So Assassin's Creed 2 is cominc out in a few hours, and I'm going to be picking up my collector's edition pre-order from Gamestop at 12:01. I am so excited the wait is killing me!

EDIT: Oh em gee I've been playing AC2 for nine hours straight someone help me

So I had a couple game pre-ordered at my local Gamestop, "Batman: Arkham Asylum" for the Xbox 360 and "Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box" for the Nintendo DS. Batman's a world-famous detective, Professor Layton is a world-famous puzzle-solver (and archaeologist). Naturally, my sleep-deprived mind thinks that a team-up between the two would be freakin' awesome. Bats and Layton, and Robin and Luke (Layton's assistant/apprentice), would all try to stump each other with brainteasers as they tracked down the Riddler or something. It's be cool.

I'm trying to hurry and finish playing the first Professor Layton game, "Professor Layton and the Curious Village," though it's not actually required to for "Diabolical Box." I bought it way back when and liked it, but like many games never actually finished it. I'll probably break up my time finishing "Curious Village" with "Arkham Asylum."

And speaking of which, I ordered the collector's edition of "Arkham Asylum," so I get a bunch of cool stuff like a batarang and a doctor's notebook. And since I pre-ordered it from Gamestop, I get access to a special Scarecrow challenge map.

I've got two other games pre-ordered right now, "Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2" and "Assassin's Creed 2," both for the Xbox 360. With MUA2 I'll have access to the Juggernaut, and with AC2 I'll get a special challenge-type map. Plus, I ordered AC2 as the collector's addition, so I'll be getting stuff like a statue of Ezio (the player character), an extra features disc (behind-the-scenes and making-of videos, as well as the game soundtrack), a hardcover art book, and other nifty stuff. Yay me.

Have you ever had a dream that was not only really freaky and weird (even by dream standards), but too embarassing to even describe? Yeah, I've had one recently. I'm still creeped out.

Apparently I've been mispronouncing "deus ex machina" for forever now. I always thought it was "day-us ex ma-shin-a," but I just heard someone say it as "doos ex mak-in-a." I feel bad now.

So I guess being given more responsibilities at work isn't so bad. With the raise and a bonus I got for doing some extra work Saturday, I was able to afford a new car. Okay, so not "new" new, it's used pre-owned, but it's new to me.

( Pics of my car )

I so want to paint an Autobots emblem on the hood.

Okay, so at the end of work today (which totally didn't suck, yay) I had this completely random chain of though that led to an idea for a fic.

( Read more )

Now if only I had some actual writing talent.

I was going to write an article talking about how Peter A. David has affected my interest in science fiction throughout most of my life (though I didn't find out until my later he was a writer on one of my favorite early shows, "Space Cases"), but something came up.

( tl;dr I crush everything )I feel better now. It helps writing it down, even if no one reads it. Seriously, you don't have to read it (Unless you already did. Since I'm putting this notice at the bottom. In which case, sorry and thanks.), this is just some self-therapy. (And spell-check says I didn't make any spelling mistakes. Yay for small victories.)

From 1987 Borden Eagle Condensed Milk "Easy and Quick Desserts" booklet...


Luscious Baked Chocolate Cheesecake

Makes one 9-inch cheesecake:

1/3 cup margarine or butter, melted
1 1/4 cups graham cracker crumbs
1/4 cup sugar
3 (8 oz) packages cream cheese, softened
1 (14 oz) can Eagle Brand Sweetened Condensed Milk (NOT evaporated milk)
1 (12 oz) package semi-sweet chocolate chips or
__8 (1 oz) squares semi-sweet chocolate, melted
4 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 300 degrees F. Combine margarine, crumbs, and sugar; press firmly on bottom of 9-inch springform pan. In large mixer bowl, beat cream cheese until fluffy. Gradually beat in sweetened condensed milk until smooth. Add remaining ingrediants; mix well. Pour into prepared pan. Bake 1 hour and 5 minutes or until set. Cool. Chill thoroughly. Garnish as desired. Refrigerate leftovers.

***

I asked Mom to bake this as my birthday cake. It's really really good!

Oh, by the way, I turned 22 today. *shrug* Am I supposed to be more mature? Oh well, off to read comics and watch cartoons.

Well I'm really fucking pissed off at myself. I broke my new back-up drive. Goddammit.

( Me bitching at myself behind the cut )

So would anyone know anything about fixing it? Hopefully just going into something on my computer and making it recognize the drive? I'm going to put in a support request with the company, but any advice at all would be appreciated.

EDIT: Okay, so I tried the drive again. I hear a weird clicking noise when the drive is turned on, so I think some hardware is broken. I'd try to fix it myself, but the only way to open it is some weird proprietary lock thingy that hides all the screws. I bet if I tried to open it somehow, I'd break it even more or void the warranty or something. Aargh.

So I had an idea for an alternate version of Young Justice. I've got outlines for five members right now, and I'm open to ideas for other members, and to flesh out these members.

Robin - Jason Todd. Obviously, he wasn't killed by the Joker in this 'verse. He still had a tramatic experience, so he altered his costume to somewhat darker colors. And added pants.

Power Boy - Lionel "Lion-El" Luthor. A Kryptonian-Human hybrid created by Lex Luthor and Project Cadmus after Superman's "death" by Doomsday, who originally debuted as one of the four replacement Supermen. After a public falling out with Superman later, he appealed to his friend and semi-mentor Power Girl to use her name, and adopted a variation of her name and costume. Again, with pants.

Artemis - Artemis of the Bana-Mighdall Amazons. An outspoken member of the Bana-Mighdall Amazons, the teenage Artemis adopted Wonder Woman's mission as her own after the two tribes were reunited. She, however, refuses to call herself "Wonder Girl," preferring her own name, and gets... rather miffed at anyone who calls her that.

Flash Twins - Don and Dawn Allen. The twin children of the second Flash, Barry Allen, and his wife, Iris West, Don and Dawn were born in the far future of the 30th Century. Eventually traveling back to the present with their parents, these teenage speedsters hope to live up to the tremendous Flash legacy.

So I'm having some computer issues. I generally use my Toshiba laptop for surfing the net, which includes LJ and the like. I'd been having some weird problems with the battery, in that it would suddenly jump from 100% to 6% charge on the battery. It didn't really affect me, since I have it plugged in most of the time anyway. But now the power supply conked out, and it won't stay charged. My dad has two power supplies that have the same voltage (19V), but half the amps. It'll charge when the computer is off, but then we run back into the five-minute battery. When the computer is on, it's not pulling enough amps so it switches to battery. So after some experimenting, he's wired the two power supplies in sequence to see if they'll run the computer. Hopefully it'll work.

I'm posting this from my HP gaming rig laptop. It's a much better computer, but I don't like the version of IE it has (I'm used to whatever the other one is after several years). I'm having issues typing too, but that's just my muscle memory fighing the slightly different keyboard configuration. Plus I don't have all my bookmarks on this one, so I have to work from memory. I have a crappy memory.

Spider-Man and Blue Beetle (Ted Kord) were both creations of artist Steve Ditko. They're both wise-cracking acrobats who use clever gadgets they invented to fight crime. (Yeah, Spidey has powers, but he invented the web-shooters.) So it would be natural that if DC and Marvel ever did anther Amalgam Comics series, Spider-Man and Blue Beetle could be amalgamated. Into, say... THE SCARLET SCARAB! So would he be Peter Kord or Ted Parker?

They even have sidekicks/legacy characters that match up. Jaime "Blue Beetle #3" Reyes is a teenager of Spanish decent whose super-powers come from a scarab on his spine. Anya "Araña" Corazon is a teenager of Spanish decent whose powers come from a magical spider tattoo. Both can create a blue exoskeleton at will.

I wonder how the Clone Saga would work out...

If you're wondering where scans_daily went, read foxhack's entry here.

I was thinking about DC's stipulation with the Marston estate concerning Wonder Woman, and how the desire to see her being treated with respect has hindered her appearance in other media. She's been in cartoons like Superfriends and Justice League/JLU, but she's never starred in her own cartoon.

This got me thinking about superheroes and cartoons. My firt exposures to superheroes were in the early 1990s, with cartoons like Spider-Man, X-Men, and Batman. There were also the older Superfriends, Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends, and the Max Fleischer Superman shorts.

This got me thinking even more. Superman had a lot of pop-culture exposure in the 40s: Fleischer cartoons, the radio shows, the George Reeves live-action series. Superman had an enormous effect on American culture, so much so that it's diffult to imagine what it would be like today without him. We even get the word "superhero" from his name.

What if... Fleischer Studios had done Wonder Woman shorts, in addition to or instead of, their Superman shorts? Would WW have had more exposure to the public, and become a bigger phenomenon? Would WW have affected American culture like Superman did? What if you replaced all the Superman stuff in the 40s with Wonder Woman?

It's kind of fun to think about.

So does anyone play Kingdom of Loathing? Would anyone be interested in starting up a clan?

Okay, I have a challege for all you out there. Take a comic book character and make a list of people that would be in their royal harem, if they had one. Bonus points for listing reasons each character is in the harem. Cookies for writing a fic or ficlet. You can post it here or on your journal.

Back during the DC vs. Marvel crossover (or Marvel vs. DC, if you prefer), heroes from each universe had to duke it out to satisfy their fanboys for the fate of their universes. The losing 'verse would be destroyed. Obviously this didn't happen, 'cause superheroes always find a third option. But anyway, here's the fight between the respective Kings of Atlantis, Aquaman of DC and Namor of Marvel. Will this be as epic as one might expect?

EDIT: I'm an idiot and missed a page, but it was shoved between two other fights. Still, I should have looked more thoroughly. Added it.

( Shirtless men fighting under the cut )

A page of marital embarrassment from Web of Spider-Man #50. (Very mildly NSFW, maybe.)

( That'll teach her to knock! )

Since it's Christmas, and this was previously asked about, here's Batgirl Adventures #1, featuring Batgirl and everyone's favorite femslash-tastic duo, Harley and Ivy!


http://community.livejournal.com/scans_daily/6854871.html


( Read more )

I got the brand new HP laptop in today. It was built in China Monday and was due tomorrow, but it came in today while I was at work.

My mom played a mean prank on me. I come in and she tells me it won't be in tomorrow. I get an annoyed look on my face, then she spins around her computer chair. There sits the box my laptop is in. I go from :( to :D immediately.

And the stats:
HP HDX16t Premium Series Notebook PC
2.4 GHz Intel P8600 Processor
320GB 5400RPM Hard Drive
3GB DDR2 ROM
512MB NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT video card
Webcam and Fingerprint Reader

It's awesome and shiney and new and awesome. I'm making this post on my old (is it okay to say it's old now?) laptop 'cause I'm really excited, and it's gonna take me a while to get my new one set up and on the internet. And I'm gonna go do that now.