Hello, blog. It's been a while.

So... It's snowing, It's awesome. Not that it'll stay, although I wish it would.

I love snow. I realized why today. It's because everything goes so quiet. It's the same reason why I'm such a night owl - night is quiet. In snow, everything i muted. And I suppose it also gives winter a sort of mystical aura.

So, I started planning for Christmas. I know, not yet Thanksgiving. But I don't really celebrate thanksgiving. I usually just eat a token turkey leg or something. But Christmas this year will hopefully be at least a bit fun. Okay, it's always a bit fun. I've planned all the food already. Even calculated the cost (about 1800 kr/£161/$200, for a total of 2-3 people. But the food will last for a couple of days).

Also, N7-day happened. I love Mass Effect. I love BioWare Games. Lots of fun. And lots of news and stuff from N7-day. However, still no real game play, and no release date. Boo! We'll see at the game awards at December 1.

Holding me over to ME:A will be Final Fantasy XV. I've just been waiting for like 11 years. But I can be patient. Really liked Brotherhood, the anime they released, and liked Kingsglaive, it was pretty and action packed. While Brotherhood is watchable for all anime fans, however, Kingsglaive.... is not. Not really. I think you really have to be a Final Fantasy fan, or even FFXV fan, to appreciate it.

I've decided to update this blog with all the Christmas-y stuff I (plan to) do on my Swedish blog. Pics and recipes and stuff. I count down to Christmas with pretty pictures. So here's today's pictures:

Laterz, ppl! I'm... burning chicken......

E3 2015: General reflections

Dull. With sprinkles of cool, interesting, overhype and FUCK YEAH!s. Sony won. There, I said it.

Ok, let's start from the top.

Bethesta's press conference was really one-note. Doom, Fallout 4, Doom, Fallout 4, Battlecry, Dishonored 2, Elder Scrolls Legends, Fallout 4, Fallout 4, The Sims: Fallout edition... eh... I mean.... Fallout 4.... Doom. That's about it. Boring as a press conference, but don't take me wrong, it was nice to see Bethestas new works, especially Dishonored 2.

Microsoft..... It was nice to see Microsoft give some time the the Indies. Backwards compability was also nice to see, might invest in an Xbox1 now. New controller.... nah.... still, if you're in to that... VR has never really interested me, so I wasn't all that impressed. It was more of a bore. The whole thing was a bit of a bore. Still, there were some games that I really wanted to looke closer at.

EAs press conference started on a highnote. I was absolutely hyped for that one. It was a quite even showing, some games I was curious about, some that I was not. But of course they showed sports. And lots of it. And for some reason, they spend 20 minutes talking to Pelé. About football/soccer. Not about games. Why?

Ubisoft knows how to put on a show, but the show is starting to get a little tired. I like Aisha Tyler, but man does she talk fast sometimes. Geez, lady, slow it down, you sound like you're about the miss the last train home. Anyway, it was nice to see Anno again.

Sony won. There, I said it again. Sony knows how to hype up a crowd, and for Square Enix to give Sony their best thing was... Odd, but I think it was strategic. The Sony Press Conference must have been bigger then SEs. Sony said they were going to break the internet. They succeeded.

Nintendo creeped me out! I never liked puppets of any kind, even as a kid. I can stand the Muppets, but only just and barely. Otherwise, not much of a showing, unfortunately. It feels a little like Nintendo has given up.

Square Enix was a bit of a repeat. They gave all their best to Sony, and therefore their own showing felt a bit thin. It was also the last press conference I watched, maybe I was starting to feel the toll of being awake two nights straight.

I shall go into detail about what I though about the games shown in seperate posts.

När automatiseringen är trasig...

Den otänkta tanken. Har du någon sådan? Jag gissar på att du har många. Automatiska. Automatiserade tankar och handlingar du gör varje dag. "Vaken", "gå upp", "åt frukost", "borsta tänderna", "kläder på". "Andas". Otänkta tankar, automatiska handlingar, små riter. Om varje person hade börjat dagen med 100 poäng att använda till allt som ska göras på en dag. så hade du inte använt mer än kanske 2 när du kommer utanför dörren på morgonen, på väg till jobbet. "Glöm inte att låsa". 3p.

Jag? Är väl uppe i 10-12, när vi båda står där, på varsitt håll, med nycklarna i handen. Du låser, nästan automagiskt, stoppar ned nycklarna och går. Jag stirrar på nycklarna. Låsa, var det ja. Låser. Känner metallens kyla mot mina fingrar, hör låset gnissla lite, klicka till. Stoppar nycklarna i fickan. Ytterligare två poäng "slösade". Medveten om det. Jag måste. Min automatisering är trasig. Hade jag inte varit medveten hade jag aldrig borstat tänderna, inte låst dörren. Kanske inte klätt mig heller, i alla fall inte i något vettigt. Kanske till och med gömt att andas. Inte lika medveten tanke, kroppen är finurlig, andas ändå. Men ibland glömmer jag, automatiseringen hänger sig.

Vad gör du mer automatiskt? Tar med dig den där boken som ska stå i bokhyllan i sovrummet, men du har legat på soffan och läst? Helt automatiskt, utan att egentligen tänka? Ställer tillbaka, lägger rätt, plockar undan? Äter när du är hungrig? Sover när du är trött, och "får" sova? Grattis, det funkar. Din automatisering fungerar. Vill du titta in i mitt bombnedslag?

Nu, exakt den här sekunden, ska jag..... Det var för flera timmar sedan. Men NU ska jag..... för en halvtimme sedan. NU. För en kvart sen. Men nu tusan ska jag i alla fall. 

Kommer inte hända. Jag har ingen startknapp. Eller, om jag har en så är den i någon annan dimension eller så.

Måste göra.... Jag ska, nu. Upptäcker att timmar har gått timmar senare. Vad jag gjort under tiden? Ungen aning. Kanske spelat, kanske suttit på FL, kanske stirrat in i väggen, tankarna någon annanstans. Skulle skriva lite. Den tanken fick jag för flera veckor sedan, har fortfarande inte gjort något åt det. Ska städa i sovrummet. Lovar på morgonen. När kvällen kommer är ingenting gjort. Lat? Nej. Inte alls, men jag har ingen startknapp, ingen som jag själv kan trycka på. Någon annan måste trycka, då ordnar det sig. Trycka, och hålla intryckt. Jag städar gärna, men du måste hålla mig sällskap, då måste trycka på knappen och du måste hålla den intryckt tills jag är klar. Jag skriver gärna, men du måste finnas i närheten, du måste trycka på knappen, annars riskerar jag att tänka mer än jag skriver.
Tänka. Tänka tusen tankar. Tankar som inte får plats, tankar så tränger bort de otänkta tankarna. Tankar som förstör automatiseringen, tankar som blockerar startknappen. 

Jag hoppas att i alla fall du fungerar. Att du är lite lagom normalstörd, och inte helknäpp, som jag...

Throwing in some writing

As always, it's been forever. I don't care. I'm just going to throw in some writing.

“Do you know the most important skill of an amber-cobalt mage?”

                Jayden Iston, mage adept, Sensitive, twin-born and foster son to the Queens Alchemist, chewed his lower lip thoughtfully, brown eyes thoughtful.

“Calling familiars”, he ventured.

                His foster father Sori Asaton shook his head. Wrong. What then?

“Not flooding the apartment”, Jayden’s sister Ella chimed in with a giggle.

                Sori turned on her.

“So eager to get a lecture of your own, mage adept”, he asked.

                She made a comical face, drawing a giggle from her brother.  Sori rubbed his temples.

“:10-yearolds:”, he Mind-spoke to his domestic partner.

“:Need help, ashke:”, Nathan asked, humour in his mind-voice.

                Sori didn’t reply.

“Jayden”, he prompted instead.

“I don’t know”, the 10-yearold whispered, sounding rather ashamed.

“Jayden”, said Sori gently. “Why do you feel shame for not knowing?”

“You asked me. I should know.”

“Have you been told before?”

                Jayden looked uncertain and confused, despite knowing that he had never heard the answer before.

“The most important skill of ANY mage is focus, concentration”, Sori explained. “So perhaps you should listen too, Ella.”

                Ella started out of her reverie at that. She slipped down form the window sill and came to stand beside her twin, looking a bit sheepish. They looked so alike. Sori wondered how long that would last. Another two years? Three? Then Ella would probably start growing into womanhood, and Jayden would soon after that start growing into manhood, and they would no longer be able to be what they were. Always twins, but soon, different.

“Now Listen. Feel. Find the Flows and reach out to them. They are there, for you to use.”

                The Flowing Colours concentrated and glowed in the work room, at Soris will and demand. It was as if the whole room slowly filled with the rainbow. The two feline familiars in the window where Ella hand sat raised their heads, curious.

“You have already been chosen by the elements, your colours”, said Sori. “Now draw on them. Reach out with your thoughts, call on them.”

                Jayden didn’t really understand what he was supposed to do, but he tried anyway. He imagined that the flowing beams of colour were ropes, and his mind had hands. He reached out for the thick blue rope with his minds hands.

“Careful, siha”, Sori said, encouragingly.

                Jayden tried, but it was like trying to grasp and hold on to water and wind at the same time, and it burned with cold. He shirked back, looking shocked.

“Don’t worry”, Sori said calmly. “Take a breath. Try again.”

                He turned his attention to his foster daughter. She wasn’t faring much better, but she was infinitely more stubborn. Rather than Jayden’s rope-and-hands mental image, she was imagining herself as a magnet and tried to attract both her blue and red colour flows at the same time. She did affect both Flows, but not a lot.

“Concentrate on the red, Ella”, Sori said softly, keeping in mind that Jayden was reaching for the blue.

                Ella frowned and concentrated on the red Flow. It bent, slightly but visibly, as if she was pulling on a rubber band.

“Good”, Sori smiled. “Try to keep it just like that, don’t pull any further.”

                Jayden, not wanting to be up-staged by his sister, reached for the blue Flow again.  He tugged at it. It was heavy, too large for his minds hands and it was cold and wet and slippery, like a rope of melting ice. And it refused to budge. Frustrated, he tugged harder.

“Calm down, Jayden”, Sori warned. “Try to part the Flow instead. You can only use the darkest part anyway.”

                But Jayden wasn’t listening. He tugged at the Flow as hard as he could. It didn’t budge, it exploded. The workroom was covered in a sheet of ice, icicles grew from the ceiling and from the perch where Sori’s starling familiar sat. She ruffled her feathers indignantly. Sori hastily let the Flowing Colors dissipate and fade. Jayden looked around, stunned and a little dismayed at what he had done. Ella had slipped as she lost control of the red Flow and sat on the ice, surprised and a little cross at her twin. Sori was about to as them both if they were alright, but at that moment, Ella started to giggle. It bubbled up in her, she was unable to stop it. She Heard and Felt Jayden’s shock and surprise and increduelty and she giggled as if someone was tickling her, and Jayden joined in. He crouched down in the icy floor, hid his face against his knees and laughed harder than he probably had since he came here with his sister 6 years ago. Ella suddenly pushed him so he slipped and ended up on his side on the ice. The two feline familiars, Ella’s white lynx cub Sol and Jayden’s amber tiger cub Mari, jumped down and joined in the game, and the four of them became a slipping, jostling heap of laughter. Sori smiled shook his head and decided that they were done with lessons for today. 

Getting Monday of my chest (open letter to the users and owners of Familjeliv.se)

So, the hacker attack on Familjeliv left me a bit drained. Mostly because of the nonchalance of the people on Familjeliv. Here’s the rundown:

A hacker found a nice little hole in the session cookies at large, parent-targeted Swedish forum Familjeliv.se, and decided to take action. According to the first hacker, he did NOT want to do anything malicious, but as Familjeliv.se didn’t heed his previous warnings about this hole, he decided that drastic action was called for. Adding a little extra code to the session cookies, he could basically hi-jack anyone’s account and surf around pretending he was them. He, and he alone, did this Sunday night, doing nothing but demonstrating what could be done with that hole. As far as I noticed, he stuck to one forum thread that night, only replying to other users that posted in his thread. That thread, however, was shut down late Sunday night. Monday noon, when I first logged in, he was at it again, this time more persistently. He maintained, however, that he meant no harm and only wanted familjeliv.se to take some action. I here suspect that he himself is a member of the forum, and really was only concerned with his own and other forum members safety. Over the course of Monday afternoon, though, things escalated. I cannot say and wish not to speculate in whether or not it was the original hacker that posted the hack on the other largest (way larger and wider) forum targeting a Swedish audience, Flashback.se, but it ended up there somehow. After that, users of famljeliv.se got their accounts hi-jacked left and right, their accounts were used to post things they did not support, some people were “outed” in threads where they wished to be anonymous, and so forth. Fortunately, this seems to have amounted to some more or less harmless inconveniences, and the worst of it seems to have amounted to one user having their password changed. Some people might have to regain some reputation. Personally, I only had a couple of posts written by myself to myself, and a lot of logout forced by… well, someone. Exasperating, to be sure, but harmless.

The worst bit about this hacker attack was not the attack itself, but rather the MASSIVE silence from Familjeliv.se. They deleted some threads the hacker started to show what he had found, but refused to say anything on the subject. I say refused, because today, an internet news site publicized a short article on the subject, where they had also interviewed the boss of familjeliv.se, where she stated that “We were aware of the problem as of 18.00 Monday night and the problem was fixed at 18.19. It took us 20 minutes to come up with a fix. This is no big deal, our users needn’t worry.” Yeah, I call bullshit. As I stated above, the hacker had already been in the night BEFORE and he had had forum threads DELETED the night before. Familjeliv.se were CLEARLY aware of the problem. So, here’s my guess: It was Sunday night, Easter, and they couldn’t be less bothered. It can WAIT. Let it wait till after Easter (which would be today, Tuesday). That’s my guess at their reasoning. However, and I don’t know how much this has anything to do with their more expedient handling of it all, I didn’t want this to get any worse, and decided to take action. Now, I’m just a lowly member of a forum that doesn’t even have a member rep system, but I started a forum thread, calling attention to the problem and stuck to my guns on it. I did not let this “can’t-even-promote-threads-to-sticky-forum” defeat my will to reach as many of the users as possible. Making sure my thread, giving info not only that the hacker attack  had occurred, but also what to do to make sure the hackers didn’t use any certain user’s account, didn't get lost in the shuffle, I forfeited my work, my poker tournament and my dinner for it. Of course, other users soon came in, helping me out, for which I am very, very grateful. You all have huge amounts of my gratitude, and you should have Familjeliv.se’s, as well. And still, Familjeliv.se has barely commented on the attack… They posted ONE lousy, tech-speech-ladled forum thread in which YOU CAN’T EVEN ASK ANYTHING ABOUT THE INCIDENT! It’s locked for comments. Not because it got flooded with questions, it’s empty. The questions land instead, of course, in my forum thread. Hopefully, they get answered (I must here apologize for not being available in the thread, I have had connectivity issues as well as log-on issues….)

So, that became a long rant. I probably had more to say, but if so, it’s gone now. I hereby want to thank all the forum users that made sure my thread about the incident didn't get lost in the shuffle, and give my promise that if this ever happens again, and I notice it, I WILL make sure you know about it and I WILL be badgering the support team about it.

Yours sincerely

Aniiee

Oh, and…. Don’t go too hard on the mods about this. They were just as vulnerable as anyone else, and there are not nearly enough of them to be everywhere all the time. 

Short messages to all kinds of people everywhere

Dear Christians!

Thank you for the Bible. It's totally yaoi-licious.


Dear radical feminist!

Thank you for voicing your opinions. You always make me laugh at your absurdities.


Dear creationist!

READ A FUCKING BOOK! That's NOT the Bible.


Dear Hollywood-people behind the scenes!

Thank you for your hard work. Even if you only work on crap movies.


Dear A-list Actors!

You're not as special as you think you are!


Dear racists!

Who cares? Really?


Dear anti-theorists!

Why are you against the theory of evolution but no the theory of gravity? And also: Please study up on the definition of a scientific theory.


Dear anti-gay people!

Why do you care who others fall in love with? It's not like they fall in love with you....


Dear smokers!

I don't care if you smoke! Unless you blow your smoke in my face. Also, did you know there are more effective and less painful ways to kill yourself?


Dear radical diet X-believers!

People are DIFFERENT. Peoples bodies react different to different things. There is no "one diet fits all".


Dear CIO-moms!

Please read some research on babies and stress hormones, and tell me again why it's a good idea to ignore your kids....


Dear militant vegans!

I kill 1 cow and have meat for 4 months. 1 individual of 1 species. You kill ALL the cows, and thus have killed 401 species of mamal and insects FOR EVER. Who was protecting the animals, again?


Dear telemarketing people!

I don't have a registered phone number. So.... to bad for you.


Dear people of the "normal IQ bracket"!

You're not as smart as you think you are.


Dear "I know best, this is how you should do, it's so easy, you're so stupid" people!

Everyone doesn't have the same knowledge base, experiences or life that you do.


Dear great authors whose books I've read!

Thank you! Just... Thank you!


Dear great authors whose books I haven't yet had time to read!

Sorry I'm so slow, I will come around to that as soon as I have time.


Dear bad authors whose books I've read!

Thank you for getting me to realise just how much I should pick my litterature with care.


Dear bad authors whose books I haven't read!

Please send an angry letter to all the other bad authors whose books I've already read, and totally turned me off your books.


And finally:

Dear Santa!

You never did send me any christmas gifts, so how about a nice, big pile of yaoi for my birthday? And some tickets to Tokyo. That'd be great!


Yours truly

Aniiee, the yaoi fangirl, female otaku

Trailers of the Week: week 1 2014 (Jan 1-5) Also, laying down the... eh... "rules".... yaoi edition

Yeah... I tend to throw myself into strange ventures such as this one. So, I decided to just rate the game trailers that come out, as many as I can, and totally arbitrarily. I'm NOT a movie/trailer critic. But it's kinda fun, so, I'll just go for it. Here are my arbitrary points that I grade:

1: The graphics. What is a game without graphics? Lines of code, that's what. BOOOOORING! Unless you're into that stuff. I kinda am. Did I just call myself boring? *shame*.

2: Music. Again, what is a game without music? Flat graphics. Music is important.

3: Pacing. Now, I don't mean narative pacing, I mean the pacing of the music and what is happening on screen together. Do they "hit the note" or don't they? And how well? Stuff like that.

4: Narrative. With or without VO, you should get some idea of what it's all about. You should "get it" even if not a single word is spoken.

5: Captivation. Is the trailer intresting? Fun to watch?`Boring? Does it make you more or less interested in the game? That sort of things.

6: Interest. This and Captivation kinda goes hand in hand, but I'm trying to consider my intrerest in the game pre-seeing the trailer.

7: Other. This is ust an arbitrary line (and some points) to dole out if there was something else noteworthy in the trailers. Character designs, points for nostalgia, special VO-actor... whatever I find interesting.

Be forewarned, my grading-span tend to run in the 7-10 gambit, rather than 1-10. Which means these are going to be rather high, for now. Hopefully, the more i work with this, the better I become at using all the points. And yes, I am 4 weeks behind. Actually, I'm 13 YEARS behind, But we'll see if i get to those lost years. I will try.

So, without further ado... Let's start at the bottom, shall we? (And remember, I'm rating the TRAILERS, not the GAMES)

Worst Trailer of the Week: Mincraft PS3 Launch Trailer (YouTube link.)

Here's why:

Minecraft PS3 Launch Trailer
	Points	Note
Graphics	4	Retro graphics only actually work in nostalgic games…
Music	7	Kinda liked the music. It was 8-bit-y
Pacing	5	Slow, but short enough not to bore me to pieces.
Narrative	1	If I had NEVER heard about Minecraft before, I wouldn’t have gotten it at all….
Captivation	3	It was pretty… 8-bit-pretty… ehum…
Interest of game	0	I will NEVER play this game. EVER.
Other	7	Just for being so damn popular. And I don’t get it…
Average	3,8

The yaoi perspective: There is none. This is Minecraft. Everyting is 8-bit, and about building stuff. No yaoi here. Nowhere. The yaoi fangirl is sad =( 

Next up. the 3 best trailers of the week, starting with:

3d Best Trailer of the Week: Dr. Luigi (YouTube link)

Here's why:

Dr. Luigi Trailer
	Points	Note
Graphics	6	Wii graphics.
Music	6	Ear-worm-y, peppy, nostalgic but meh.
Pacing	5	Eh…. Don’t know
Narrative	5	Tetris copies don’t really rely on narration
Captivation	6	It is, a little, on the nostalgic level
Interest of game	7	I could play this
Other	10	NOSTALGIA!!!!
Average	6,4

The yaoi perspective: STAY THE HELL AWAY FROM MY CHILDHOOD ICONS! Damn yaoi.....

2nd Best Trailer of the Week: Elsword – Ara Haan Sakra Devanam Trailer (gs link)

Here's why:

Elsword – Ara Haan Sakura Devanam Trailer
	Points	Note
Graphics	6	Ok. Bit grainy and shaky.
Music	7	Dig, not epic
Pacing	10	Oh, heck, it was perfect. Hit every note.
Narrative	7	Ok
Captivation	7	Yeah. Made it.
Interest of game	7	Manga + RPG + MMO = Nice
Other
Total mean	7,3

The yaoi perspective: A little too cutesy for me to gain any sort of yaoi material. Sorry...

And the Best Trailer of Week 1 2014 is.....: Deep down - Prologue Trailer (YouTube link)

Here's why:

Deep Down Prologue Trailer
	Points	Note
Graphics	7	Ingame graphics (?)
Music	6	Nice, not much more (Reminded me of N.U.)
Pacing	8	Hit the right notes, s.t.s, not perfect
Narrative	8	Extra points for having a narrator who spoke “to me”
Captivation	8	Yes, I didn’t get bored, so…
Interest of game	7	Had some interest before, didn’t lesser with this.
Other	9	Dungeon Crawler =)
Total mean	7,5

The yaoi perspective: I now to little about this game, as of yet, but knowing my dungeon crawlers, there will probably be a couple of bishounen and biseinen here to warrant some fanfiction. There always is....

Some Honorary mentions: Check out Europa Universalis - Conquest of paradise trailer for this weeks best music, Mecha Naruto trailer for best graphics and Atelier Escha & Logy for this weeks white-haired pretty boy =). And don't forget to give me a holler/some critique/whatever in the message box, so I know you've been here!

Will be back in a couple of days, playing catch-up with the trailers for week 2. And maybe for January 2000....

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