down to the quarry.
Evie Matskalla (the fortune teller) was standing by the pool of water, gazing out over it with her eyes glazed over. Ander was sent to talk to her and get rid of her while the rest of the Throng started getting the stuff together. I can't recall off-hand if he just volunteered or if he was chosen because he was the only one who hadn't met her before and thus wouldn't seem as suspicious.
He managed to snap her out of her daze, and she said she was ruminating on some strange visions she'd received... her premonitions had come under some limitation, where she couldn't see anything past 4 days into the future. She didn't know why. She suspected it had something to do with the quarry, but it wasn't to be drained for a good long while. The only event she could think of scheduled for that time was an impending thunderstorm predicted by the local weathermen. Ander took note of this and was able to talk her into contemplating the issue someplace away from the quarry.
Needing a quick recharge before the plan is put into action, Rudolf and Steve went out looking for a power transformer to screw around with. With the help of Electrostatic Recharge, Rudolf got a recharge of his Pyros for the throng's little experiment. As he did so, the transformer let out a loud crack that could be heard at some distance, and despite the clear sky everyone was sure they could make out what sounded like the rumble of thunder.
They returned to the quarry (Steve insisting on parking the van on the small cliff overlooking the pool rather than right next to it) and Rudolf grabbed the lightning rod attached to the device that was going to try to boil the water away. He gave it three good bursts as more thunder rumbled and clouds came from nowhere to cover the sky. They could see the clouds come together and leave a hole just above the quarry, and at the same time a glow formed beneath the surface of the water. As the third lightning bolt went into it, a beam of light shot forth right through the hole in the clouds. Then the throng heard something, barely a whisper but loud enough to hear...
"What rises may fall. What has fallen may rise again."
They had just long enough to realize that the whisper came from the mute-up-to-now Derek-Hans, just before there was a deafening crack of thunder. It shattered the windows on the van and was accompanied by hail. Now, two minutes before, the sky was clear. But now it was clouded over and hail the size of softballs was falling from the sky.
Steve and Derek ran for cover under the nearby trees, while Ander took the punishment for a few seconds before joining them. Rudolf insisted on standing out there until it was clear that the pelting of big hunks of ice was going to continue until it killed him, at which point he dove into the pool of water and swam over to the cave (the water seemed to be blunting the impact of the hail almost completely).
The inscription on the cave wall was glowing, and he tried to scrape it off to no effect. He was still in there, beaten nearly to the point of falling apart a few minutes later when the hail ended. Ander swam across and saw the inscription in its full glory as he pulled Rudolf out and helped him back to shore. He helped to set Rudolf's damaged limbs to assist in the Tammuz' use of Regeneration before diving back into the water to check the equipment.
Well, presumably to check the equipment (which was still working). While down there, Ander cut his hand open and bled into the waters to silently wish for 'a great destiny' for Derek.
After Ander surfaced, Steve opted to take a drive around in the now-beat-up van to see if the town survived the hailstorm intact. Derek went with him. While they were out there, Misty pulled up in the car. She'd heard the thunder and at the request of Alexander went to see if everything was okay. She offered to heal some of his damage with one of her own abilities, and Ander and Rudolf were surprised (and a little disturbed) to notice that when she did so she started developing visible wounds that resembled the ones that were disappearing from Rudolf's body.
Ander, now realizing what the effort cost, declined to have his own damage (albeit minor) taken care of. Misty gave Rudolf a drive out to the transformer again to recover (with no rumble of thunder this time) and took him out to Alexander's. Shortly after she left, Steve and Derek come back and Steve tells Ander that any sign of the hailstorm's existence ends about 300 feet from the pool. Steve goes to catch up with Rudolf while Derek and Ander keep an eye on the equipment at the quarry, as it would take a while to work.
Steve, Rudolf, and Misty all get back to the cabin at the same time. Alexander is waiting for them, and after a description of what happened he explained in a nutshell what exactly happened... They'd just experienced a 'Firestorm,' a massive storm of energy often caused by a surge of unstable pyros into the environment. Something at the bottom of that pool of water was reacting to the lightning, but because it was 'unnatural' (having come from a Transmutation) in the same way that it can't heal other Prometheans it tainted the experiment. Alexander said that he'd heard there was going to be a natural thunderstorm in a couple of days, and maybe they could repeat the experiment then.
Steve picked up Ander and Derek and started to fill them in on what happened. Ander revealed, though, that in the meantime his own knowledge of alchemy and the science behind Prometheans had led him to the same conclusions (although the term 'Firestorm' was a new one to him). Steve brings Ander and Derek back to Alexander's while they discuss backup plans. We left off with the group discussing maybe breaking up the rest of the rocks in the quarry and trying to fill in the pool since that might not count as 'draining the water down.'
Oh, that reminds me, now that the DVD set for Venture Brothers Season 2 is out, I need to get around to updating that 'Nuclear Promethean' icon of mine now I can do a decent screen capture from the DVD and not a Youtube-type website. Although since I don't think there's a way to replace an icon's image without deleting it and putting it back, I'm probably just going to create a new one and only use that in new posts so I don't have to go back and edit all of the past entries that use it. Maybe I'll do that and then go back and edit the old entries to match the newer icon, and... I dunno. I'm overthinking this.
Later.
[0]-- I'm sure anyone who's actually been paying attention to my LJ remembers my "Six games" rule, which contributes to this.
[1]-- I got tired of first-person shooters sometime between the release of Quake 2 and the time I completely dominated a Deus Ex multiplayer match simply by taking over the automated turrets.
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no subject
Date: 2007-05-22 03:11 am (UTC)Super Paper Mario
Super Mario Galaxy (or something like that)
backwards compatibility and I can surf the net on it.
Hence, I own a Wii.
:)
no subject
Date: 2007-05-22 04:07 am (UTC)Also, I'm not forced to share a computer with my entire family, so I don't need an extra web browser in my apartment.
When the time comes that a couple more games come out for the Wii, I'll get one.