Introduction
Over the years I have accumulated quite a few unfinished projects.
Ideas for novels, graphic novels, games, studies, websites... I start collecting data, I analyse the project, I make a lot of plans and then when the blueprints are ready the project comes to a halt. Stop. Period. Once I´m certain that I am able to finalise the project by simply taking a word processor, a html editor or a game making utlity and type a few thousands of words, lines or instructions, I quit.
Because that is the boring part. And I´m bored easily.
So I´ve decided to put my unfinished projects in the open where you can happily ignore them.
20081116
Si les cochons pourraient voler…
Entry 1066 posted in: 5. The Pink Thing, The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit
Have you ever seen President Sarkozy
on the telly giving a speech? He always thinks he is doing a bloody
Hamlet. His performances, because that is what he thinks they are,
remind me more of Louis
de Funès (or for the non-Francophiles among us: Benny Hill)
than Napoleon Bonaparte, another one of those short short-tempered
little men with a short fuse who think they can rule the world.
This post contains a fairly well hidden review of the Pink Floyd biography Pigs Might Fly by Mark Blake. To cut the intro, press here.
Flamingoes might fly
Eloquence is a French way of speech but that was not what I was thinking of when I read the following, decades ago:
Je ne sais qui doit le plus à l’autre! La France ou le Pink Floyd?
Le Pink Floyd peut-être.
(translation) I don’t know who owes the other more! France or Pink Floyd?
Pink Floyd perhaps.
The above is the start of a French rock biography (1977 edition), called Pink Floyd, written by Rock & Folk journalist Jean-Marie Leduc and issued by Albin Michel. Rock & Folk was an excellent French music magazine, that started in 1966, hence its name, and that wanted to inform the French public from the new trends in modern pop music. Jean-Marie Leduc hopped to London and wrote several articles about the London Underground music scene and le pouvoir des fleurs. He discovered this incredible band that would soon be the French progressive student movement’s darling, le Pink Floyd.
Although the most common language at London at that time was the language of love it would’ve helped Jean-Marie Leduc a little bit if he had actually understood some English. Which he didn’t. Probably the acid didn’t help either. That didn’t stop him to write a Pink Floyd biography that was published in October 1973, and that could still be found, a decade later, in every bookstore and self-respecting newspaper and magazine shop in France. Selling figures nearly must have achieved the same height as a regular Pink Floyd album; Leduc’s Pink Floyd was an instant classic and a steady seller.
It was also full of blunders. At page 19 Leduc wrongly mistakes the Pink Flamingo club for the band and throughout the book he will name the lads le Flamant Rose (it would take Rock & Folk until July 1994 to officially denounce the fact that Pink Floyd is a Phoenicopterus Roseus). Another botch is on page 49 where Leduc claims that ‘le 2 novembre (1967) (…) un nouveau simple du groupe “Apologises / Jugband blues” est commercialisé en Angleterre’. This one simple sentence has made French speaking Pink Floyd fans look for this non-existent track of the band for over a decade. At the end of the book the mistake is repeated at the discography, Jean-Marie Leduc keeps on maintaining that the Floyd’s third single was Jugband blues / Apologies (please note the different orthography and running order).
Jean-Marie Leduc’s biography was probably the very first biography on the band, as Charles Beterams wrote in the Echoes, a Dutch fan club magazine, and despite the mistakes it also contains a stunning revelation about the bands first recording, forgotten by most of the biographies that would come next. Leduc interviewed Nick Mason in 1973 and asked if Astronomy Domine was the Floyd’s first composition. Mason answered (translated from French back into English): “Not true. Our first composition was titled Lucy Lee in blue tight or something similar. We recorded it on acetate but it was never commercialised.” Once again Jean-Marie Leduc’s average knowledge of the English language made him note the song as Lucy Lee, and not as Lucy Leave, although Nick Mason’s pronunciation of the song title may not have been too comprehensible as well. It would take ages for another journalist to re-discover the truth about the band’s first recording.
Floydstuff
One bloke who does remember Lucy Leave is Mark Blake. In 2007 he wrote a Pink Floyd biography entitled Pigs Might Fly but because I am such a stingy money spender I wanted to wait until the paperback came sailplaning to me. The last couple of years it is raining Pink Floyd related books and accessories as if all kind of shady people want to have their free ride on the gravy train. It is of course a double feeling, here we are Pink Floyd fans wanting to know everything (and we mean everything) on the band but on the other hand we feel as if we are inside an orange squeezer (or to use Gerald Scarfe’s weird world of Floydian symbolism: a meat grinder). The last thing I’ve read on Pink Floyd merchandising is that Converse will bring out a range of shoes based on the cover art of three of their albums. Part of me is yelling yuck!, but another part is jumping up and down, not a pretty sight if you would catch me on my webcam.
About a decade ago, perhaps a bit longer, small record companies
suddenly discovered the tribute album. I jumped on it as a hungry louce
on a passing German shepherd dog. But when my heap of tribute records,
all made to honestly commemorate the band and not to make a quick buck,
started to become bigger than my genuine Pink Floyd collection I simply
gave up. I think that Babies
Go Pink Floyd was the last tribute album I bought, partially because
the concept attracted me. If you also feel tempted to listen to it.
Don’t.
Not
only the record is tripe and you wouldn’t want to confront any baby with
it without giving him or her a lifelong phobia for Pink Floyd music but
also it doesn’t actually motivates grown-ups either to start
procreating, normally a quite amusing and satisfactory pastime.
Recently I found this add from Dwell records that goes something like this:
The biggest names in hard rock and avant-garde metal have come together to pay tribute to the madcap genius of Syd Barrett. Featuring some of heavy-metals most influential players, this is a hard-rocking trip through the music world’s most idiosyncratic minds.
Some of the bands present on the record are the following: Dreg, Giant Squid, Jarboe, Kylesa and my favourite Stinking Lizaveta. Except in some distant Norwegian fjordic regions where these bands are probably world famous amongst the local satanic black metal scene these bands don’t really merit the eptitheton ‘biggest name in hard rock’ to begin with. I would have written the add for this album a little bit less triumphant:
Several virtually unknown hard rock and avant-garde metal bands that are constantly struggling to have a record contract have come together to rip off the musical heritage of Syd Barrett. Featuring some of heavy-metals obscurest players, this is a fruitless hard-rocking trip trying to get a fan-base that exceeds the dozen.
Now that is what I call a more realistic description of the project. You can listen to the songs at MySpace and I have to confess they don’t all sound like rubbish to me.
But all the above was merely a long, way too long, way to say that I quit buying Pink Floyd tribute records a while ago as most were, are and will be… full of crap. I had the same compulsive buying disorder when it came to Pink Floyd related music magazines and books. Despite the fact that I can’t play guitar I have dozens of guitar magazines that promise you the tablature of the third guitar solo in Comfortably Numb and a brand new exclusive Pink Floyd interview that was in fact already published in another guitar magazine from three years before that I already had in my scrapbook.
I define myself more than the average Pink Floyd and Syd Barrett fan, but less than an anorak, fanorak suits me fine.. Anoraks have the tendency to start flame wars because someone has told that Syd Barrett was wearing green socks on the 7th of August 1967 while every aficionado knows he was wearing brown socks that day. (To avoid death threats: I’ve just made this whole sock-thing up, but the 7th of August 1967 was of course an important day in Floydian history, about the importance of green socks, just check David Gilmour’s inside sleeve of his About Face album and shiver.)
So I quit buying Pink Floyd books as well, more or less… the last I bought was The Rough Guide To Pink Floyd that can now be found at local lo-price bookshops for the third of the price I bought it for. That is a very nice Pink Floyd biography by the way, and if you are in search for one, well don’t hesitate and get it. It’s cheap and cheerful.
But this post was originally intended as a review of Pigs Might Fly, a Pink Floyd biography by Mark Blake and all I did until now is take the piss out of:
a) the very first Pink Floyd biography by Jean-Marie Leduc;
b) the
various tribute cds that do exist;
c) the growing pile of Pink Floyd
biographies…
So I had given up buying Pink Floyd biographies but when I wrote on the Late Night forum that nobody had ever tried to locate Syd’s girlfriend we know as Iggy Mark Blake promptly replied that he certainly had. I more or less apologised and answered that I would read his biography.
So I did.
Who am I to post a review about a book that Record Collector choose as book of the year, that Q magazine described as a ‘detailed, orderly, first-rate read’, while Mojo praised its ‘heroic research’. It’s excellent, well written, full of anecdotes and it seems to please the casual and the more ardent fan of the band, although it still forgets to mention the colour of socks Syd Barrett was wearing on the 7th of August 1967. Anoraks will always find something to grumble about. I did. I found a mistake from microscopical importance about the Publius affair but only people daft enough to look for the Enigma mystery will probably realise that.
A while ago I started a side-project called the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit. In it I am looking for the whereabouts of the girl who appeared on the cover of the Syd Barrett album The Madcap Laughs. It is rather amazing how many bits and pieces can be found after all these years, but apparently Iggy was quite a character in those flowery powery days. The time was ripe as other people suddenly started to reveal their Iggy memories, amongst them Anthony Stern who made a four-minute movie about her in the Sixties that was premiered this year.
I wrote some things about Iggy that I thought were revolutionary but apparently Mark Blake had unravelled these before in his biography, only he didn’t need as many space to write these things down than I did and if this review goes on like this it might be longer than the book itself.
On page 140 Mark Blake writes about how Iggy performed The Bend (Church article: Bend It!),on the next page he reveals the existence of the Anthony Stern movie (before it became an item on YouTube) and how she used to go dancing at The Orchid in Purley (Church article: Shaken not stirred). And all this a year before the Church was started and something of an Iggy hype was created. Hats off to Mark Blake.
Mark Blake is not only an accurate but also a beautiful writer (I’m not speaking about his physical appearance here), reading the bit about the Live 8 reunion gave me tears in my eyes although I normally only weep when I read sweet little things about dying puppies. That more or less sums it up really; Pigs Might Fly moved me and I thank Mark Blake a lot for that.
(In America the book has been published under the alternative title Comfortably Numb, this was the working title of the book but as the cover has a snapshot from Battersea Power Station, including flying pig balloon, this was changed for the European market.)
A final word about Jean-Marie Leduc
One of the funnier parts of the very first Pink Floyd biography are the translated song texts. The Floyd’s first album is called Le joueur de flûte aux grilles de l’aube, but my favourite still is a song that is called Bonbons et pain aux raisins. And what to think about the following, I let you guess what song this has been taken from:
De tortueux signes voltigent.
Lueur. Lueur. Lueur.
Fla. Pom. Pom.
Escaliers d’épouvante et lois de mort…
And a final word for collectors
If you are looking for a copy of the Pink Floyd book by Jean-Marie Leduc be sure to buy the Albin Michel / Rock & Folk versions (several editions from 1973 till 1983). In 1987 another book by Jean-Marie Leduc, also called Pink Floyd, and in the same mini format, was presented to the public by Le Club Des Stars / Seghers. Although based upon the previous versions this book has been completely rewritten and most of the errors have been edited out.
If you liked this post - you might be interested in this one as well: Kopfgeburten
20081111
Iggy, Chimera Girl
Entry 1064 posted in: The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit
Two new exciting posts have been added to the Church.
2. Anthony Stern’s movie distributor Chimera Arts has put some Iggy video stills on their website...
This and more at: The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit.
20081109
Illegal Aliens
Entry 1060 posted in: 3. Gamebits
I woke up this morning with a Karen
Carpenter tune whistling through my head.
Why
do birds suddenly appear every time you are near?
It is the
distinct proof that my brain is slowly alzheiming away. Although
it is of course a great song… but not very cool to admit that…
I had promised to do a lot of blogthings, there is an article for the Church crying to be written, I need to extrapolate on my ArianeB walkthroughs now that there has been an online update, my friends at the Late Night forum are flooding me with news and goodies about The City Wakes festival, I still have the Orb album The Dream to listen to, the complete series of The Prisoner to watch, and so on…
To add insult to injury I found last week exactly the right time to download UFO: Alien Invasion. I had downloaded it before once, over a year ago, but then the game was way too alpha to be enjoyable and it had quickly disappeared from my harddisk. But this time was different…
I am of course on a nostalgia tour here because UFO: Alien Invasion is an open source equal of the classic game XCOM: Enemy Unknown, that was issued around 1993 by Microprose. The game was known under different names such as XCOM: UFO Defense and UFO: Enemy Unknown, depending on the country or the publisher you were buying it from.
XCOM was a warfare game, with two different gaming layers, one slightly real-time, the other turn-based..
The Geoscape, a map of the world, let you decide where to build a military base. Given a limited amount of money, you had to divide the funds between military buildings and equipment, research facilities, hospitals, the obligatory power plant and radar… With the remainder of the money military and non-military personnel could be recruited, weapons bought, research sponsored, etc….
After a while the radar would spot a UFO attacking a village and it was up to you and your task force to stop the assault.
The game would then switch over to the Battlescape simulation screen. Basically this was an isometric world where your band of soldiers would try to kill the evil aliens from outer space. Capturing them alive was even better so that your researchers could have a go at proper vivisection. These Battlescape scenarios were turn-based: it was up to the human player to position his soldiers so that they would be able to eliminate the enemy without being subject to enemy fire, taking into account the limited energy (needed for movement and firing) every soldier had per round.
Both simulative worlds, Geoscape and Battlescape, would of course interact with each other. Before each battle, weapons and soldiers had to be chosen in the Geoscape world and after the battle wounded soldiers needed a rest in the hospital, provided you had build one and manned it with medics.
In 2007 XCOM was voted the best PC game of all time by the IGN staff. And now you can play it all over again, in 3D, downloadable at UfoAI. Alien Invasion is not a clone of the original game, it uses its own graphics, music (excellent music BTW) and story-line. Some features are still a bit buggy and not all weapons and buildings have been implemented yet. But I suppose it will be only a matter of time before these will be sorted out.
While researching several bits and pieces for this article I stumbled upon Ufo2000.
UFO2000 is free and opensource turn based tactical squad simulation multiplayer game. It is heavily inspired by the famous X-COM: UFO Defense game. While UFO2000 engine was specifically designed to be compatible with the graphics resources and maps from X-COM, you don't need any proprietary data files to play as a new fan-made set of graphics exists and is included in UFO2000 distribution by default, so the game is ready to run out of the box. But if you want an exact X-COM look and feel, you have an option of installing original X-COM and TFTD data files and use them for extending UFO2000 with additional maps, weapon sets and units.
This remake is closer to the original but can only played against human opponents as AI hasn't been implemented.
If you liked this post - you might be interested in this one as well: open Theme Hospital - 3 different ones
The Other Room
Entry 1059 posted in: The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit
Syd Barrett pictures and artwork
Mick Rock, Storm Thorgerson pictures
and artwork
Anthony Stern Iggy pictures
20081102
iPod Random Generator October 2008
Entry 1055 posted in: 9. I, Pod
Also in 2008 my MySpace page will contain some useless iPod statistics. This year however my iPod will always stay in shuffle mode, in others words: the machine will decide what songs will be played. For more information: Random Blueß aka sucking for statistics.
At the end of each month I will publish the ten most popular songs of the year and the ten most popular songs of the past month.
For the top 10 list of the songs I've been listening to in 2008 go to http://www.myspace.com/atagong.
For the top 10 list of the songs I've been listening to in Ocotber, go to the MySpace blog section.
If you liked this post - you might be interested in this one as well: iPod Random Generator September 2008
20081026
Pictures at an exhibition
Entry 1052 posted in: The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit
The
Other Room: Syd Barrett's Art and Life
Date: 24 October - 2
November 2008
Time: 10am - 9pm Monday to Friday, 10am - 5pm Saturday
and Sunday
20081025
Do you like tennis? (ArianeB 5.10 walkthrough [online version])
Entry 1049 posted in: a. ArianeB
I am like Starship
Titanic on a collision course with the world. This week I was
annoyed by MySpace
who suddenly started to address me in French. It is a common error from
multi-language websites to address me in the wrong language because I
use a Dutch Windows but with a French keyboard configuration. The
differences between French and Belgian keyboards are so minimal that
some keyboards only exist in French such as my Dell multimedia RT 7D30.
Luckily MySpace suggested that I could adjust my settings on my personal
configuration page. Which I did and that is what really infuriated me.
Read all about it on my MySpace blog
if you care, but as the technical matter is apparently fixed I won’t
bring it up here again.
A mail from Arnulf (one of the moderators at the Shark’s Lagoon Forum) made me realise two things.
First. Arnulf’s add-on for ArianeB 5.0 has now been upgraded to version 13. This version contains the Erana hack that was presented in May combined with Arnulf’s different storylines that have been ejaculating from his garbled brain since July. To install it you first need to have the original 5.0 download on your harddisk and to copy / overwrite the amended files from the hack onto the existing ones.
Second. The downloadable version of ArianeB, version 5.0, dates from March 2008 and hasn’t been updated since. The online version, however, has recently been extended with about 30 pictures. Its most recent files date from the 15th of October and include a brand new Rebecca scene, a new photo shoot at the lake and a couple of amended pictures that predict some new or enhanced situations in the future. I'll call it ArianeB 5.10, just to avoid confusion.
To experience the new scenes you have to play the game online or mirror it on your harddisk, using a website copier such as Httrack. Unless you are 18 years of age you may not continue reading further on. If you masturbate too often you will go blind. Take my word for it as my diopters are 10+ (on both eyes).
Do you like tennis? (ArianeB 5.10 walkthrough [online version])
ArianeB is an adult dating simulator with a lot of different scenarios and outcomes. The story is fairly simple, make a date with Ariane and try to get her in the sack! Of course this sounds easier than it is and that is exactly what makes this game worthwhile. The best way is to experiment with the different situations the game offers and to learn from past mistakes. But for those with a restless mind I will put some walkthroughs for the game on this space. It takes out most of the fun though.
To get to Rebecca's new strip scene (that has replaced the scene from version 5.0) you need to do the following.
Introduction (a quick one)
The upgraded online version has a hidden shortcut to skip the first sixteen frames. If you move the mouse to the top left side of the introductory image and click the ‘Introduce yourself’ hotpoint this action will bring you directly to the home plan with ArianeB waiting in the living room.
Introduce yourself (top left). ArianeB stands in the living room and
asks for a suggestion.
Kitchen.
Get wine to drink.
Finish
drink.
Steak Dinner
Get steaks for dinner.
Drink wine.
Finish drink.
Wait for the
steaks.
Eat steak dinner.
Compliment her.
Talk to her.
Drink
wine.
Go somewhere else.
Bar Brawl
Go for a drive. Ariane is a bit tipsy and wants you to drive her car.
Go
for a drive. You don't need to go to the gas station.
Go
downtown.
Go to the nightclub.
Go to bar.
I'm driving so club
soda please.
Ask her to dance.
Keep dancing.
A guy is getting a bit too familiar with ArianeB and this ask for some drastic, albeit not aggressive, behaviour. Punching the guy will not lead to the desired situation we’re after now…
Protect ArianeB.
Get her away from this guy.
Get out of the club.
Go
lingerie shopping.
Go into the lingerie store.
To continue the game ArianeB will give you 3 characteristics and you have to choose the lingerie that fits all three of them. Here are ArianeB’s possible questions:
I’m looking for underwear that’s...
comfortable, fashionable, and sexy (Take a look around).
Pick
a strapless bra.
Pick a thong
comfortable, fashionable, and inexpensive (Take a look around).
Pick
a sports bra.
Pick boy shorts.
inexpensive, comfortable, and sexy (Take a look around).
Pick
a sports bra.
Pick a thong.
inexpensive, fashionable, and sexy (Take a look around).
Pick
going braless.
Pick boy shorts.
Wait till she tries it on.
Put clothes back and buy it.
Normally Rebecca would ask you to dance at the nightclub but since you have just been kicked out there, she looks for another place to go.
Strip Club Mania
Discuss other options with Rebecca.
Be adventurous and take a chance.
Stay
and watch Rebecca's show.
Continue watching.
Repeat until Rebecca's show is over.
The current game is far from finished here but most situations have been discussed in the previous walkthroughs.
One last word about Arnulf, his latest ArianeB 5.00 update manages to combine both Rebecca scenes, the one from version 5.0 and the new one from version 5.10.
In the next few weeks I shall try to talk you through the other new situations of the game.
All ArianeB 5.0 walkthroughs can still be found on this blog:
The
ArianeB 5.0 Chronicles (ArianeB 5.0 walkthrough part 1)
Hungry
Like A Wolf (ArianeB 5.0 walkthrough part 2)
After
Dinner Mints (ArianeB 5.0 walkthrough part 3)
Games
For May (ArianeB 5.0 walkthrough part 4)
Moon
And Mooning (ArianeB 5.0 walkthrough part 5)
Photoshoot
By The Lake (ArianeB 5.0 Walkthrough part 6)
20081019
Iggy played guitar (2)
Entry 1047 posted in: The Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit
Emily and the English Rose
Shining out the UFO
Hand in hand with your Eskimo.
20081018
Autumn Blues
Entry 1041 posted in: 3. Gamebits, a. ArianeB, c. The Sandbox Of God
Recently I have been in my cynical go-get’em-all mode and I want to apologise for that. I blame it on the season but it could of course also be that my bad character is beyond fixing.
The following text (part 1 and 2) is about gameplay for adults. If your legislation forbids to read this under a certain age and if you are under that certain age you are advised to skip the first two entries of this post and to read only part 3, which is about The Sandbox of God.
On the other hand, if your religion forbids you to read about gameplay involving divine powers as well then this post is entirely not for you.
Settled? Can we go on now please?
Set 1. ArianeB add-on
I can’t deny it. Most visitors of my little blog don’t come here to read my philosophical musings, but to check the ArianeB section.
ArianeB is a free adult click-n-play game, made by an anonymous human being who roams the net under the same name. Insiders more or less know who hides behind that pseudonym but it is not my task to divulge that information. It suffices to say he is rather interested in the intersections between mathematics and 3D graphics.
I can’t blame the man, it is easier to explain the mathematical formula A ∩ (B ∩ C) = (A ∩ B) ∩ C
by saying that
a: if Rebecca is skinny dipping in the pool
with ArianeB and
b: if you join ArianeB in the pool for a good
old game of booby touching
the chance is big that
c: the
three of you are in the same pool at the same time.
That is what they
call apllied mathematics.
ArianeB 5.0 still contains some bugs in the coding, meaning that some action sometimes trigger the wrong events or pictures. Erana was one of the first to create an add-on to get rid of these bugs and to add some extra features as well.
Soon after that I was contacted by Arnulf who made an add-on for the add-on, if you understand what I mean, but my appetite for ArianeB was a bit tempered by then as I had played it about a hundred times just to make these goddamn walkthroughs. So I never added Arnulf’s creation to this blog.
But when I recently checked the forum where Arnulf posts his versions I found that his add-on has now reached version number 12. It is about 16 MB big and can be downloaded from RapidShare. Expect no walkthrough from me this time. You’re on your own!
Set 2. An Afternoon at the Swimming Pool
The forum where any new incarnation of ArianeB (and the add-ons) is
closely scrutinised belongs to Shark’s
Lagoon. Shark has made quite a few sexy adventures and one of his
most popular creations, Horny
Afternoon, has now been extended to episode 3. In An
afternoon at the swimming pool we meet Wendy, her nanny aptly called
Nanny, a friend from school Cloé and, of course, Franck, the handyman
who comes in handy in different ways.
(Part 2 of Horny Afternoon can
be found here: Another
very special afternoon. Some more information about Shark in old
posts of mine: Sense
And Sensibility and Cyberhugging.)
For those who have not the patience to play the new game until the end (and then once again because there are different endings and then once again because it is so damn good) Arnulf, oh no not HIM again!, has made a 24 minutes during movie with all the situations in the game. That 64 MB video walkthrough can be downloaded from Rapidshare as well. Damn, and I also wanted to make a visual guidel. There go my extra 1,000 visitors a week!
Set 3. The Sandbox of GodFar less people join this little blog to check The Sandbox of God walkthroughs. I can’t figure out why. Apparently the urge to procreate, even virtually, is far more appealing than playing god in a world populated by rabbits and men. But please bear with me for a moment.
This is what I had to say about the game in 2006:
The story itself is monotonous, the graphics are tacky, but in a strange way the game is very addictive. Before you know it hours have gone by because you still have not managed to create Volcano city or instigate world peace between rabbits and men.
The game is indeed very addictive and it is not very strange that it has acquired a loyal following. People have asked for a SoG sequel but for one reason or another, its maker, Mr. Chubigans wasn’t too keen to start producing one.
Until the following message appeared on Mr. Chubigan’s blog
on the 24th of February of this year:
Sandbox of God 2: Ancient
Warfare is coming April 20th.
But less than a month later it was already announced that the game would not meet its deadline and that the release date would probably be June of this year. June past by like a whirlwind and Mr. Chubigans was obliged to make another statement:
I think it’s time for a SOG 2 update, eh? I’ll be completely honest here: the project is stalled for now. Fred has gotten quite a few sprites done but there are still plenty more to go. On my end, only the night/day cycle is done. There is still much, much more work to do.
And the Vertigo Gaming unofficial FAQ has the following message:
Q: Sandbox of God 2?
A: I'm not prepared to say anything about that right now, and whether it's still going/canceled.
Blaming it on the season or not, this is quite depressing news. But instead of jerking off to ArianeB or Wendy, why don’t you just download The Sandbox of God and play with bunnies for a change?
If you liked this post - you might be interested in this one as well: Tentacle Day
20081012
Don't mention the war
Entry 1036 posted in: 6. Self-Made Monsters
German radio- and television-administration, die Gebühreneinzugszentrale
(GEZ), send
several letters to a Mr. Friedrich
Schiller with the urgent question to pay his radio- and
television-tax. These arrived at a local primary school in
Weigsdorf-Köblitz (Saksen) and its principal replied that the German
poet, philosopher, historian and dramatist the administration was
looking for had been dead for over 200 years. Schiller is world renowned
for his Ode an die Freude that was put to music by a certain Mr.
Ludwig van Beethoven in his Ninth symphony and that became the official
European anthem
in 1972.
But of course one does not mess with administration, especially not the German one. Believing that this was the biggest scam in German television-tax history the GEZ now wanted solid proof that Mr. Friedrich Schiller was indeed dead and not merely acting dead to avoid taxes. The German newspapers do not reveal how this was achieved but finally a spokeswoman from the tax-administration accepted that a database error had been made and that Mr. Friedrich Schiller had died before television and radio had been invented.
At the current annual fee of 200 Euros Friedrich Schiller already owed the German state 40.600 euros.
Nur der Irrtum ist das Leben, und das Wissen ist der Tod.
Only mistakes are alive, and knowledge is dead.
(Friedrich Schiller, Kassandra).
In everyday life I am an IT monkey for a service company and because I used to be the only one around who spoke German I was always the first to be chosen as a volunteer to deal with our neighbours from the East.
One day one of my colleagues had a small problem with a manager of a German Kooperation we had recently joined. She had send the German administrative unit a small note saying that the Belgian partner would not be able to render any service on the 21st of July, because that date happens to be the Belgian national day. It is that day, we Belgians snicker, that working people have a day off and the king has to do something to earn his pay for a change.
The message was not well received by the Head Administrator of the German cooperation. They send a page long official letter, signed, sealed and delivered, that according to the rules of their Arian brotherhood no member could close its offices on any other day than those confirmed by German law, number such and so, paragraph whatever.
The girl was nearly in tears from anger when I came in. She had already tried to explain, by phone, fax and mail to the representative of the Herrenvolk that this was our National day and that there would be no need whatsoever for us to stay vigilant to render service to companies that were closed anyway. Can you do something, she sighted.
I took the phone. Called the bloke. Explained him that since he had already lost two wars against Belgium we were considering ourselves as an independent country and not a mere province belonging to the German federal republic. It was quiet for a while. For a moment I feared I had done a Franz Ferdinand that would lead to World-War III. But he understood. Sometimes you just have to shout a little bit harder as they do.
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