ping. query. whois. phydeaux.

May. 5th, 2007

12:47 am - Kate?

Oh crap.

Feb. 25th, 2007

11:01 pm - "Friends" List

I'm actually kind of annoyed that I've not pruned it before now.

I get the occasional question of "why have a LiveJournal", of which the answer was originally, "meh, an invite was given to me".

Which, I believe, this was back in 2003 or so when you had to be invited and couldn't just register.

And then I let it die for a bit... and thought it'd be a good idea to rev it up for fictional escapades and various writing exercises, more flamboyant and ridiculous than the "that-might-quite-possibly-be-true" forum personalities. Then I got bored with that. And so I kept it around for the times when people would post "friend only" posts that I might feel inclined to read.

Why? In case they were about me, I suppose. Now? I really don't care.

I really don't care what internet folk whose existence is as pitiful, meaningless or emo as mine are saying about me. We are all indeed better off without each other, and I refuse to continually contend with plank-eyes whining about my tree-socket.

I've been letting people I don't know, who quite possibly don't exist, have their emotional way with me; eliciting reactions that are uncalled for from text on a screen. I've allowed this to go for so long that I've cheated myself of my own emotional and mental health, and this is totally my fault.

I've been equated by persons who have met me in passing, and really only know me fictionally, as being the "thinking man's cutter". In other words, unlike a MySpace attention whore who cuts themselves up when they're "sad" or whatnot, I bring about destructive behaviour in various new and creative ways. I shouldn't allow the comment to bother me all that much, since the comments are made on a caricature, and not me, but too long have I embraced a character in the name of my own amusement and entertainment, at the expense of other's frustration. In short, it's frustrating because it's true.

I've really enjoyed life the last several weeks. It's been an unshackling experience to not have to keep up lies with personas that also ultimately do not matter. While there's still the mire of wondering about various online ideas and groupings, it's not consumed me. I've been told for going on six years to get help for a few attitudes and behaviours; I've got it, and I've never felt better. Finally, normalcy. For the first time, I do not hate myself, and shockingly, the hate has not shifted unfairly onto others.

My time is short, and it should be a reminder that it is for all of us. Those that have offered their thoughts, prayers and assistance; it has been greatly appreciated. You have been ridiculed by various naysayers as being a fool, and this couldn't be farther from the case. Your attempts to reach out show who you are as a human being; righteous and true. Caring. Fair. Justice-seeking, yet compassionate. You already know that those that seek my destruction are on the level with me. They are the exact same thing. Kavenoff. And they know it.

Help them. Talk to them. Appeal to them. Before they become what they hate.

Because they will. Heaven knows that if it could happen to me, it can happen to them.

For every three people out there in this world, there's someone out there with a problem in common with me. One thing or another. Nothing's solved by killing them. Isolating them. Ignoring them. They have a story. Listen to it. Do something about it. Or do nothing at all. The choice is yours. Some can't afford such a luxury.

That should wrap it up. All comments will be closed, if you need to get in touch with me, for whatever reason, you know where to go and what to do.

w00f w00f. Indeed.

Feb. 21st, 2007

11:50 pm - Perry Bible Fellowship still greatest webcomic to ever exist.

Dammit.

Dec. 20th, 2006

01:19 am - Damn you, Willis.

The first three frames are what make this whole thing. It's just downright brilliant, and reinforces Robin's character traits.

Discussion to explain why this is funny is here.

Annotated, ye be warned, spoilers contained therin:

Cliff's Notes version: Danny killed Billie's friend in '98.

If that's not enough, Danny is Robin's old love interest's college roommate (Joe; they're the very first two characters you see in the "It's Walky!" strip). Billie and Danny had been dating since a little after that, and got married a few months ago.

(Oh, and Walky and Billie grew up together.)

When I get time tomorrow, I'll be making a Mii of Mike.

Dec. 5th, 2006

11:24 pm - Moses lived thousands of years before Catholicism got it's start.

Who knew?

Dec. 1st, 2006

01:23 am - For those that don't know.

If you don't frequent MAF or CH54, I have acquired two, count them, two PS3s today.

Why?

Why [i]else[/i] would someone get a PS3 without any decent games out for it? To sell on eBay, of course.

Nov. 9th, 2006

03:48 am - Ouch.

Check previous post for details.

I just sat down and actually did what my Top 50 Fictional Females list consisted of and... Sara, ex-Coffee Of Doom employee, did not make the cut. Jeph was right. Ouch.

I'm doing the write-ups for the bottom 10, now. They'll be up sometime today. After I sleep.

You get one guess as to who placed #2, though.

And #3 will be a shock. She rocketed up there out of absolute nowhere.

Hint. Both #2 and #3 are Brian K. Vaughn characters. Happy guessing.

Nov. 7th, 2006

02:21 am - Questionable Content

Warning, spoilers if you've not been following the past week.

here

FUNNY. IN. EVERY. PANEL. And Jeph Jacques can do decent street melee action sequences. IMPRESSED I AM.

And Pintsize's line? Yeah, I would've been on the edge of my seat for incorporating that nugget myself. Brilliant.

Oh, and I never got to mention before, I am deeply saddened at the revelation that Pizza Girl is NOT Sara of previous Coffee Of Doom. Granted, winding up working there again would be weird, especially since Sara would lack the token Snarkiness of the other three employees and would be EATEN ALIVE by something other than an allosaurus, but that's neither here nor there. Maybe her bizarre fallout-before-anything-even-started with Marten led her to be... VESPA GIRL. Or not.

Regardless (I'm thinking this is my new word. Beats "anyway", anyway.), there should be a spin-off Sara comic. Or integration of her character into someone else's storyline.

Yeah, she's definitely in my top 50 favourite fictional characters that I need to organize. She doesn't rank high for lack of depth, but her existence is [i]notable[/i].

THIS UPDATE IS OBLIGATORY. (goes back to fixing a PC)

Oct. 31st, 2006

11:12 pm - Well, it took me a month.

But I finally get this joke:

Don't get it either?

okay. Wait for it.

Wait for it.

...get it?

Let me run that by you again.

Get it yet?

No?

Let's try again.

Get i-

oh, nevermind.

01:08 pm - OMG Cellular HAX

Some of you may already know that I sold cellular service for a few years. As a result of this I have friends and family that constantly come to me for advice or to pull the strings to take care of a wayward bill or whatnot.

Today was awesome because my sister's boyfriend came over because he had a Motorola v262 that he got off eBay to replace his father's ailing phone of the same model. Well, I went through the programming (that I had to re-look up because I hadn't done it in so long! I feel so ashamed.) and it started asking for a subsidy code.

And I'm like, wtf. You've got to be kidding me. This is the crap that Prepaids pull, or even Verizon as of late, so I took a chance and called *611 on his other phone to talk to a Rep. She was very... meh. I miss the old crew with Scott and Christie and Lisa and Tracy and most of all, Cindy, who were all inevitably let go because they had previously defected from US Cellular and with them reacquiring Eloqui... bleh, it's not pretty.

Regardless, after I said that I was doing an ESN change for one of their customers, she wanted to know if I was an agent or whatnot, and I couldn't very well lie and use the previous agent code because it could be checked out immediately, so I said "no, I'm just a... dude." (my social engineering skills absolutely whither when they've not been exercised.)

So she asked to speak to {user} and I let him deal with verifying info and all that, and she asked for the ESN code. I checked the back of the phone, and it was the Hexadecimal code so I rattled that off to her. And she's all like "that's too small. It won't fit."

"Ma'am, you're trying to put it into the Decimal field, move to the right one field and that's where we can put in the Hex. It'll automatically fill the decimal with the equivalent code."

"Really? Huh. That number you gave me, are they zeros or letter 'O's...?"

"Hexadecimal numbers never have letter Os. They range from 0-9 and A-F. It's zeroes."

She then proceeded to try to talk me through programming.

"Press 'OK' and 073-..."

"It's Menu."

"Hm?"

"For models made after the v810 it's Menu 073887{star}."

"Oh. Okay. When you get to user programming, go to user activation, security code is 000000, then go to NAM 1..."

"Here's where I'm stuck, I'm running into a Subsidy Password and can't see NAM 1."

"It should be 000000."

"Security code, yes. Subsidy password, no."

This is when I went ahead and divulged.

"I used to work for Puckett's, agent 512? And I used to program these things all the time, and I figured since you guys switched to US Cellular from Eloqui that they would've changed how they program the phones."

"Well, is it a US Cellular phone."

This part was touchy. Either way, they were going to want to know where it was from. Saying "eBay" was not going to be a valid answer, since they really like to keep a handle on inventory control on these things; if you're not paying them retail for it, they want it destroyed, essentially. Good for the company, bad for the consumer.

So, my brilliant tact was:

"Uh. I dunno. He found it."

{exasperated} "Can you find out where he found it, or who he got it from?"

"Um. Sure." {covers mouthpiece}

{waits two minutes}

"From a guy." (Brilliant, Phydeaux. Just brilliant.}

"Does it say US Cellular or Eloqui when it starts up?"

"Neither. It's OEM."

"What?"

"It shows the Motorola startup."

"Okay, give me a minute."

She went and she got a code that came from US Cellular and it failed. She was like "Well... that's the only code they'll give me that'll work for this area..."

Sigh, distribution control.

"That's okay, I'll hook it up to my equipment and figure it out and I'll give you a call back when I get that straightened out."

"Um. Okay."

I had no idea how to do this. Luckily, I ran across a post at the HowardForums discussing, of all things, dB level meters hidden in some Motorola phones. i grabbed software usually used to do a seem edit, cracked open the seem downloaded from the phone, looked to where the other guy was told to look, and there it was. A six-digit number plain as day.

Disconnected the phone, got back to where the Subsidy Code was to be entered, dropped it in, BAM. NAM 1.

Oh, but crap. She had to have changed the ESN back to the other phone.

Right?

I changed the MDN and MIN, changed the AMPS and SID to our local area of 01678, restarted, made a test call... ring ring.

Most excellent. She was too... something... to revert the ESN. And if she goes back to do it now, she'd have to know it. There's no "undo" in these terminal applications. So now, more than likely, he's not going to see a charge for the ESN change, since the code to put "ESN" for the $10 charge is after you make the memo of a successful change to go back and do it as a separate work order. She's now unable to do that since we had to terminate the call.

Ahh... it's good to be King.

Oct. 28th, 2006

10:07 pm - Jaw Droppin'

Detective Conan songs in Donkey Konga?!

Please tell me that the Japanese and European games are not region locked. I now have to hunt all these down.

06:08 pm - Indiana... not so much.

Hooray Katamari and daydreams!

Granted, I certainly don't like Katamari so much as I do Tetris, but hey, some people do.

Oct. 25th, 2006

06:22 am - Never argue with a 12 year old about networking.

It only causes you to rip out your own hair and the 12 year old winds up fighting with you over the definition of "selfish".

That thing's currently 17 pages long. Luckily, there's some Sages that agree with me enough that they're using their contacts at Nintendo to get an NOA that actually works on the WiFi Connection to jump in there and tell this kid that he's all sorts of wrong.

Mention Outsider at NSider, thread gets deleted. Talk in detail about something that ruins the integrity and branding of a Nintendo property? Stays open for weeks. I do not understand.

$20 bonus on people turning the Gamecubes in for the rest of the week at EB Games. A quick look on eBay shows me that people are paying about $56, actually bidding mind you, on a Gamecube with two controllers, so if I can give them one of my offbrands, that's fine, considering the trade value of a GameCube dipped to $25 a month ago, and if it's holding stead, $45 in store credit is enough to... uh. Pay for my copy of Red Steel. Or get a controller.

Man.

They also offered me $15 for my broken XBox. Now, I know I won't get $10,000 for it like some people try, like this dude, but I know I can at least get $40 for it. That's just as a parts machine. Or maybe I should find the parts to have it fixed myself. I DO miss Tetris Worlds.

Oh, and why is anyone paying full retail for a 360? There's tons of them on eBay going for no reserve at $200. Or less. Insane.

Oct. 22nd, 2006

01:13 am - More info than normal people should know.

I've done that before. The Taco Bell manager asked me if there was anything wrong with my food, and I said the exact same thing.

He wound up telling the person who made my food to make sure when they fold a 7-Layer-Burrito to make sure that it was lopsided. Not bad for a guy that previously hated my guts (for good reason, one might add).

Progression on my own webcomic is moving along nicely since we've decided to go for more of a graphic novel format and less of a 4-panel.

Oh, didn't know I was working on that, I guess?

A chunk of the first chapter is written out, and my artist is working as hard as a high school student can. It might be half a year before we launch. Longer thanks to the Wii.

Oct. 20th, 2006

02:08 am - I don't know what I'd do without idiots on the internet.

From a community I'm helping fund and maintain, GTFOutsider:

"Well I see you use joomla. A automated CMS program. Most popular with those who lack the skills of web design and coding. I have some free time and I am wondering if you guys are interested in some one that can design you guys an dynamic web site, instead of using Joomla. I been administrating web sites for about 2 years."

Oh, fuck you.

One of our co-administrators' beat me to the punch, though.

"Hot damn, IP address checks out, you don't look the slightest bit like a retard, if Slim doesn't validate you, I'll find him and lynch that sonavabitch."

I didn't know he was being sarcastic. So I posted this:

""Most popular with those who lack the skills of web design and coding."

This comment makes me want to see a resumé.

Joomla was selected because of it's integration with SMF. Doing the things we'll be able to do in the future from scratch, and depending that codebase on one person instead of an open-source solution that, if I dropped dead, any other guy here can pick up the user guide and carry on from here, rather than dive into miles of spaghetti code.

Thanks for the degrading words, though."

And now declassified from the discussion in the Admin forum:

My comments don't belong in the public forum, and pardon me if I'm stepping too far here, but the immediate desire to hand this guy the keys makes me want to move the content of said thread here for further discussion.

Error could've said it, and I'd be fine. This guy making his comments right off the bat and I don't even know who the fuck he is, at the very least makes me leery, at the very most, pissed that some guy can storm in here, insult us, and we're so quick as to give him our front page virginity.

Other Admin response:

Err, Phy, maybe you thought I made a mistake quoting myself and calling it sarcasim, but I wasn't.

That guy can go fuck himself.

Haha... oooooookay. Bedtime for me.

Oct. 9th, 2006

08:33 pm - Internet people.

I got called ugly by an internet hooligan today. Ironically, her name is [i]Joice[/i]. With an "I".

It came up in someone else's conversation that got fed to me because 15 year olds tend to love internet drama.

Hell, I've even said nice things about her. Regardless; hell hath no fury as an Administrator scorned.

I'm considering playing the fake "I'm SOOOO UGLY" emo card to fish for opposition. I don't play the game, kiddos. [i]I created it[/i] back in '96.

Oct. 7th, 2006

08:40 am - The Clubhouse54 people are thanking me for not posting this.

And instead using my blog for it's purpose.

Ahem.

I don't know what disturbs me more.

That "It's Walky" has an adult section for gift art, or that I've flipped through all 14 pages of it.

NOT M'JOYCE! NOOOOO

Oct. 3rd, 2006

01:43 pm - Tonight, we party, like it's 2002.

ZOMG MISLEADING SUBJECT LINE

I just want to point out that this Halloween comic from It's Walky in 2002 has Joyce dressed up as Asuka from Neon Genesis Evangelion.

While featuring my most favorite character of all time being portrayed by one that's entered my Top 20, I'm here to tell you this just isn't possible.

Joyce has an absolute mental allergy to anything along the lines of the sexual, whereas Asuka, though mostly out of fear and self-loathing, embraces all of what little she knows and uses it to toy with people, or to lay on heavy guilt trips.

The point is, unlike when Dave Cheung had Sally Richards dress up as Asuka for a Halloween in Chugworth Academy; I can believe that Sally Richards has sat through Evangelion. I simply can't believe that Joyce has made it past the 2nd episode, much less beyond that, so she would never get to the famous Episode 8.

I also sort of felt like jumping into the different degrees of girl-power that they encompass, just because it mostly popped into my mind at the moment.

Let's take Asuka for example; Asuka is feminazi by all senses of the word. Her gender is superior! If you are not Kaji, you are not a man, you're a boy! She is the perfect representative of her gender! Yadda! Yadda! Yadda! In a completely bizarre twist, as a show of Anno Hideki's practical mental breakdown, she finds her self not as free-standing, but as identifiable ("The Asuka Langley in Shinji Ikari's mind" and all that jazz.) through other people, the only female of which is her mother and everyone else being male, notably Kaji and Shinji. So beyond inconsistent characteristics, let's just go ahead and agree that at the beginning of her time in the series and then reinvented in the middle of End of Evangelion she grasps "girl power" through sexuality and violence in order to defeat her enemies and self-depreciating worth.

Contrast this with Joyce Brown, who is known to scream in horror "Premartial hanky-panky!" in reference to the people around her or when exposed to pornography. The whole idea scares her to a comatose state. Over time she grows out of it and becomes more temperate, sure, but she never embodies a strong, female lead by flaunting sexuality, even after she becomes sexually active does it still take a back-burner to who she is. Asuka never identifies herself as someone on the payroll of NERV (as referenced in Episode 9 when she gets grilled by Fuyutski), but Joyce fully acknowledges and lived her life through the work of SEMME. Only after was SEMME disbanded did she accept that chapter of her life to be over, and then to be ready to "grow up" and do different things, whereas with Asuka there is a phenomenal amount of character development; yet no growth. She's destined to be 14 forever, while Joyce went from 18 to her mid-twenties and while there's still the occasional reference to ponies 'n puppies, she continues to develop not as Asuka dependent on identification through the male characters, and not as a dominator or subservient to Walky, but as his equal and friend providing for his deficiencies and vice-versa. She's is representative of the finer sex not because she beats people over the head with it, but because she simply is.

This absolutely random Phydeaux article is a stub. You can help Phydeaux by expanding it.

I'm going to use the Mr. Gone userpic because I totally need to record me reading this in his voice.

Oct. 1st, 2006

10:52 pm - OUT.

You're a creepy man, David Willis.

Stop raking my life for plot ideas, plzkthxbai.

Lest Rook footage was... well, it was dark in Mice Pace. I'm working on it, but it's going to be hard to lighten that footage up.

First priority would be to make MP3s out of it, I think.

Sep. 30th, 2006

11:52 pm - It's like Fusion, BUT WITH SLUTS

Back from a Lest Rook concert. They rock so hard.

Video up by ... tomorrow night? I guess.

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