Not So Spoily Oblivion Shots

That one looks like it hurt, eh? Poor kitty. That was the result of a run-in with a skeletal archer.

That was then, this is now:

The ironic thing is that I chose the Kahjiit (spelling?) race primarily for their ability to see in the dark, but shortly after starting, my character was randomly turned into a vampire upon sleeping. Vampires get an ability that now not only gives night vision (that’s less annoying than the racial one, IMO), but it also shows you the location of living things around your character.

Oh, well. At least the cat race has bonuses to skills that are important to this character’s role.

~Steph

More Oblivion Screen Shots

These screen shots are from The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.

Note: Some may consider these particular screen shots to be spoilers. A couple of them are of a robe that you get for progressing up the Mage’s Guild.

There is also a note about a quest, Vahtacen’s Secret. I mention this bit of information because this quest requires a spell that – as far as I know – you can’t get anywhere else. It seems to be progress-stopping if you goof up on this quest.

Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Screen Shots

Taking screen shots in The Elderscrolls IV: Oblivion is a pain in the arse. Mostly that’s because they appear to have removed this option from the game before they shipped it. Obviously someone at Bethseda was hit on the head with a granite club, because how else could they get so dumb?

There are INI settings that you can change to enable the ability, and you can even change settings in the INI to change what the screen shot’s filename will start with. So I’m sure that the fuctionality is still technically in the game to take those screen caps, the problem is that you can’t bind a key to it.

Anyway, in order to take screen shots in the game you have to use a third party application such as Fraps. Perhaps it’s because I haven’t registered Fraps, but it doesn’t take screen shots at the resolution in which I’m playing the game. They also don’t come out in the quality that I’m seeing on the screen while playing.

Edit note: Figures, I had forgotten about the option in Irfanview that automatically resizes images that are larger than my desktop res. That was causing the above issues with the screen shots.

There are two INI files. I had to edit them both to enable screen shots. For more information read this page @ gamespot.com.

If I’m wrong about any of the above then please correct me. Especially if there’s a some secret voodoo ritual that enables screenshots from within the game. Sacrificing chickens is not beyond me at this point.

Here are some lower quality, Fraps snapped screens from Oblivion.

Writing Again

In an attempt to get my brain back into a writing mode I have been using my personal experiences with the paranormal to put together a story. It’s not a very well written one and I could scrap it and start entirely over, but the point of it (at this time) is to exercise the noggin.

This isn’t a factual story, but rather is “based on” the events that either I myself have experienced or what those I know have experienced.

If it reaches a point that I become happy with its flow and it’s (at least general) direction then I’ll release it on SIM. At that time I’ll then focus Shadows In Motion back on fictional writing. The technology focus, in that case, will be ditched.

Technology blogs are so common that you couldn’t say that they’re so much as a penny a dozen. I’ve been evaluating my situation as a blogger for quite some time now, and I have expressed discontent with that situation. 99% of the time there is nothing new to write about; one merely regurgitates what is on popular news sites.

It is also my belief that services are the way to go. Giving opinions on existing popular news is not a service.

The plan is to dole the story out over a period of time. Probably something similar to a few pages a week. This won’t happen until I have it finished or it’s darn close to it.

It’s still a significant ways from a release. I’m mentioning it here because, frankly, no one reads this blog and writing my thoughts helps me to focus.

In the mean time I will continue to post the occasional technology related article to SIM.

~Steph

Diet – Bad Steph :p

Tonight’s dinner was pretty darn good.  Some BBQ beef and stove top stuffing.  The diet, as it were, met the window tonight.

The worse part however is that I ate one of the reeses cups tonight.  Oh it wasn’t on purpose.  Honest.  You see, I accidently ate it.  I had to use something as floss, and fast, so I grabbed the reeses package and used the very thin edges.  Barbaric?  Maybe, but effective.

Unfortunately the package tore open.  Well, I might as well eat it then..

Luckily one of the cups fell on the floor.  That one’s going into the trash.

On the up side all of this has helped me realize something:  I honestly do not miss those types of foods.  The beef, the junk food.. okay, the peanut butter and chocolate was as good as ever.. but seriously.  It wasn’t as good as one may imagine it is after eating salads and various other healthy foods.

Personally, I honestly prefer the salads.

In other news, I think that I can feel the ‘ol waist shrinking.  This is good.  Not that I’m particularly fat in the first place, but I have a certain mental image that I will reach and maintain.

~Steph

Tired Thoughts

The great thing about free a game is that I don’t feel obligated to play it. With your typical MMORPG you not only pay money up front for the box, but you also pay that $15 USD every month. So there would be times that I would think to myself, “Well I spent the money on it, I might as well play it.”

That’s what I like about Zhy here (at left). The game Silk Road Online is pretty basic. It boils down to being a mindless hack and slash with a bit of flash thrown in. The game doesn’t require much strategy and the EXP loss when the character dies can be annoying.

…but the price sure is right.

You know what’s silly? There are MMORPGs out there that offer nothing at all more than what SRO brings to the table but they still expect everyone to pay a monthly fee. They (and their fanbois) will have any number of excuses as to why this is so, but when it comes right down to it I think the case is they thought that they could make a (very) simple game and bring in a quick buck from it.

Very little creativity. Very little (if any) originality / uniqueness. Tasks that involved no thought in their creation…

Not only can playing a freebie like SRO be a touch more relaxing (at times) than a subscription based MMORPG, but it’s also my way of giving the big middle finger to all of the uncreative, at best mediocre “bleh” that everyone’s been kicking out the door.

They really don’t deserve the money, so why pay for it when you can get the same experience for free?

~Steph

Diet

Over the weekened I discovered that vanilla soy milk makes a not-half-bad cereal milk. I couldn’t drink this particular brand plain, but once used in cereal I could barely tell it apart from animal milk. Awesome! The brand is some generic “Great Value” brand and not the chocolate soy milk that I so lub, but it works perfectly for a bowl of cereal.

The two cereals that I’ve used it in are Kashi Heart To Heart (Wild Blueberry Clusters) and Cascadian Farm Organic Oats & honey Granola. Try it with the vanilla soy milk, it’s very healthy and it tastes great!

Aside from that, I’ve had a number of bowls of rice+beans+cheese. The cheese was designed to add flavor. It worked so-so, but in all it wasn’t all that bad.

I’ve also had a sandwhich with very lean ham, but that was a couple of days ago I think… Honestly though, I would like to avoid meat where possible.

Oh, one last thing about the soy milk + cearal; it was very filling!

The reeses caramel cups have still not been opened. Go me.

~Mysk

Ignorance In The World: Witchcraft Killings

Though we all have our own major issues, reading news from certain areas of the world is like looking at the human race through some looking glass through time. You can see how we were hundreds of years ago, when superstition ruled the thoughts and actions of our daily lives.

Not that it doesn’t still do so to some degree.

I just read a BBC article about a family that was killed on accusation of witchcraft. The father and his four children were publically beheaded by machete because the villagers were getting sick, and they didn’t know what was causing it. So what conclusion do they jump to? It must be evil spells.

Not disease or viruses, but evil spells. *sigh* At least the mother and a couple of other kids got away.

Though saddening I can’t help but ponder over human behavior. Belief in things, no matter how crazy or unrealistic that belief is, drives people to engage in the most atrocious and obviously wrong behavior. From suicide bombings to beheading an entire family, what is it about a belief that causes a human to turn off parts of their brain that should see how wrong their actions are?

I think that what it boils down to is that humans, no matter what they would collectively like to believe, are merely stupid animals on our most fundamental level. There can be no better explanation as to why people can not see that beheading an entire family (or blowing up public places) is wrong rather than seeing their preacher/leader who encourages those actions as obviously insane.

~Mysk

Countdown to end of Constitution: Warrantless physical searches

This is something huge that everyone needs to read. As such, this information will be posted in both of my blogs. Go watch this video, now, and think about what this means. Seriously.

If you have problems viewing the video in Firefox (as I did), then use IE. It’s worth it.

Turley is up in arms over this one, calling it horrific-saying it removes the 4th amendment from the Constitution. He also rips Congress for laying down like dogs and not even holding serious hearing on the NSA warrantless searches.

read more | digg story

Diet 03/19/06 (& rambles)

Tonight’s diet started out well enough with a bowl of salad, but hit a low when I had a box of hot pockets. I love those Philly Steak & Cheese ones. I’m beginning to run out of a healthy selection of foods and I’m now pecking off the “lesser evils”.

In other news, I still have that stupid cough. It rarely bothers me through the day but kicks in just enough when I try to sleep that it takes awhile to get any rest. I try to cough as little as possible by forcibly clearing the through / chest; it’s a congestion thing, after all.

Lastly, I’m out of white tea. Blah! Can’t have that. Must get more soon. All that I have left is the black tea…

Well that’s that I suppose. Good night.