Well, I haven't been feeling very well lately (bit of a cold) and school just started up again. I decided that I needed a quick laugh.

Some of you may know that I am a member of OCR, a remixing community that rocks hardcore. I was also a member of UnMod .

UnMod was a strange, almost indescribable place within OCR. Its name stood for "Unmoderated" (which was a lie at times). It was like the spam forum, except not. We UnModders had our own memes, our own identity, our own quirks. Think of it as something like 4chan's alternate universe. (In fact, a few 4chan fads started as UnMod fads, such as the "Charging My Laser" meme.) Things definitely got out of hand at times, but in general the mockery that went on was all in good nature, and it was a fun place to be.

So, imagine my surprise when on the front page of OCR is an announcement saying "The UnModerated forum has been deleted."

Well, isn't that a bitch slap in the face. UnModders had always been a bit spiteful of the moderators, seeing as the main mantra of UnMod was freedom. But, we hadn't seen this coming.

Turns out that a good portion of the mods had taken a vote, and it was unanimous that the forum should be deleted. Only the founder, DJPretzel, had the power to get rid of a forum. Turns out he was mainly against it. But, he trusted the judgment of his peers, many of whom spend a great deal of time working on the site.

The big problem here, was that most if not all of these moderators had nothing to do with the UnMod community. They did not call UnMod their home, and therefore saw no use for it. It was just the sewage bin where all of the stuff that didn't belong in GenDisc could seep to.

Boy, were they wrong.

In the wake of the deletion came retro-bans of many famous UnModders, in which these members were banned retro-actively for offenses committed long ago. In essence, this ripped open wounds that we thought had healed months ago. And of course, all of this happened while a good portion of the staff was away at MAGFest.

In revenge, many UnModders flooded the General Discussion board, posting image bombs, thread breaks, porn, and the like.

So, between the moderators power-tripping and the UnModders seeking vengeance, things got pretty ugly.

So, in essence, this is a sad goodbye. UnMod was a special place, and it's sad to see it go so suddenly, and without warning.

Of course, some of you are saying LOL INTERNET SERIOUS BUISNESS. But that's missing the point. It was like a sanctuary for some people. With UnMod gone, OCR, and the internet as a whole, won't be the same place.

A new forum called Off-Topic is going to be built in OCR, not as a replacement for UnMod, but as something new. Some hope it can be "A 'Best of UnMod' Forum" or "An UnMod without all the bad stuff". But the good and the bad together were what made UnMod, UnMod. Simply taking the good parts of it won't make it a better place to be.

Rumor has it that a bunch of UnModders are trying to build a new website where the old community can go to. But as a separate entity from OCR, it still won't be the same.

So, goodbye, UnMod. It was fun while it lasted.

Sorry for the extremely lengthy post. I won't torture you like this any more.

Well, I've been having a good week so far. I think this may be linked to the fact that I'm not in school, but whatever. I'm not complaining.

First off, I bought Yggdra Union, and all I have to say is this.

If you own a GBA and don't own Yggdra Union, go buy it, or you can slit your throat. I think the correct choice is obvious.

Second, Twilight Princess is amazing. I was uber-hyped for this game and it still exceeds my expectations. I stood agape at the sheer size of the overworld for like five minutes. And, just when you think you've seen it all, some beastly new item/boss/cut-scene/plot development comes along and sweeps you off your feet again. At first I was worried, because the game starts off extremely slowly and the Wii controls take some getting used to. But, pretty soon the plot picks up and you're hitting monsters with headshots five times in a row consistently. The controls work well, and going back to the Gamecube version would feel archaic at this point. That being said, getting the 'Cube version would be retarded. The music is pretty sweet too, although I would have preferred live instruments. The lack of voice acting hurts, too. Still, that doesn't make the game any less fun.

Thirdly, Eragon is a sweet book. People have told me to read it for a while, and I should have listened. I bombed through 200 pages in one day. At times, it feels too much like Lord of the Rings and too little of its own story, but these moments usually pass quickly.

Fourthly, go read Dr. McNinja.

Finally, if Final Fantasy XIII is half as fun to play as watching this trailer, it's going to be one hell of a game. After the flop that was FFXI, the awesomeness of XII and the supposed awesomeness of the upcoming XIII trilogy puts Final Fantasy back on my awesome list.

That's it for today. Happy Christmahanukwanzaa everyone!

This is incredible.

So, I decided I wanted a Wii a while ago. Gamestop was getting a shipment this morning, so I got up early (4:30 AM) with some buddies and went to camp out in the freezing cold.

Finally, it was getting close to opening time (10 AM). I was 8th in line and they were getting 8 Wiis. "Score!" I thought to myself.

But then, two people show up with little green stickers with numbers written in marker on them. "We have rain checks to get first in line, guys." No Gamestop icon, no signature, no nothing. Just marker. So, everyone who had been standing in line for 5 hours was kind of pissed off. It is common knowledge that Gamestop does not give out or honor rain checks. But they said that they had stood in line last week, had been guaranteed 9 Wiis, but the shipment was short and they got rain checks. Everyone was extremely skeptical, and not too worried. A few of us shouted that we had waited in line 3 or 4 times before and not gotten jack. But the Gamestop employees honored these little green stickers and screwed me out of a Wii, after waiting for 5 hours in numbing cold. Then they put two more units on hold because according to the numbers on the stickers, there were two more people yet to claim their Wiis.

So, not just me, but four of us got screwed out of Wiis by shitty customer service, including two parents buying for their kids' Christmas present. They won't even give us "rain checks" for next time, because that's not store policy. How gay is that?

Chalk one more up on the list of corporations that suck.

Well, I listened to Pink Floyd's "The Great Gig in the Sky" 42 times in a row. That is epic. ADI points for me?

Also, Muse rocks really really hard. I don't see how anyone could dislike this band. Their songs are just so much fun to listen to.

Also, check this out. http://mods.moddb.com/6313/infinity-the ... for-earth/

This is an amazing looking game. It's not a mod - just an indie standalone game. And holy wow, does it look awesome. The end game promises to be a space exploration MMO with over 1 billion planets to explore, complete with solar systems, galaxies and nebulae. Yeah, you read that right. 1 billion. Holy crap.

Now, the game developers don't have to model 1 billion planets. That's just ridiculous. They use what's called procedural generation, which means that algorithms create the planets as the program executes. So, the game won't be like 20,000 GB. Each planet will have dynamic weather, some will have cities, and they will have varying day-night cycles based on time. Even the waves in the oceans are affected by the planet's various moons. There is even a seamless transition from space to the planet you visit: just fly right in. Holy crap. Also, depending on where you want to hyper-jump in the universe, it could take minutes or even hours in light-speed. The developers are going for a serious Newtonian physics approach. There's a prototype for the combat system out right now, but it takes quite a bit of work to get your hands on it. Version 2.1 of the combat prototype will be out to the public soon, so check that out when it comes for some serious eye-candy. They also have some sweet videos up on their website. Look out for this one coming late 2007. Best part is, it'll probably be free. It's just the lead designer's pet project.

Well, that's enough from me for one night. Just alerting you to what's going on.

This has been the Fubar ten o'clock news. Good night.

Well, I've been having a shitty week, and I need to rant about something. So, I'm going to rant about things that I have found disagreeable.

The first company I will be examining is UPS.

The only two times I have ever shipped things via UPS I have been thoroughly disappointed. First of all, the boxes always came bent or damaged. Second, the packages came late. On the other hand, when I had shipped with FedEx, the packages always came EARLY and in perfect condition. This is how shipping should be done. Thirdly, package tracking with UPS is usually useless because they're so sloppy about keeping their shipments on schedule. So, if UPS' only purpose is to ship packages, WHY THE FUCK CAN'T THEY SHIP PACKAGES?! I mean, the one thing they're supposed to do, they can't even do right. That is a sign of epic failure.

Second is KROQ.

Now, I know some of you will disagree with me. You will say, "Well, LA radio sucks in general, and KROQ is decent." Here's my idea. KROQ is a station dedicated to playing rock music over the radio in LA County, correct? But, what exactly is "rock music", anyway? Rock is a genre like techno - it's been split into genres, subgenres, and sub-subgenres. Think about it - metal is a subgenre of rock, and even metal has subgenres like death metal and speed metal. When you take into account that there are probably at least 100 different types of rock music, you begin to see the problem with a station like KROQ. You're simply not going to appeal to a "rock" fan, because rock as a genre is so diverse.

Take, for example, the current feud on KROQ between Incubus and My Chemical Romance fans. Every single night, Incubus and My Chemical Romance fans call KROQ to vote for the song of the day en masse, with Incubus fans voting for songs like Anna Molly and My Chemical Romance fans voting for Welcome to the Black Parade. Even those two songs, usually in the top 5 ranked on KROQ, are completely different songs musically. I absolutely despise Welcome to the Black Parade and most of My Chemical Romance's songs. But, they play that song like every five minutes or so. And then, since My Chemical Romance fans have no musical taste, they get pissed off by songs that are on the opposite side of the rock spectrum (aka songs that don't suck cock), like songs by The Killers. So, with a station like KROQ, everyone loses. This is a problem similar to that of JACK FM; 20 percent of the time you'll hear a song that's okay, and the other 80 percent you'll despise what's playing. That's the ultimate flaw of a diverse radio station.

I think it's about time that LA got a serious radio makeover.

Well, that's about it for my epic rant. I think I'll be getting lots of comments on this one.

This is Fubar, signing off.