Elin's Journal

To be incredibly busy! Augh!

We are working on Genus: Male #7 to have ready to turn in at the end of the month, and it's shaped up quite nicely, I think (a lot of returning characters/artists this time). We're also working on Furrlough #179 and Genus Greatest Hits #4. Currently, the printers have Furrlough #178 and Orgasm Addict #1 by JK Blacklin, here's hoping the holidays don't interfere with the printing and they ship to the distros on time!

We just got in the Genus #86 boxes from the printers, so I have to get that scanned and uploaded to the Radio online store. It's got a pretty hilarious batch of stories, all with a luchadore theme, thanks to shon_howell and poinko. Those guys are wacky, lemme tell ya! And of course, Furrlough #177 got uploaded to the store last week (or so), and as often happens, it has a gorgeous hbruton cover. We are finally getting back in the normal swing of things after the horrific lateness and troubles of 2007 and I am so happy about that, I can't even articulate it.

Other things on my plate for this week:
--get registered for our UPC barcodes and arrange the payment for same (I still choke a little every time I think of the $750 price tag- that's only a little less than a month's rent...)
--get travel plans for Further Confusion arranged
--find out what inventory needs to be shipped out for Further Confusion, pull it and ship it
--finish up the Xmas card addressing and mailing
--get this week's mail order, subscription and auction stuff handled
--get state sales tax stuff dealt with
--work on getting a UPS account set up
--inventory the backstock here in the apartment and restock as needed
--answer more email and mail (this literally never ends and I can never catch up, it seems)

On the personal/fan front, I've gotten to see the first six episodes of The Sarah Jane Adventures, thanks to theuberbob bringing them over. They're cute, but definitely aimed at kids. There's some pretty hilarious ham acting going on sometimes. It's enjoyable to watch, though. We finished watching Gilmore Girls season 3, but now are stalled since we can't find Seasons 4-5 anywhere. (6 and 7 are all over the place!) And of course, I am still very excited about Sweeney Todd, which we plan to go and see on opening weekend also. I haven't had much time for WoW lately, but I hope to get to play some in order to do the holiday quests at the very least- I love those. I'm also enjoying the Advent Calendar of Downloads for The Sims 2 over at Parsimonious.org, they have cute new holiday stuff every day for the month of December. Now if only I had time to play my Sims! I haven't even started my Xmas shopping, not that there will be much of it. As usual, we're poor as hell this time of year. That's why I haven't responded to any of the "here's what to buy me!" memes- I feel wrong about advertising what I want when I can't really afford to do much for others. (I have an Amazon wishlist on my LJ profile page if you happen to be a relative of mine or something...) I will probably be making Xmas cookies, since I think I do an okay job on those. I haven't even decorated for Xmas yet since it seems kind of pointless. ^_^;

Recent Books Finished: Moominland Midwinter by Tove Jansson; Genshiken Volumes 1-9 by Kio Shimoku; From A to Biba by Barbara Hulanicki
Currently Watching: Seinfeld Box Set (at suarez's place), Angel, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Densha Otoko

The Obligatory Auction Plugs! Please Buy Our Stuff!
My eBay auctions!
My FurBid auctions!
Suarez's eBay auctions!
Atomicpanda's eBay auctions!
Matthigh's eBay auctions!

EDIT TO ADD:
This WoW video was excellent for the holiday season, and will be of particular interest to dustmeat (re: trolls) and jameshanrahan (re: Rankin-Bass). TOO MUCH!

The chance to begin again in a golden land of opportunities!

"Exodus" to virtual worlds predicted.

Interesting link. I know a lot of people both positively and negatively impacted by MMORPGs and virtual worlds like Second Life. Plus, I read all the required cyberpunk books in the late 1980's, so I've been wondering when this would happen. Ah, the future!

Back to work, solicitation information to write.

I'm posting this here because I know I have a lot of friends who play The Sims 2 also. Apparently, the new expansion pack, Bon Voyage has SecuROM encoded in it to prevent piracy (which it has already totally failed to do, by the way, there are cracked copies all over the net). So, if you buy a legit copy of the game and install it on your computer, it installs the SecuROM files secretly in a hidden folder on your hard drive, and can possibly cause your CD/DVD drive/burner to stop working entirely.

More on this here in the Sims 2 community. And more about SecuROM itself can be found here. Apparently, Bioshock had it also, and it was found to install rootkits on people's computers (while doing absolutely nothing to prevent the game from being cracked or pirated).

I know a lot of people who play this game on computers they also depend on for work purposes (and thus, CD/DVD drives/burners are essential for backing things up or making discs to send out to clients/publishers), so this is a horrible issue.

I also find it to be invasive and just think it's wrong on principle. A company shouldn't be allowed to install hidden files on my computer that access the internet without my permission (SecuROM can bypass firewall protections), or install files that will make important pieces of my computer stop working entirely. It's extremely uncool. I am waiting to see what EA has to say about this, because from the talk in the communities I frequent, it seems a lot of people are planning to buy a copy of Bon Voyage, but actually install illegal downloaded copies (since the cracked versions naturally do not contain the SecuROM stuff). Seems like the only way to avoid potential problems.

In other video game news, I have been enjoying the Brewfest event in World of Warcraft. This coming from someone who doesn't drink at all! There was some trouble with people spamming macros and area-of-effect spells during the Dark Iron Dwarves events, meaning I got disconnected a few times and the game lagged out completely. But Blizzard simply took out that part of the event until they can hotfix it so the griefing jerks can't mess it up for everyone else. This is why we can't have nice things, sheesh. I already got my pet Wolpertinger on Zugs (my main), and it's easily one of the cutest pets in the game. I'm now trying to get enough tickets to get a St. Pauli girl style dress and a ram mount. It's fun. More fun now that I don't have to constantly report people for spamming, anyway.

It continues! We got Furrlough #174 and Milk #59 turned in last week; today we get to pay for the printing, which has me chewing my nails as usual. We're also working on Hit the Beach #14. Once again behind the deadline eight ball. And there's manga project work coming out of our ears.

The weekend was quiet, I got a very mild case of heat stroke after visiting the Mission Flea Market and lost hours to a nap afterwards. That old Texas sun is determined to kill me, especially if I walk around on asphalt in it for a while. (Of course I was covered in 50-proof sunscreen and drank a liter of water while we walked around, but the heat was pretty strong. Next time: bring an umbrella to keep the sun from hitting me so hard.) I'm still tired out from it today.

Today is mail order, subscriptions and auctions day around here, so I am off to get that started. It looks to be a very busy week, as usual.

Media Recently Finished: 12 Reasons Why I Love Her by Jamie S. Rich & Joelle Jones; Swan Vol. 8 by Kyoko Ariyoshi; The Constant Princess by Philippa Gregory; Cat Getting Out of a Bag by Jeffrey Brown. I enjoyed all of these very much!
Currently Reading: Kushiel's Scion by Jacqueline Carey (they gave this away for free at SDCC! Score!); Swan Vol. 9 by Kyoko Ariyoshi
Currently Watching: The Muppet Show Season 2 (Suarez got it right away and brought it over); still working on Buffy Season 5, Angel Season 1, Carnivale Season 1 and Gilmore Girls Season 3.
Currently Playing: the usual (WoW, Sims2: Seasons), plus Pokemon: Emerald (suarez gave me an extra copy he had) and Harvest Moon DS (it's only $9.95 at Best Buy! that's a huge savings!)

Video game company UbiSoft making sexist games? For reals?

Tragically, yes. Only the game about baby care is called Imagine: Babyz, with a hip, with-it "Z" on the end so it can be extreme, no doubt.

I call bullshit on this today. Girls love video games, and they do not need "girly" games to enjoy them. When I worked at the video game store, I tried and tried to get sexist parents and grandparents to buy games girls would actually enjoy, like Mario games (Party, Sports, Cart, etc), Legend of Zelda, Kingdom Hearts, The Sims, Pokemon, Nintendogs, Animal Crossing, Katamari Damacy and Final Fantasy. Invariably, they'd gravitate to anything with Disney Princesses, Hello Kitty or Bratz on the box. And nine times out of ten, those girls came back in later to trade in those games for the games I mentioned. Teenage girls constantly bought horror/survival games, dance games and first person shooters, when given the ability to make their own choices. There is no one type of girl gamer, and to make these craptastic "educational" games for girls is pathetic, like those are the only things girls want to do.

Bad form, UbiSoft, bad form.

Link ganked from trecomics, because she is awesome.

Your moment of zen:



Japanese trailer for the Nintendo DS game Kokoro Scan. I have no idea what is going on, but it's brilliant.

Hahaha, best Flash game ever!



Rose & Camellia, a Japanese Flash game that revolves around slap-fighting. Anyone who liked Brother, Dear Brother (aka "Hokuto no Ken for girls", as suarez christened it...) will love this thing.

You can play it here:
http://nigoro.jp/game/rosecamellia/rosecamellia.php

In other things, I finished reading the new Harry Potter book yesterday morning, but won't talk about it yet because I don't want to spoil it for anyone else. I enjoyed it. I didn't enjoy the arm cramp I got because the book is so darn heavy, though.

San Diego Comic Con in less than two days. Tonight, mail order has to go out.

Awesomesauce. dustmeat, the troll on bass is totally cool. And I think the Blood Elf guy is channeling Skwisgaar Skwigelf, which is just awesome.

You can download the mp3 on the WoW site, too!

In other news, still itchy and eating Benadryl like they are candy.

Anime and World of Warcraft related, skip if you ain't interested! :D

Watch this one first (EVA opening):

URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgATlhZFAfs

Watch this one second (WoW EVA Opening):

URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wszzNg6zJeE

That guy is a genius. I laughed and laughed!
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atomicpanda, I'm looking at you.

Blizzard to open facility in Austin, TX. They're now hiring customer support people!

We're still hip-deep in the manga deadline right now, so posting is sporadic.