Facebook Official

  You probably have a facebook since at this point almost everyone has a facebook, and if they don't, there's a "Like" page about them. What ever happened to groups? Ah, those were the days.

Aaah! You know I use facebook!

  Anyway, I was thinking about the "relationship" status thing on facebook, since I just had my one year anniversary and I remember taking a nap out of sickness  last year and waking up to a thousand notifications for every "Like" and comment about the new relationship.

  The trouble with it is the breakup. Now to all of you who know me, no, I'm not plotting anything, I just got to thinking about the awkwardness. Normally (see: pre-facebook) when you break up or get dumped, you call all your close friends, and you either get plastered, pity fucked, ice cream filled, hella sad, or all however many I listed. Nowadays if you get dumped, the other person changes his or her relationship status to single, and you're left with it awkwardly saying that you're "in a relationship" in grey, like it was your birthday (there's some sort of reference here, but I don't know what. In any case, it's a technical pun). And that's fucking sad. Not only is it sad, it's like when you're an adult and they've moved out and you still have a cardboard box with that hardhat they gave you that time you had sex at the abandoned factory and got tetanus.

if that doesn't scream "fuck me" then it explains Valentine's Day a lot.

  It's the last remaining thread of the relationship. You can't leave it there, because then it seems like you're desperate or have false hopes about getting back together. And even if you get rid of it right away, it still brings all of the "pity comments" to both parties. All those friends you share will want to know what happened on both walls and all of that will show up in your feed. You don't even get 100% "sorrys" or "what happened?"'s. You get a bunch of awkward immature people who think that you'll know they care if they post a frowny face.

I know you're experiencing an emotional loss, but I thought a colon, dash, and open parenthesis would fill that void in your chest.

  If you're reeeally lucky, they might just throw in an apostrophe for your troubles.

For the person who feels like they have nothing right now, I summarized "I Will Fight No More Forever" with symbols for you. Cheer the goddamn fuck up.

Gylfaginning Pt. I

  Get your giggles out now please. Yes, that is pronounced gil-fag-inn-ing.
I'm not quite sure what the ing is, since Norse doesn't use the "ing" for verbs, but it breaks down into "The Beguiling of Gylfi", Gil from Gylfi, fag (and possibling ing, faging mea- I'm not going to officially say "faging" means to beguile. Even if it's not english, I feel dirty just thinking that) being part of beguiling, and inn being an article for "the". There you go. Now you know some Norse. In case you're wondering why I'm doing this, check it out here, here, or here.

  So the story starts out when a beggar lady shows up to King Gylfi of Sweden and is all like,
Yo, ho, dosey do, yo ho dolity doh!
 So King Gylfi is all like, "You're pretty amusing, have some land!" So he gives her "as much as four oxen might turn up in a day and a night." I have no idea how much that is, but if he's a king, it's probably a lot.

  Well it turns out, surprise surprise, that the beggar chick was one of the Æsir(1) . Her name was Gefjun(2), which is cool I guess. So she goes home, and travels to goddamn Jötunheimr(3) to get four Jötunn(4) oxen. Well, Jötunn oxen are fucking huge, so of course they come tramping in like they own the place, and tear the land a new asshole.

Probably for the best.

  The area that the oxen plowed is now called Lake Mälaren, which is a lake in Sweden (even ancient Norse mythology has a "humble beginning" story).

  Well Gylfi gets all bent out of shape, because honestly, would you want a goddess living on your land? She's the goddess associated with virginity, so it's not even like she's your hot neighbor or anything cool like that. Gylfi, in his anger, disguises himself and decides he's going to go to Ásgard(5). Gylfi is arbitrarily a wise man and knew magic(6), so he disguises himself as an old man, because the Norse pantheon is totally weak to two things, kryptonite and young men in an old-men cloaks. Just kidding, Odin can see the future from his throne in Ásgard's citadel, so he was able to see Gylfi coming before he even left his house, so Odin & Co. set up a fake hall (hut, tavern...thing. Just google meadhall), which seems rather immature, fighting fire with fire.

  For no reason other than plot device as only the Norse can do, Gylfi, in all of his wisdom and knowledge, goes "into the town", which is the most generic, "let's get this shit going already" transition. So to get shit going already, Gylfi walks into this hall, which was described as "a hall so high that he could not easily make out the top of it: its thatching was laid with golden shields after the fashion of a shingled roof." I suppose if I saw that I'd think more of it than just a regular hall, but it seems odd that if he's looking for gods the first place he would go would be town but whatever!!!

GET ON WITH IT!

Right, so Gylfi walks in and sees this guy juggling anlaces, "having seven in the air at one time". Don't bother google imaging anlaces, the world doesn't seem to think they exist. Dictionary.com defines them as "a medieval short dagger with a broad tapering blade". That just seems dangerous. The guy, I assume without stopping, is like, "Hey there 'old man', who are you to come into this hall?"

See? I can talk fancy too.

Well you don't give your real name to the first guy who asks when you're a secret agent in a magic hall of the gods, so he tells him that his name is Gangleri (Technically, Ek heiti Gangleri. Bam), and asks if he could he stay at this sweet-ass hall for the night. Then he asks who owns the hall, to which the guy with the daggers replies that their king owns it. I assume at this point Gangleri has to stop himself from saying, "Aw snap, I'm a king too! Best friends forever!" The ladies love me for my Paintbrush skills.

  Then the juggler tells Gangleri that he would go talk to the king and that he should come with to talk on his own behalf and they would see what was what. The two of them leave the room and as soon as they're in the next room, "straightway the door closed itself on his heels."

And with that we're going to end this blog, because it's getting really long and I'd rather not have a super-duper long post. Also, I like parts. Whiiich sounds a lot more serial killer-esque than I'd like.

-Skald out!

p.s.
I promise that this gets a lot more interesting. This is just the set up for a bunch of stories told in response to a series of challenges to the new king's wisdom.

1. The main pantheon of gods. The other one is the Vanir, which will come later.

2. Gef-yuhn
3. Literally "home of the giants".  I'm hoping to get somewhere in New York renamed. Pronounced Yo-ton-heimr, but in english the "r" wouldn't be there. We speak goddamn Norse here.
4. Also means Frost Giants in the right context.
5. As-guard, but if you want to sound like a gigantic cock, technically pronounced Ahz-guard.
6. You will see a lot of this throughout the mythology. Just wait til I get to Sigurd/Sigmund...

Oh What A World!

  Every couple of weeks I return to Kongregate, which is a mass conglomeration of just about every browser game out there. Developers from Crazy Monkey Games, New Grounds, Armor Games, and countless independents (individual people as well as growing businesses) upload their games to Kongregate, thus the name. Recently I've been seeing a few games uploaded that require Unity. Unity, from what I can tell, is the new java/flash, at least when it comes to browser games. Generally the term is "flash game", but with this new program, it looks like we're about to see a whole new wave of browser games, and let me tell you, it's a development I can get behind. These new games aren't the most intense, but the potential is definitely there. But enough introductions, let me show you what "there" really means.

Important Note: These games require Unity, but you should be giving a link to download it. Don't worry, as far as I know, it's not anything scary. It's like a java update.

Drillboid

  What the hell is a "Drillboid"? This is a Drillboid. The game puts you in the body of a rolly-polly robot, adorable, who has a drill on one hand, and a phaser on the other. On top of that, you can turn into a ball, though I don't really use it that often. You can hop, jump, and even fly a bit. What's cool is that it's not a hot jolting mess, you can pretty much control all of that while doing all the other things. A lot of games of this style usually only let you do one of these things, or if you can do more than one, it's limited to flying and an arm function. Not this game! If you want to fly, drill, and have a phaser ball going all at the same time, who is this game to stop you? 

Who's my deadly multitasking robot? It's you! Yes it is! Yes it is!

But seriously, look at that shit. Is that not awesome looking, if only in a single picture? 

The plot is a bit iffy, if only because I didn't really pay attention. From what I gathered, you're a mining robot who has to retrieve a power core from a station in a cave, collecting gems along the way. Honestly, it's like they took Minecraft, Pacman (I...don't really have a link for that. Get it yourself), and Megaman and shoved it into one very circular tin can. Between the graphics, the simple yet slightly difficult game play, and a third thing, it's a wonderful little game. 

Arbitrary Star Rating: * * * * * * * * * (9/?)

Best feature: You are obviously stealing this power core, yet you go clank clank clank as you run around on the metal floors. "Guuuuys, I think someone's here... Guuuuys?"

Bullseye

  I would say that this is the next wave of games, and that's not just because I lost my mind and shot all of the hostages. Bullseye is a piece of a large game called Interstellar Marines. IM is an upcoming game that, to me, is trying a bit too hard to jump on the next big thing, but I'm behind them almost every step of the way. It must be a Netherlands thing, because this independent company, AAA Indie, hails from Denmark, much like Sweden's Mojang (see: Minecraft). I'm sure all of you hardcore gamers are shouting about that other tiny company no one has heard of, but please be quiet because your parents are trying to sleep, and I can't hear you. I'm beginning to wonder if independent games will start the next hipster fad. "I totally played that game before it was even released as a full game." 

  Anyway, when I said almost every step of the way, it's because the game costs 25 dollars and I don't think I want to shell that out for a game that's not released yet. It has a ton of potential, and not to put Minecraft on a pedestal, but Minecraft won't cost 30 dollars until it's finished and released in full, while IM is asking for 25 dollars upfront. They are boasting a nice solid team of eight, so I understand their financial needs, but come on. You're running an independent business for gods sakes.

That's not to discourage you from buying it, I just don't think I want to get into it. I'm doing my part by telling you readers about it. The other issue I have with it is that I finished Bullseye on Kongregate and am now trying out Running Man, another piece of their free test run. Why is that bad? I'm almost done with this portion of the blog and it's still loading. It could be my internet, as I'm on the school's server, or the game is just huge, in which case their new wave isn't so much a rip tide as a strong ripple.

  The game itself is a first person shooter, and like I said, has a shit ton (metric for being in Europe. I think.) of potential. It puts you in space, obviously, and I suppose it's a bit cliche, I can't tell, but I think you're trying to stop genetic experimentation. The reason I don't know is because it's mostly been training, and no plot exploration, except for what you can see in the video linked below. Overall I'd say it's a wonderful game. The weapons and unlockables look pretty neat, and I'm mostly interested to see how well it does out in the real world. It's definitely getting a lot of traffic through Kongregate, so it's using word-of-mouth (all of my projects failed because I tried implementing word-of-foot) nicely. 

Arbitrary Star Rating * * * * * * * § (7/? and whatever that thing is)

Best Feature: In the video promo, during the push for how independent they are, the incredibly unsubtle Minecraft icon. 

  Much like Comics Galore, this list will be ongoing, because I'm sure we're going to see more of these. Don't get discouraged just because there are only two games here. I jumped into writing this so I haven't tried past the first couple of levels on Drillboid, so I can promise at least 5 minutes of gameplay.