So, as you know, I'm stoked about Stargate Worlds. I got a birthday email from them and decided to check them out again to see if they were far enough along to have beta testing... Lo! Behold, they weren't ready, but they were getting very, very close. Goody! I started getting involved and I subscribed to the New Thread RSS feed and the News RSS feed so I could keep track of developments. Started posting comments and replies, but that kind of dwindled off as I realized that people were talking about the same thing over and over. A typical forum, not really their fault... It's just what happens when you're waiting for a game to come out. I've been down this route more often than I can count.

But! Yesterday, CME decided to have a stress test of their registration servers. I'm going to assume that these are the servers that will carry personal payment information. Regardless, people (including me) started getting emails telling us that we were cleared to go register for beta testing. Read that very slowly, okay? REGISTER... FOR... BETA... TESTING. It was not a beta invitation, it was a chance to register for receiving beta invitations. They made it perfectly clear that random testers will be chosen from those who actually register, but that all the forum members should be registered, which only compliments what's been said all along.

We all know how the general population acts around here, don't we! I'm quick to point out stupidity and hypocracy whenever I can... It's a duty of mine! Sort of. Anyway, when it was announced that people would be randomly chosen for testing, what did the beta forum fill up with? People who felt it was their responsibility to list their "qualifications" for beta testing as if a) CME would even care, b) this was some sort of job to be hired for, c) they didn't read the countless messages saying testing members will be chosen RANDOMLY. This went on for weeks on end... Until yesterday!

Beta registration messages were sent out. Major milestone, to be sure, but everyone overreacted and/or didn't read the messages. With my RSS feed, I started seeing massive amounts of new threads being created that claimed "YAY!! I'M IN BETA!! WHO ELSE IS?!" Woah-woah-woah. You were only put into the system that would help randomly select people, you little goof. If you would bother reading what CME tells you, then you'd know this. Personally, they should all be glad that I'm not in charge somehow... Anyone who goes and posts how they should be picked for testing when we specifically told them it wouldn't matter? I'd manage to remove them from the list. Anyone who goes ballistic and announces that they're a tester when they're not? I would settle for public humiliation by a moderator. However, if, by chance, they ARE a tester now and they felt the need to tell everyone and their dog? ZIP! No more testing privileges, as you just seriously compromised your Non Disclosure Agreement and showed everyone that you can't be trusted not to leak information. But, alas, I'm not in charge. Lucky for them.

But! It would be awesome to get picked for beta testing somewhere around the month of... June. By then, I'll have my monster computer built and I'll be able to run SGW like you wouldn't believe. Mmm... 64-bit quad-core 45nm technology... dual SLI 9800 GTX... 4GB DDR3 RAM... A regular powerhouse of graphics and physics processing. No water cooling... Just some massive air movement. I CAN'T WAIT! College only lasts two more weeks and then I can get started! Plus, there's Okami Wii to buy... Mmm... Okamiii.

Because it will be inevitably asked of me sooner or later:

No, I'm not going to Mysterium.

And since I'm feeling especially persnickety right now, I'll tell you why:

Reason #1: I have no desire to pay registration fee. To me, that crushes the entire "gathering of friends" idea and thrusts the whole thing one step closer to being just a random "Myst convention". I think they should stick with the donation thing... After all, I really never saw the attraction of amusing everyone with fleeting little events that keep everyone away from each other. You could say that I should just not choose to go to those events, and I would have agreed. But now I have to pay for them, and I'm not going to.

Reason #2: On top of that, most of the people that I wanted so badly to meet can't go, so now it'd be me paying a colossal amount of money to see people who I would probably be better off not seeing me... Or vice versa. With all the two-faced Uru opinions cropping up now by the people who chased me off after sharing the same opinions early. Seriously... Have you been reading MystBlogs lately? Turns out that now, in addition to all the diatribe (that doesn't even matter since Uru is gone) about what should have been changed, some people are even saying that user-created Ages aren't the best thing to mix into canon... Now WHERE, oh WHERE have I heard that before? Oh wait! Me! But anyway, I abstain. Fact remains, though, that I honestly don't want to see anyone and I most definitely don't want to PAY to see anyone. Not that kind of money. Not when I'm planning on purchasing a super computer to encourage my isolationist tendencies!

Reason #3: That leads me into the 3rd reason, although I mostly explained it in the second. Not only are my closer friends not attending at all, but all the rest are going to be the people who think they're better than me for sticking Uru out to the end or some such crap. I don't want to talk to these people on the Internet, so why would I have a desire to meet with them in real life? Maybe so I can test their ability to defend an argument in real time? So they don't have a chance to sit on my blog and come up with a flat remark concerning my opinions and then sign it anonymously. Nah, I won't subject them to that kind of torment. It really wouldn't be fun to crush them in the first few seconds... Hmm. Or WOULD it...

Reason #4: I would much rather prefer a gathering of my most trusted friends... Just a few. No more than 10, maybe. Just to hang out without all the Myst swamp gas floating around the hotel atrium. Then we could really hang out and not be distracted by the plethora of events that a self-appointed committee feels it has to provide us. But, even with this small circle of friends, I have to choose between who I want to see the most. Isn't that great? Oh well... After a time, you start to understand the position of each side and the choice gets easier. That's no big deal to me, but I could still see it causing problems.

Reason #5: I really don't have a fifth reason, but I'm going to make one anyway, because everyone knows 5 is awesome... Oh wait, no, they don't. Nobody plays Myst or Riven anymore. They're all whining and crying over the second failure of Uru to notice, or whining and crying over those who bailed early and whine and cry that if we really cared, we would have stayed and somehow made a difference. All these newcomers who've only played just Myst 3 or just Myst 4 or just Uru. Even the last Mysterium I went to was a full-force Revelation indoctrination. It was no "Myst convention", it was a "Revelation party". With Uru fresh on everyone's mind, I see this as being more an "Uru-erium" rather than Myst. I would ask you to go and see if I'm right or not, but I'm going to bet that anyone who goes is going to have clouded judgment and won't notice in the first place.

So last night, after my great Voyager moment, I decided to poke around the music I'd collecting on Super Smash Brothers Brawl... I have 200 CDs so far, woohoo! So I'm scooting around the Sound Test menu, starting music, stopping music, listening to stuff I hadn't heard before, cringing at music I really don't care for... And then I came across... This:

(All music, by the way, is 128kbps MP3s weighing from 2 to 4MB.)

Title (Big Brain Academy)
Go get Adobe Flash Player!

It's one of those things where you... Carelessly dig around without realizing what you're about to play, and you're suddenly stuck, helpless to change the track and you're staring at the screen with your mouth open. Yeaaah, it was that shocking. But, after the initial shock, it started growing on me, which... I'm not sure is a good thing or not! It very much reminds me of the Yoshi's Story ending music, which I think I'm the only person in the entire world who enjoys it and, happily, is also remixed in SSBB:

Ending (Yoshi's Story)
Go get Adobe Flash Player!

So after I imagined Yoshi's singing to that Big Brain Academy song, it wasn't too bad! But still... It makes me want to buy the Big Brain Academy game itself and see what the title's supposed to sound like. Not sure I want to ruin the whole idea of Yoshies (Yoshis?) singing, though, so I think I'll not bother... At least for now.

And for your listening pleasure, here's a couple extra tracks I found:

Opening (Donkey Kong): This is, of course, a medley of Donkey Kong titles.
Go get Adobe Flash Player!

Dialga / Palkia Battle at Spear Pillar!: Legendary Pokemon battle music from Diamond/Pearl.
Go get Adobe Flash Player!

I think I like the Battle at Spear Pillar the best... Hmm.

I love Nintendo.

So there I was... Watching Voyager. Season 3, Episode 20: Favorite Son, to be precise. The one where Harry starts turning into an alien and is drawn to that planet full of women. (Yeah, another one of those. Gotta wonder if it's possible for Star Trek not to have at least one episode with a planet full of women... Maybe Deep Space Nine?) Anyway, at the end, Harry's running from a bunch of angry girls and he runs around a corner and out comes this gal with a big ol' beating stick and she charges at him. She only has about 3 seconds of air time in the entire episode, but it was enough for me to sit up and go: I KNOW THIS PERSON!!

I rewind it and watch it a couple times and then: No... I can't be! Let me check IMDB... Babylon 5: The Gathering... I don't remember her name, oh, yes! I remember. Character: Lyta Alexander... Actress: Patricia Tallman. Let's see if she has any entries for Voyager. Without a Trace... Babylon 5... Austin Powers??? Aha! Star Trek: Voyager! Taresian Woman. I was right! I knew I recognized her... 3 seconds of face time and I was able to remember. It bugged me to death until I learned it, too... I'll do that during movies I watch with my friend, too. We'll be sitting there, watching the film go by and I'll jump up and go "WAIT! Who is that?" and proceed to make everyone wait until I've discovered their name because I won't be able to sit and enjoy the movie until I do.

It's a gift! ...and a curse.

(Bonus points to whoever can recall where that line's from.)

Straight from the presses of TVGuide.com:

We interrupt your regularly-scheduled weekend activities to bring you this urgent public service announcement: She'll be back!

Allthough Fox declined comment, multiple sources confirm to me exclusively that Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles has been renewed for a second season.

You may now resume your regularly-scheduled weekend activities.

This is GOOD!

Gotta love it when you spend hours and hours troubleshooting a program... One machine works absolutely perfectly, the other machine works absolutely not at all, and the differences are negligible. One person works and works and works... You work and work and work... You start delving deep into the program's code and underlying functions, tweaking and debugging and dumping variables to see what's wrong... Nothing seems to work! There is nothing different! Nothing you can think of... Nothing, that is, until one of you gets the brilliant idea to copy one file... One single little file? Copy it from the working system to the broken system... And then it all works perfectly.

One file. One minute of transferring? After hours and hours of work... One file fixes it all.

I feel really stupid now. I really should have seen it sooner.

Let this be a warning...

I do not approve of people asking me to do something for them when I haven't spoken to them in weeks or month (or sometimes even years). There's just something that really bugs me when someone I haven't seen for a while , whether by choice or otherwise, suddenly pops up and wants something. They're not interested in talking, they just want me to do something for them. It's especially bothersome when these people are those who claim they care about my well-being, but haven't seemed to notice that I don't visit the usual gathering spots anymore, and then show up with one thing in mind: Not to ask me how I'm doing or what I've been up to, but to get me to do something for them.

I'm not trying to put the guilt trip on anyone. I really don't care that some people don't talk to me anymore. Sometimes, I choose not to talk to them anymore, either. To be frank, a lot of these people haven't proven themselves to be good friends, either. More like acquaintances... Just random people I know online with next to no background on them. Really, that's fine... But don't pretend to care about my friendship just so you can use my skills or connections. I really, REALLY don't appreciate it, and I really, REALLY don't appreciate it when you ask me how I'm doing and then roll into a "say, can you..." before I can answer.

Why, yes... That's happened before.

And then there's the people who repeatedly don't do anything but ask me to contact someone.

Bottom line? If you haven't seen me for a long time, and the only time you thought of me was when you remembered I could do something? Do not start the conversation by asking for a favor. I will tell you right now that my answer will be a flat out "no", unless you're a really good friend of mine who I trust completely to not be a fair-weather friend. And please, don't try to mask your wish for a favor by asking me how things are going, and then dumping a prepared speech about what you want done. And I'm going to say right now that anyone I don't consider a best friend and hasn't spoken to me for that long is going to be treated very suspiciously. I'm sorry, but them's the breaks!

To be even more blunt, let's put it this way: Anyone who hasn't talked to me more than once or twice in a month (as can be easily determined by instant messenger logs)? Don't ask me to do anything. At least, not straight-away. That's just tacky and disappointing. The people I care about, and the people who care about me, are going to communicate with me far, far more than once or twice a month? Don't you dare consider yourself part of this group... I enjoy helping my friends. I hope those I consider a friend know I consider them a friend, and know that they're excluded. I guess if you have any doubt, then you can ask me... And I'll tell you. Ohhh, yes. I'll tell you. When have I ever been one to disguise the truth, even if it hurts? (As evidenced with the whole Uru debacle... My, my, look at all the people listing off things that should have been different after they flamed me to Kingdom Come when Uru actually mattered.)