Anyway: there is, I suppose, some news. Although not as much as there should be.
The car is still kinda broken. It's a long story--and it'll probably end up at NewsoftheStoopid.com whenever I have time to write it all down. The basics are easy enough.
First of all, there's something tremendously wrong with this neighbourhood. The mutants on this street seem to have worked out that calling the cops every few minutes to report my car as abandoned only gets them into trouble when it turns out that they're full of shit. Cops don't like that sort of thing, even from a bunch of self-delusioned elitists who actually think that living in a $200,000 house makes them rich, or something.
So, while I've stopped hearing from the police that my car never goes anywhere [that is, when I'm here at all and not out driving somewhere], the new issue is vandalism. Things mysteriously keep 'breaking' in my car. The exhaust system mysteriously 'broke' to the extent that the bolts had been unscrewed and weren't even at the scene. The mysteriously 'broken' lower radiator hose, upon closer inspection, looks mysteriously stabbed to death--oddly, the stabbed-to-death part was accessible without opening the bonnet.
That part specifically leads to the current mess.
Because the car was overheating, a couple of neat things have happened to it. First of all, the thermostat is pretty well dicked; but replacing it is roughly impossible, since the thing has been kinda welded into place by the heat. There's probably a name for the thing that's been welded into place by the heat. I have no idea what its name might be. I know how cars work in function; I don't get into the weird nomenclature which has produced such inane terms as 'the tranny'.
Another symptom of this thing running at temperatures enviable by thermite is that the starter burned out one of its wires. I know what a starter is called, because its name has something to do with its function. There's probably a name for the wire that got burned out by the heat. I have no idea what its name might be. I know how cars work in function; I don't get into the weird nomenclature which has produced such inane terms as 'the tranny'.
Because I wasn't sure which wire was burned out [by name or by location], I didn't really wanna play with it personally. So I made the critical error of taking the car to Suxx Pontiac.
For some reason, every damned time I take the car there to have something fixed, at least one other thing mysteriously 'breaks'. So there's a definite trend going on here.
This time, it was the door.
Here's the history on that. The portside door doesn't open from the outside. Because someone broke the little connecting rod from the handle to the mechanism which actually releases the door while trying unsuccessfully to break into my car. There's probably a name for the little connecting rod and for the mechanism which actually releases the door. I have no idea what their names might be. I know how cars work in function; I don't get into the weird nomenclature which has produced such inane terms as 'the tranny'.
I think I've mentioned that.
So: while the door wouldn't open from the outside, it still opened fine from the inside. I mentioned that to the morons at Suxx, and even asked what it would take to fix the thing; they said they'd look at it and let me know.
Then they fixed the starter and charged me a hundred and fifty bucks.
So I go back to Suxx to pick up my car. They reportedly forgot to look at the door problem, although the manager was reportedly able to open the door from the outside 'by twisting the handle somehow'. Granting that the connecting rod thingy was fully detached from the handle, that didn't make a lot of sense. I mentioned that, and they shrugged vacuously.
So I got my car back. And I unlocked the sherryside door, got the ignition on, and rolled down the portside window so I could open the door from the inside from the outside from the portside. Read that a few times, and it'll make sense.
Except: now the handle on the inside is broken.
So I went back in and mentioned that. The interior portside handle is broken. It wasn't broken when I left the car here to have the starter fixed. This is a bad thing.
The same guy who lied about the manager twisting the exterior handle to get the door open tells me that 'it probably just wore out' sometime between being left with them and being given back to me. Oh, and: 'I can see what it'll cost to have us fix it for you'.
I left. I wasn't interested in paying them to fix the door which had mysteriously 'worn out' while in their possession, only to find out, after a few days, what else might have 'worn out' while they were fixing that.
I got the car home. And I took the damned door apart.
The connecting rod thingy was still detached. And it turns out it was detached because the only thing really holding it in place was this little white plastic thingy which had snapped. There's probably a name for the little white plastic thingy which had snapped. I have no idea what its name might be. I know how cars work in function; I don't get into the weird nomenclature which has produced such inane terms as 'the tranny'.
Also, the interior handle--essentially a fairly thick chunk of diecast metal--had 'worn out' inasmuch as the thing was bent all to hell and snapped in half. It would take several hundred pounds of force to break this thing. I'm not even sure you could break it while it was in the door; the hinge holding it in would break first. Which suggests logically that the thing had to be physically removed and either cut in half or clamped in a vise before it was able to be 'worn out'.
Legally speaking, there's not a lot I can do about it, of course. Because no one saw these idiots remove the thing and make it 'worn out' in whatever way might actually have managed to break it. That I have people who are aware that the thing wasn't broken when I gave them the car, and was when I got it back doesn't seem to help much either.
On the other hand, nothing prevents me from telling people all about this, as long as I don't come out and state that they intentionally broke the fucking thing with the subsequent plan of charging me to have them fix it. So: officially speaking, the thing was 'worn out', and these idiots are probably a wonderful company which operates in the most legal manner they can be expected to maintain. And the fact that I showed up unannounced and got the car in instantly probably has nothing to do with most people already suspecting that they might suck, break things in the hopes of charging you to fix them, or might charge an astronomical fee to replace a fucking stereo wire in a starter.
In other words: draw your own conclusions. And caveat emptor and stuff.
Anyway: the thermostat is still welded in place. So I'll probably have to find a place other than Suxx to take the thing to have it fixed. Until then, driving the car doesn't work very well.
The sad thing is that the Formula has reached that neat point at which fixing it costs more than it's worth. Which is kinda meaningless, of course--the closest I've ever come to actually selling a car was this Dodge I had [and don't much like to talk about--that thing sucked a lot] which I gave this kid who needed a car. Any car. Even this Dodge. He wanted to pay me for it, but didn't actually have any money. If he'd had money, he'd have got something other than this Dodge, after all. So he gave me this motorcycle jacket for it. Hunter's been wearing the jacket lately. I assume the jacket has outlived the Dodge.
Otherwise, I've given a few cars away when I got new ones. So I don't really care what a car is 'worth' in general; I just care whether I still like it.
Regarding the Formula, I really only bought it in the first place because Swyndle assured me that I'd never, ever find the car he wanted: KARR. From Knight Rider. A black 1988 Formula with black interior, TTops, and bumperpads. So I found one. And I made sure it was a stick, since he didn't know how to drive a stick. And I bought it. Then I showed it to him.
He was upset about that.
Since then, I've started to like the car quite a bit. Once I'd replaced the engine, of course; the original 1988 Pontiac V8 was a little boring.
So now I'm wondering, to some degree, what to do about the car. What I might do is keep it, but buy a new one; then fix up the Formula completely. I've noticed that cars break most often when you actually drive them. They last a lot longer when you just leave them alone.
Unless, of course, you live in this neighbourhood of self-delusioned elitist plebeians who assume that having a $200,000 house makes them rich. That I'm sitting in an equally $200,000 house seems to be immaterial. Probably because I'm the weird one who hasn't got a fucking MiniVan.
The net result of all this is that I haven't been doing a lot lately. I tend to do things mostly in restaurants, and I haven't really been able to get to any lately. And ordering pizzas isn't really the same thing.
Which is not to say that I haven't been doing anything at all.
I've got the new layout for The National Prevaricator worked out. If we can track down all the articles which are supposedly somewhere in Hunter's computer, I'm hoping to have the new issue online on Monday. Otherwise, we'll have to write a few more at the last minute. One way or the other, I'm trying to get that done.
As for gremlin.net: I've got a couple of new links to the left. I'll add more as I think of good things to link to. There are enough websites online now that I should be able to find a few dozen actually worth hitting.
There's also the HGD. That's taking a little longer than I'd anticipated. It might be more like July before that ends up online. I'll let you know....
Then there's Subheroes. And here's where we get into a bit of news.
I've got the game all figured out now. What it's going to do, how it's going to look, and so on. It's going to be very large. It's also going to be very difficult. It's also going to be the most realistic videogame in history.
Here's what we know so far:
- The purpose of the game is to collect six hundred different items--a sort of scavenger hunt--and ultimately compile them into a Zombie Eliminator.
- The game spans the Denver Metro Area--or as close an approximation as we can accomplish. I was personally a little upset with Twisted Metal Two, which decided that Los Angeles was roughly eight city blocks, surrounded by a circular freeway. DIA alone--the beginning level of the game--will be larger than that.
- The main player character guy is, of course, TransAmMan. Other characters will include
- Pediddle, Trin, and the rest of the cast of the cartoon.
- Barney the Cop [technically a member of the cast] and various anonymous cops.
- Zombies. Obviously.
- Bums. Homeless people. The domicilically challenged. Whatever you wanna call them. And they'll have a purpose in the game which I'm not going to mention yet.
- Denverians. The kind with places to live. Shoot all you want; we'll make more.
- Various waitresses and clerks and things. Denverians with specific dharmas.
- Weaponry is pretty easy:
- A boxcutter [since we know how lethal those can be]
- An Uzi
- And so on
- Money. Both physical cash and whatever you have in your PayPpl account. You can get more cash by stealing tips off tables, shooting Denverians, and so on; given enough time, your PayPpl card will get recharged by the revenues of banner adverts on your website >:)
- The laptop. Which, along with the mobile phone, is a good way to check how much money the PayPpl.com card has on it [which you can also do at an ATM, of course]. It's also a good way to write a What's New on your website, which is, of course, how you save your progress. Incidentally, since we're trying to make the game as realistic as possible, both the laptop and mobile phone have to be charged before you can use them. You can recharge them in restaurants with electrical outlets and cars with power converters.
- Other factors of reality include food and stuff. If you don't eat something every once in a while, you'll literally starve to death. If you go long enough without a cigarette, your reaction time will drop. If you go long enough without sleep, your reaction time also drops. You can get food and cigarettes with money, of course; you can also technically order food without money, and wait for your PayPpl.com card to catch up to the bill [something I've actually done IRL once or twice]; and, if you really wanna try it, you can order food, eat it, and try to leave without paying for it. Although you'll be in for a bit of a surprise at that point.
- Which brings us to Barney the Cop. Not unlike the sheriff from ScoobyDoo this guy is apparently with InterPol, and can teleport to wherever you are. He's not precisely a threat, but he will detain you and bother you with one of those 'two-minute speech' things which cops are known to bother people with. You can shoot him to get rid of him, but that's a good way to get every cop in Denver to consider you a copkiller. Also, he'll grow back as soon as you do anything else speechworthy.
- As far as general gameplay goes, we've combined elements of the following:
- Quake III
- InfoCom's H2G2
- The Sims
- LeisureSuit Larry
- Grand Theft Auto III
- Resident Evil
- Silent Hill
- American McGee's Alice in Wonderland
- And a few things no one else has tried before.
About a year ago, when Corey first asked whether I was going to write him a part in the cartoon, he also hinted at the possibility that he--with or without SlipKnot--might also be able to record a theme for this. I haven't had a chance to confirm anything with that lately, but I suppose it's still a possibilty. Corey got Bother onto the Spider-man soundtrack without SlipKnot [something which most SlipKnot fans are a bit upset about]; so the theory that Corey can do solo projects has been tested into fact now. More on that aspect of Subheroes when I have something to announce either way.
I think that's everything I can mention at the moment.
More later....
--Gremlin