Some have postulated that we might be on to something. That, in the same way that old men can gauge weather change by swelling of their joints, the human race as a collective is experiencing some kind of universal, time-transcending spidey-sense. We have a notion of doom because there is a reality of doom. Those who consider time an illusion might go as far as to say that we are presently remembering our final chapter and it is not a warm memory. Some say that we are creating our own notion of doom and by doing so creating the doom itself. Many have cited the failings of man as evidence. Our disregard for the environment, penchant for sin, thirst for war and conquest, and growing reliance upon mind-numbing technologies - paired with a general gluttony and short attention span - clearly spells doom in so many words or less. Some of President Bush's more unsettling associates are actually eager for the end to come, which perceivably they imagine to be something like Revelations crossed with the Left Behind series. The people who anticipate the rapture in this way are reminiscent of a lonely, embittered child crouched in the corner of the playground, anxious for the teacher to return and reprimand all the other misbehaving children. Clearly they are impatient.

Some take this impending doom as inspiration, or excuse, for hedonism of all varieties. Beyond resource exploitation - the favored form of corporate hedonism - there is a way in which 'carpe diem' can translate to 'fuck everything you can' or 'take every drug within reach'. And that is what most people would like to be told. But doom seems to be a poor excuse. If it is a world you cherish, shouldn't the final moments be spent in a state that can coherently experience it? Perhaps not. What determines a proper experience of the world is relative. Some say we shouldn't bother to discern gift from temptation. Some say there are no gifts. Others say there are only gifts.

So when I was leaving the theatre after a showing of 'Wall-E' - an on-screen, computer-generated, commercially produced admonition of our addiction to screens, computers, and commercial production - I noticed a young girl looking rather despondently at her empty tray of popcorn and soda. In the movie we had just seen, these items had been the ingredients of doom. She might have been imagining the lovesick Wall-E scooping her trash into a cube four hundred years in the future while her great-great-great...great grandchildren continued her tradition of blissful consumption and waste. Did she have a sense of doom? I worried that the message of 'Wall-E' was not that we should change our slovenly while there remains an Earth to save - but rather that we can continue the present course, because technology will manage to save it before the last moment. Our circuitboard safety net. Any problem that arises, surely the engineers will come up with something to rectify it - the biggest hope being artificial intelligence, which might finally be able to do just about everything for us. And we might even return the favor by letting the machines fall in love while they clean up our mess. That still sounds an awful lot like doom.

He's as cool as I thought he'd be

Man, has it really been a month since I last posted on my own blog???!! I been commenting on forums and generally reading what others have to say about things, so it's high time I got back into the act, I guess. It seems as though I've been so consumed in my toy robot collecting that I've neglected something I've really honestly enjoyed doing.

Well, not that in the year or so I've been doing this geeky blog thing that I haven't had some long absences, but even I'm finding it a bit old. I apologize to anyone who keeps checking back here looking for a new post perhaps, and then just seeing the same boring stuff I posted last time. So in the spirit of halfassedness that you've probably come to expect from DOOMblog, I will attempt to sum up exactly what the hell I've been up to.

Here goes:

1) The Transformers Animated toys finally came out and almost a month early...and I ran, not walked to my local Wal Mart to clean them out. I bought one of everything and it was Christmas in June...and holy shit do I love those toys! Then I promptly came home and cancelled my Hasbro Toy Shop "preorders." (a term that must be used rather loosely when referring to HTS!) And all this about an hour before I went to work. It was a joyous day for my toy robot addiction.

2) A week later, I get an unexpected e-mail from Big Bad Toy Store, that tells me that the "WAVE 3 DELUXES!?! from TF Animated that I pre-ordered is now available!??!" I've never hit the "Ship My Loot" function on BBTS faster than that day. Animated Soundwave at long last would be here. A week later, and the great big box of plastic love arrived...and it was good. Oh...it was good.

So that's been my collecting story for the last month. 18 toy robots in 30 days and my collection is now getting very close to the century mark. What will toy robot number 100 be? Stay tuned to find out.

And lastly, I promise, promise, promise to update this damn blog more. I do. Really. Honestly. I mean it.

And just as I write this entry, the TF Animated Leader Megatron is on it's way from BBTS.

Pictures of my TF Animated of the last month is coming like a freight train to this same bat channel. It will be here. I swear it will.

I love this album. Seriously. I can't really get into the later Cathedral stuff; it's good by most standards but everything pales in comparison to Forest of Equilibrium. The Doom genre seems to cover many different types of sounds, from the more traditional sounds of Black Sabbath and Saint Vitus to the more avant garde stylings of Sunn o))). For me though, this album is the pinnacle of the genre. There's a definite sense of foreboding that comes through from the lyrics, and it's not of the 'the world is going to be eaten by 50,000 demons from the nether-regions of Ka-Za' variety often heard in metal. Nope, the lyrics are much more personal; they dwell on things such as relationships ending and are often almost existential. Listened to carefully the album sounds like some kind of journey - the way the organ swirls upwards and beyond at towards the end of the last track gives a real funereal atmosphere and sense of release. The riffs are as a slow as a steamboat coming into the harbour, and how Lee Dorrian's vocals turned from sounding like two cats fighting in Napalm Death to the mournful dirges on this album I'll never know.

So what does this have to do with veganism? Well not a great deal, but the London Vegan Festival (http://www.veggies.org.uk/event.php?ref=1197 ) is only a couple of months away, and last year at the very same event I bumped into...Lee Dorrian! Well, I say 'bumped into' when in reality I just stared at him in a totally star struck way. I think I read years ago that he was a vegetarian (no surprise, given Napalm Death's lyrics), but I was still surprised to see him. If Lee is there next year I'm determined to pluck up the courage to talk to him about 'Forest of Equilibrium' and see if he has any interesting cookie recipes . Here's hoping.

Wczoraj testowałem dwie gierki kupione dziecku i sobie /skutecznie testowałem :)/ tak skutecznie że nastąpiło wielkie czyszczenie wiatraków wymiana jarzma wiatraka itd. bo się komputer przegrzewał i wieszał na amen w kluczowych momentach /jak się gra wczytała i zrobiło kilka kroków :>/ gierki stare i dzięki temu tanie doom3 i hitman 2 niestety nie udało się zanabyć doom 2 i doom 1 a o te dwie córka prosiła, trzeba będzie z allegro wziąć :(

Generalnie dzień minął na "testach" czy komp się nie zawiesi i dotarłem do połowy dooma :) a dzieciak siedział przy innym kompie.

Podobało mi się podsumowanie dooma na jakimś sajcie "wielki plus za ilość krwi wielki minus za brak sexu" oddaje o tej grze wszystko. Może być dla dzieci bo brak gołych cycków  /a przynajmniej do tej pory ich nie ma/ a ponieważ strzela się do potworów a z ludźmi trzeba rozmawiać hektolitry krwi nie robią wrażenia i nie sądzę żeby to od 18 lat na okładce było uzasadnione i tak to pewnie tylko chwyt marketingowy ale jako stary doomacz trójeczkę też przejdę na najłatwiejszym poziomie z bólami ale dam radę :)

z ciekawostek jeśli dobrze zrozumiałem pewną wypowiedź /przez pryzmat pewnych rozmyślań pierwszosemestrowych/ http://www.goldenline.pl/forum/bibliotekarze/161187/s/1#7208944 /chyba trzeba się zalogować aby zobaczyć/ to straszą moim pomysłem bibliotekarzy :) mam szansę zostać horrorus killus bibliotekus, spokojnie zdążyłem już zapomnieć o tej koncepcji a tu takie przypomnienie oj Marta Marta nie mieszaj w kotle w tą stronę ...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x2021327

Read about the demise of Rush Limbaugh on the site above. Mostly comments. How out of touch are these people?

 http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/07/11/152204.php

Ed Schultz was doing that well? Look at the next article!

http://sayanythingblog.com/entry/ed_schultz_whines_about_his_poor_ratings/

.6 for Schultz; and a bit higher for Rush (and Hannity)!!

http://blatherwatch.blogs.com/talk_radio/2006/03/rush_limbaugh_l.html

More doom predicted for Rush several years ago!!

I just went back to find a few examples of how stupid, dumb and idiotic the left actuallyare. You people are all delusional. These people were wrong, bad wrong, all wrong and more wrong. You have no clue. You have no idea about what you are talking. But the really scary thing about it all is that most of you have the right to vote and will vote. With your track record of idiocy when it comes to someone like Rush, and being so wrong, how wrong are all of you omn Obama? You are all just stupid. If you take time to look at the articles above and read the comments you can see how dumb you lefties actually are. This country is in trouble with people like you in it. I am scared of you. You have no brains and you show it each and every day.

Without further ado... here's Lee Hazelwood and Nancy Sinatra singing "Some Velvet Morning".  One of the strangest, most beautifully bizarre pop songs ever.  Hell, it may be the best pop song ever.

I had the enviable pleasure of getting my first set of travel vaccinations this week. Having suffered from malaria in the past (and probably been closer to death than I would like to admit), a number of people around me have strongly encouraged me to make sure I am properly protected this time around. The whole course of treatment adds up to eight jabs, two ‘drinks’ and a small bucket of pills.

Being the calm and collected man I am, I confidently strolled into the doctors’ surgery to allow myself to be stabbed. Sarah – the helpful local nurse who kindly offered to perform the execution – explained all the protection I required and began to line-up the syringes: five on this occasion. As she mentioned it had been a while since she had administered so many jabs in one go, I began to feel distinctly uneasy...

Not wanting to hide anything from me, she kindly explained all the possible side effects I could experience, not to mention the distinct possibility of my arms dropping off out of shear rebellion. As the first needle gently pierced my skin I nearly fainted! Sarah explained this was not uncommon (yeah right!) and asked whether I wanted to lie down whilst she got me a glass of water... Man, I felt like a proper wuss! Fortunately all other injections went fine and my arms are still working – more or less.

I was also advised to take some broad spectrum antibiotics with me, just in case... As I asked the receptionist whether I needed an appointment to obtain these, she asked whether those are the ones that ‘kill everything dead’. This reminded me of an insect spray we used to use in Uganda called Doom! We used to keep the windows of our room open in the evening to allow the temperature to drop. Just before we would go to bed we would close all windows and doom the room, then leaving it to wait for the dust to settle before we would sweep all the dead meat of the floor.

All of this reminded me of why most people probably don’t do these kinds of fun things. Maybe I am too naive to think of all that can go wrong, but I think I kind’ a like it that way..

Jag räknar Opeth till ett av de absolut bästa banden i världen, om jag bara fick lyssna på 5 skivor i resten av mitt liv så skulle 2001 års mästerverk "Blackwater Park" helt klart vara en av skivorna. Senaste Opeth-skivan "Ghost Reveries" släpptes 2005 och trots att den inte är en av bandens bästa så var den ändå en av det årets bästa skivor. Det säger en del om vilken lägstanivå denna grupp, med sångaren, gitarristen och låtskrivaren Mikael Åkerfeldt i spetsen, besitter. Hur står sig då "Watershed" mot sina föregångare? Det är ingen ny "Blackwater Park" men mot hela bandets katalog står den sig bra.

Inledande "Coil" är en lugn och melankolisk skapelse bestående av en akustisk gitarr, ren sång (både manlig och kvinnlig) och stråkar. "Heir Apparent" brakar sedan igång med ett riff som luktar Black Sabbath lång väg utan att för den delen låta speciellt mycket Sabbath. Här börjar man känna igen Opeth på allvar, "Heir Apparent" och efterföljande "The Lotus Eater" är signifikativ Opethmusik ut i fingerspetsarna. Det är progressiv och melodisk deathmetal varvat med lugnare stunder av ren sång och jag dyrkar helhjärtat. Framförallt "The Lotus Eater" är något så överjävligt bäst att jag vill skriva en hyllning till herr Åkerfeldt. Att låten innehåller blastbeats (är det första gången Opeth?) är inte alls lika konstigt som att Micke väljer att sjunga rent på de partierna. Första gångerna trodde jag att mannen blivit tokig (ren sång på blastbeats, vad i helvete!!!) men ju mer jag lyssnat, ju mer förstår jag storheten. Att inte sätta in growlen förrens de tunga partierna efter renset är makalöst genialt. Jazzpartiet som hoppar in senare i låten tog också ett tag att vänja sig vid men nu älskar jag även det. "The Lotus Eater" är utan tvekan årets låt.

De tre sista låtarna på skivan är dess svaghet, de är inte dåliga men heller inte så överjävligt bra som jag hoppats på. Standard-Opethlåtar skulle jag kalla de, bra som fan men inte i klass med "The Lotus Eater" eller valfri låt från "Blackwater Park". Fjärde låten "Burden" däremot sticker ut på ett välkommet sätt. Som tagen från den stillsamma skivan "Damnation" ger den en härlig välkommen andningpaus. Den är så vacker att jag är på väg att ta till lipen, vilka melodier. Den ostämda gittaren som spelas i slutet måste också nämnas, det är humor på hög nivå för musiknördar. Ett sådant tilltag skulle vara otroligt töntigt på de flesta skivor men när ett så pretentiöst band som Opeth gör det blir det kul. Som att Tool skulle ha med en fis på en av sina låtar ungefär. 

Mikael Åkerfeldt är i mina ögon ett renodlat musikaliskt geni, kan inte tänka mig en annan låtskrivare som kan spotta ur sig så bra skivor på löpande band. Trots att det inte är renodlade mästerverk varje gång så är de ändå mästerverk. Att mannen sedan också äger en pipa i världsklass, både vad gäller hans vackra rena stämma och hans avgrundsgrowl, gör mig inte mindre imponerad av mannen. Micke for President är allt jag säger. "Watershed" konkurrerar nu med Disfears "Live the Storm" och Curseds "III:Architechts of Trubled Sleep" om förstaplatsen på albumlistan såhär långt 2008, hur jag nu ska kunna jämföra detta med två punkskivor?

Bästa låt: "The Lotus Eater"

I'm not a modeler, so I'm utterly gobsmacked that this problem a) exists at all and b) has just been discovered. Because scientists KNOW that sex ratios and body size play a huge role in reproductive success. I can think of a million examples off the top of my head. For example, many fish are sequential hermaphrodites, changing from female to male (or vice-versa) when they reach a certain body size. So by catching the biggest fish, people remove all the males and the population plummets. Or take the case of the Maine lobster - it's not the teeny pound-and-a-quarter lobsters keeping the population going, it's the big monsters that live deep off the continental shelf, so fishing them out is a huge problem. (That's why Maine has a maximum size limit.) The death of a big male fish or big offshore lobster therefore has much bigger ramifications for the population than the death of a small female fish or wee little lobster.

The authors write:

When we apply our new mathematical model to species extinction rates, it shows that things are worse than we thought," said Melbourne. "By accounting for random differences between individuals, extinction rates for endangered species can be orders of magnitude higher than conservation biologists have believed.

We'd best fix that, then.

BDan Fairchild
also interesting: the three day forecast on my weather widget goes Thu, Sun, --
Herbert
huh
BDan Fairchild
i think that means that the next two days after today are going to be skipped entirely, and then the world is going to end from the strain of the distortion of the timeline
Herbert
should I put that in my list?
BDan Fairchild
only if you want to post about it real soon now

---iChat, 7:26AM

An actual update and details of where the hell I've been coming soon

i normally don't do this kinda of stuff sober,bare with me.

currently im 25,im a freelance artist,i do all manner of work ranging from dark fantasy and surreal work to sculpture,photography,film and a bunch of other stuff.below is a bunch of my work,click on it to see my home page,i sell prints,shirts,stickers and am always down for commissions work as long as i have time for it.

i take absolutely nothing seriously,i find almost everything funny and i will probably offend you,fairly quickly.if so,thanks for playing,its a lot more funny when someone leaves mad.

due to insomnia ill be back,drunk out of my mind and will fill this with funny words and forget to ever check it again...man doing this sober is total crap...ill get back to you

www.jesselindsay.com

www.myspace.com/sinslave
i was recently featured in Dark Realms magazine,which rocks! heres the feature:

Como alguien me pidio este wad y la transferencia por MSN demoraba mucho, decidí postearlo ya que, además de ser más rápido dar un link, aparezco en primera posición en Google al buscar "bella.wad" así que aca hay una breve reseña sobre dos wads, Bella.wad y Bella2.wad. Dos wads que con mi noobeza y mi falta de tiempo no puedo superar aún.

Este wad llego a mis manos no recuerdo como. Supongo que cuando aún ZDoom no tenía tantas buenas características y buscaba Pwads de Doom, encontre uno llamado Bella.

Un wad con un arquitectura no muy llamativa, pero que es notable por su dificultad, aunque muchos jugadores comentan que en realidad los enemigos estan colocados de una manera estupida y molesta, y para mi, es tan así como también lo estan los objetos y los secretos, ya que a veces estan como muy "justos" los primeros (no puedes fallar o te ves obligado a usar Fist/Chainsaw) y los segundos no tienen muchas pistas.

Aún así me he entretenido bastante en realidad, además de que es de los pocos wads en que he visto que se usa las versiones "Stealth" de los enemigos y muchas de las batallas más que solo matar hay que buscar un metodo facilmente deducible para acabar con los enemigos sin gastarse mucha munición.

[Link Página de Descarga: Doomworld /idgames Database ]

Bella 2 mientras es bastante diferente. La arquitectura esta mucho mejor detallada (consideren que son wads del 2003) y los mapas son bastante más cortos (pero por los enemigos que tienen igualmente llevan su rato. Los secretos son más predecibles, pero creo que dan demasiado (varias veces una Megaesfera, lol). Derepente, sin embargo, cansan las batallas contra espectros (que son enemigos que uno le gusta matar con la cierra para evitar gastar munición).

[Link Página de Descarga: Doomworld /idgames Database ]

Álbum

Apparently "Finding Nemo" has led to such a demand for clownfish as pets that wild Australian clownfish are now endangered. Wasn't Nemo lost in the first place because he was captured to be a pet to an evil kid? I believe this can only be described as a conservation EPIC FAIL.

Bah. News Media is retarded. I mean really now they use the word "Doom" to describe what would happen after this thing is turned on in August. I'm so sure.

If you know anything about the Large Hadron Collider which I'm kinda guessing most people don't. Which pisses me off actually. I mean this thing is huge, super huge, and it's set to turn on in a month and this is the first the press is releasing anything on it. Seems weird to me. Well anyways, it's this atom smashing machine-the most powerful one ever built-that's some crazy number of feet below Switzerland and France. The whole purpose is to  try and find extra dimensions to prove string theory and discover dark matter by recreating what they think the seconds following the big bang were like.

Okay, issue! You're doing what now??! I'm a very science oriented person. I love geology, paleontology, marine biology...okay so I'm completely bias on the matter because I'm a natural science person. But still...come on now. Trying to recreate the seconds after the big bang?! That doesn't sound like it won't have any reprocautions at all. . . O_O

 I mean I'm not a physicist and the people who actually are think it's pretty safe. I think the quote was that the chances of it causing a global catastrophy were about the same as winning some lotteries. I really don't think that this thing will destroy the planet though. That's not my concern. I trust scientists to a pretty high degree it's just....

They've kept this thing pretty quiet, nobody knows exactley what will happen, and really-
I think science might be going too far.

I think it's already gone too far though...it almost seems like this is necessary now with all the progress we've made. I just appreciate our planet and I would hate to see us destroy it trying to figure out how it was made. I think some things are better left unanswered. We've got this beautiful planet and I never have understood why people can't just appreciate it for what it is and what we know about it. Why don't we spend more time focusing even more about what's on the earth right now instead of how and why the earth is here in the first place? Because I'm guessing...just guessing...but I don't think anyones ever going to find the answer to that one.

The Earth is big enough, why do we need to understand the universe too?

Bah, well anyways. what do I know, I'm just a 17 year old whose too focused on natural sciences, right?
Yeh.

Goodnight.

För att ge er svaret så tänkte jag ge er lite av min spelhistoria, eller hysteri om ni så hellre vill.

Ett Atari XE system, det är där min mani börjar. En "dator" värd namnet. Jag kommer fortfarande ihåg hur det låter när man laddade över speldatan från kassettbanden till internminnet på bjässen. Jag kommer fortfarande ihåg hur pixliga, men ändå så otroligt vackra spelen var. Jag kommer ihåg tiden då spelidén gick före grafik. Jag kommer ihåg att jag har kvar datorn! Om man skulle ta och spela lite idag, på en 32" LCD. Det vore skoj.

Nå, jag tar den tidiga historien lite fortare än den senare, för annars blir det alldeles för mycket text. det som kom efter denna monster till dator var ett konsollsystem som _alla_ någon gång har spelat på, inga undantag, det bara är så! Nintendo (NES). Det här 8-bitars systemet är och kommer alltid att vara historiskt. Med spel som Duck Hunt, Super Mario Bros och Castlevania så revolutionerade NES spelmarknaden. Det var det här som verkligen fick igång min spelhysteri. Det var det här som gjorde att jag nu är blek. Mina pigment fick nog aldrig lära sig vad sol är för något. Nåja, det här var i alla fall ett mellanspel, för det värsta, det kommer nu.

PC. Japp, jag är en av de som gick över från NES till PC direkt, här fjantades det inte runt med Super Nintendo eller liknande sextonbitars konsoller. Här lektes det med en ”IBM PS1” och småspel som inte var värda namnet, tills jag upptäckte DOOM...
Det finns två spel som är de perfekta spelen, utan tvekan. Endast två i många olika varianter. Dessa spel är DOOM(med alla sina expansioner) och DOOM II. Det spelet går ut på är att man endast ska meja ner allt man ser med sina sju-åtta olika vapen man kan använda. Det är ett spel som får de flesta italienska zombie-splatterfilmer verka vara en dålig fylla fylld av dåliga beslut. DOOM serien, jag tycker inte att det tredje spelet vara värt namnet, därav finns det endast två DOOM spel, är spelkänsla när det ligger på topp. Det är dåligt designat, det händer inget nytt i hela spelet. Utan det första du gör, det gör du hela tiden efteråt. I ökande svårighetsgrad så klart.
DOOM har utvecklats på ett ”fanboy stadie” med olika former av "demoner". Z är nog det vanligaste. Z-demonen låter dig spela spelet i Windows-miljö, bättre muskontroller och snyggare grafik. Spelet skiljer sig inte något från det gamla.

Efter DOOM så finns det en till serie PC spel som ligger högst upp på listan. Det är detta jag har väntat på ända sen jag först hörde rykten om att en uppföljare kanske låg i produktion. Det jag pratar om är så klart Diablo. Visst, första spelet var väl inte direkt en höjdare, om man jämför med uppföljaren. Men serien är så utarbetad att det inte går att göra göra en som är lika bra i denna genre. Diablo-spelen går ut på samma sak som DOOM, fast med en liten twist, man slåss med svärd, yxor och klubbor istället för skjutvapen. Så bygger man upp sin karaktär med ett antal förmågor för att bli starkare, t.ex ”Magisk pil” eller ”Våldsamt slag”.
Men det bästa med spelet är den hejdlösa massakern av zombier och vandrande skelett. Det får ens sinne att lugna ner sig så att man kan ta sig ett par turer till city utan att behöva puckla på en oskyldig stackare. Jag tror att båda av dessa spelserier kan användas som terapi för de överaggressiva.

DOOM och Diablo, två spelserier som är det bästa som gjorts. Det är dessa två serier som datorn uppfanns för. Det är dessa två spel som är meningen med livet, allt och universum. Glöm 42!
DOOM kommer inte kunna få en värdig uppföljare längre, det är tur att vi har Diablo.

mata ne
/aku

Doom
Mortal Kombat II
Primal Rage
Star Wars Arcade

Current game count: 4

Ahora, le toco el turno a los amigos de ID SOFTWARE, los cuales ya hace rato vienen prometiendo liberar el motor del doom III el proximo año. Asi que no faltara mucho para poder correro de forma natíva en mi ubuntu. (aunque parece que corria muy bien con Cedega).
Los rumores ya se venian corriendo hace bastante, pero segun http://www.jeuxlinux.fr/, En cuanto saquen a la venta otro Juego (¿Doom 4?).

Mas informacion aqui:
http://comlibre.blogspot.com/2008/06/id-software-liberaria-el-motor-de-doom.html
http://www.doom3linux.com/
http://www.doom3linux.com/index.php?option=com_simpleboard&Itemid=25

Esperemos que aun mas compañias se sumen a esta movida, y podamos disfrutar de nuevos juegos en forma nativa como Half Life 2.

Now, much like I say with my use of tarot cards I do not believe that their uses are magical at all. Instead I say it has a more lasting effect. The mind races involuntarily to connect the variables on the cards or runes to those of their own life. This in many cases is sadly mistaken as magic.

Ahem, anyways this young lady in this picture is a friend named Jen. She is very nice and even helped create the ZHC as we explored in my last post. After shortly researching Runes I made my first product of them. I don't know what to call it, perhaps a "Rune Ruler". It won't measure anything of course, but it will (hopefully) give Jen a sense of aid from Family & Friends, knowledgeable support, new beginnings, and overall protection in her darkest hours. And at it's bottom, this "sideways 8" isn't actually a Rune to my understanding, but it's sort of my trademark and it also represents eternity, meaning this gift will last forever.

Above is the guide I bought at Borders (for only $6.99!) and I recommend it to those who are interested. You can make amulets, talismans, carve runes, etc! I find it very exciting to be active with something so rich in history. I do find it spiritual, but there is a difference between magic and spiritual interest. I see it as a way to guide my own mind, and the better the path, the closer my essence reaches a true void.

 Aww, the above is my second creation. The stone means simply "New Beginnings". Quite sadly it's written in marker, I have yet to master the art of carving. Though I do know what material I'll use when I'm ready: soap stone, easy to carve and well, it's easy! 

This is using Doom Legacy, but with all textured changed and lights so you enjoy. Also is mouse controled, look up look down. Doomlegacy will take also other wads from other games, but if the textured havent been changed and the lights game will be the same, so far, Doom 2, ultimate dooms and Heretic and Heretic II. Also the other executables have been keept inside the doom directories.

With this release you can use also, the Heretic II that i posted before.

4 parts 100mb and the rest.

Download from RapidShare
http://rapidshare.com/files/118537060/Doom_Doom2_HiResolution_textures_Mac.part1.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/118540457/Doom_Doom2_HiResolution_textures_Mac.part2.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/118544589/Doom_Doom2_HiResolution_textures_Mac.part3.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/118549942/Doom_Doom2_HiResolution_textures_Mac.part4.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/118555494/Doom_Doom2_HiResolution_textures_Mac.part5.rar

Download from FileFactory
Doom_Doom2_HiResolution_textures_Mac.part1.rar
Doom_Doom2_HiResolution_textures_Mac.part2.rar
Doom_Doom2_HiResolution_textures_Mac.part3.rar
Doom_Doom2_HiResolution_textures_Mac.part4.rar
Doom_Doom2_HiResolution_textures_Mac.part5.rar

There is an evidentiary basis for supposing that certain other beings, such as chimpanzees, certain dolphins and elephants are self-aware, but this is pretty recent stuff. Pretty much for as long as we've known how to ask the question, we thought we were alone in being sapient.

My usual gauge, then, for what is human, is the ability to think and reason to some degree, and that, I think, is what makes zombie movies such a fascinating and ultimately disturbing genre to me:they play on my sense of what defines humanity, because they show what would be outwardly human by appearance rendered non-human by the absence of sapience and the abandonment of usual human behaviour.

The same thing applies to monster movies, whether subtle, as in the case of Coppola's adaptation of Dracula, or blatant, as is the case with Blade.

Subtlety isn't often a worry for most monster movies (particularly the zombie variety) as many of you will realise, but it does exist in some of them: look at Romero's Dead series, for example, which I have been (re-)watching recently (yes, all of them!). The original classic, Night of The Living Dead is a satire on the Vietnam War and its effects on the society which engendered it and the returning soldiers (it is also accidentally public domain, and I just ache to remake it); Dawn of the Dead, its 1978 sequel, is so well-known as a satire on the consumer culture which dominates America that to talk about it here would be absolutely redundant; and Day of the Dead, the weakest of the "original" trilogy, sends up the military mindset and explores (somewhat unsuccessfully, if we're honest) the idea that humanity's greatest enemy is itself, which is itself a recurring theme in monster movies (look at the non-human monster flicks of the 50s, for example; although their main concern was not humanity’s being perverted but being destroyed by its own hubris, the point remains).

Just a short note on these three - I call them the original trilogy mainly because that's how George Romero has often referred to them. Conceptually, too, they have the feel of a trilogy with a smooth progression of linked events, whereas Land of the Dead and Diary of the Dead feel like they could be stand-alone films: they don't really reference the previous three, and they don’t seem overly satirical. They also show significant differences in zombie behaviour and attributes. Hey, these things matter!

There'll always be a special place in my heart for Romero's Dead series; I think they're true classics which will stand the test of time as commentary on the changing nature of society in the late 20th Century.

On the opposite end of the scale from Romero's deftly crafted satires on politics and society, we have such films as The Slaughter, which is basically pure dross. The plot basically runs that for some hundreds of years, a bunch of witches have made sacrifices on the site of what becomes a farmhouse. Some backstory in the form of a woman who lives there in the 50s and kills her kid under the influence of the soul of the wicked witch follows, then the main plot kicks in: some college students who work at house clearing are hired to clean the place out for the millionaire developer, who for some reason comes to oversee the process with his assistant. Mysterious deaths then ensue, and the evil witch at the heart of it all raises up the kids as zombies, everyone dies, and the end of the world ensues. Notable in no respect, it's almost worth watching for the laughable plot, dreadful acting and crummy special effects; sort of a masterclass in how not to make a good horror film. Its website claims that it's tongue in cheek, and I can sort of see that, about half way through; but it seems more as if the people making it suddenly realised that they were engaged in some really crap film-making and decided to just run with it.

Somewhere in between this silly effort and Romero lie the Resident Evil films. I recently watched the latest instalment of the trilogy, Resident Evil: Extinction. The films are a bit uneven, really; while they’re definitely and obviously an attempt to cash in on the success of the games and are necessarily restricted in their scope and creativity, they’re not that bad.

Films adapted from games have frequently been pretty awful -- for examples, you only have to look at Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat and Doom. Others have merely been mediocre, like Wing Commander, and some, like Resident Evil and Tomb Raider, have actually been relatively competent, if not stellar, examples of their respective genres.

This is not to say that there's nothing wrong with them as movies. They're pretty flat in terms of characterisation; Milla Jovovic is a good singer and competent actress, but in Alice there really isn't much character for her to get to grips with, and while Angelina Jolie isn't going to be winning any Oscars, she is a decent actress and can handle a range of roles, but she certainly wasn't stretched by Tomb Raider.

The films also suffer from a certain flatness of plot, which I think is a sign of the limited scope imposed by a pre-existing narrative structure; adapting someone else's work necessarily entails less imagination than a completely new creation, and the world of the games themselves is very tightly-focused. This in itself prevents character development, too, because it militates against the need for exposition: the background of the story is already pretty familiar to the watcher, so it becomes less necessary to explain things, and modern exposition is primarily driven by characters' thoughts and actions, necessitating their development. And so it goes around and around: the characters don't need to be developed because the background is there, meaning the plot stays static, meaning the characters don't need to be developed… Plot and character growth are sacrificed for action, which isn't the same thing at all.

These issues aside, though, I don't think anyone was ever likely to mistake Resident Evil and Tomb Raider for anything but what they were: enjoyable trash, romps which didn't pretend to be about anything but the action. Let's face it - sometimes asskickery is fun just by itself, and the Resident Evil franchise has asskickery in spades.

Resident Evil: Extinction is the third and likely final part of the series. Following the release of the T-virus into the outside world at the end of Resident Evil, and its spread during Resident Evil: Apocalypse, Extinction shows the world dying as the T-virus kills not only human beings but all life on Earth, leaving it overrun by zombies.

The Umbrella Corporation is still trying to manipulate the virus, although in this film, its chief aim seems to be the "domestication" of the zombies into a docile workforce which it can use to... Well, I don't know quite what, exactly, as the world's economy seems to have dissolved along with civilisation. Their other efforts seem to include undoing the effects of the T-virus by using cloned copies of Alice in the hope that they will imitate her and be immune to its effects.

The film follows Alice as she wanders through the desert of what was America, finally coming across a band of survivors who roam from place to place to avoid being attacked by zombies. She is finally tracked down by, Dr Sam Isaacs, Umbrella Corporation's top scientist, who becomes infected by the T-virus while attempting to capture Alice. She finds their hide-out, where the scientist has overdosed on antivirus and mutated into a hideous monster, which she must kill. It ends with her promising to come and kill the remaining members of the board of the Umbrella Corporation - along with the vast army of clones Dr Isaacs has created for his testing.

As I said before, taken as it is, the film isn't too awful. It's an action film with lots of zombie killing and other asskickery. The plot's a bit limp, but as I said, that's kind of expected. As long as you don't go in expecting Citizen Kane, you'll probably have a decent time watching it.

I have two more films to mention, and then I'll leave you alone for a bit. This essay has already gone on for far too long, and this level of interest in zombies is probably unhealthy.

Dawn of the Dead, as I mentioned earlier, was Romero's 1978 satire on consumerism. It departs quite strongly from Night of the Living Dead, in that Romero demonstrates a sense of humour, rather continuing than the unremittingly dark tone of the previous film. Night also always leave me a little choked up at the end, if I'm honest; Ben went through all of that hardship and horror to make it through the night, striving so hard to survive, and he gets shot by a redneck. Now that's dramatic irony for you, and that right there should tell you that there's more to the film than just flesh-eating zombies.

Anyway. Dawn of the Dead was remade in the form of a stand-alone film in 2004, starring a number of people much prettier than the cast of the 1978 film. The remake lacks the humour of the original; doesn't seem to be at all satirical in nature (despite the shared setting of a mall) and is played more as a "straight" horror; the cast is much increased, resulting in a general feel of even the main characters being a little underdeveloped, while supporting characters are, to be blunt, tacked on. The zombies are also a bit different: in the original, they were (suitably) shambling creatures which needed to be present in large numbers to present a danger, which to my mind only emphasises their non-human nature. In the remake, they're screeching and fast, more reminiscent of the infected in 28 Days Later. Which is fine, I guess, but I think it fails to dehumanise them sufficiently, and detracts from the essential horror of dead things coming back to life; they're dead, they should move in a shambling and incorrect way that jars with us because it's just not right. They shouldn't be athletes.

This may be nitpicking on my part. As a stand-alone film, Dawn of the Dead works pretty well; better than most Hollywood Horror, although that may be damning it with faint praise.

The 2007 remake of Day of the Dead is rather dreadful. It is similar to the original only in name and the presence of an obedient zombie. Its plot, briefly, focuses on an outbreak of a terrible virus in a remote American town which transforms its victims into slavering beasts (once again, think 28 Days Later) with an appetite for flesh. The Army is sent in to blockade the town, and a soldier and her brother, plus sundry others, must survive the night without being nommed by zombies which aren't really zombies.

The acting is competent at best, the special effects done on the cheap, and there is a secret government conspiracy with a hidden bunker. All in all, it's apparent that the remake deserves its straight to video status. I wouldn't recommend it, not one bit, unless you're in the mood for schlock.

And finally, we reach the end of the zombie fest. The flesh is all eaten, the bodies have been burned and we're about to be shot in the head by an ignorant redneck.

I think it's worth reiterating at this point that zombie films aren't just about the walking corpses, although they do make things interesting.

No, zombie films are often all about metaphor and substitution. The living dead can stand in for our fears and represent what's going wrong with our society: they are war, or inhumanity, or a rampant consumer culture. They allow us to externalise these things and make them manageable; they can be shown defeated or victorious without a real commitment or loss on our part.

It is for this reason that they are valuable: they represent a way to overcome and address our fears.

Oh, and it's from It's The End of the World As We Know it (and I Feel Fine) by REM, in case you were wondering.

Current Music:

The Man Comes Around: American IV by Johnny Cash

Electric Samurai: the Noble Savage by Tomoyasu Hotei