wtf?

So, with the current slew of Xbox Live users finding that their consoles are banned into oblivion from Xbox Live because they are modded and for playing pirated games (which requires modding of your console) over the last few weeks, I have found a new venue that provides vast amusement at the expense of the incredulously stupid.

If you find yourself in need of a good mixed dose of chuckles and schadenfreude, you could do no better than head to the xbox.com suspensions forum. This is the only place that you can try to get answers when you find your console has been banned from Live, or your account suspended, for any infraction of the ToS, CoC and EULA.  And it can get fucking hilarious.

Although lately the official responses from Stepto, Bootblack et al have become merely stock, form posts (probably due to workload) some of the older threads are fantastic. Nothing beats the posts where a righteous soccer-mom posts up to express her disgust that her 10-year old little angel of light (who is a good boy, attends Sunday School, and blushes when people say rude words) has been suspended totally without justification – only to be told with no hint of delicacy or subtlety that their “little angel” had the motto ”YO YO I K1LL B1AACHES F**CK YOU!! SCR3W B111ATCHES IN THE 4SS!!!” in his profile. Strangely, the previously up-in-arms parent never replies, but the sound of a headslap can be heard for miles.

And then you get some classics:

Why man get init, man didnt mod his console I got it from boi still blad. Man wanted to buy modern warefare 2 but now blad need to save up to get a new console init.
Whagwarn doe wid dis when am I unbanned init.

Holla back
safe blud
[gamertag redacted]

I give up.

New Avoid Spikes comic now online

Doctor Who: Dreamland first clip! Oh dear…

So we have the first clip of the new animated Dr. Who mini-mini series, Dreamland.

I was intrigued by this, but now, after seeing this shoddy, shoddy piece of crap, all I can think is “What, people get paid for animation this bad?”

Turn the lights off, lock the door, and go home. Nothing to see here.

(facebook readers click here to see the fucking awful video. If you must).

And, what is it with CGI animators and designers NOT BEING ABLE TO DO LAPELS, ever? Christ.

No new Avoid Spikes this week

So it seems the god of tiny microbes is playing a little game with me. I seemed to have picked up some bug that decides to incapacitate me only after 6pm Fridays and before 9am Mondays.

This is the third weekend that I have been ill, shivery, bunged and full of unpleasantness, after a normal and unaffected week at work. I’ve head of 48-hour ’flu but this is ridiculous.

So, anyhoo, apologies for another week without a strip, we’ll get there eventually. Hopefully. 

New Avoid Spikes comic now online!

Aaaaand…we’re back!

Apologies for two weeks with no strip. This week’s strip is testament to two great undeniable truths:

1. Four-year olds scare and confuse me

2. I really, really suck at Halo.

Catch this week’s tale of humiliating pwnage right here.

dogsounds reviews: Halo 3: ODST

 So, here we are again with another dogsounds reviews:, an occasional series where, if you hadn’t already guessed, I review the latest game to have caught my gaming attention. This time, we look at Halo 3: ODST, Bungie’s “yes it is, no it isn’t” sort-of standalone, kinda not-quite an expansion to the venerable Halo trilogy. Read the full review after the jump!

Get dogsounds music right here lets!

Why did I stop composing? And would you like some free music?

You know what? I haven’t written a single piece of music for a number of years. My synthesizers sit here, quietly gathering dust. I lost the spark; an inquisitive sense of inventiveness stemming from years of listening to Jarre and Vangelis and others fuelled a desire to write my own music. I had no training, no musical education. I just wanted to have fun. And I did. Find out what happened to that spirit (and get free music) after the jump.

New Avoid Spikes comic now online!

Every man subscribes to this point of view. In fact, it was the search for a pair of wearable socks that prompted this strip.

Catch a whiff of this week’s musky strip right here.

New Avoid Spikes comic online!

So, as I am currently working my way through Shadow Complex, I thought how more fitting to do a strip about Halo 3: ODST? That’s how my GRATE BRANE works, folks.

I have long hated the move towards darker and darker games – kinda sucks when you have a hi-def console and a big huge shinyshiny hi-def TV and play a game that takes place in dark, not-much-visible settings. Bit like putting a Fiat 125 engine in a Ferrari, no?

So it is nice that the VISR mode in ODST for once makes darkness cool. Well played, that man. There’s a reason dogsounds hearts Bungie.

Catch this week’s black-as-the-heart-of-an-evil-kitten-huffer strip right here.

New Avoid Spikes comic now online!

So, this week’s strip is finally up, apologies for the dealy. Blame Mike and his garage, and Mart and his birthday.

I like to hang around conspiracy forums. It’s entertaining, and just very occasionally you actually get something sensible. But for the most part, this is pretty much what you get.

Catch this week’s strip, which actually doesn’t exist, but actually does exist, and which is funded by a secret government black budget skunkworks program, and which actually isn’t, right here.

Alex Jones shoots self in foot; inserts into mouth

Oh, Alex Jones. That decibel-heavy, shouty loud protester of all things New World Order and conspiracy. Many people dig a good conspiracy theory; many people seek the truth where they feel there are lies. But not all charge for their services. And for those that pay for such services, they expect, well, from a self-confessed truthseeker, the truth. Funny that.

So what has the internet’s number one cause of earache done to illicit the ire of may conpiracy theorists and truth seekers around the world? Find out after the jump!

We are ODST

This is the latest trailer for Halo 3: ODST, out September 22nd.

I’m pretty sure the real motiovation behind these trailers is Microsoft saying “look, see how utterly fucking awesome a Halo movie would be? Huh? Huh?”

And you know what? I utterly agree. If this is what a mere ad agency can pull off – this and the Believe campaign being even slightly better than the Neil Blomkamp/Peter Jackson shorts – then imagine what a movie studio could do.

Anyway, watch and be awed. That’s a lot of story, action and emotion in just one and a half minutes.

Facebook readers – as ever, click here for the video.

New Avoid Spikes comic now online!

Foxx: Yes, yes, I know, Mass Effect came out in 2007. I only started playing it recently after Fallout 3 got me into the more RPG type of game. Bite me.

Anyway, although I am thoroughly enjoying the game, I have to call out BioWare for giving me a hairy-scary complicated inventory and gameplay system with pretty much NO TUTORIAL OR EXPLANATION WHATSOEVER. Fuckers.

“Here’s our game, it’s really quite complex, GO!”

Catch this week’s frustratingly frustrating strip right here. Full instructions are provided.

dogsounds reviews: Fallout 3. Again. After 200+ hours of play.

Yup. Still awesome.

New Avoid Spikes comic now online!

So, finally back up and running now I have some time to myself! Apologies for the downtime, but there are times when real life has to come first.

Anyway, catch this week’s caffeine-free strip right here. I think we have all been to this place at some point.

New Avoid Spikes comic now online!

So, as I battle a slight cold and complete knackeredness, what do I bring to the table? A double strip. Yes! A double-panel strip this week.

Aren’t I a nice artisty-type?

Originally, it was going to be in black and white, with faux-brushwork, just like the old Battle Action War Commando-type comics from the ’70’s, but when I started the blacking out, it looked crap. So I went back to color.

I lost enthusiasm with this strip at the sketching stage, because there were so many dudes to draw, but I stuck with it for you, dear gentle reader.

So move out, marine! The rally point is this week’s strip, right here.

dogsounds interviews: Sara Howard, Apollo engineer

Continuing its celebrations of the 40th anniversary of the Apollo lunar landings, dogsounds has an exclusive interview with aerospace engineer Sara Howard, who worked on the Saturn V launch vehicles used in the Apollo missions and who may have been the world’s first female aerospace engineer. Catch the interview after the jump.

NASA releases first images of Apollo Hardware. On Moon.

NASA, 17/7/09: Finally, after many years of myth and tin-foil conspiracy, NASA has released the first ever post-Apollo images of the equipment the astronauts left behind on the lunar surface.

New Avoid Spikes comic now online!

Whoa, wait, what? The strip up on a Friday? What’s this?

Well, today (sort of) is a very special anniversary. The day the world came together almost as one, more than ever before, or since. The day Mankind started on its greatest endeavor, and the world watched with baited breath.

A day that held a potential that eventually would slip away only due to the fickle triteness of the human race.

To quote John F. Kennedy:

“We choose to go to the Moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”

Shame we lost that spirit, really.

Click here for this week’s out-of-this-world comic strip.

Living with First-Person Shooter Disease

A truly sad tale of a gamer afflicted with a rare and debilitating neuropsychological disorder, motor-neural demyelenation, or Duke Nukem’s disease.

Facebook readers click here for the video.