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SPIRIT

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Blog Entries posted by SPIRIT

  1. SPIRIT

    Strange Bionicle Find

    By SPIRIT,


    Stories
    Recently I managed to find someone selling the Bionicle Quest for Makuta board game online. It was in pretty good condition. An excellent addition to my collection.
    I also picked up a few other board games. Just something to do with the kids I work with. One of the games was Monopoly. What did I find inside the box?
    A single Cordak bullet.
    The evidence speaks for itself. Family game night turned violent, the Toa Mahri intervened, and there were no survivors. 😔
    Open and shut case.
    Bake him away, toys.
  2. SPIRIT

    Musings of an old man

    By SPIRIT,

    So let me start my story like any old man with an anecdote that doesn't really go anywhere.
    I was trawling through my old blog entries trying to find out when I got Pokemon Diamond. I'm playing Brilliant Diamond and I wanted to see if I wrote down anything about my initial playthrough of the game. Turns out, 17 year old me did not see that as something worth recording.
    Instead I seemed to be a little full of myself. A lot of the blog entries from that time are about my own fame and power on BZP, which in the hindsight of old age looks a bit sad and pathetic. Yeah, I definitely played it up a bit for laughs, but I have to confess that there was a bit of truth behind that.
    It's hard when you're seventeen and you have all these hopes and aspirations. At school, you're just a regular person, but on the internet, hey, you just make some funny Flash videos and write some silly movie parodies and suddenly you're someone special. Of course it would go to your head, you're still a kid. What do you know about power or fame? How could you possibly use those things responsibly? I wasn't even that powerful or famous. Imagine if I were a real celebrity! Yowza...
    For the most part, I guess I was well-liked. Certainly if I go onto Bionicle Discord communities, people tell me they have fond memories of some of the things I've done. So maybe I'm overthinking it, maybe this is just the imposter syndrome that we all have to face in adulthood.
    And things could absolutely be worse. You hear all sorts of stories about people who use their power and  influence to abuse and control vulnerable people. I definitely never did anything like that. I just made some blog posts that aged poorly.
    I don't think I'm a bad person now or that I was a bad person before, I just think it's interesting how my values shifted as I got older. Right now I am 31. I run my own business where I give children speech therapy.  “I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” That's my new aim in life: to help make other people feel good, not just myself. My power and influence speaks for itself, I don't have to brag about it on the internet, even as a joke.
    Thank you for reading this. I hope you managed to grow beyond the person you were at seventeen too.
  4. SPIRIT

    Christmas is Cancelled

    By SPIRIT,

    Like so many others this year, I won't be with my family this Christmas because of the pandemic.
     
    I don't visit often, but you guys are still like an estranged family to me.  So merry Christmas everybody.
  5. SPIRIT

    Tales from Speech Therapy

    By SPIRIT,

    So this one kid I'm working with is 9.  He has a lot of difficulty saying vocalic /r/ (e.g. car, stir, bear, deer, etc.), but we've made some big strides in the last few months.  He's also a major bookworm.  Magic Treehouse, Minecraft novelizations... if you think a nine year old would read it, he's read it.  Often we'll read passages from his favourite books and practice some good vocalic /r/ sounds.  Today, to my surprise, he's waiting for me on the stairs clutching a familiar red book...
     
     
    Yes, friends, it was none other than BIONICLE Adventures #10: Time Trap
     
     
    Kid: Yeah, I really like this book.  You're probably going to think some of the characters have really weird names.
    Me: 4_parallel_universes_ahead_of_you.png
     
    So the legend of Bionicle isn't quite dead yet, folks.
  6. SPIRIT

    Like a Boss

    By SPIRIT,

    Well, I was under the impression that BZP was in a coma but apparently it's not.  Who knew?
    So life's been really interesting recently.  I quit my job to start my own business and now ain't nobody tellin me to do nothing.
    It is both very stressful and very exciting.  Let's have a race to see which happens first: my business becoming solvent or BZP coming back to life.
  7. SPIRIT

    Steamed Kau

    By SPIRIT,

    Dume: Well, Vakama, I made it... despite your directions.
     
    Vakama: Ah, Turaga Dume! Welcome! I hope you're prepared for some unforgettable Kanohi!
     
    Dume: Yeah...
     
    Vakama: Oh Great Beings, my masks are ruined! But what if... I were to purchase someone else's masks and disguise them as my own crafting? Oh ho ho ho ho... magnificently Makutaish, Vakama!
     
    Dume: Vakama!
     
    Vakama: Turaga, I was just, uh... just stretching my calves on the windowsill. Isometric exercise! Care to join me?
     
    Dume: Why is there smoke coming out of your forge, Vakama?
     
    Vakama: Uhh... no! That isn't smoke. It's steam. Steam from the steamed Hau I'm making! Mmm... steamed Hau!
     
    Vakama: Turaga, I hope you're ready for mindblowing Kaukau!
     
    Dume: I thought you were making steamed Hau.
     
    Vakama: D'oh, no. I said steamed Kau! That's what I call Kaukau!
     
    Dume: You call Kaukau "steamed Kau?"
     
    Vakama: Yes. It's a regional dialect!
     
    Dume: Uh-huh... uh, what region?
     
    Vakama: Uhh... Metru Nui?
     
    Dume: Really? Well, I'm from Ta-Metru, and I've never heard anyone use the phrase "steamed Kau."
     
    Vakama: Oh, not in Ta-Metru, no. It's a Ga-Metru expression.
     
    Dume: I see. You know, these Kaukau are quite similar to the ones they have at Nuhrii's forge.
     
    Vakama: Oh ho ho ho... no, patented Vakama masks. Old crafting recipe.
     
    Dume: For steamed Kau?
     
    Vakama: Yes.
     
    Dume: Yes, and you call them "steamed Kau" despite the fact they are obviously injection moulded.
     
    Vakama: Ye- hey- you know, the- one thing I should- excuse me for one second.
     
    Dume: Of course.
     
    Vakama: Well, that was wonderful. A good time was had by all, I'm pooped.
     
    Dume: Yes, I should be- Great Spirit, what is happening in there!?
     
    Vakama: The Red Star?
     
    Dume: The Red Star!? At this time of year, at this time of day, in this part of the city, localized entirely within your forge!?
     
    Vakama: Yes!
     
    Dume: May I see it?
     
    Vakama: No.
     
    Brander: Vakama, the forge is on fire!
     
    Vakama: No, Brander—it's just the Red Star!
     
    Dume: Well, Vakama, you are an odd fellow, but I must say... you steam a good Kau.
  8. SPIRIT

    YouTube Rant

    By SPIRIT,

    So I’m a productive adult. I’ve got a job and friends and things are pretty good when you average everything out. I’m entitled to a little mindless television every now and then. But, as a major cheapskate millennial and someone who hates media commitments because of how seriously he takes them, I don’t have TV so I just bum around watching cruddy YouTube videos in my recommended videos feed to opiate my brain from a long day of thinking and worry.
     
    And here’s what grinds my gears, what gets my goat, what shivers my timbers, what rustles my jimmies.
     
    When YouTubers state that their opinions are opinions.
     
    COOL! THANKS! NO FREAKING DUH!
     
    Listen here, you human trash bags, I KNOW THAT THIS LIST OF TOP TEN TIMES MICHAEL SCOTT DID SOMETHING FUNNY IS YOUR OPINION! HOW ON THIS GOOD GREEN EARTH COULD YOU OBJECTIVELY ASSESS SOMETHING LIKE THIS?
     
    You spineless, mewling milksops!
     
    You can’t stand by an opinion? You’ve got to water it down with “oh just FYI this is my opinion don’t get mad pls”. WELL TOUGH TAMALES, AMIGO! THIS IS THE INTERNET! PEOPLE GET MAD! PEOPLE DOWNVOTE THINGS THEY DON’T LIKE!
     
    I don’t care how mundane your video or your opinion is. Just present it as fact! Stick to your guns! That’s the difference between strength and weakness, and people are sure as heck more interested in that than right or wrong. Even if I disagree with what you say, I can at least respect you standing up for what you believe in.
     
    Because like I was saying before, the internet hive mind gets mad. Whoop dee doo! Just ignore them!
     
    As the saying goes “haters gonna hate”, or the more updated version “dab on the haters”.
     
    You can’t please everyone, but at least please yourself. There are worse fates than being hated on the internet. “Oh I can’t say this, the Internet will get mad!”
     
    GOOD!
     
    An angry view and a happy view still bring in the same ad revenue!
     
     
     
     
    Okay, that’s all I got.
     
     
    But can we also stop with the weird standard intros to things, catchphrases, and stupid names for YouTuber fanbases? Like I get that traditions are fun, people like repetition, and inventing words is fun, but just stooooooop! For goodness sake, this part of YouTube culture is much worse than the whole inability to support an opinion.
     
    It’s cool that you’re famous for talking to your webcam everyday, but try to get a little perspective on the content of your videos.
     
     
    Okay, that’s it for me.
     
    Be sure to rate, comment, and subscribe. Don’t forget to SMASH that bell! And let me tell you about my friends at some stupid website that sells junk no one wants.
     
    LAME NONSENSICAL SIGN OFF! BYEEEEEE!
  9. SPIRIT
    Back when Journey to One came out two years ago, I said to myself, "hey, remember all those movie spoofs you wrote back in the day? Weren't those fun? You should totally write one for this Netflix thing because it's going to be around forever."
     
    Then they announced the cancellation.
     
    "Hey, it's still cool, it'll be nice to do one last thing with Bionicle before saying goodbye forever."
     
    Yes, well, little did I realize that it would end up taking two years! Granted, I was finishing a master's degree, moving countries, and starting a career, so there were a few more things taking my attention than when I was a teenager going to school for 6 hours a day, but this was still pretty difficult. My standards as to what constitutes a joke have certainly risen since I wrote my first movie spoof back when I was 14, but also the dialogue in Journey to One was harder to intersperse with jokes and I've just become a lot more susceptible to writer's block in my old age.
     
    However I did finish it.
     
    There were many times I wanted to give up. It certainly didn't help that this didn't have nearly the readership the previous instalments in the series had, but I kept telling myself that I didn't get into writing for the praise. I did it because I had something to say.
     
    Even though it was hard work, I'm glad I did it. A final homage to a franchise I loved so well. And now my legacy as someone who finishes everything he started on this site remains intact. (Please ignore all memories you may have of my many unfinished projects.)
     
     
    If you'd like to check it out for yourself, I encourage you to give it a read.
  10. SPIRIT
    I've remained silent on this issue for far too long, but I can do so no longer.
     
     
     
    While playing Fallout 4 and looking at an Achievement Guide, it was brought to my attention that some of the Achievements are mutually-exclusive to a playthrough unless you save-scum. Not only that, but other achievements are locked behind moral choices, but only if you pick a certain choice! That's not how Achievements should work!
     
    Achievements should follow these rules:
     
    1) A player must not be able to lock him or herself out of obtaining an Achievement. By the time you reach the end of the game, you should be allowed the option to return to all instances where an Achievement could have been obtained in order to reach 100% game completion. The obvious exception to this rule is games that are designed for multiple playthroughs.
     
    2) No Achievement should require the action of another human to complete. It can certainly be an option, maybe in a game with online capabilities that someone could help you get an Achievement, but that can't be the only way. Humans are unreliable and untrustworthy and making others rely on them to get Achievements is only going to result in pain.
     
    3) No more than 50% of a game's Achievements should be obtainable as part of completing the main story. No one cares about those ones! It's not "oh no, I had to work so hard to follow the neon signs down the path that the developers painstakingly designed for the lowest common denominator, I'm so glad I was rewarded for this", it's usually "oh... a consolation prize... yay..." It cheapens the Achievement brand, and it's just insulting. Sure, it can be handy to know how far you are in a game, sort of like announcing chapters in a book. However, you could just do what Half Life 1 did in the days before Achievements and just, you know, tell the player that they've advanced to the next part of the game? The only reason I could possibly see for not banning these (with the exception of an Achievement for completing the main storyline) would be so that you can check how far your friend has advanced through a game so that you can avoid spoiling what is to come next.
     
    4) No hidden or vague Achievements. I shouldn't have to look up a guide to find out what I have to do for an Achievement let alone what the Achievement is. If they're hidden to avoid spoilers, find a way to write the description of what you have to do a different way. If this is hard, try hiring better writers.
     
    5) If an Achievement requires the player to complete an action a certain number of times, there MUST be a visible counter to help the player track his or her progress. This is pretty self-explanatory. I should have to mentally tally how many times I do something or just keep doing something until I get the Achievement popup. The game is already counting for me. Why can't it just show its work? Lots of games already do this, it needs to be standard.
     
     
     
    I propose that the governments of the world sign an agreement to make a Ministry of Achievements (or Department of Achievements depending on your government's terminology) that regulates all games their country publishes. Not only will this governing body work to ensure that the 5 Commandments of Achievements are followed, but they will also work to ensure that Achievements are challenging but not impossible. Hopefully this will permit the art-form to flourish and will prevent unscrupulous game developers from releasing substandard video games.
     
    Please remember SPIRIT's 5 Commandments of Achievements the next time you're voting. Thank you.
  11. SPIRIT

    Calendar

    By SPIRIT,

    Pope Gregory XIII was a doofus as was Julius Caesar. Did they not foresee the importance of a logical calendar in a technological society? Here are some changes I would make if given supreme dictatorial power over the Free World.
     
    1) New calendar starts the day after the winter solstice (i.e. the winter solstice is the last day of the year). The days start off short, get long, and once they're short again we start a new year. I could compromise by going with the summer solstice or one of the equinoxes, but the current system of "ehhh, I guess we'll start the new year like a week and a half after the solstice" is stupid and dumb and I hate it.
     
    2) 12 months, 30 days each. Months 1, 3, 6, 9, and 12 all get an extra day. That adds up to 365.
     
    3) No leap years. The final day of the year will be 0.2422 days longer to help the rotation and the revolution counts catch up to each other.
     
    4) Better month names. September, October, November, and December are months 9, 10, 11, and 12 just so that we could fit in two holidays named after emperors who have been dead for like 2000 years? That's insane. Nope, scrap the whole system. Pick some new naming scheme. Name them after stars, rocks, trees, historical figures, elements, or dinosaurs. The current system has no cohesion or logic.
     
    5) Now that there's no shift in which day falls on which date, all holidays are static and better spaced out. Every month gets a holiday and they all happen either on a Monday or a Friday. None of this "oh, sometimes it lands on a Wednesday". That's not a lottery I'm interested in gambling at. Now I realize many religious and cultural celebrations may follow a lunar calendar or that certain groups may be attached to celebrations that are already tied to specific days. Well tough tamales! You should've thought of that before electing me supreme leader of the world.
     
     
    I think that's a pretty good start, and it's pretty easy to fit a 5 step plan into my manifesto. I could go into detail on my plans for a 3 day weekend, second Christmas, or regulations about which holidays warrant fireworks and which ones do not, but I think I can save that for the supreme world leader election circuit.
  14. SPIRIT
    So for fun, I thought I'd go through the different forums to find out which is the highest voted topic by Reputation Points. And then hand out pretend Internet Medals to the ones with the best score.
     
    Obviously Reputation Points are totally unbiased and a completely accurate metric for the quality of a post.
     
    ... Actually, I don't think anyone really looks at them. BUT I DID. FOR SCIENCE.
     
    The following is a list of the top 10 Comedies on BZPower based on the Reputation Points held by its first post... at the date and time that this blog entry was posted. Obviously there's nothing to stop people from going around and adding more points to their favourite Comedies, but I'll know that you did it. And I'll do the "shame on you hand gesture".
     
    Uh... so yeah, the list:
     
    10. ~♥~ Kokoro no Ice ~♥~ by GSR with 13 Points
     
    9. Staring Contest Continues by Onuki with 16 Points
     
    8. WHAT IS THE POTOO?! 2 by Voltex with 17 Points
     
    7. The Adventures of Sumiki's Dad - by Sumiki's Dad's Son with 20 Points
     
    6. Wedding Announced by Onuki with 23 Points
     
    4. (Tie) WHAT IS THE POTOO?! by Voltex with 26 Points
     
    4. (Tie) Hakuna Vakama by Onuki with 26 Points
     
    3. Poor Kongu... by SPIRIT with 28 Points
     
    2. Game, Set, Match by Eyru with 30 Points
     
    1. The Kaita and the Storyteller by GSR with 35 points
     
    Congratulations to GSR for getting the gold, Eyru for getting silver, and me for getting bronze. Special mention to Voltex and Onuki, the only people not in the top 3, but still in the top 10 multiple times. Ordinarily, I'd make the winners wonderful medals in Microsoft Paint, but as we all know, Microsoft Paint is being discontinued, and that's totally the reason not because I'm lazy.
     
     
    So what forum should I do next?
  16. SPIRIT

    Writing

    By SPIRIT,

    Hey, I just entered The Legend Continues contest. The prizes sounded pretty good, and I felt that the Skull Slicer kind of got a raw deal only showing up in 2 web animations and getting like a sentence of lore. He was this arena champion who inexplicably had 4 arms. So many questions...
     
    Also, I've been off and on writing another movie spoof. I'll finish it someday...
  18. SPIRIT

    Sidorak

    By SPIRIT,

    Did you ever hear the tragedy of King Sidorak the Wise?
     
    I thought not. It's not a story the Toa would tell you. It's a Brotherhood legend. Sidorak was a King of the Visorak Horde, so powerful and so wise he could use his Herding Blade to influence the Visorak to steal life... He had such a knowledge of the Visorak that he could even keep the ones he cared about from Keetongu...
     
    The Brotherhood of Makuta is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural...
     
    He became so powerful... the only thing he was afraid of was losing his power, which eventually, of course, he did. Unfortunately, he taught his queen everything he knew, then his queen killed him with Keetongu. Ironic, he could save others from Keetongu, but not himself.
  19. SPIRIT
    If Lego put me in charge of doing a solid Bionicle Gen 3 reboot, I'd worldbuild the new island around the theme of renewable energy. It'd be easy to divide by element, and who wouldn't want a generation of youth imagining a cleaner planet?
     
    The setup would be that you've got these robots living on a tropical island with these jury-rigged energy capturing devices that help power their meager villages. Kind of like a rural Star Wars planet.
     
    Ta-Koro: Geo thermal. Village built by a volcano. No brainer.
     
    Ko-Koro: Hydro electric. There isn't a lot you can do with ice, but you can do a lot with mountains. Waterfalls, dams, that sort of thing. That being said, you'd have to make the Ko-Matoran more of a mountain people than an ice people.
     
    Ga-Koro: Wave power. This is totally a thing (look it up). You've got these generators on the ocean that turn the movement of waves into power. Plus Ko-Koro doesn't have anything else that makes sense, so had to give them hydro.
     
    Onu-Koro: Nuclear power (or at least something similar). An almost endless power source that you can just dig up from the ground. Remind anyone of lightstones?
     
    Le-Koro: Solar power. Let's double down on the jungle theme here and back off on the air theme. Jungle is a fine element. Plants grow using solar power. Plus Ta-Koro already had geothermal so someone needed to take solar.
     
    Po-Koro: Wind power. Stone was a dumb element anyway. Make Le-Koro be about plants and let Po-Koro be a big windy field with windmills all over the place.
     
     
     
    Regardless of what Lego does end up doing, it would be nice if we got a bit more worldbuilding for Gen 3 than we did for Gen 2.
     
    How would you worldbuild for Gen 3?
  20. SPIRIT

    GameBoy Color

    By SPIRIT,

    So long story, but I ordered a GameBoy Color game off Amazon and it just arrived today.
     
    So I popped it in and turned it on and goodness gracious me.
     
    I used to play on this? For multiple hours at a time? WITH NO BACK LIGHT?! How do I have any eyesight at all???? This screen is so absurdly tiny. A 2.32 inch display? Are you joking me?
     
    I got my GameBoy Color almost 17 years ago. I can't wait to see what gaming is like in 2034.
  25. SPIRIT

    Gaming PC Advice?

    By SPIRIT,

    Hey technically-inclined people of this strange corner of the internet,
     
    I'm in the market for a good gaming PC. Like, a really good one. Like one that will play Skyrim on Ultra with no loading time. But I have no idea where to start looking.
     
    Got any recommendations?
     
    Also, I'm incredibly lazy, so building it myself will never happen.
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