Ninjas can't catch you if you're on fire

It's true. If you ever find yourself beset by ninja, all you have to do is set yourself on fire. Really. I saw it on the internet, so it must be true.

The focus of this week's review is Dr. McNinja, by Christopher Hastings. He's a doctor. And a ninja. He's also Irish. Enough said. ...Yeah, not really. Besides, I think you expect a bit more out of me than two puny paragraphs for a week's blog post.

Dr. McNinja is a practicing medical doctor in the small-ish town of Cumberland, Maryland. He is their self-appointed protector and investigator. As the firstborn son of Dan McNinja, it was somewhat expected that he would follow in his fathers footsteps and become a full-time ninja, but the Doctor had a different idea. In college, he cloned himself dozens of times for the sole purpose of gaining at least a Masters in every field imaginable (and some that aren't). After they all completed their mission, they amalgamated into one Doctor with all the knowledge of the combined McNinjas. One didn't make it back in time and was captured by pirates, but that's a different story.

The comic only shows a few years of his life in Cumberland, but what it does show is rather dramatic. The Doctor has faced down Ronald McDonald, cured Paul Bunyan's disease (make sure you read the alt text), used frozen shamrocks to defeat pirates, proven that working out too much gives you a jetpack crafted from your ab muscles and makes you crazy, fought off a horde of undead ninja, and done a lot of other awesome stuff that you probably don't want to hear about in a huge list.

The Doctor's companions are a rather heterogeneous lot. His family, consisting of his parents and younger brother, are all ninja (not really surprising, but definitely interesting at family reunions). The receptionist at his practice is a gorilla. His sidekick, 12 year-old Gordito, possesses a handlebar mustache that he grew by sheer will after his father was killed in a circus acrobatic accident. His preferred method of transportation is via a velociraptor named Yoshi. His mentor is a clone of Benjamin Franklin. The mayor of the town of Cumberland is a former astronaut with a severe aversion to zombies. The Doctor has crossed swords with mimes, pirates, and vampires, but his real nemesis is a man known only as King Radical. Recently instated as the head of the Cumberland Mafia, Radical is plotting to overthrow Cumberland through a series of philanthropic, community-oriented projects that only the Doctor can see through. This doesn't do a whole lot to help Dr. McNinja's public image, as most of the town's populace think he is, at best, extremely eccentric (of course he is, but this doesn't do anything to help his image, either).

I'd have to rate Dr. McNinja PG for a handful of reasons. There is a good bit of blood in a few of his story arcs, but it's not terribly excessive (usually), and gore is kept to a minimum. There is some censored swearing, but it's bleeped in such a way that your mind is drawn to what was written in the little black box over the words in question, rather than the word in question itself. There is no explicit content in the comic, which is a welcome change from some of the questionable content on other artists' pages. Outside of these minor issues, it's a solid comic that most anyone should be able to enjoy. Chris, you made an A.

Happy Katanakka!

-Defender of the Blog, RTB

Put a rating in your rating...

To start off this fine post, I would like to express my happiness at seeing the Return of the Blog. It was a really great wrap-up to the trilogy and... wait, no that's Star Wars. Or Lord of the Rings. Anyways, I would like to explain what I hope to be contribution to the blog. I will rate things. You might not like my rating, but I'll make it as humorous and logical as possible. Now when I say 'things,' I mean to keep it vague. The plan is that people who read this blog will send me random things to rate. And I mean anything. Maybe a picture of a cute lizard? Maybe a mathematical theorum? I will create specific categories of things to be rated, as well, and when people send enough suggestions I will group them together in a single post. For instance, right away I would like to create the catagory: Fewd. Spelled with an 'ew' because it's funny and because the edibles that I am rating will likely not be considered edible by most. When people send suggestions, I will attempt to obtain and sample them and will then rate them as to their culinary value. As two sneak peeks: Yoo-Dew and Spicy Carameese.

Send all suggestions to x37v.tbcrh@gmail.com which doesn't exist yet so I'm going to go make it as soon as I'm done writing this.

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For this post, however, I will be rating various rating systems:

The Letter Grade:

The most classic and well known grading system in schools, and often used as a generic rating system. We've all had driven into us since childhood the idea of how great 'A' is and how bad and terrible 'F' is, so it's clear that a lot of how we view this system comes from classical conditioning. As such, it receives credit for involving psychology. However, it's so random. I mean, why leave 'E' out? And for that matter, why use letters at all if you only need 5 of them? Finally, as with all ratings, we want more detail when a grade isn't quite good enough for A, but too good for B, so we introduced +'s and -'s. Now this is just dumb. I mean, combining letters and mathematical symbols? What is this, algebra? And it gets worse when considering that we can't express higher levels than '+' without resorting to 'A++' (or for those who have slogged through eBay feedback pages, the dreaded 'A++++++++++++++++++++++++++'). In the end, though, letter grades express what they're trying to express adequately, so they receives a decent

B-

Percentage:

Amongst school systems, this is what the Letter Grade system is based off of and amongst media this is what fan level is based off of. It is clear cut and obvious what your position is if you understand the slightest thing about percentages. 100% is good; 80% is pretty good; 0% is bad; 50% is right in the middle and therefore not good. In addition, it looks professional and tidy. Best of all, if a hundredths scale isn't specific enough for you, you can just tack on some decimal points and it still looks good. (Ex.: 83.45%) While viewing percentage ratings, they are nigh on perfect. However, when assigning them, they can be hellish. I mean, you have a hundred different numbers to pick from. And if even one of your numbers ought to have a decimal point, they all need it. The worst is when you're trying to add up a bunch to equal 100% total; then you have to keep bumping one measurement up and another down and they never all look perfect. Percentages receive the adequate grade of

87.65%

Stars:

Unfortunately, the source of all knowledge and Wisdom on the internet, Wikipedia, does not seem to have a page on the Star Rating system. If it had, I would have been able to give a quick history of how this system came to be. As it stands, I will have to live with the fact that I have no idea how the idea of stars as a rating system came about, but it is used endlessly today. It is often used for rating movies and games, and of course is the primary system for rating hotels. I believe it is so popular because it is extremely quick and easy to use and because images seem to stand out better than words. Most commonly, a rating will be something 'out of 5 stars.' When more detail than fifths is required, either more base stars can be added (Ex.: 7 out of 10) or fractions of stars can be used. (Ex.: 3.5 out of 5) This makes it look like the star bar is being filled up, and is visually pleasing to most people. However, pieces of stars can be somewhat hard to decipher, and even with fractional stars, 5 is still a very limiting number. Therefore, the star system receives a better-then-average

Non-Stars:

This is a somewhat rare spin-off of the Star Rating system. It is often applied on internet forums and the like. It entails the use of various images, emoticons, animals, memes, or abstract concepts instead of stars, but is similar in every other aspect. This can lead to a much more appropriate, humorous, and/or relevant expression. (Ex.: I give this webcomic about pokemon 4 out of 5 happy Pikachus! -accompanied by 4 pictures of said happy Pikachu-) However, when taking into account the above mention of partial ratings, this can look extremely odd, such as when 3.9 Buddy's results in a missing limb:

However, this may prove to be even more humorous than the whole picture would have been. The primary issue with such a rating is when those internet folk that are lacking in brain cells attempt to use this system and completely ruin the point of it by using an entirely unrelated and possibly annoying picture/idea. (Ex.: I give this picture of a laughing camel 3 out of 5 pretty, pretty princesses) Non-Star ratings receive a better-than-better-than-average

(4 out of 5, I found this to be humorous. -gets stabbed-)

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Well, that's all for now. As everyone else is changing their name, and I'd prefer a single word name, I shall be going with my long-standing codename: X37V.

Farewell and good fortune,

~ X37V

A look into math part one. All Your Base.

Earlier today,(by day I mean any time in the past 7 days) I was writing out the Fibonacci numbers and thought “could I make a base Fibonacci?”

Well before we answer this question we need to know two things; what is a base and, what are the Fibonacci numbers.

In this post we will cover the harder one; what is a base?
Well according to dictionary.com a base is “the bottom support of anything; that on which a thing stands or rests: a metal base for the table.” Wait… sorry… here

13.
Mathematics.
a.
the number that serves as a starting point for a logarithmic or other numerical system.
b.
a collection of subsets of a topological space having the property that every open set in the given topology can be written as the union of sets of the collection.
c.
a collection of neighborhoods of a point such that every neighborhood of the point contains one from the collection.
d.
a collection of sets of a given filter such that every set in the filter is contained in some set in the collection.

Let us pull that apart and make some more sense of it.

In our day to day life we come across three bases, what we work in base 10 (Dec), what is used in making colors for computers base 16 (Hex), and the life blood of computers base 2 (bin)

We will start with what we all know, base 10.
At every power of 10 we add a place. What do I mean by that?
Well the powers are 1, 10, 100, 1000… (10^0, 10^1, 10^2, 10^3…)
With a base 10 we need 10 deferent symbols we use 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9.
So how does this work in real life? Well lets take the number 1138 why well I like that number.
We have one 10^3 (A.K.A. 1000) one 10^2 (A.K.A 100) three 10^2 (A.K.A 30) and eight 10^0 (A.K.A 8). So we have 1000+100+30+8 = 1138 at this point may be thinking well Duhh T100 we know 1138=1138 but stay with me.

We will now look at the number 18C6 WAIT!!!!!!!! “C” is not a number! But it is in base 16 known as Hexadecimal (Hex). We now need 16 symbols to use so we will use 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,A,B,C,D,E,F. So the points that we need add a new place is at the powers of 16 they are , 1, 16 , 256, 4096…(16^0, 16^1, 16^2, 16^3…)(all these numbers are in Dec for the readers)

So lets get back to our number 18C6
We have one 16^3 (A.K.A. 4096 in Dec) eight 16^2 (A.K.A. 2048 in De) twelve 16^1 (A.K.A. 192 in Dec) and six 16^0 (A.K.A. 6 in Dec) So we have in Hex 1000 + 800 +C0 +6 = 18C6 In Dec this would be 4096 + 2048 +192 +6 = 6342
Hex is used for colors in computers. The color is made by the mix of red green and blue (RBG) ranging FFF,FFF,FFF (black) to 000,000,000 (white)

roses are _#FF0000 violets are _#0000FF all my base are belong to you. =P

Now on to the best base of all base 2 (bin)
So by now you know the drill. Being only base 2 we only need 2 we will use 0,1.
The powers are:; 1,2,4,8,16,32,64,128,256…(2^0, 2^1, 2^2, 2^3, 2^4, 2^5, 2^6, 2^7, 2^8…). Lets take this number 101010. We have a one in the 32 space (2^5), nothing in the 16 space (2^4), a one in the 8 space (2^3), nothing in the 4 space (2^2), a one in the 2 space (2^1), and last nothing in the 1 space (2^0). We not have 32+0+8+0+2+0=42.
Now why would we ever use this? It takes more space then any other base (save base one, but we got away form tick marks a long time back). Well it only needs to states on or off (0 or 1) this can be done with a normal switch or one variable. It allows us to change logic tables into an electric form if you have three switches; A, B, and C, and you want to know what state they are in you can do so with one number. If A is on B is off and C is on, we get 101 or in Dec this would be 5 (we have one in the 1 place nun in the 2 place and one in the 4 place 1+0+4 =5). So you can set three switches with one number lets say we want A off B on and C off all we need is 2 (the computer takes it and changes it to 010 A is off (0) well B is on (1) and C is off (0)).

I hope this has help and not just mixed you up more. Fell free to post ether way.
“See” you next week.
T100

[insert witty title here]

Happy Tuesday, everyone. I have for you the second part of my rave playlist. It’s a bit shorter than the first because, after listening to it exclusively for a week, I’m sick of some of the songs and they’re obviously not good enough for me to talk about. Luckily, this is the last piece of the playlist. Otherwise, the entire thing would be reduced to my five favorites and you would have much less exposure to new songs. On to the music!

Love Don’t Let Me Go by David Guetta
The vocal harmony here is amazing and is the main focus of the song. The background melody is interesting and uses a bit less of the synth static that these songs tend to be drawn towards.

The Promise Man by Basic Element
If this song had no lyrics, it would be amazing. However, it does. It’s still a good song, but the lyrics really don’t add anything to it at all. While I’m changing things, I would add a bit more of the secondary melody.

Walk On Water by Basshunter
This is the song that got me hooked on techno. It’s one of those songs that is absurdly popular, but it still hasn’t been worn out. It’s insanely repetitive, but it can get away with it because it sounds amazing.

Feel Fine by Tune Up!
The main melody in this song is very well-supported and it gives this song a ton of energy. The song has three distinct parts that work together fairly well to keep things interesting.

Can I Get a Witness by Rob Mayth
The main melody of this song is good enough to make up for the odd lyrical sections. Once again, it has a lot of energy and it sounds like it’d be wonderful to dance to. The transitions are done very well.

Future Shock
Here is a true example of the Minimalist influence in techno. This song really doesn’t change often and the patterns are the same throughout. It’s not unpleasant, but it’s more of a filler song. At the moment, I can’t find the artist for this song because the Grooveshark gnomes seem to have taken the name off. If anyone knows it, post in the comments. It is currently listed under Hard Dance Mania Volume 5 (disk 2).

Start the Game by Tune Up!
Aside from the fact that this song makes me lose the game every single time I hear it, the melody is fun and restated in a few different ways. Unfortunately, it doesn’t get much deeper than that.

Bounce by Tune Up!
This one has become one of my favorites because of the energy, the lyrics (all four lines of them), the open synth sound in the melodic line and the layout of the song. Bounce is more complex than others because of the Matrix-esque slow motion break in the melody gives the song a bit more texture than the straight repetition of the beat.

Feelings by Basic Element
Unlike the other songs on this list, the main melody is exclusively in the lyrical line. It’s repetitive and leaning towards Minimalist, but it’s a generally interesting song. I will admit that I’ve never paid attention to the lyrics whatsoever.

Every Time We Touch by Cascada
Every Time We Touch is another techno/pop classic and one of the few songs on this list whose lyrics I actually listen to. It may be cheesy and slightly overused, but it’s a good song.

Ravers in the UK by Manian
Ah, Manian. Evidently, they love stealing from their own songs. There are few differences in the melody of this song and Welcome to the Club, but, luckily for them, I like both of them enough to overlook that. Once again, the rhythmic pattern from last week shows up noticeably in the melodic line. The lyrical line is great except the actual “ravers in the UK” part annoys me. The style of singing is subtly different on that part and it doesn’t sound as good as the rest. However, the remainder of the song has enough musical merit that I can get past it.

Stamp on the Ground by Italo Brothers
I blame the Nerd of the Blog for the inclusion of this song. Since my last post, he introduced me to it and it’s been stuck in my head ever since. My initial opinion was that it lacked in the energy of some of the other songs I’ve listed, but the melody is undeniably well-written (for those of you keeping track, it also has a bit of that same rhythmic pattern). The harmony in the lyrical line also has an appealingly open resonance. I’m absolutely in love with this song now and I can’t quite pin down why apart from reasons I’ve already stated.

Raise Your Head Up by Pimp! Code
I’m becoming steadily more impressed with Pimp! Code despite their odd name choice. This song is a tiny bit over-synthesized, but the pizzicato sections provide a good contrasting statement of the melody. The melody itself is very repetitive, but well-harmonized and a bit addicting. It hints at the same swung style of other techno songs I love (techno takes a lot from jazz rhythmically).

This marks the end of my rave playlist for the time being. I have many more playlists of various genres that will likely be coming to you soon. If you have any specific requests of songs for me to talk about or genres, leave a comment. I retain the right to choose not to talk about those songs (for example, I’m not going to be talking about the majority of heavy metal songs), but I promise I will consider them.

A martedì!

~ Entropy

Synopsis for Week 1

Greetings and Salutations,

This past week you have seen many things, including the revival of the blog and numerous changes to the structure and layout of the blog.

On Monday ACRONYM fixed some of his past posts and provided updated material on them.

In addition, Defender of the blog stated his goals and his topics for his posts.

On Tuesday Entropy posted a list of good rave music and also stated her goals and topics.

On Wednesday The King of the Blog wrote on the differences between Nerds and Geeks, and answered the question, "What is a Nerd?"

On Thursday Defender of the Blog discussed the webcomic Dominic Deegan, written by Michael Terracciano.

On Friday ACRONYM discussed the video game League of Legends (LoL) and other Defense of the Ancients (DotA) clones as well as giving us an idea of what a hardcore gamer is.

In addition, The Doctor discussed some of the different contributers to YouTube, including the Vlogbrothers and Julian Smith.

And on Saturday Parameciumkid detailed the story of his summer until the current time period, in regards to interesting stuff.

Feel free to go back and read these incredible posts if you missed them, to comment on them (please do, whenever you want) and to argue over things as commenting people are wont to do.

Live long and prosper,

King of the Blog

I'm writing this instead of my final paper.

Apparently this blog un-died at some point while I wasn't looking. (OH NOES ZOMBIE BLOG!!1!) ...And since there has yet to be any information presented to me suggesting that I am no longer expected to fill my role as a contributor I suppose I should uh, fill my role as a contributor and be a'contributin' stuffz. F'sho.
So since I failed in the last five minutes to think of a satisfactorily hilarious or exciting specific subject about which to ramble, here's an unstructured anecdote about where I've been and why there's a big empty hole in my friends' worlds:
Um.
This past Summer was supposed to be, me having collected a higher-than-loserly amount of friends, that idyllic last Summer (no, last SuMMMMMer, not supper, none of us are Jesus) during which I spend as much of my time as possible hanging out with my high school buddies enjoying the time we have left and reveling in the lack of responsibility we shall never again enjoy. Long story short, fail. If I remember clearly enough, I think we hung out like twice. But whatever. The important part is what I was doing while the rest of you were not with me.
Which was playing on the computer by myself at home like the tremendous loser I am never not at risk of becoming. I've aspired for a while now to try and create my own video games and early this Summer I discovered a game programming engine that does not fail.
But enough about Summer already. It's my least favorite season. The time came soon enough for me to leave everything but my grandparents and Pikachu behind and venture off to Florida. For college, yayzorz. Turned out I ended up with pretty cool roommates though. I'm not just being nice here, but I felt really lucky that the four of us ended up together. We all have similar interests, we're all nerds, one of them shares my hobby of cosplaying - though in his case of Bleach characters - etc. As usual though, as a newly-made college freshman I soon felt all alone and lost in the world and so forth. Which is by no means the reason I drove myself back home a week later. Seriously! That weekend was actually the date of Dragon*Con, the hugest and my favorite out of all the conventions in the southeast. Lulz ensued.
The next noteworthy thing to happen was um, another convention. Isn't my life predictable? Yes Mom, if you're being the stalker you raised me to believe you are and are reading this, I confess I went to another convention while I was here. You probably already found about through Facebook. Yes, I know. Yes, I did my laundry. YES, I separated the papers from the clothes piles. YES, I registered for classes. Yeah, that too. ugh... YES MOM, yes i love you too, okay, talk to you next week. Okay okay okay okay okay already, I'm trying to type a - um, a "paper". For "one of my classes." Alrgith, bye.
Where was I? Oh yeah, the part with the Yellow Dais- oh, not that part? Oh that's right.
I went to this thing called ShadoCon recently and it was fun. There were cuddlez.
Did I mention my roommates are way better than me at Super Smash Bros. Brawl? I thought I was decently good but when I went over there and started playing them it made me feel like such a n00b. Turns out it was a sizable mistake on my part not to learn to use the shield. Plus I found out Jigglypuff has a one-hit kill move.
Back to ShadoCon though. It happened after Halloween, on which I added a new costume to my cosplay repertoire -
DOCTOR OCTOGONAPUS!!!!!! (Blargh!)
If you don't know who that is, imagine that I just said something really insulting along the lines of "ur a noob" and go look up "The Lazer Collection". For best results, enjoy it. You might even want to try loling.
So for Halloween this year I dressed up as Dr. Octogonapus and Lazered everyone. Turns out it's a waste of time to shoop people's pictures in Photoshop (R) when you can bring a Shoop da Whoop mask and make them SHOOP THEMSELVES IN REAL LIFE. IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS FOR DRAMATIC EFFECT.
And that's all I got to say 'bout that. Not much else happened. I'm still single. This post was very long. This is a sentence. I'm sleepy.
Did I ever tell you the story of the Yellow Daisy? Wait, who's this?
Interesting yellow dress you've got on there. What do you mean that's not really what happ-
Apparently this blog un-died at some point while I wasn't looking. And since there has yet to be any information presented to me to the effect of my no longer being expected to fill my role as a contributor, I suppose I should like, do that. Fo Sho.
Because I haven't thought of anything very interesting to talk about, here goes a poorly- structured rant about what I've been doing while the rest of you weren't looking. Just scroll up to read it.
OKAY THAT'S IT I'M DONE.
 - parameciumkid

This would sounds like a movie quote, but I'm lazy

alright, so this is gonna be a filler post until I can actually figure out any specialty of mine to actually post about on a regular basis. For now, I will talk to you a bit about youtube and some of it's great contributers.

Vlogbrothers: My favorite people EVER on youtube. They're started an entire group of followers called Nerdfighters(they don't fight nerds, they're clearly "pro-nerd" to quote them). (insert link to video here which for some reason isn't working). they do songs about Harry Potter and quarks and tetris and talk about the french revolution and terrorist raptor statistics and are generally AMAZING while being educational. Look them up. You will not be sorry.

Tobuscus.: I haven't seen a ton by him, but his Literal trailers are amazing. basically he shows a movie/game trailer and sings what's literally happening in the trailer. Soudns dumb, but it's hilarious. He has some other great stuff, and is funny in general. (latest video was the LoZ Skyward Sword literal. 'twas awesome)

MysteryGuitarMan: AMAZING guy who does really awesome music videos and music in general. He's pretty awesome but the best part is how he does his music. Stuf flike making music with pistachios or tennis sounds and stuff like that.

Julian Smith: Hilarious randomness and awesome things like the techno jeep song. Malk and Pre-blessed food were amazing videos as were many others. Another guy to watch and keep up with. Has some great things for any time.

well, that's all for me. I like things short(anyone who sees that as a short joke should be hurt) I will see you guys later. Trust me, I'm the Doctor

Comment on our Posts!!!

Hey, just a quick notice: I would like feedback on my post about whether you guys thought it was any good, what your favorite parts were, etc... I'm sure the other bloggers would appreciate some constructive criticism as well.

Now go read my post, or click here if you're lazy.

ACRONYM of the Blog

LoL!!

So, for all of my blog posts, I'll be following a particular format. First, I'll link to my favorite video of the week/one I discovered recently. Next,I'll post a synopsis of my article, and then I'll have the article. Afterwards, I'll put anything else in that may be of interest/related to my post.

Video of the Week: Darth Vader vs. Hitler. Epic Rap Battles of History 2

Synopsis: A discussion on the DotA genre, League of Legends, other DotA games, and what the definition of a "hardcore" gamer is.

So, a couple of the (former) blog authors on this site, including myself, have recently gotten into a game called League of Legends. It is essentially a DotA clone. Basic gameplay includes 2 teams of 3/5 champions that go around the map, level up, kill people on the other team, and ultimately try to destroy the other team's base. The premise is trite, but the delivery is fresh and unique which makes it a very enjoyable game. So, for this post, I'm going to talk about the DotA genre of games.

Defense of the Ancients (DotA) was a very unique mod of Warcraft III. Unlike the lackluster RTS that it was attached to, DotA focused on simply building your hero's stats and abilities and buying items instead of commanding armies and other typical RTS elements. Each hero has their own unique skills that they can learn. At level 6, they can learn their ultimate (or "ult" for short) that is insanely powerful/useful but has high costs.

Specifically, League of Legends builds off of this but adds a few new elements. Most champions go off of the typical mana system (each ability has a cost and a cooldown, or wait time), but some of their new areas go off of unique systems. 3 characters, Kennen, Shen, and Akali, all of which are ninjas, go off of an energy system. It works very similarly to mana, but it has a fast regeneration rate and cannot be replenished by items. Mordekaiser is unique because he doesn't even have mana. Instead, he charge a shield by using his abilities which allows him to tank damage very well.

On a side note, Heroes of Newerth is another game that plays similarly to DotA. It bears more similarities to DotA and takes less chances than League of Legends, but it is still a great game. However, there are quite a few differences. Without going into a lot of detail, basically, here's the bottom line. League of Legends is a fun game that isn't as challenging to learn as HoN, but if you're a gamer who plays competitively, then you'll want to go with HoN.

Before I go, I feel compelled to explain what a hardcore gamer exactly is. A hardcore gamer is not necessarily someone who plays in every video game tournament. A hardcore gamer is one who spends a majority of his time playing video games. Here's a good definition from Urban Dictionary:

Someone who plays video games as a primary hobby. They tend to spend large amounts of time playing games, often in excess of two or three hours a day. Hardcore gamers tend to care less about graphics then casual gamers. While some specialize in a single genre, they typically have fairly diverse taste in games, frequently playing a wide variety of games from different genres. They'll often seek out obscure and older games, based on word of mouth or positive critical reception. Hardcore gamers put good gameplay above all else, and don't mind if a good game has poor (or even nonexistent) graphics, sound, characters and plot. The stereotypical hardcore gamer is out of shape, and has poor hygene. They spend a lot of their disposable income on video games, consoles, or PC upgrades, and a large percentage of their free time either playing video games or discussing them, online and off. They wear either black clothing, or T-shirts with geeky pop-culture references, often to video games. Their social skills may be sub-par, and they may be less likely than others their age to have many friends, a jobs and a girlfriend/boyfriend. Some of these stereotypes are negative, and they certainly don't apply to all hardcore gamers, but there's a fair amount of truth to them.

 Essentially, competitive gamers are hardcore, but a hardcore gamer doesn't necessarily play games competitively.

I hope I've enlightened you to a new genre of games, and I encourage anyone who has not played any of the games mentioned to try one of them out. They're all great, and it is definitely a great genre.

Heroes of Newerth
League of Legends
Defense of the Ancients

Signing off,
ACRONYM of the Blog

Oracle for Hire

Webcomics: the heartbeat of nerd-dom on the internet. Through webcomics, you can see what's going on in the world of the socially shunned, watch for the latest and greatest in memes (sometimes you even see them created), and be entertained by some of the best artists and comedians the free internet has to offer. However, I will the the first to admit, there is a whole lotta crap out there. Some webcomics are poorly-drawn and incomprehensible. Some are poorly-written. Some are specialty webcomics, designed for the pleasure of a very few people, while everyone else is lost in the dark. Some are just plain stupid. Some are excuses for the artist to draw naked people (if you find a comic labelled 'NSFW' (Not Safe For Work), find a different comic). All that aside, there are some great comics out there, and I'm making it my goal in life for the next few months to educate you fine people on some of the ones I've come to love.

Today's spotlight is on one of the best-known comics on the web: Dominic Deegan.

The comic is set in a fantasy world, a land of magic, monsters, evil politicians (whoops, said the same thing twice), and puns. LOTS of puns. The comic's creator, Michael Terracciano, has a great sense of humor... even if it is a bit broken. The comic typically centers around a seer named Dominic Deegan (gasp! I'm sure you didn't see that coming). Dominic is a practitioner of Second Sight magic, which is used to watch events from far away, see the past, and attempt to predict the future. The most common and most derided application of this is fortune telling. Fortune tellers are often mysterious and cryptic in their messages... this is usually because they have no idea what they're seeing. Second Sight is not an all-powerful art, it only allows the viewer to see events from a different perspective than they normally would. Anyway, enough on magic, back to the main character. Dominic possesses one of the most powerful minds in existence. He was even selected as the Champion of Balance to combat a Chaos cult set on destroying the world. He's fought demons, defeated extra-planar superweapons... twice, dueled (briefly) a centuries-old necromancer, and once, even taught a college course. His mind is a fortress, and nothing can break it. Nothing.

Lately the comic's focused on pretty much every character except Dominic, but that in no way diminishes the quality of the product. Since we last left our hero, we've seen one of Dominic's star students study abroad, we've seen Dominic's younger brother, Gregory, start his own band, and we've seen an old nemesis of Dominic's work his way through the Wild Edge (a scar on the land caused by an ancient magical conflict between two archmages). The current story arc follows the Third War in Hell (the third one we know about, anyway). Usually, though, Dominic is the star.

Even in terms of family and friends, he seems to have interesting tastes. His mother is an archmage of the Fifth Circle, his father is a renowned bard and retired swordfighter. His younger brother was a white mage before losing his magic to an Infernomancer, and now has his own band. His older brother, Jacob, is a necromancer. His fiancée is under a curse unleashed by an orcish black mage at the end of the last war between Callan (human nation) and Maltak (orcish nation). One of his best friends' hobbies is to break things with her face. Another one of his best friends is a werewolf (sorry fangirls, no vampires. And thank goodness for that). His mentor as a wizard is a ball of slime that tastes like jelly. Needless to say, he leads an interesting life.

To give this comic a rating, I'd have to say PG-13. Some parts of the comic are a bit graphic, some are downright gruesome (what, do you expect a war in Hell to be pretty?). There's also some language, a bit of innuendo, and the occasional raunchy joke (artfully censored, but anyone with half an imagination can figure out what was said. Also, any dolt with half a brain could see that human kind has gone insane, but that's another story). It's not something you would want your little kids or grandmother to read, but I can't really think of a reason it wouldn't be ok for the average reader.

Dominic Deegan gets an A+ in my book. Great art, great writing, great humor. Great job, Mookie.

-Defender of the Blog, RTB