I realized something today. I haven’t posted any rants lately. And if there’s one thing the internet needs more of, it’s pointless, stupid rants. So here we go! This being a rant, I’ll probably swear and curse like Gordon fucking Ramsey. Today’s topic is: things that annoy the fucking hell out of me!
Canned vegetables. This plain and simply isn’t food! The best example are carrots. Take a fresh carrot. Tasty and crunchy. Then take one from a can. It’s so soft you can squish it against the roof of your mouth with your tongue and I don’t know what it tastes like, but it sure as hell ain’t a carrot! I don’t understand how anyone can eat this shit. The only exception: tomatoes. Even Heston Blumenthal prefers canned tomatoes over fresh ones for making pizza.
People who STILL don’t know how to use turn signals on a roundabout. I don’t know what the rules for this are wherever the hell you live, but here in Belgium it’s like this: you use your turn signal when you get off a roundabout. Not when you get on it, not when you’re on it, only when you get OFF it! Anyone with more than one brain cell should be able to figure this out on his own, but apparently there’s still plenty of morons who don’t have the mental capacity for such a simple task. If you use your left turn signal while on a roundabout you’re a braindead moron who should be shot in the face with a sawn-off double-barreled shotgun.
People who still aren’t used to the Euro. Up until 2001, the Belgian currency was the Belgian Franc. In 2002, it was replaced by the Euro. I can perfectly understand the fact that older people have trouble getting used to it and still have to convert prices. I could perfectly understand people having some trouble with it for the first year or so. But if you’re a thirty-year old who is still counting in the old currency more than seven years later, you’re either retarded or a lazy son of a bitch! It’s people like you that are ruining our civilization and you should be ashamed for being born.
Conspiracy theorists. People are very bad at keeping their mouth shut. Even the most powerful man on the planet couldn’t keep a simple blowjob a secret, and that involved only a few people. Do you really think it’s possible to keep people quiet about the massive conspiracies you morons are always talking about? Screw your shapeshifting reptilian world domination plots, mind control experiments, moon landing hoaxes and new world order. If these things were real, you wouldn’t even be talking about them in the first place, because you would have been killed, put away in a secret prison or simply brainwashed to keep your mouth shut by some sort of mind control ray. The simple fact that you’re running prisonplanet.com (yes, I’m looking at you, Alex Jones!) and you’re getting away with it without anyone trying to stop you is the best proof you’re full of shit.
Apple fanboys. Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with you people? My PC costs about the same as the best iMac, but has way better specs. What fucking excuse does Apple have for making their stuff so incredibly expensive? And don’t claim MacOS is so much better than Windows. The last time Vista crashed on my computer was when one of the memory chips malfunctioned. Speaking of memory, why does an extra gigabyte on a Mac cost so much more than the exact same gigabyte on a PC? It’s the same fucking memory! But the most annoying thing, of course, is the cult-like following they have. Have you ever seen people camping in front of a store when a new Nokia or Samsung phone is released?
Drivers that don’t pay attention when in front of a traffic light. Here’s how it goes. The light turns green, but it still takes about five seconds before the finally realize it and get going. Does it take so long for their brain to process the information? Or are they picking their nose, going “Dumdeedum… Dumdeedeedum… Ooooh, it’s green, perhaps I should start driving again!”. It’s people like this that made me wish I had a rocket launcher from time to time. Reaction speed should be part of a driving test. As is paying some fucking attention when in front of a traffic light! If you’re one of there idiots, please do us all a favor and set your car on fire with your stupid ass in it.
As you can see, there’s plenty of stuff to be pissed about. Seriously, why do there have to be so much morons in the world? Why hasn’t evolution gotten rid of stupidity by now? It has had millions of years and there seem to be more dumb people than ever.
Rumors abot this have been circulating for a while and now it’s official: the next World of Warcraft expansion will be titled “Cataclysm“. The title suggested it would have something to do with the Great Sundering and the destruction of Kalimdor, splitting it into two continents. Some people said Blizzard was gonna open the Emerald Dream (and perhaps activating the portals in Bough Shadow, Twilight Grove and various other places).
Here’s what Blizzard now announced. Azeroth will be devastated by a huge disaster, entirely reshaping Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms. This will happen no matter what, even if you don’t buy the expansion. The Barrens will split in two, and a new region, Uldum, will be uncovered. Hyal Summit will also be opened as a neutral region. Two new races will be introduced: the Worgen for the Alliance and the Goblins for the Horde (wich seems kinda odd since the Goblins have always been a neutral race until now). A new secondary skill, Archeology, will allow you to digg up artifacts.
The level cap will be raised by only five levels (unlike the previous expansions, wich added ten levels), making the highest level 85. No new classes will be introduced, but there will be new class/race combinations. There will also be a new Wintergrasp-like PVP zone, new dungeons and raids, and some old dungeons will get a heroic version (including the Deadmines). Another new feature will be the “Path of the Titans” character advancement, and (finally!) the possibility to use flying mounts everywhere, including Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms.
With the Lich King (probably) defeated, you might wonder who the new über-badguy is gonna be. I’m not gonna tell, just watch this trailer to find out:
No word on a release date yet, but it will probably still be a while. After all, there’s still a lot of content to be unlocked in Wrath Of The Lich King!
Okay, here’s another short update on Gridblaster II. No new graphics to show off, but some major advances in code. Here are the features I added:
Enemies fire at the player, and detect if there’s a wall between them and the player. They only fire if they have an open line of fire.
Player and enemies can collide with each other and explode. You don’t get points for destroying an enemy that way.
Projectiles of player and enemies can collide with each other. This means you can actually shoot down anything the enemy fires at you.
Cheat mode can be enabled, giving you unlimited hitpoints, lives and ammo. Not that you would ever use this, would you?
And here’s a list of new bugs I ran into:
The wall-detection doesn’t work 100% of the time, and I have no idea why.
When two enemies collide with each other while one is exiting a spawner, very unpredictable things happen.
I still haven’t found a way to solve the wheel animation issue.
These bugs aren’t really critical, though, except maybe the second one. From time to time, this causes an enemy to move out of the maze and start moving around at random! I hope to solve this issue soon. In the meantime, I’m working on some more graphics. I’ve got enough working code now to build a fully functional level, meaning it’s time to start replacing the dummy graphics. Expect more screenshots soon!
I mentioned it in my tweets a few days ago already, so here’s the full story. Last saturday I went to Brussels with friends. First, we visited the Atomium. This monument is to Brussels what the Eiffel tower is to Paris. It was built in 1958 for the World Expo and represents an iron crystal magnified about 160 billion times. It consists of nine connected spheres. Six of them can be visited and contain an exhibition of the construction and Belgian comics of the 1950s. The top sphere has a restaurant and an very spectacular view of the city. A few years ago, the entire monument was renovated. The steel plating on the spheres was replaced with polished aluminium, making them very shiny. It holds a spot in Wired’s “100 geeky places to take your kids this summer” list, and is shown in Front 242’s video clip for Headhunter.
In the afteroon, we visited Mini Europe, a park full of scale models of European landmarks, wich was located right next to the Atomium. It’s a popular destination for school field trips, although I had never visited it myself. For example, here’s a shot of the Eiffel Tower, the Centre Pompidou, the Arc de Triomphe and Big Ben (with the Atomium in the background). Although the park wasn’t very big, it kept us busy for the rest of the day.
