Killed in a smiling accident.

Zoso wrote to me at work this morning - I’m offline in the evening at the moment for reasons that I’m sure I’ll go into in a meandering and flannelling fashion sometime soon - huzzahing the fact that we’re both set for a rhino riding rampage in Age of Conan should we ever reach the heady level of the forties in said game. He also mentioned, however, that we would at least have our bonus order belts for extra carrying capacity in the meantime; apparently you get a free belt in lieu of the mount which you can’t use until level forty. This was news to me, and I realised that I’d not fully read the deal before making my order for the game, I’d just skimmed it and hit purchase.

And now I worry that I’m speed reading various things in real life as though they were quest texts, and I wonder what sort of trouble that could get me into in the future:

You are purchasing blah blah blah Conan blah blah rhino blah blah blah blah blah early access blah blah. Blah blah blah 24 pounds blah. Blah. Blah blah blah.

Yes, yes, yes. Whatever. 24 pounds, rhino, early access. It’s all there, just let me purchase the thing already. Click. Click. Done.

<Two months later>

%ding dong%

Me: “Hello?”

Delivery Man: “Good morning sir, a delivery for you.”

Me: <Looks at delivery note> “Hmm, there seems to have been sort of mistake.”

Delivery Man: “Sir?”

Me: “Well, it’s just that this seems to be a delivery note for a female African black rhino implausibly called Conan, an artificial insemination kit and twenty four pounds of black rhino semen.”

Delivery Man: “That’s right, sir. One rhino and an ‘early access’ insemination kit. Starting a breeding program are we sir?”

Me: “I… really didn’t read that order properly, did I?”

<Another delivery man arrives>

Delivery Man 2: “Morning, sir. Just sign here for your order of a warhammer on a line, an aged Nganasan shaman and twelve dismembered heads.”

Me: “Oh dear.”

I don’t think that it’s necessarily conditioning on the part of MMOs that has caused this, because I understand that there are plenty of people out there who play MMOs and read the quest text in full, and that these people are still able to lead fulfilling and healthy lives. I think, in fact, that my altitus is as much to blame as anything, what with constantly rolling new characters and repeating old content, one generally begins to accept quests automatically because they’ve been experienced before. This is habit forming, though, and eventually you begin to see every set of quest text as an overly lengthy interruption to your game-play, even if reading that text would take only a matter of tens of seconds. It’s often a false economy though, even with the excellent quest trackers in modern MMOs, the quest text is usually there to explain where you are required to go, and what it is that you have to kill ten of this time. So you end-up revisiting the quest text, skimming it to find the pertinent information, and wasting more time than if you’d just read it all in the first place. Alas, the habit is formed, and it is a strong one: text is your enemy and must be ignored at all costs!

The problems lies with the fact that it translates too easily into the real world; it crosses that ineffable boundary between fantasy and reality and haunts your ways, like when you’ve just woken from a dream and have yet to shake it off as the fictional creation of your subconscious. Of course, you soon realise that there is not, in fact, a giant space octopus with tentacles made of creamy pasta and a single fulgurating eye of pure topaz trying to steal the collection of George Clooneys from under your bed.

I’m sure you can relate to the experience now, because even if you don’t skip the quest text, I think we’ve all had that dream.

Amongst many splendid podcasts, Mark Kermode’s film reviews from Simon Mayo’s radio show are always a highlight. “Wittertainment at its most wittertaining”, as Wikipedia definitely doesn’t say. Highlights are the quotes you really wish they would put on film posters instead of “The best comedy of the year!!”, “The best film of the decade!!1!” and “The greatest work of art ever in the history of mankind!1!1!!!”, such as The Santa Clause 3 being “the cinematic equivalent of tertiary syphilis”, and for Captivity: “It’s a Russian-American co-production, and on the basis of this I want the Cold War to start again now”.

On this week’s podcast, Kermode mentioned that someone had taken his Iron Man review, featuring typically Kermodean impersonations of actors that are so bad they’re good, only worse than that so they’re bad again, but then even worse still than that so they wind up being brilliant, and added actual Iron Man footage, and sure enough the result is the greatest ever work of art in the history of mankind (ever).

I’ve never been much of an audiophile. Maybe something to do with growing up with cassette tapes, and early music collections largely consisting of C60s full of stuff taped off the Top 40 (listening in, Record and Play depressed, Pause button on, finger poised, hoping they’d announce the track name before the intro so you’d have some warning, isn’t it? Wasn’t it? Jumpers for goalposts etc.)

For wandering-around-style audio I stuck with a tape walkman for a long time, up to the late 90s, but eventually getting tired of taping my CDs just for the walkman I tried a portable CD player for a bit. It was bulky and vulnerable to skipping when jolted (or knocked, or tapped very gently), necessitating balancing it on top of the head and walking around like a girl at a Swiss finishing school. Excellent for posture, I’m sure, but a touch inconvenient. Fortunately MP3 players were just starting to take off, so I soon ditched the CD player for a Rio 500. With a massive 64Mb of onboard memory, I tinkered around with bitrates when encoding MP3s to squeeze as much as possible onto it, and found an audiophile-horrifying 112kbit/s fairly listenable (though even my tin ears couldn’t take 96kbit/s). With such a range of not-especially-high-fidelity sources there’d never seemed much point getting earphones of stunning clarity, so my prime criteria was “whatever happens to be cheap at Dixons/Argos/Poundland/Some Random Market Stall”, which would invariably get a dodgy connection within a few months, and when eventually no amount of twiddling would get sound back in the left ear it was on to the next bargain set. Moving on from the Rio to hard-drive based Archos and Creative units, space was no longer an issue so I went crazy with higher bitrate MP3s, but stuck with cheap headphones, until a few years back I got an iPod, and with it a rather splendid gift of Shure E2c earphones.

As opposed to the “sort of nestle in the outer ear”phones, like the set that come with the iPod, the E2c are “sound isolating earphones”, or “canalphones”, or “shove ‘em right into your lug ‘ole”phones. They come with no less than nine types of sleeve (three sizes of each of three different types) to get a good fit in the ear, and it took a fair amount of fiddling to sort out the most comfortable set of sleeves and to adjust to the sensation of having something wedged in the ear. Once used to them, though, they were excellent; they substantially cut down on background noise, making it much easier to listen to spoken word like stand-up comedy or podcasts while out and about without cranking the volume up to crazy levels, but it’s not total isolation to a dangerous “not hearing traffic” level, you still have awareness of what’s going on. In an open plan office they’re perfect for cutting down general background chatter, likewise on planes, trains (and automobiles, if you’re a passenger and not keen on the driver’s musical selections). Piping the music directly into the wearer’s skull cuts down on the noise for everyone around them as well; I used to sit near a chap, and while it was fun identifying the CD he was listening to from the tinny version emanating from his earphones, the Shures would have been most helpful (to replace his earphones, not to strangle him with the cable, why would you possibly think that?) Speaking of the cable, it’s nice and long, long enough to stretch from an iPod in cargo trouser pockets without having to wander around with a permanent hunch. Sound quality, as I think we’ve established, isn’t my strongest point, but for what it’s worth I’d say it’s very good. Better than Poundland Deluxe Specials, at any rate; I’ll leave in-depth debates to the expert Amazon reviewers (LAWL TEH BASE SU>< ).

Three years on, the original set are somewhat battered from almost daily use, with several bits of tape covering breaks in the cable shroud, and the jack bends at a curious angle, presumably from a time when they were connected to a PC and I decided to wander off without removing them… Despite all that they still work, but when I was buying a bunch of stuff from Amazon and poking around the site, as you do, I noticed they were doing Creative EP-630 shove ‘em right into your lug ‘olephones for all of seven quid, so I thought I might as well grab them as a backup, just in case. The Creatives aren’t bad headphones at all; sound-wise, I can hardly tell the difference between them and the Shures (unsurprisingly), but the cable’s just a smidge too short to be ideal, they’re not quite as easy to fit (less to get hold of when shoving them into the ear), and the Shures are designed so the cable loops over the top of your ear, so if an earphone comes out it helpfully dangles there rather than plummeting to certain doom. I’ll keep the Creatives as spare backups, but I’m really comfortable with the Shures now, so I got another pair of E2cs. Just in time, it turns out, as they’re now discontinued in favour of the SE range.

We’ve all been there in one MMO or another. You stroll up to an NPC and you click on them to initiate a conversation or perhaps to barter with them. I say barter, but of course MMO NPCs are just about the worst entities at bartering in the world.

Adventurer1: “Hello! I’d like to sell this Two-handed Axe of Rawr that I found inside a catfish this morning, please.”

Vendor: “Hello! Very well, I will pay you fifty silver for the axe.”

Adventurer1: “A fair price. It’s a deal.”

Adventurer2: “Hi. I’d like to sell this Two-handed Axe of Rawr that I no longer have any use for. Now, I understand that it’s a bit worn around the edges and it could do with a bit of a clean but…”

Vendor: “Hello! Very well, I will pay you fifty silver for the axe.”

Adventurer2: “Oh. Right. Uh, great! Thanks!”

Adventurer3: “Well met. Here I have the shattered haft of a Two-handed Axe of Rawr that I pulled from the bloodied corpse of your father after I killed him earlier today.”

Vendor: “Hello! Very well, I will pay you fifty silver for the axe.”

Adventurer3: “No. I don’t want to sell it. I’m threatening you with it. It’s broken anyway, because half of it is still buried in your father’s head.”

Vendor: “Hello! I have considered the item more closely, and I will pay you fifty silver for the axe.”

Adventurer3: “Look. Forget the axe, I don’t want to sell it. I’m here to convince you on behalf of the local landlord to pay your rent. You’re massively behind on your payments and he’s had enough. Here’s a pile of papers itemising the rent that you now owe, totalling some five gold pieces. We’re not sure what you’re doing with all your money, Vendor, but pay up soon or…”

Vendor: “Hello! Very well, I will pay you seventy five silver for the pile of papers.”

Anyway, as I was saying, you stroll up to an NPC and click on them to initiate a conversation or what have you, and nothing happens. Well, either nothing happens or you get a message such as:

You are too far away to interact with that object.

I can’t interact with the NPC? Look, I just want to talk to them. I’m standing right next to them for crying out loud! If I drew my sword I could stab them clean-through from where I’m standing; admittedly with the size of epic weapons in some MMOs that could put me anywhere within a radius of about seven miles… But look, I can see them, I can make out the passive guppy fished look on their face that tells me that they’re going to offer me fifty silver for this axe, even though it’s rusted through and covered in marmoset entrails and peanut butter (long story). My character must have the weakest voice in the entire known world! He should be titled Frank the Faintly Spoken and crowned international five hundred metres whispering freestyle champion. He must have a voice so mellifluous that it is deflected and wafted away by the beating of a butterfly’s wing on the other side of the world.

I’M STANDING RIGHT NEXT TO YOU, YOU FOOL, WHADDYA MEAN I NEED TO GET CLOSER?!

I always panic that one of these days I’m going to get no response, so I move a bit closer and *click*. Still no response. Move a bit closer *click*. No response. A bit closer…

And then the NPC pounces! He grabs my character by the collar and gives him a smackingly wet kiss, flops my character backwards in his arms and cries “Ah, my little darling, it is love at first sight, is it not, no?”

Could happen.

I worry too about the armour that our characters wear in these games, with spikes and blades and all manner of sharp pointy extrusions; you approach the NPC and *click*. No response. So you move a bit closer and *click*. Still no response. A bit closer… and as you try to buy that KitKat or gisarme glaive or Tidyman’s carpet, you impale the vendor on your shoulder spikes. Do you know how hard it is to wash vendor out of your armour? All the high level players don’t bother any more - not enough time what with the raiding and all that - so they just leave the vendors there. So when you see all these high level characters running around with skulls hanging from the spikes on their shoulders, you’ll know they got too close to a vendor whilst trying to start-up a conversation. And those with skulls hanging from their head gear? Let’s just say Monsieur Amour the Vendor got a nasty little surprise when he tried that sloppy wet kiss of his.

And they move away! Damn their ‘very limited circle of about ten yards so people can always find them’ mobility! So you wander up and are told you’re not close enough. So you move closer and try again, and you’re still not close enough. Move closer. Nope. Move closer. Nope. Move closer… success! The vendor window pops open! Then, at that exact moment, whatever weird schedule they’re on, whatever bizarre routine it is that they follow, requires them to move five yards to the left. And off they go. And now the bloody vendor window closes because they’re too far away! So you run up to them and *click*, but you get no response.

They’re either all evil genius bastards, or it’s Monsieur Amour the Vendor slapping a wet kiss on you and then running off shouting “Chase me big boy!”.

But that’s not the worst of it.

The other day I was in World of Warcraft’s Stormwind city and I was trying to get this little kid NPC to give me the next stage of a quest, so I *click* and get no response. So I move a bit closer and *click*. No response. Closer. *Click*. No response. So I’m practically standing in the same space as the kid now, and I’m frantically *clicking* away… Why. Won’t. You. Bloody. Well. Talk. To. Me.

And then sirens.

So I’m writing this now from the Stormwind Stockade, apparently that was the wrong kid. The charges are harrassment of a minor, and worse, apparently.

To top it all off there’s this freakily-bearded dwarf here called Kam, who keeps trying to *click* on me, and I’m running out of room and excuses to move away…

I awoke this morning and turned to Mrs Melmoth, as one does in these situations if a Mrs Melmoth happens to be laying beside them, and said “Well, I’d better get up before Stephen Fry breaks your piano further”.

“What?”

“Oh nothing; I was just having a dream where Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie and I were making up comedy sketches. Stephen had attempted to move your old piano so that he could get better access to it, as it was rather cramped in the Queen’s living room where we were trying to recreate an Irish folk song of some kind, and the top of it had just fallen off like it always used to do”.

“Huh.”

“Well, I know, but it is me we’re talking about, and it was a dream, not something I have much control over. Stupid subconscious.”

“No. The ‘huh’ was because I had a dream about Stephen Fry last night too.”

“Really? How strange!”

“Most strange.”

And the thing is that neither of us had watched or seen anything to do with Stephen Fry the previous evening. Admittedly I have a Stephen Fry as Jeeves alarm clock, but I don’t have a Stephen Fry bedspread or wallpaper or posable action figure (although that’s only because they don’t make one), and the alarm clock is switched off over the weekend anyway.

I post this because I’m concerned that Stephen Fry isn’t the loveable and affable English comedian, writer and font of all knowledge that we think him to be. I fear that this is actually a ruse, a Marvelian (not Marvellian) super villain’s disguise, while he works on his secret project: a doomsday device which will allow him to enter the minds of all who have seen his likeness, and to control them as an army of mindless slaves, reigning terror and Quite Interesting facts upon all those who stand in their way.

It’s quite a frightning thought! And it really puts me into two minds as to whether I should continue listening to his podgrams, lest they contain some form of subliminal message. On the other hand, they are exceedingly good. Such a dilemma: mindless zombie slave or give up an excellent podcast?

I’ll have to think about that while I have a nice cup of tea and DESTROY ALL HUMANKIND, YES MR FRY…

I understand why blogs and forums might need to employ a CAPTCHA; there’s one on this very site for comments, added after spam-bots decided our massive readership would be really interested in wombat accessories or whatever other rubbish they’re peddling (blame/praise Melmoth for the word choice, though).

The Age of Conan forums employ a captcha whenever you want to search, which seems slightly over the top to start with (possibly to stop DoS attempts, I dunno). It suffers from one oh-so-minor flaw, though: it doesn’t show you a slightly deformed word to recognise, it vomits forth a Jackson Pollock tribute which allegedly contains six numbers and/or letters, though you can’t tell ‘cos they’re strangely distorted and rotated to start with, then a five year old has been let loose on them with a whole box of crayons (and not one of those little boxes with about six colours, oh no, we’re talking jumbo deluxe party selection). There were obviously plenty of people posting, maybe it was just me having trouble with the thing; I went to search on “captcha” to check, only I had to… oh yeah, pass the captcha…

Figuring it might only be required for non-registered users, I went to sign up, completed the form and… oh look, it’s a captcha (understandable, on registrations). After a mere thirty or so reloads, I finally found one where the resident child had missed most of the letters with the crayons and got through, and sure enough that avoids the need on every search. Except by that point I’d got bored and forgot what I was looking for in the first place, and went off to YouTube to find the source of this post title (6 minutes in), but at least I’ll be ready next time I need to search. So long as I can remember the login…

I have mentioned in the past that I am somewhat of an alt-a-holic when it comes to my game characters. Be they MMO based, single player RPG or otherwise, as long as there’s a way to customise a character then I’ll need to re-roll at some point, usually it’s because I find the dot product relationship between the eyebrow vectors to be sub-optimal, or some other desperately important trifling niggle. I can’t explain it, like crop circles, it just is.

However, it occurred to me this morning that I recently re-rolled my blog.

It would seem that the disease is spreading. I begin now to wonder whether I am the singularity for a world-wide epidemic, the focus point from which a wave of alternative zombies will spread out and ravage the Earth with indecision.

Or maybe alternative mummies, yeah I like mummies better.

No, wait! Make them werewolves. Yeah. An army of werewolves would be awesome.

Hmm, maybe I should just stick with my original zombie main. I know, I’ll create one of each and see how they get on. Whichever one destroys England the quickest is the one that I’ll stick with and use to destroy the rest of the world. That’s it! That’s the plan.

Although vampires would be pretty cool…

Via Slashdot, I just found out I’m in mortal peril. When they talk about the “nonstop strain of producing for a news and information cycle that is as always-on as the Internet”, I know just what they mean, it’s not easy coming up with random waffle here every couple of days (apart from weekends, public holidays and when I can’t be bothered).

Actually, it is *quite* easy. And if I get stuck I can just post links to the New York Times. Mind you, the advertising revenue isn’t so hot, the Welcome Break, Low Wycombe still haven’t sent us the promised 74p, makes me glad I cleared them out of little bottles of shampoo at the time, the bastards.

And so the reveller that is the internet groggily cracks open one eye, peers around the wreckage of the party that was April Fool’s Day, declares “man, I was so wasted”, tries to piece together what happened over the last 24 hours between the pulses of an industrial hangover, and gets that feeling of creeping horror as it remembers what seemed like a really hilarious idea after a couple of pints of Crème de Menthe and a Co-op cider chaser…

Amidst the vast sea of Fooling, the BBC’s flying penguins (also in The Telegraph) were very well done, bonus marks for effort there. I missed their ice-skating greyhounds, though.

Blizzard kept up their usual standard, my favourite being Molten Core for the Atari 2600. There was also the Bard (though I still reckon the lute bayonet is a winner there). On a similar note, GAME’s Double Bass Controller would seriously rock (somewhat reminiscent of The Onion’s Sousaphone Hero). Actually, that’s a point, what do The Onion do on April 1st?

NCsoft’s Visual Sounds for City of Heroes announcement is disqualified, as it’s not Foolish at all, it’s a bleedin’ brilliant idea. FREEM! Also getting in on the Atari 2600 act, there’s a rather splendid fan-made effort.

ThinkGeek have a whole heap of excellent products, and I should probably wrap up here, as I’ve probably inflicted a billion years of bad luck on myself for linking all this stuff after April 1st.

For anyone starting work on next year’s drollery, just try and remember that madcap japes and pranks work best if they’re in some way humorous. For example:

“The government are going to raise income tax by three percent”.

That’s not an April Fool, that’s Making Up Stuff That Isn’t Funny.

“The government are going to start taxing something highly improbable. Spokesperson Geoff MySurnameIsAnAnagramOfAprilFool said ‘this is bound to have hilarious consequences’.”

That’s a (rubbish) April Fool. If you’re having trouble, maybe a hearty breakfast will help you come up with something.

Forsooth.