I just paid you off in full.  Now shove it up your ass.

Woot. What a wonderful name for something. It shows that this site is good…which it is. This site a place for buying thing; cheap things. Everyday they have 5 deals on great qualtiy items: a tee-shirt, a wine related item, a kids item, a sell-out item, and the main item, which is anything from an RC Helicopter to a Dell Laptop. These item are extremely well priced for what they are. Also, the tee-shirts are never ordinary. They are made by Woot users and voted on in contests. Each week, there is a differant style for the contest. They are always funny and have great dry-humor. This website is also very professional looking and very wel laid out. They even have it so that you can get the daily item sent to your phone, or even see what it is through their I-Phone app. I give this site a 5 out of 5!

www.woot.com

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Hundertwasser’s art always makes me feel joy.

a drawing i did in tribute for to my mother’s annual Wassail Party where she cooks for 2 months in advance. i originally drew this for a shirt contest, but missed the entry deadline by like an hour cause i got confused about time zone. east coast vs. west coast… oh well.. anyway, just a little holiday wish from me to you. cheers!

On this day in 1737 – Antonio Stradivari, died in Cremona, Italy. He is recognized as the most renowned violin maker in history.

SOTD: Bootsy Collins – Jingle Bellz

CAHOTD

DOTD

RCOTD

Question of the Day:

Should grilled cheese sandwiches contain bacon or not? (or something else entirely?)

November 2009 is a magical month for gamers.  The highly anticipated sequels Left 4 Dead 2 (no Left 5 Dead sorry guys), Assassin’s Creed 2, and Call of Duty (4) Modern Warfare 2  all release within a week of each other. With perhaps the biggest name, Modern Warfare 2, already out, things are looking great.

Last year, November reigned in nothing but disappointment. The also highly anticipated Gears of War 2 left us all (ok well atleast most of us) disillusioned with the success of the video game sequel. Our hopes  for an epic and exhilarating return to the war against the Locust were smashed by horrible plot work and a lack of innovation. The moderately improved online play was somewhat of a saving grace, but still couldn’t hide the obvious lack of sparkle in the game.

Some will argue that developers couldn’t improve too much more on such a great game, others will argue that they rushed the game out because of the almost guaranteed sales, but either way, Gears had fallen into the grave of o-so-dreaded sequel death.

Well rejoice citizens because this November the sequel has been saved!… well at least so far. Call of Duty (4) Modern Warfare 2 (Yes, I know the “4″ isn’t offically in the title, but who doesn’t call it that?) is awesome. And I mean  AWESOME. The single player shocks us with still exciting and challenging game play, beautiful cinematics (yes,  cinematics not graphics because the game’s film-like visual style pulls your imagination in beyond the screen) all tied into one of the most epic first person shooter campaign’s to date. It is one of the few dedicated first person shooters that players will enjoy for the story.

The online multiplayer was also revamped from the original enough to justify the $60 price tag. The developers obviously spent significantly more time on map construction, as the design reveals new intricacies each play. I rarely find myself “camping” or hiding out in the exact same spots as in COD 4, and distinctive features like a snow storm affecting your heat vision and even  random online achievements for shooting the most chickens in the villa level keep you entertained with every environment.

Infinity Ward handled balancing appropriately, and though some will rue the “nerfing” of the Martyrdom skill, gamers will agree the game promotes using different weapons/equipment/skills for different scenarios instead of one elite all purpose set. This mechanic keeps online play constantly changing and ultimately more entertaining. I may chose to use solely the “FAMAS” assault rifle, but I’ll actually need thermal vision on one map, a silencer on another, the red dot scope on another, and so on. The 5 slots in the”Create-A-Class” feature become necessary to survive on all the maps, versus having a change of pace for when you get bored of your current gun. New challenges and features like “Pro” perks and the ability to chose your killstreak and deathstreak bonuses keep the similar game play style innovative. Infinity Ward proved that you don’t have to revamp the controls and look to keep it interesting.

Left 4 Dead 2 and Assassin’s Creed 2 both look promising. I, along with most fans, initially felt Left 4 Dead 2 should have been a DLC (Downloadable Content, usually a game add on for $10-20), but Valve is proving us wrong. Claims state that the AI is reworked to prevent hole-ing up in one area, and the new melee weapons are supposedly more functional than gimmicky. I have high hopes for the PC edition, and am sure it will follow Call of Duty into shared “4 part 2″ success.

Assassin’s Creed has nowhere to go but up. It introduced an amazing freestyle movement engine, but the game play was painfully repetitive which killed replay value. Developers at Ubisoft had the room to (and seemingly have) improve, and simply put, the Renaissance setting is freaking cool. If they keep the same game style, simply mix it up a bit (add in some pretty 1080p Renaissance graphics, new weapons, missions and assassinations) and bingo, you have a recipe for success.

As a gamer I hope this post doesn’t jinx our chances for two more great games, but i strongly believe it won’t. Call of Duty (4) Modern Warfare two is already eating my weekends away, and with Assassin’s Creed 2 plus Left 4 Dead 2 coming out, I’m sure my girlfriend will have dumped me by Christmas. Either way, “part deux’s” in November  video games are this year rocking and I’m positive they’re going to stay that way.

Woot.Wine Deal- Adequate Gift Pack

2 Woot Cellars Adequate Gift Wine
1 Olivestri Siloro olio nuovo

http://wine.woot.com

It has only been 6 months, can you believe it? Yes, the first post I’ve ever written was only about 6 months ago, and Plagued Candles has already reached 10k views.

An accomplishment? You bet! I did not think I would make it past a month, but luckily I was imaginative and got a damn good buddy/coauthor, Aifel to help out.

So, what’s in store for you as a reward for helping us reach 10k views? Well, this week my secret project will be posted, as well as a few guides and such. Hopefully we will have our 10th episode of PCP (Plagued Candles’ Podcast) up by the end of the week as well.

If we are feeling very productive we may put up our new Header/Theme, but there are no promises there.

Fun Facts About Plagued Candles

• This was supposed to be a Priest blog, and it looks like it has turned into the opposite.
• We don’t play Blood Elves because we want to, we play them because we HAVE to! (not really)
• Elnoriah was never meant to reach 80. I just made him as a joke.
• Aifel is a Rogue!
• No seriously, he is!
  

  Remember this!?

Thank You

Viewers- there is no point to writing if there is no one there to read it, eh?
Phil- for inspiring me to try my hardest, and not to give up!
Roz and Troutwort- It always helps having some friends to look up to, thanks guys!
Aifel- This would be impossible to do if it was just me, as would Raiding. Hell, I probably could not even Tank if it was not for you telling me how to do it! Thanks, bud!

Woot.Wine Woot Cellars Sparkling Wine Two Pack for $39.99 (+5 shipping)… http://wine.woot.com

2001 Brut:

* North Coast
* Private Reserve
* Harvest Dates: August/September 2001
* Average Brix at Harvest: 21.6° Brix
* Average TA/pH at Harvest: 0.76 gm/100ml, pH 3.15
* Fermentation Characteristics: 24 days @ 55° F
* Cellar Storage/Aging: Average of 50 months “en tirage” (on yeast in bottle)
* This is an estimate at this stage
* Analysis at Disgorging: Alcohol 12.74% v/v
* Residual Sugar 0.69% (gm/100ml) Total Acidity 0.84 (gm/100ml) pH 2.88
* Varietal : 76 Pinot Noir
* 24% Chardonnay
* Appellation : 66 Russian River (Syar Vyds, Kent, Prudential)
* 34% Mendocino County (Cox, Todd)

Some state shipping restrictions may apply!

Last week I ordered the ever-so-snazzy Woot! Wine Toolkit. As you can see it comes with a corkscrew which is etched with the Woot! Wine name and has a foil cutting knife as well. It also comes with a stopper, which is also etched on the metal top with Woot!-ness as well as a foil-cutter with Woot! Wine’s branding. The entire toolkit cost me $14.99 (+ traditional $5 for shipping). It comes in a nice wooden black box with silver clasp for easy storage and portability. Was it worth it? Yes, I would say so. It’s the perfect gift this holiday season when you just don’t know what bottle of wine to get that co-worker, friend, etc. Get them something unique and classically nerdy… Give them the gift of Woot! Watch Woot.Wine.com (link in my blogroll on the right) for this item, hopefully, in the near future!

Esoterica 2006 Late Harvest Viognier Trio @ $39.99 (3 bottles, hence the trio)

http://wine.woot.com/

This week’s entry was inspired by my own experience with an owl.  I was driving home late one night and something hit the side of my car.  I thought it was the grumpy old man down the street throwing rocks at me, but when I went back to look there was a tiny owl laying in the middle of the road.  He was stunned and unable to fly, so I put him in a jar, trying to avoid the  giant claws that these little guys have.  15 minutes later he was better and he flew off into the night, leaving me with a cool memory and some funny photos.

This design came from my own experience with an owl in a jar.  It was late at night and one flew into the side of my car.  I went back and there he was, laying in the middle of the road, stunned.  So I stuck him in a jar – trying to avoid the giant claws these little guys have – and let him hang out in there until he left better.  15 minutes later he flew off into the night and left me with a way cool memory and some funny photos.

On this day in 1972 – Genesis played their first show in the U.S. at Brandeis University in Waltham, MA.

SOTD: Explosions in the Sky – Your Hand in Mine (Live)

CAHOTD

DOTD

RCOTD

Question of the Day:

What is your favorite sports themed movie?

…and I wasn’t going to post this, but then they busted out the Depeche Mode reference.

For those of you who missed holiday savings from black Friday, Woot.com is having another Woot! Off. This means that until midnight tonight there’ll be selling various items at low prices until they sell out. The good ones go quickly, so check the site periodically and you might find something you’ll like!

If you have read my blog at all, you know what Woot! is. Check out Woot! today for something they don’t normally do, sell more than one thing!

Today they will continue to list new items every time an item sells out!!

Also, check out kids.woot and deals.woot, Woot!’s two newest sites!

I told you I was going to try to post more often!!

The best time to Woot is at midnight (CST) when the inventory changes over.  If you haven’t heard of it, Woot is an internet retailer that sells one item per day until the product runs out or midnight arrives and another item is put up for sale.  You can buy 1-3 quantities of the item and will pay $5 shipping no matter how many you order.   Woot generally sells electronics and electronic houseware items, like Roomba vacuums.

There are many reasons it’s fun shopping on Woot .  The product descriptions are usually humorous and entertaining.  Woot also supplies stats on the item being sold.  My favorites stats are Speed to First Woot (time it took for the first purchase to be made) and Woots by State.  They have a very active user forum which will probably answer any questions you have about the product before you can even ask.   If you want to see a list of recent products, check out the Community, where you can see previous days’ products and all of its comments.

Woot is especially fun when they have a Woot-Off, where they’ll sell a continuous stream of product, back to back for anywhere from 24-72 hours.   You never know when a Woot-Off will start or end so Wooters are constantly on their toes.  Woot occasionally sells “Random Crap” for $1.  Bags of Crap (BOC),  as they are nicknamed by Wooters, contain 3 items, usually junk but sometimes expensive items.  You can order up to 3 BOCs and get 9 items.  In your BOC you might get an iPod Nano case, camera bags, defective electronics, open items.  In the last BOC sale (on Nov 19) someone reported getting a Kodak digital camera without a battery and another person reported getting an Aerogarden that was missing the seed and nutrient packets. It’s fun to read what people report getting in their BOCs.

In recent years Woot has also started a few related sites.  There is Wine Woot, which sells a single selection of wine(s) or alcohol related items per week. I especially like Shirt Woot, where Woot posts a theme for the week and Wooters design a t-shirt around the theme.  Wooters vote on their favorite designs and at the end of the week the top 3 designs are made into shirts and sold.  The designer gets a cash prize and a cut of the proceeds.  On the other 4 days, Woot picks the shirts it sells.  Woot continues to produce and sell the 20 most popular selling shirts. This past year Woot added Kids Woot, selling a daily kid item.

I’ve made a few purchases on Woot, some refurbished MP3 players that I’ve been very happy with as well as a shirt.   If you’re in the market for some electronics, you might get lucky and find a good deal there.  Otherwise, just enjoy visiting the site and reading their silly product descriptions.  To learn more about Woot, visit this Wiki entry.

So I was perusing the site of one of my glorious benefactors, shirt.woot.com, when I happened upon a design that seemed strangely familiar to me.  It seemed familiar to me because it is uncannily similar in color, composition, and concept to a design I made a while back called Close Enough, about a drunk-on-the-job stork that mistakenly delivers a baby platypus to a couple of beavers.  Granted, the punchline is different… The design on woot has dropped the booze-addled angle and inserted a pair of ducks, but that’s where the incongruencies begin to become largely aesthetic.

Now, I’ve seen people (especially younger people, and especially on the internet) sound the “RIPPOFF” alarm and get up-in-arms about less striking similarities than this (And obviously I have to at least wonder about the possibility of my work being reprocessed and pilfered for financial gain ($1,000+), which is not at all a good feeling) but I am generally inclined to think otherwise.  One thing I’ve learned the hard way after a few years in the biz is that’s there’s a lot of room for cross-pollination, as it were, and there’s a lot of room for convergent evolution, as it were.  It’s just not that uncommon for two or more people to have the same idea.  It’s not even that uncommon for them both to execute it in similar manners.

I know this the hard way because I once designed a shirt about a narwhal impaling some arctic friends on its horn, which scored well on Threadless and was later printed by them, only to find my work being called a blatant rip-off of a previously existing toy of the same concept*.  I had never seen the toy in my entire life.  I had never heard of the toy in my entire life.  I had zero knowledge of the toy before the day my tee was put up for voting.  And yet, some folks were dead certain that I had willfully plundered the intellectual property of another for my own personal gain.  This was not, as you might imagine, a pleasant feeling at all.

But, as I mentioned earlier, the feeling that you may have been ripped-off and that someone else may be raking in dough that might have been yours, well, that’s not a good feeling either.  And while it’s not necessarily uncommon for convergent evolution to independently produce two similar solutions to a problem, it’s also not that uncommon for people on the internet to play fast and loose with the art of appropriation, as it were.  In any case, you can decide for yourself, and frankly you may find that these illustrations are about as similar as a cactus and a porcupine, but I thought it was at least interesting enough to blog about, if not fuss over.

Mine, from long ago:

Theirs, from not so long ago:

* Though, I might add, dramatically inferior geographic realism/plausibility

Came home to find a letter telling me I passed my exam. Yay!

Oh, and my Calendars have come too.

*Dances*

In a moment of madness, Iconfactory has released Ramp Champ for free.

A delight to the senses—get like the best game on the iPhone now.

ps. I paid USD1.99 for that.

pps. Dammeet.

So I come back from an EATING holiday to find out I need to go to the grocery store…to get more food.  The good thing is NO ONE was there.  Muahahaha. suckers.

I do not know what these ‘diet coffee’ beans consists of but if it’s just caffeine…I want to sue them.  Maybe it has laxatives?

So apparently the classy chocolate company Godiva is promoting the Twilight series as well.  Not going to lie…I wanted to get this chocolate and eat pieces of it while rereading the book.  Alas, I didn’t.

WOO HOO.  After grocery shopping I come home to find that a shirt I ordered online came in!  Get it?! It’s a shirt about prescription drugs…and I dispense prescription drugs…get it? GET IT!?!  Good.

Not gonna lie….I’m feeling a bit…sick. BAH! Just when I thought I was safe!  I’m just TIRED and LAZY.  So either I’m sick or I’m…tired and lazy.   For a snack I decided to try out this seasonal tea..Mmm..

For lunch I had a sodium and artificial filled soup.  Mmm…not pictured are seasonal chocolates   I love me some peppermint bark!!!  One thing that is BAD about working at a retail store is access to bad food.  But…tis the season!

Even after all that snacking I decided to make my own little dessert concoction.  A fudgy peanut butter vitalicious top with some greek yogurt.  Sounded better than it was.   Next time I’ll have one or the other, not together!

Off to work.  It’s a bit chilly today! Hope I don’t have a cold afterall.  Enjoy your Tuesday!

I lived here, in this town, on and off throughout my twenties. I rented my first house here, and for awhile, my bedroom was the back of a truck parked in a ginormous shed, on a farm in Piccadilly Hill road in Coopers shoot.

The town then, closed down at 8.00 at night.  The supermarket on the corner had wooden floorboards that bounced and gaped. The first house that I rented was full of wild human inhabitants with a shared love of the surf. We’d wake up in the morning and bound around in search of uncrowded waves. We dreaded whatever  holiday, festival or school break-up was approaching with its influx of tourists, and the reminder of the suburban nightmare that most of us were trying to escape.

The streets were filled with dreadlocked, brown, buff and supple buskers, flaunting their fire-stick twisting style. Ragged clothes. Barefoot. Pierced lips, brows and nipples. The activists, the stoned and the older original hippies shared spaces, joints, booze and dried sulfurless apricots. They told stories of alien kidnappings, genetically modified food and organic permaculture ideologies. When the council poured pebblecrete to line the footpaths, a rumour spread that it was a conspiracy to get rid of the hippies who would be unable to walk around barefoot. I remember being outraged when the veggo restaurant ‘Lifestream’ was sold. The new owner, who’d just moved up from Sydney, told me that he planned to get rid of the gorgeous rain-forest wood benches and turn it into a late-night pizza place replete with plastic eating spaces. He said that he would ban smoking ‘cause that’d discourage “the unemployed hippies who order coffee and then sit around all day smoking”. I remember laughing when he told me he was gonna call it “Papa Bears”. Fuckwit. His business plan, to me, was the epitome of rampant capitalism and consumer culture. He was moving here for the life-style and the money whilst blithely and ignorantly dismissing  the qualities and the people, who made the place a tourist attraction.

I moved to Perth and I fucking missed this place. I missed the surf, I missed the lifestyle, I missed the rainforest. And even though my own beautifully-youthful awe, naivety and open-mindedness has curdled to cynicism and snorting disbelief in regards to some of the escapist philosophies I heard espoused here. I retained respect for anyone living out their own unshared realities.  Every time I planned to come back for a visit, something terrible would disrupt my plans and I wouldn’t be able to make it. Although I was aware that it had changed, and friends had told me that I would get a shock when I returned, I thought I would somehow reconnect; at least to the land. 

Well, I landed here yesterday. It’s been 8 years. 0h dear, the things that we recreate in our minds as being perfect… It’s  like my own little version of hell. The streets are thronging, and I mean absolutely fucking chockers with burned and beautiful, squealing, chest beating schoolies. They’re about the same age that I was when I first moved here, and I can’t remember ever being that young, nor that fucking annoying, nor thinking that I was so freaking original, nor thinking that this was the first time anyone had ever had this conversation, this amount of freedom and this awesome tan – although I’m sure I must have done.

I can’t find the tofu and veggie rolls or ratatouille pies from Jenny Cakes. Jenny Cakes seems to have disappeared. I can’t find any Humble Lentil pies and there aren’t anymore Giant Chocolate Chip Cookies. I used to get four Giant Chocolate Chip Cookies for $2.50 at the Suffolk Park Bakery. I’d eat one for breakfast, over at the beach, with a cup of Chai some mornings, quietly checking out the surf. I don’t know where anything is anymore, and the local health-food places seem to be personned by humans exuding disdain. Where are all those vague, airy-fairy, empty-eyed, breatharians that used to run the show? Oh, they used to annoy me so much with their vague wave of the hand and long dreamy sighing;  ‘the soy milk?yeeah, it’s over theeere’  but I’d give anything to see some of those vacant, staring, New-Age Californian blue eyes.

I caught the bus out to Suffolk yesterday and walked down to Alcorn St, to check out the spot that I used to sit and watch the water. I’d moved away from Sydney 16 years or so ago, to get away from the suburban beachside surfer atmosphere. As I walked down toward Alcorn Street it was hot and sizzling. It smelt like Zinc and sunscreen, towels were flapping, and boys road past on their bikes – surfboards under their arms.  I thought “this is just like Sydney, or any coastal suburb with surf. Was this ever any different or was it all in my head?”. I’m utterly astonished at the disparity between the way I remember this town and the reality of the way I see it now.  I was ready to change my flight and head home early. I got up this morning and sat on the beach with a coffee, watching the water sparkle. There were some beautiful little 2 foot peaks and the wind was offshore. I went for a body surf and caught a couple of little bazz’s.  I’m gonna go hire a board for a week, and catch some waves.

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