dammit

I can't get this freaking song out of my head.

The video is great, too.

http://www.petemiser.com/mov/scent_of_a_robot.mov

Damn you, Gulkis. I'll have to meme you back.

Cause I'm a robot...

NEW MONKEYS - RAP BATTLE

My buddy Ben is running an ongoing RAP BATTLE on his blog:

http://neumunki.squarespace.com/rap-battle

Somehow it was discovered by a bunch of children, so there are some crappy raps too, but a lot of them are real gems. See if you can spot my incredibly subtle alias.

So anyway, he and I started talking shit on AIM tonight, and out came the following epic RAP BATTLE:

neumunki: WACK
Tobin00: i'm about to drop my fist beats on your ass
neumunki: oh snap, i'll rap to it
neumunki: it'll be better than your lyrical jizzle
Tobin00: bitch please, it's better than that last mess you dropped
neumunki: what last mess did i drop? that was utilitarian rap, dude
neumunki: don't mess with this, or you'll get chewed like food
Tobin00: you're less of a challenge than that last zit i popped
neumunki: dude, when you rap, even green lights be yellin "stop"
neumunki: aww, my bad, don't tell my, your good lyrics are in the shop
Tobin00: whenever you speak, i want to call the lyrical cops
neumunki: dude, from this last verse we spit, your lines should be cropped
neumunki: while i drop mad jazzy violence like i was cowboy bebop
Tobin00: uhh... you make more useless noise than an engine from dunlop
neumunki: dude, that was weaker than a chuck norris karate chop
Tobin00: maybe you should go back to your real job, where you use a broom and mop
Tobin00: you think your shit is tight, but all the girlies know it's slop
neumunki: dude, that's straight up white, go back to twistin at the hop
neumunki: my rhymes drown you out, like heavy metal over doo wop
Tobin00: in 18th century vernacular, you're a frilly fop
neumunki: you're rhymes kick army reserve while mine be special ops
neumunki: dude, you suckin it more than chris fernatt on a traffic cop
Tobin00: last time you went on a date, you bought a real doll at a shop
neumunki: dude, i used shop already
neumunki: YOU LOSE
Tobin00: shit
neumunki: HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
neumunki: I AM THE WINNER!

gmail

Could one of you pass me a gmail invite? I never really had any use for it before, but I'm going to use it to monitor some usenet groups through http://groups-beta.google.com and all the extra space is perfect for that.

Just use my tcoziahr@hotmail address. Thanks!

You're not going to believe this.

The title inspection for my property is about 50 pages long, so I didn't read every word of it.

But I was scanning through, and all of a sudden, a word caught my eye. "Japanese". What the hell? Why is the word Japanese in my title report?

So I went back and looked more carefully, and it turns out that when A.J. Peters and Son sold this land back in 1946, they had a few conditions. There's a lot of things they don't want you to do, including running a saloon or slaughterhouse on the land.

But the part that's REALLY interesting is this:

"All of said lots shall be conveyed subject to the express condition that said real property shall not be used or occupied by any person of African, Japanese, Chinese, or Mongolian descent."

That's right, they required by law that I don't let any dirty foreigners live on that land. It goes on to say:

"However, conditions shall not be construed as prohibiting persons of such descent from residing upon said property while in the employment, as servants, of the persona occupying said property."

Isn't that nice? I'm allowed to have asian friends over, as long as they're my servants.

I'm sure that state law has nullified clauses such as this in a land deed, but it still cracks me up. I can't believe this language is in a document that I'm actually going to sign.

oh my good lord i'm buying a house

I've fallen in love with a house. My bid got accepted today, and now I just have to go through the heart-stopping process of giving someone my entire life savings and convincing them to loan me more money than I should legitimately be worth. I'm excited and terrified at the same time.

But I love the place. Huge kitchen, beautiful backyard, nice neighborhood... It's got some things I need to fix up, but I'm looking forward to learning how to do those things too.

Anyway, enough chatter, and on with the pictures. Check it out!

Tobin's Gallery :: house2005

When it's all set up and good to go, I've got a guest bedroom for any and all of you to come visit me. And a back yard for us to have a barbeque in.

shameless plug

I just had a nonstop 14 hour gaming session like I used to have way back in college, and it was fantastic.

I replayed Beyond Good and Evil, which I had beaten a while back, but I'd tried several games lately, and they were all so lacking that I was getting completely depressed, so I wanted to go back and play something that really set me on fire.

My god this game is good. Anyone who likes games who hasn't beaten it should go out right now and buy the damn thing.

The world is so perfectly constructed, with such an eye to architecture and ambiance, the music fits perfectly, the voice acting is well done. There's never a part where you're bored or confused or frustrated, the goals are clear but difficult. You end up enjoying just BEING in this world, this world that evolves along with your actions. It's so innovative as well, where a large part of the game involves the fact that you're a journalist, documenting what you see and sending it back to the public, who get more and more outraged, and eventually rebel against the government in power.

I was trying to think of how many games I've played that had a world so well done, and so engrossing, and the only other one that comes to mind for me is Omicron, which like Beyond Good and Evil, made almost no money, and no one has ever played or heard of it. The Dig, too. That's dated, but fantastic.

Maybe I have strange tastes, I'm not sure. People don't seem to fall in love with the games that I do. They actually cancelled the sequel to Beyond Good and Evil because the sales weren't good enough. It absolutely breaks my heart.

If there are any gems out there that are somewhat recent that you guys have played, games that really grabbed you and wouldn't let you go, let me know what they are. And for the love of god, go play Beyond Good and Evil.

cartogram

We've all seen the pictures in the news with "red/blue America", and then the angry "purple America" response by the liberals after the election, but I think this picture is a lot more interesting.

What you have is all of the counties in the US, with their size distorted to reflect their population. So a massive county with no people in it is shrunk to a pinhead, etc.

Then you start out with white as a base color, assuming that republican/democrat is 50/50 in the state. They're each colored more red or blue depending on how far the state went each way.

It's interesting how you can immediately pick out things like San Fran, New York, and Chicago as blue islands. The Idaho, Nevada, Utah region of the country is puckered and tiny, as opposed to a normal map. California, New England, east Texas and southern Florida bloat out. I think this is the most accurate voting map that I've seen yet.

the lowest rung of hell is reserved

Words cannot express how much I hate you inane mouth-breathers that take online quizzes, and post the results as if they have any significance or interest to those who read. They only serve as an excuse for your other narcissistic readers to then take the quiz and have an opportunity to talk about themselves for a few seconds.

Seriously, look at yourselves. You're even more inane than people who think that a horoscope that statisically applies to over 500 million people has something individual and meaningful to say about their day.

Why not just sit around in piles of your own shit, looking for patterns in the undigested food?

Look at the pretty picture.

even mother nature can't fuck with Jet Li

While holding two guns, and in slow motion, Jet Li saved his daughter from the tsunami that has killed well over one hundred thousand lesser men, with only minor injuries.

MSNBC - Jet Li escapes tsunami with minor injuries

wheee

Happy New Year, everyone!

I'm going to go nurse my headache.

In the meantime...