Or How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love The Life-Ending Asteroid.

I suppose I should start with a comment on something that actually pertains to the end of the world, since that is what I do after all. Fox News has begun their Chicken Little act again. Apparently the world is going to end in 2036. Asteroid impacts are my least favorite of the Apocalypse theories – even outweighing nuclear decimation of the planet. Why? I don’t know. Certainly it is more survivable than a global nuclear conflict because you probably won’t have all that radiation cooking away our flesh like a rotisserie. On the other hand a strike in the oceans could lead to global flooding. Call me crazy, but seeing as the earth is mostly water… well, I think the chances are good that’s where it might hit. I may not like the the south, but I certainly don’t want to see it as beach front property. Yes, I realize the article says it’s a 1 in 250,000 odd chance.

Well, except Tennessee. The sea can’t swallow that wretched state up fast enough.

My Minecraft server went up like a charm. It was probably the easiest thing I’ve had to do for a long time. I had only to change a few router settings and bam it was done. Me and my buddy began playing in it almost immediately. I’ve been building pretty steadily. So far I have a large castle keep with a fully functional dock, a rail system, an underwater observation area, a lighthouse and a newly planted peace garden. I’m not entirely sure what to build next, but once I get there I know it’ll be awesome. I’ll probably build some kind of island or underwater base – that was the coolest of the ideas I saw online. I promised myself that I wouldn’t do it, but I have used the console to give me a few resources I know would be nigh impossible to find without hours and hours of digging. Sue me, I’m using Minecraft to assuage my architectural side. I used The Sims for damn near the same reason. I like to design and build, despite the limitations of the game.

Mass Effect is definitely getting better. I stopped playing for a while because I got entirely too busy at work. I just passed the part where you had to kill the giant plant creature, which hung me up for a bit due to lack of First Aid supplies. I felt like kind of an idiot when two rooms up there was a Medical Cabinet that could replenish my gel. Oops. I saw ME2 and didn’t realize how much better it looked graphically. I’m also told they improved the story arch and it’s not as linear as the first game. Seeing as I’m OCD, I won’t be able to play it until I finish the first one.

I really haven’t marketed this website at all to get any readers. Truth be told I wanted to be able to have a regular post on something relevant before I started saying “HAY! YOU! READ MY BLOG!”. I don’t really care much for self-indulgent blogs, so I’m going to be trying really hard to make this a place where we can talk about things we all have a mutual interest in: humanity’s survival in the face of overwhelming odds. I know for a fact that there is a large population of people who enjoy it, just look at Amazon.com. As far as discussion goes, comments are turned off right now because of the never-ending spam I got. Apparently the spamvertisers haven’t realized that anyone who’s spent any time on the internet knows their filthy little tricks. However, some good news is that Forums are still up, so head on over there and sign up! I’m also looking at a redesign for the website. I need to improve the graphics header and whatnot. I like the overall look, it just needs some polishing.

I really need to get better at going off on tangents; I had an entire post here about ten minutes ago that railed against racism in our country. This isn’t that kind of blog.

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So I have a confession to make: I’m a bad gamer.

For someone who defines himself as a ‘gamer’ this can be a problem. My main issue seems to be the fact that I’m what you might call ‘gun shy.’ I don’t want to spend (now) $60 on a game that I might not enjoy that much. So what do I do? I avoid it. Despite the reviews and recommendations by people that I know and trust, I just can’t bring myself to do it. Perfect Example: I fell in love with Fallout 3 – enough so that I created a D20 Modern campaign based on it and have played it several times over. That being said, Fallout: New Vegas has been out for a few months now and I have yet to purchase it – despite the fact that I’ve had the money several times to buy it.

I operate on what I’ve discovered is Computer Savings Time. I just purchased from Steam a few games that are less than new: Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2, Half-Life 2 (which I have already played and beat for the Xbox 360). They are, as I said, less than new but they were cheap and I haven’t played them yet. So far, so good. Mass Effect reminds me a lot of KOTOR – which is expected considering it’s made by the same people. The only complaint I have so far is that the game is entirely too linear. I have been spoiled by MMO’s to be sure, but it doesn’t have the same open feel of KOTOR. I’ve been told that Mass Effect 2 is a little better.

My other recurring obsession is Minecraft. I’ve got it in my head that I want to do some kind of epically large design, but I need to set up a multi-player server. I will likely set it up on my home PC and run it so me and my buddy can work on it together. The unfortunate side effect of my job is that I have a large amount of downtime and I’d like to do something to keep busy – even if it is only virtually productive.

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It has been almost a year since I paid any attention to this poor dilapidated website. I will hopefully be able to devote more time to it than I have in the past. I had to delete about 800 spam posts, so I have turned off comments for now. When I begin to post on a regular basis I may put comments back on, but I assure you there will be strict spam protections and IP addresses will be blocked.

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I just heard an excellent piece of news. For ages the end of the world has been prophesied in books, movies, and video games. Comics and television (with the exception of a lot of bad Sci-Fi movies), on the other hand, seem to be a largely untouched field. Comic readers who also like zombies will likely know about The Walking Dead series. Well, according to Variety, a new television show based on the comic books is en route!

AMC has given a series greenlight to “The Walking Dead,” the Frank Darabont-helmed adaptation of the Image Comics series by Robert Kirkman.

AMC has ordered a total of six episodes of the series that revolves around a group of survivors of a zombie apocalypse. Darabont penned and directed the pilot and will exec produce with Kirkman, Gale Anne Hurd of Valhalla Motion Pictures and David Alpert of Circle of Confusion, which will be funded entirely inhouse by AMC parent Rainbow Media. Charles Eglee, a seasoned TV drama showrunner, has also boarded the project as an exec producer.

“Dead” is targeted to preem in October, dovetailing with Halloween and AMC’s annual “Fearfest” two-week marathon of horror and thriller pics.

Jon Bernthal (“The Pacific”) has been cast in a lead role. The series revolves around police officer Rick Grimes, who leads a group of human survivors on a search for a safe home in a world overrun by zombies. AMC greenlighted production of a “Walking Dead” pilot back in January but ultimately decided to go straight to series after hearing Darabont’s vision for a six-episode arc, and because of the desire to tie in with “Fearfest.”

“He’s taken the baseline road map of the underlying material and just blew it out to the next level,” said Joel Stillerman, AMC’s senior veep of programming, production and digital content. “There’s stuff in there that will make the people who love the comics very happy and some surprises in there as well.”

AMC prexy and g.m. Charlie Collier noted that “Dead” marks AMC’s first foray into full ownership of one of its series. “With Frank and Gale and their entire team invested in this project, we also wanted to be fully invested in this project,” he said.

Stillerman added that the property is likely to have “huge international value.”
Up until now, zombies (or the apocalypse) for that matter has been pretty much the domain of movies (George Romero’s Dead series) and video games (Fallout, S.T.A.L.K.E.R). There are a few comic books that are right up our alley, however, that paint a bleak future for humanity. Check them out! Most of them are available electronically from Amazon, or you can probably download them directly from the publisher’s website.
As for me, I’m looking forward to it! More as it develops!

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So I spent some time yesterday looking up some new games to purchase as soon as I get the essentials (you know, a house, furniture, a bed, etc). One caught my eye as a promising new addition to the Post-Apocalyptic genre.

Nuclear holocaust once again comes to the world in Metro 2033. The game is the story of Artyom – a young man who lives in the ‘Station States’ of Mocow’s underground rail system. He battles mutated creatures, supernatural aliens, and other horrors while trying to discover the truth of what happened to the world. An excerpt from the game’s box art:

“The apocalypse came by our own making, with a single blinding flash, followed by a firestorm of sheer flame. It took just an hour and a half to wipe out 3.5 billion people and 10,000 years of civilization, plunging humanity into a hopeless Dark Age. In the aftermath, survivors in Moscow moved underground and slowly organized into small socially and politically independent tribes, clustered around the city’s deep, subway stations. The young man, Artyom is among them. A member of the first generation of children raised in the subterranean world following the apocalypse, he has only the vaguest recollections of life above ground, and contact with other humans beyond those that inhabit his local station, “Exhibition,” but he will have to face new experiences with both if humanity is to survive. Mutated beasts known as “Dark Ones” are spreading throughout the isolated stations of the Metro, and Artyom has been chosen as the messenger to spread the news of the new peril.”

Look for a more thorough review in the near future!

The game has been released on Xbox and PC.

So far the game is getting very good reviews on Amazon and other websites. The game is based off of a book of the same name by Dmitry Glukhovsky. The book is one of Russia’s biggest selling fiction novels and book rights have been negotiated with 20 different countries. No word yet on if an English version of the book will be forthcoming.

Metro 2033 Website (Russian)

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So I received a phone call this morning.

I have have been offered the dream job I’ve always wanted. I’m pretty damned excited. Unfortunately now I have to wait until April 12th before I start. Oh well, at least I have this to keep me busy!

Not much in the way of updates to bring up. I’m working on Chapter 2 of my first posted work, The Suffering. I’m hoping I can catch the amount of great character interaction and dialogue that my group had when we ran this module. Amazing and wonderful things happen when you have a fabulous group of role-players all in one game. I was hoping to get to finish this before I left Alaska, but we’ll just have to see what happens in Texas.

I’m currently working on a comic for the site. I figured a place like Armageddon Planet deserves some kind of visual stimuli. Heavens know that my prose are not exactly legendary. I can assure you, though, that even though it is going to be an end of the world setting there will be liberal doses of funnies. I do not want to toot my own horn, but I have high hopes that it will be primarily what comics are supposed to be – namely humorous. The acquisition of an artist or a Wacom Tablet (not to mention drawing skills) will be required before I can bring any graphic amusement to bear, however. Interested in being an artist and helping me out with the project? E-mail me: comic@armageddonplanet.com.

As far as the rest of the website goes – with the exception of contributor content, I have nearly everything working that I want. All the content I can think of to add is up, with more coming as soon as I think of it.

With Chris’ help I’ve finally cracked the code of getting my advertising banner up without screwing up the rest of the website. We spent about 4 hours sitting in a Starbucks trying different placements within the php code and finally cracked it. I felt a sense of triumph not unlike the Da Vinci Code’s Robert Langdon opening of the cryptex.

Anyway, that’s all for now!

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So it’s been a few days since I’ve updated. Applying for jobs does cut into one’s spare time. Since I’m now waiting to hear back from the job I applied to, I’ll have lots of opportunities to work on the site some more – if for nothing else than to keep myself busy so I don’t drive myself mental waiting to hear back on whether or not I was hired.

I’ve posted the first chapter in one of my converted d20 Modern modules. I’m using actions that were done by the actual players in my campaign, with a little dialogue added to keep it in more of a story format. Unfortunately we didn’t get a chance to finish the entire module as I left for my internship in Texas. We never picked it back up because so much time had passed and there were many more games to play! Hopefully that will not be the case in the future!

A few more site things to touch on. The Stuff link at the top (will be renamed later) has been updated with some more content. I’ve added some of my favorite links, comics and websites. I’ve also included a kind of ‘getting started’ guide for those of you who are new to this kind of thing.

The forums have a few new users, and hopefully things will be picking up in the near future. Again, I’m trying to get the word out of our existence. I know there are a lot of people who favor this genre, it’s just a matter of getting them all together in one place! Feel free to register at the forums and the blog – doing both isn’t required, but I would certainly enjoy it.

Contributors:

I would like to welcome new contributor RJDiogenes to the family. His stuff will start going up on the website as soon as possible. He tells me he’s got a lot in store for us and I can’t wait to look at more of his work!

For those who want to be a contributor to Armageddon Planet, all you have to do is shoot me an e-mail with a request and a sample of your work!submissions@armageddonplanet.com

So in unrelated news, I’m ashamed to admit that Starbucks here in Spring has become a favored hangout of mine. Right now we’re staying in a one-bedroom hotel room and it tends to get rather cramped in there, so we decided to get out a few hours a day and the nearest (and most cost effective) method has been the local Starbucks. I’ve always thought (and will continue to think) that they are the Wal*Mart of coffee. At least an iced coffee is cheap, if not particularly appealing to the palate. Chris would have me believe I just don’t like good coffee, but truth be told he doesn’t like them either.

Vindication!!

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I’ve spent most of the day today getting little things tweaked here and there. I’ve changed some of the formatting of the pages and I’ve started to do a little advertising. Google AdSense seems like an appropriate thing to have on the website as it will add an air of legitimacy if I have some advertising on the site. Also look in the near future for the Stuff page to be updated. I decided I need a kind of catch-all area until the site picks up and there’s a need for something more specific. I’d like it to be a repository for user created images (themes, desktops, etc), RPG modules, videos, links, how-to’s, etc. If you have something you want to be included, please feel free to e-mail submissions@armageddonplanet.com and I’ll throw it up there.

In a bit of site-unrelated news, I was reading earlier and I saw that someone has been arrested for the Wal*Mart PA prank. Apparently someone came out over the loud speaker and said “All blacks have to leave.” I’m not sure why this is an arrestable offense, since I’m pretty sure unauthorized use of a store’s overhead public address system is not contained in any New Jersey criminal codes. Apparently they are trying to use a quasi-hate crime law regarding intimidation as the cause for arrest.

More later, for sure. Right now there’s a beautiful thunder storm happening outside!

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For those of you have visited since I posted on Facebook a few hours ago, there have been a lot of changes! So far here’s what we have completed:

Forums Are Up
Please register and post! If you are interested in moderating, please e-mail me at forums@armageddonplanet.com. The forums that I’ve created are likely to be the permanent ones, but I’m always interested in new ideas. I’m looking at adding further functionality (such as a dice roller, custom titles, etc.) but I wanted to get them up and running as soon as possible. Official rules will be posted as soon as possible, but we’re all adults here. Socialization at these kinds of sites generally take place in the forums and that’s the general idea I had for this site

Contributing Authors
So far we have two confirmed authors with a third possibly on the way. If you’re interested in contributing to the website please feel free to shoot an e-mail to authors@armageddonplanet.com. If possible, include a sample of your work. I really want to get this website up and running as a viable area for exchange. Look for their work to start popping up soon

Wikigeddon
This is just like Wikipedia,except about the end of the world! Right now it’s not exactly customized to our needs, but it is functional. Go ahead and contribute!In the near future I will have additional pages and links available. Some areas I’d like to be able to share with everyone are pages dedicated to RPG modules, media (images, video, etc).

Logo
Right now the logo I have is something I slapped together in an hour or two. if you have another idea, I would love to get some help with it. The color scheme is one that I’m going to try and stay with so please keep that in mind when it comes to the design.

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After almost a year of owning this website, I’ve finally decided to work on it a little bit. I have a little bit of a logo (it’s a work in progress) and I’ll be adding content as I go along. I’ve installed Forums and am in the process of configuring them. I’ve also decided to try out the Wiki thing and see how it works. Anyway, sign up for everything you can! And keep checking back. I’ll keep updating over Facebook as I put more functionality into the website!

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