Bloody Grey Wombat

Gerald the Giraffe - Killing badgers since 2002.

noreply@blogger.com (AcousticToad) — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 19:27:00 +0000

This is a story about Gerald, a lowly giraffe living on an island in a pond in a park, while not a very exciting story or even a coherent one, it does feature such words as giraffe and badger.

One day, Gerald, while he was ensconced in his usual daily routine of badger killing and poking human babies with severed cat tails decided that today would be the day that he would reach the milestone of 1000 badgers killed in the month of September (a record he has actually achieved and in several cases, beaten, every single month since the badger outbreak on 2001) so off he went to the badger shelter.

A little info on the shelter, its sort of like a farm, you know? It's also a warehouse, hotel, diner, work force, employment office and secret government run exclusively by badgers for the public to observe. Gerald goes here on a weekly basis in order to fulfill his quota of dead badgers, he needs to do this, not out of necessity but out of rage, anger and spite. Today's shop started out the same way as usually, upon entering the shop, Gerald would ask for directions and then stomp upon the employee until there was nothing but and hoof print made of blood and hair on the floor, this time however, the badger was in armor, an odd occurrence to be sure but Gerald proceeded with his routine. Next up was the gathering, a ritual whereby no less than 120 badgers are placed in a container which can hold no more than 122.

Gerald was only able to find 43 on his first pass, but quickly captured the scurrying buggers on his second pass. It was on this pass that he ran into Bossu, a small rabbit like being with only one nostril and bright pink fur, Bossu is possibly gay but there is no conclusive evidence to state that as a fact. Anyhoo, Bossu suggests that Gerald head up to the upper floors of the farm as there is some sort of general meeting taking place. The upper floors, while usually off limits are fairly quiet, too quiet and before Gerald can react he is taken captive.

14 days pass by and Gerald is still in a holding cell, being a giraffe, his neck is about 24 foot long and he is in a room that 7 foot tall, if you were to look in from outside there pretty much wall to wall giraffe squashed in there. As it turns out, the badgers had decided enough was enough and stopped Gerald in his tracks, their goal is to keep him confined until a suitable punishment.

During this time, Bossu, who had watched the entire event transpire was planning a break out, however, someone landed a helicopter on him and that's the end of that.

Another 40 days pass and Gerald is still stuck and the badgers are still scheming but they come to a conclusion: the same fate that many of their comrades have faced countless times before, they take Gerald outside and jump on him, every badger in the world jumps in until theres nothing left but red and white fur and faint laughter of Gerald's final words echoing in the wind...

...And that kids, is how Christmas and New Years came to be.

Oh the huge manatee - A tale of a fat sea creature.

noreply@blogger.com (AcousticToad) — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 19:46:00 +0000

There once was a Manatee called Jeremy, who lived in a dynamic fluid called water, now, Jeremy had long desired to be considered the best of his class at swimming or whatever manatees do in their daily routines, this had occurred when one of his friends had challenged him to a swim when he just wasn’t bothered to do so, he was then called a daft creature by the community and exiled for the hell of it.

Jeremy vowed to one day return and win the local swimming tourney so off he went into the wilderness. After floating for 13 days he happened upon and strange metallic item in the sea, placing it carefully into his pack of holding (he had a pack of holding you see, should have mentioned that at the start) and carried on, 3 hours later he found another piece and this carried on for the next few days, soon he had enough to build a ship capable of interstellar travel along with a suit capable to sustaining his life while in space (he was going to space to gain the skills you see, should have mentioned that too.) The suit was a fairly tight fit but at least allowed some fin movement, here is an artists impression of the suit and ship:

As you can see from the above, the design is quite intricate and time consuming, the thought of space pushed Jeremy to fire up the ISD (Interstellar Drive) and hit the skies.

- A few questions should be answered at this point on how a manatee could make a ship, the answer is manatee power, and how does the ship move? You guess it, manatee power, where did the metal come from? Yup, manatee power! You see, the humble manatee has the ability to create crap by thinking of it, it can even gain intelligence by imagining intelligence; nature is great isn't it? Enough of this, back to the main event.

Jeremy hit the atmosphere, it wasn't the most easy of transitions but he made it out there, alive and well, suit & ship intact, it took Jeremy a further 412 years to make it throughout the galaxy, his manatee power sustaining and prolonging his life (the average manatee lifespan is 301 years) until he eventually reached his goal of Unk'pi'hrt'zhioh (pronounced Anvil)

Upon landing, the natives of the planet gathered and welcomed the space faring sea cow and presented him with a basket of kiwi fruit, rats, 3 lions, a turtle named Peterson and some paper. Jeremy was most grateful for his gifts that he loaned them his ship for 23 minutes while he had a little sleep, upon awakening he proceeded to the mountain of truth, knowledge and teeth to finalise his training.
The road up the mountain was filled with plants and people of all shapes and sizes who all seemed to meow at his as he ascended, upon reaching the top he found the truth master, a being endowed with all the knowledge of the universe, however, since the planet was devoid of water the master was unable to put the practical swimming training into use and instead, instructed Jeremy to proceed south to the deepest reaches of space where he would meet him when he arrived.

The journey took several days but before long, he made it, and just as the master said, he was waiting there for Jeremy to arrive. This particular planet was made entirely of water which made it ideal for the training. A further 4 years went by and Jeremy was turning into a master swimmer, he could do sea donuts, loops and speed swimming, he was content and happy with his training, the master nodded and told Jeremy that he was now ready to win the tournament so he left and started his long journey back to earth, but stopped off to say by to his friends and to pick up some lions for the trip back. Soon after leaving the planet Jeremy was kidnapped by the Yughlighg clan, a race of space otters who hailed from over there ---->

The Yughlighg kept Jeremy in captivity for several weeks before they let him go as he wasn't the manatee they were looking for. It turned out that several other manatee had left Earth in search of Jeremy but also knowledge, and chips, but had got lost, rumour has it that these rogues are often mistaken for comets due to their size and general lethargy.

Several hundred years later, Jeremy reached Earth and went back to his family in the water, they were glad to see him but wondered why he bothered to go in the first place, after explaining, they all had a big lion meal and went to bed in preparation for the next days swim tourney. Jeremy awoke early and got in a bit of practice which he won (despite being on his own) and considered himself ready for the challenge, 5 hours later, everyone had gathered and in a blistering display of speed, Jeremy won the competition, injuring several spectators in the process and reducing the other competitors to watery tears.

So ends this particular tale of Jeremy, but not the end of his random adventures in space, his tale is told to all young manatee so they have something to aspire too in life, a statue erected to show the event and, in fact, the entire adventure was placed in the sea as a reminder to all that manatee power is real. Jeremy himself went off on his own one night looking for more adventures, he hasn't been seen in a while but legend says that he will be back...and soon, but for good, or, evil?

PC Zone's dead

noreply@blogger.com (ntwrock) — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 13:13:00 +0000

Long live PC Zone.

Bloody Grey Wombat will be having a get-together in deepest darkest Widnes on Friday night to mourn the loss of one of our most favoured PC games magazines. At this gathering we will be toasting the loss of Zone with Sausages and Vodka.

That is all.

Random Sausage accident creates inverted light-sphere, tens of people flee

noreply@blogger.com (AcousticToad) — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 11:50:00 +0000

December 9th - 2009, this day shall remain forever in our minds and an event happened that no one thought could happen, nothing was planned, no one ever thought that something like this could happen but it did.

The events that led up to this accident are foggy at best, but we do have some "Ultra Rare Accidental Sausage Catastrophy Revealing Documentation Device" or URASCRDD if you enjoy abbreviations. Apprently, during a factory trip, several children infected several sausages with a nano AI virus type thing, this caused the sausages to become sentient and go ape. Within mere seconds the sausage factory was in ruins and the aformentioned tens of people were running for their very lives/sheep, the children meanwhile were nowhere to been seen as, according to the URASCRDD, they were not children at all, but massive aliens/frogs measuring many many feet in height, lets say 5ft 12 for convenience.

Once the sausages were loosed, their very existence was threatened, so they went out to attack anyone or anything that stood in their way, sheep, eggs, beer and even the mighty tube were decimated by the sausage onslaught, fortunately, the sausages failed to take down their natural enemy - Birds.

Thats right, seagulls and hedgehogs flew in for the kill, taking heavy casualties but ultimately succeeding in defeating their mortal enemies and ending the sausage war of 2009, will we such an uprising in 2010? Only time will tell.

WOMBAT NEWS - German Pig helps tiny African man back onto Motorised Wheelbarrow

noreply@blogger.com (ntwrock) — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 19:13:00 +0000

Nearly 16 people were treated for mild dismay yesterday when a 2ft 3in man from Equatorial Antarctica was found face down near what was believed to be his overturned Wheelbarrow in the shape of a Camel's earlobe.

A nearby child - whose Tasmanian pet Donkey was unleashed approximately 2 minutes 425 seconds prior to this incident - rushed to the scene and instructed said Polar Bear to help the miniscule man back onto his Ungulate ear resembling a small gardening vehicle.

Of the 16 people who witnessed the incident in Leominster, Iraq, no-one commented. However, a man in Port Grolsch, Blurgberg gave these wise words "The potatoes shalnt be growing this year, mark my words, this is a travesty of the highest kind, to have such a thing happen at such a time, in such a place too! As a recovering computer speaker, stereo is a hard skill to get good at so I will stick to mono for now in the hopes that the hippo-eared manual vehicle will once again resemble the Oort cloud."

The small North Hawaiian man was said to be recovering at his home in Kettering.

Warthog Acquisition

noreply@blogger.com (AcousticToad) — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 19:21:00 +0000

Yes, it's a post, how amazing, now be quiet before I set Alan upon thee.

As we all know, tomorrow is "Warthog Picking Day" a day of celebrating the fact that Warthogs are grown on bushes, somewhere in the left side of the sea, as close as left as it can be without it being right...or up.

We also know that the Warthog Emperor, George, is released from his eternal prison at 1:28am, this event is celebrated by taking the warthogs off of the bushes, making them into a pile and then giving them complicated algebra that they have no comprehension of (like most people with algebra eh? haha, shut up) this in turn calms George to the point where he can be locked away again for a few more years, which then begs the following question, which will be stated in the following paragraph to try and spice up this blorg.

The question we must ask is: "Why". Yep, "Why", why must we go through this procedure every few years, why must we unlock the cage so that we can lock it again, seems a bit harsh, especially since George gets his hopes up every time and every time he gets locked up again, it's your fault, Sweden, it always is, its about time you start respecting the warthogs lest they rise up and take you all captive, this route will then lead to military action and the warthogs shall perish, they cannot use complex weaponry, they cannot use vehicles, its a one sided fight they have no chance of winning.

Shame on you Sweden, shame on you.

Wombat to infiltrate PCGamer Showdown

noreply@blogger.com (ntwrock) — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 21:20:00 +0000

Much excitement is brewing in the Wombat domain as we are set to be making an appearance at PCGamer Showdown this coming weekend. This will be only our second ever meeting in the real world following on from an encounter which was previously unspoken of back in (I forget when) July, was it?

This occurred when I was planning to head up to Scan Computers in Notlob as I was looking to replace my PC case with a new Antec P182 (not for any particularly interesting reason, just because I have grown tired of windowed LED lit monstrosities). I suggested that I should stop at Mike's on the way and make a random road trip out of it, which we duly did, with sausages but unfortunately no vodka.

The plan this weekend is for Mike to catch a bus from his Northerly abode to somewhere Creweish, where there may or may not be a train waiting to escort him to Birmingham, where I will ~~probably forget to~~ meet him. From there we will get in my car, which will more than likely break down on the way to Coventry. Once we get there 6 hours late we will find that all the awesome free stuff that we had come to fill my car with will be gone save maybe one or two game branded ballpoint pens and/or coathangers.

We have yet to make any sleeping arrangements for Saturday night as we were reluctant to ask about upgrading our current one-day tickets to weekend tickets (which would include camping) due mainly to sheer laziness. I'm planning to take a tent which was last (and first) used for the Leeds Festival in 2004, so I imagine it will have half as many pegs as required and the outer waterproof sheet will be ripped/non existent.

For possibly the 18th time we are promising you some regular hupdates over the next few days to say how the event is going, but of course, that won't happen.

The dead bandit I never knew.

noreply@blogger.com (AcousticToad) — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 01:05:00 +0000

Name: Max Dinosaur
Status: Face down in a mix of radiated water, mutated boar and his own blood.
Location: Under a tower, although his body has now vanished so, Location Unknown.
Time: 16:34
Weather: Raining

Bugger it

noreply@blogger.com (ntwrock) — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 23:25:00 +0000

Aye.

Is not dead

noreply@blogger.com (ntwrock) — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 22:51:00 +0000

I did promise some sort of blorgage when I was over in Canada. Oops. It wasn't that I forgot, and it wasn't because we swerved to avoid a Moose and crashed into a lake and got deaded, no. It's because we didn't have a taplop with us, and the internet access that was supposed to be in each hotel was either just an ethernet cable pokin' out the wall of the hotel room; a non-existent internet lounge or a very broken internet lounge (as in click on a link, wait 5 minutes for the screen to load, type something, click again, wait another 5 mins then run out of time).

I've got a couple of thangs that I want to write doon, but right now I can't be buggered because I'm a bit knackered and I'm still feeling the effects of pouring half a bottle of Tabasco sauce onto a Pepperoni pizza and washing it down with beer. It's kind of that warm whiskey feeling in my stomach but just lingering there forever. I regret it not. And following it up with strawberrys & ice cream to cool my insides down was lully, though it didn't work.

I shall return sooneth with random words aboot Canada, maybe.

Behind the substation

noreply@blogger.com (ntwrock) — Sun, 04 May 2008 12:43:00 +0000

I took the dawg on a random walk yesterday down an alleyway at the back of an electricity substation located just down the road from me. I've driven past it hundreds of times and a while ago I noticed an opening at one end of a wooded area which I thought must come out at the alleyway near me. I set out with Gyp (the dawg) and my camera and started down the alley, it soon started to become overgrown and I reached the end of the path which turned slightly to the left and up a small incline. The path split at this point, the left path was full of brambles and the right was muddy. I went right which led to an open area at the back of the houses, relatively uninteresting. I headed left up a steep bank which led back to the split in the path and took the other route through the brambles. Gyp was having fun jumping over all the plants and dead trees covering the path which is where I took the first picture.

After I turned the next corner I was looking at the floor trying not to trip over all the brambles tangling around my feet. I looked up and was slightly startled when I saw a burnt out car ahead of me, it was the last place I was expecting to see that sort of thing. Yes, there is access to this place from the road, but both sides surrounding the car are steep and the path leading to it is narrow. It must have been there a few years as it's completely rusted over and the metal is folded in and the brambles have all but eaten it up. I went past it and through a narrow muddy pass which led to an open area. There was an electricity pylon here and no noticeable exit from this area. It also overlooked some back gardens and there was a battered old sofa there randomly. I walked around looking for an exit but I went the wrong way and set off some dogs barking in a garden and it was a dead end anyway, so I turned around and was about to go back the way I came when I saw a hidden path leading out.

This path was more overgrown than anything, I had to be careful because it was full of mud and the brambles spread right across the path and I nearly fell head first into the mud, which may have been interesting. I looked up and realised there was no way I'd get through there, the trees were overhanging the whole path and there was a puddle in front of me of muddy stagnant water, which Gyp thought was a good idea to drink (euugh). The only way I'd get through would be to duck or crawl under the trees which was not an option as the stagnant water spread the whole width and length of the path. So I turned around and went back the way I came and headed back home.

Now I must go as I haven't started packing yet, and we're due to leave for Manchester Airport at 7.30am tomorrow.

The Hibernating Wombat

noreply@blogger.com (ntwrock) — Fri, 02 May 2008 21:00:00 +0000

Alas, we have awoken. "Not one Wombat musing for 9 weeks" I hear you cry. Yessir, but one has not been gaming in a whale (literally), not due to lack of time, but mainly due to a huge amount of excitement building in me from waiting for the impending Canada trip. There are but 3 days left until we head off to Manchester Airport in much early morning enthusiasm, and more than likely, nausea. Mike will be holding the fort in Britain, whilst I'll be holding fort(s) in the former British colony. He will hopefully join us on our next wombat excursion, whatever that may be.

My intension is to provide hupdates along the way, depending on how often we find a computer with a hinternet connection.. But we're staying in some quite posh hotels, so it's quite likely a net connection will be readily available.

The itinerary is as follows:

Brumingham to Mancland Airport
Mancland Airport to Tooo-ron-tooooo (said in booming Welsh accent) Lester B. Pearson Int'l Airport
2 night stay in Tooo-ron-tooooo
Head up the coast of Lake Ontario to Kingston (I'm not sure how many nights we stay in each place from here on)
Kingston to Montréal
Montréal to Quebec City
Quebec City to Ottawa
Ottawa to Huntsville (not Tennessee) via Algonquin Provincial Park (woot!)
Huntsville to Niagara Falls
Niagara Falls to Tooo-ron-tooooo (err...) and then back 'Hum'

We're still not entirely sure what we'll be making of our time in each City, though I definitely don't want to be too 'touristy' about it all. Of course the CN Tower must be done as should the Ice Hockey Hall Of Fame. In Montréal we're gonna look for the game studios of Ubisoft, Eidos, and EA, though we'll probably chicken out of asking for a tour of the buildings and instead take a rubbish photo of each office which will most likely be obscured by an Elephant. Huntsville will see us exploring the Canadian wilderness, then getting mutilated by bears, and I have not a clue what we'll be doing at Niagara Falls, though something water related does spring to mind, but I can't place my finger on what exactly.

So here's to not trimming my already bushy (and rather Amish looking) beard for a further two weeks.

The world in whole - As seen in the eyes of an MMORPG Traveller

noreply@blogger.com (AcousticToad) — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 20:37:00 +0000

Greetings, Helegaradon Sihniliophinopopolos here and I'm writing this Journal to examine how different cultures and worlds treat Nature, Work and each other, first off, we will take a look at a few of the various races I have encountered during my journey throughout various worlds. Enjoy!

Chapters:

Chapter 1 - Races & Factions

Chapter 2 - Professions & Jobs

Chapter 3 - Nature and the world around

Chapter 4 - Conclusion

CHAPTER 1 - RACES & FACTIONS.

While it is true that there are many strange and wonderful races throughout the many varied worlds, very few are capable of the most basic of Human expressions, laughter seems to be the most common, along with dancing/fun, which are often displayed in tandem. Of the many worlds, you can usually find certain elements common between them, despite them not ever being in contact with each other, such as beards, accents and size. For example, almost every world has Elves, these people are usually rather tall, live long long lives (some are even stated to be immortal) and have pointy ears, superior egos and heightened emotions, meanwhile, Dwarves are more commonly found to have large beards, pride for the large beards, have a love of battle and speak in gruff Scottish accents. More detail on a few sample races I have observed through my Incredi-Sized Multi storage trans-world teleportational drirections travel device will follow the end of this sentence, as in, now.

Dwarves
Dwarves are mainly small folk, around waist height, but don't let that fool you, their heart and might more than make up for their size. A single Dwarf, fully armored charging into a battle (which is another common point across the worlds surprisingly) can strike fear into the most battle-hardened foe. Dwarves seem to have more "health" than most other races, meaning they can often withstand many hammer and arrow blows to the face, which you will agree, is an excellent ability to have in a tight corner. Most Dwarves take up fighting roles, using weapons up to 3 times their size to destroy their enemies, some however, take up the roles of Hunters, using a variety of distance based weaponry, some have mastered the ability to create guns, while others have to stick with Bows and Crossbows. A Dwarf can most likely be found with a Huge bear and a mug of Ale after a hard day of murdering small animals for pieces of skin (yet another common point, which will be mentioned later on)

Elves
Ahh, the Elf, tall and immortal (occasionally.) Elves usually live in trees or out in the wild, they feel a strong bond to nature, you see, this much is common on all of the worlds I have visited. Elves are most likely to be found as Hunters, again, in common with other worlds, most seemed to be named using the following letters:

A E G L O S

There is not usually much variation in the way they are put together, they mainly start with L and end in S, with multiple vowels in between, however, this seems to anger most of the worlds that they occupy, perhaps a Deity of a distant past had the same name and is now feared or hated, perhaps there are just too many Elves name in similar style that it just gets annoying and frustrating, who knows? I do believe it requires further study though.

Trolls

Trolls are primarily shunned for being evil, while some are just bitter for various reasons, some can truly be described as evil, if you can't fully see their path. Trolls are mainly caste in Shamanistic roles, Witch doctors, Rain callers etc, but they go much deeper than that, in many ways, some Trolls have more in common with Elves than they do with their Fellow allies. Trolls seem to come in many different sizes, some are Huge lumbering war machines, intent on smashing or crushing anything they come across, others are around 6ft (add 3ft for their hair as well)

Orcs

Orcs, like Trolls are caste as Evil, but much like the Troll, they are bitter about the way their luck has been pretty much none existent. Some Orcs however, are evil, they display only their base needs - Kill and feed. orcs are hard to describe as many worlds feature them, they are usually found in a warrior style role, smashing Dwarves and rabbits about with giant weapons.

Humans

Humans are found on pretty much all the worlds, and again, can be found in Good and Evil roles. Humans seem to show the least intelligence between the races. Some will follow you needlessly for hours upon hours and when you finally confront them, they just laugh and start their long walk back to wherever they came from. Some Humans enjoy speaking in an abbreviated manner, this seems to annoy many people, often resulting in threats of physical violence. Humans are usually strong fighters or magic users as it makes up for their lack of intelligence and makes them feel ever so slightly less insignificant.

So, there are a few of the Races I've encountered so face, of course there are many, many more out there, often similar in appearance to each other, although there are rules, some look feline in appearance, while some have canine features, one particular race seems to resemble bovine, but standing on their hind legs, most have tails. I like their tails, tails are good.

CHAPTER 2 - PROFESSIONS & JOBS.

Of all the worlds I have visited, there are two things in common to each and every race - 1: Complete and utter laziness, 2: Greed. Let me explain.

People who have something they want doing, but are too lazy/stupid to do for their selves are gifted with some variety of icon above their heads. This icon seems to draw people to them, kind of a sirens call, the promise of [Rat face Boots of Endurance +8] is to tempting for some and they will blatantly go out of their way to obtain whatever the person needs. In theory, this is a superb money making scheme - Having people do stuff for you in 126 simple Quests - This, however, is where the greed comes in, I meant really, how many [Bunch of Random Plants] does anyone really need? Is there a list that has the right amount? Would it look like a straight line with "Not enough" at the start and "Plenty" at the end?

No. It wouldn't because it seems people are content in running the same "quest" for years on end, massing and huge stockpile of random items that they can sell off to the highest bidder. These so-called quests are no easy feat either, especially the ones based around killed an arbitrary number of generic creature 14, due to the way they have evolved, which is described in the next chapter. In all then, people you meet in the world will always have something for you to do because they can't be bothered doing it themselves. My advice, in closing of this chapter would be to avoid them like the plague, the tasks they give will be tedious and take nothing short of years to complete.

CHAPTER 3 - NATURE & THE WORLD AROUND.

As I mentioned in the last chapter, the worlds have evolved in such a way that everything is dangerous, be it water or trees, something WILL want to kill you, and given half a chance they will. Most creatures have developed the ability to make you walk slow, in an annoying way. This is so they can catch up and murder you in whatever manner they choose. I mentioned as well that killing these creatures for tasks can be a tedious task, this is why:

Feline style creatures - No skulls or bones, Fur disintegrates when you try and pick it up, No Blood or internal organs.
Canines - Eyes not present, heads vanish once they die, no feet, teeth missing.
Humanoids - No hands, Ears, blood, skin, heads, feet or beards.

These rules only apply to around 89% of the population, some still retain traits such as blood and skulls, others wont. This is why it is tedious and annoying, the call of the quest giver is strong, and again, I urge you all to not try and do anything for these lazy idiots, unless you like banging you head repeatedly into a hedgehog at 40 minute intervals.

CHAPTER 4 - CONCLUSION.

So here we are, the conclusion at last. While all the worlds are varied enough to hold the interest for the avid explorer, the dangers out way the rewards. Travel to these worlds at your own peril, It will cost you a fortune and you will come out of them enjoying the feeling of metal spikes being jammed into your temples, I know I do. So in closing, Avoid, watch a movie, each a cabbage, fluff a squirrel, just don't go into these world hoping to find something interesting, there is only death.

Helegaradon Sihniliophinopopolos signing out.

Mean Machine

noreply@blogger.com (ntwrock) — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 22:37:00 +0000

I've finally decided it's about time I posted one of the Wombat's old Garry's Mod videos from a time when we actually used to play it.

Saying that, we have over the past couple of weeks been playing it again, though most of the time we've spent in it has been been either shooting Dr. Breen a helluva lot (did I just use the word 'helluva'?) or attaching thrusters to hoverboards and pissing ourselves laughing at the hilarious deaths that entail. Not that either of those are bad things mind.

But to the point of this post. Today I stumbled upon the My Videos folder on this here computer and found a 'Games' folder lurking inside. In which there are a bunch of old Garry's Mod videos from late 2006. Again, mainly just videos of killing Dr. Breen and the like but one in particular is what I deem to be our finest work to date.

Entitled 'Mean Machine,' it shows an old rusting wheelless APC which we brought back to life by giving it some big new wheels, a nice olive green polish, some new headlights, and a battering ram to be used for clearing the road of any zombies or Dr. Breens who might happen to be standing in the way (ie. a lot).

Made in late summer 2006, it is to date the most productive thing we have done in Garry's Mod. It came about when I was unemployed for 2 or 3 months following an unwelcome stint at Birmingham Aluminium (watch The Machinist to get an idea of what it was like to work there). I quit when they laid upon me a shift pattern of Monday to Thursday 6am to 6pm.

A week or so after I quit I bought a brand new £1000 PC and sat there most of the day doing nothing but drinking Tea, eating ham and cheese sarnies, and playing Garry's Mod. I soon realised I had about £100 to my name and £600 rent to pay in less than two weeks. So we made this:

Tubes

noreply@blogger.com (AcousticToad) — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 19:54:00 +0000

Right to the point in this blorg title.

This is something that has been on my mind all week, we really need a new system of measuring things, I personally don't care much for such words as Millimeter's, Centimeter's, Inch's or meters. I hate having to work out whats what when measuring stuff which happens once in a pink sphere that it just gets on my nerves persistently and I end up hitting stuff, damn measurment systems...Anyway, I have devised a way that will benifit everyone - The Loyal Tube

Tubes! i dont hear you cry, whats the point? Well, tubes are everywhere and you can find them in almost all situations and they always come in handy, so here is the measurment systtem in broken math format as I also dislike anything numerical, like dinosaurs.

Tube = (Length x Height = size)
Size = (Does not matter)

As you can see, any tube can be used in any situation as it doesn't matter what size it is! Ingenious you don't say! Here is an example:

Measuring a building used to be hard using a 30cm Ruler, or for the posh amongst you all, a straight edge, now, with tubes, tedium is a thing of the past. By using a large tube you can stack them up against the building and say "Oh! It's 500 tubes high, Huzzah!" while with small tubes, you can say "Oh! It's 2,846 tubes high, Huzzah!"

Tubes will change the way science views nothing in particular, so do your duty, expose tubes to the world today to make a better future for yesterday!

Ps.

Huzzah!

Mungos, Spiddles and Kittywiggles...

noreply@blogger.com (AcousticToad) — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 14:46:00 +0000

...None of which shall be mentioned again in this blorg, since I've not had the enthusiasm to do one for a while, this one will be a new one for a while with completely nonsensical sentence structure and possibly grammatical errors ahoy.

Things around me at the moment:

1 Plate & fork - Just removed a pasty from our physical existence.
Half a bottle of Dr. Pepper, open, lid on the other side of the table
Joystick, not plugged in, not doing anything other than taking up space
1 Plasma globe, now with 100% more added headphones
Phone(s)
Random Trinkets
1 Empty bottle of Dr. Pepper, removed from existence while thinking of this sentence.

You may ask what the point in that was, the truth is, there is no point and to hell with you for suggesting that there was, those of you who didn't then shame on you for not thinking it.

Dragons ahoy!

Quick! Look over there, is that a dragon?!?

The question that has haunted many people for the last 34 seconds now has an answer and that answer is "No, that my magnetic friend, is what we call a Kangaroo" so there you have it, the dragon in question is none other than Chellibo, the Marvelous Kangaroo, he may have scales and breath fire but dammit if he is not a kangaroo.

23,017 centimeters beneath the atmosphere

This decent has taken a turn for the worse, so I am going.

I was going to put something else there but I deleted the text from virtual existence as I'm too bored and lazy to get the random buds firing off in my mind so I shall just leave it as - I am Going.

Gone.

Deer Hunters for a day, fools for a lifetime

noreply@blogger.com (ntwrock) — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 20:22:00 +0000

We arrived in Pike, Illinois at the break of dawn. Mike turned up on his trusty steed 'LaRoo' and myself on a brand spankin' new quad bike. First we decided to test our gear. I ran straight to the nearest tree to set up my new high chair (with built in foot massager!), jumped on the bugger and sat to watch Mike set up his tent. We soon got bored sitting there pointing at each other and so decided to set off in quest of a 200lb white-tailed buck.

We got on our respective modes of transportation and headed south through the woods with our grunt call tubes lodged firmly in our mouths and made as much noise as humanly possible. We soon discovered this wasn't the way it was meant to be done so quickly and silently we both fell straight into prone position. We crawled along in this manner for a while until we realised we were both covered in warm deer crap, and thought there must be something close by. There was nothing but a lone squirrel staring confusedly at us which was duly slain by Mike and his Rifle.

We headed further south and came across a river, consulting the map we saw a dotted line through the river and decided to head towards that. It wasn't long before we came across a bridge (A Bridge!!!) and there was much rejoicing, and pointing for that matter. We stepped onto the bridge and had a little dance whilst moving over it. Mike noticed a huge eagle flying overhead and whipped out his rifle and fired all five shots at it with no luck, one blast of his shotgun took care of it though, and it fell into the river. We waded in and stared (and pointed) at the dead body. At this point we decided to split up.

I had my thermal goggles with me and saw some orange blobs though the trees so I snuck through (very professionally I might add) and there it was, the 200lb white-tailed buck. It had it's back turned towards me so I hid behind the tree and prepared to take my shot. I peeked round and it was still standing there silently, so I took aim and... Suddenly 3 gunshots from the left, it scarpered. It was Mike running towards me; deer call tube lodged in his gob, making an awful racket. We didn't see it again.

Somewhat disappointed at the lack of things to kill and longing for some action we felt it necessary to start shooting at cars on the nearby road, nothing came of this, the terrible shots we both are. We saw a farm house in the distance and set out towards that, I ran over a squirrel and Mike shot one, so it wasn't all bad. Unfortunately the farm house was empty, so our hopes of murdering the family were abruptly ended. Mike then decided to finger LaRoo while we watched a beautiful sunset.

Back to Rapture

noreply@blogger.com (ntwrock) — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 22:29:00 +0000

Another late night blorg from moi, and now I've found the setting that changes the time format so it no longer says I've been writing these in the early afternoon.

Crysis (yes that dreaded word again) has been completed, t'was very good, it does what it says on the proverbial, but that's all I'm writing about it. I've now moved back to BioShock. I did complete this within a week or two of it's release but was left somewhat underwhelmed by the whole affair. The reason for this I couldn't quite explain, so I put it down to the crashes I suffered every half an hour whilst playing the game. I then updated my video card drivers to stop the crashing, which worked, but still felt mildly unsatisfied by it. I then came across this blorg post, written in essay format, describing the inner workings of BioShock and it's story in great detail (please do read it if you have an hour spare). It was written by someone who also felt slightly disappointed come the end of the game, and made me realise that many more people were feeling that way upon completion. Maybe that's the way it was meant to be?

So I decided to give it another go.

One thing I've always loved about the game is the way it looks, the shaders being the distinguishing factor, when light shines onto a tiled floor the gold shimmers in an awesome way. As you can see I've started taking some shots of the game and I will continue to do so until the end (and thanks to tweakguides.com for showing me how to remove the HUD).

I've just arrived at the Medical Pavilion (I took that earlier, bloody love it), which leads me on to an anecdote from my first play through of the game. This was the first part of the game that scared the crap out of me. Half way through the Medical Pavilion level I ventured into Dandy Dental, this is around the first time you meet the Houdini Splicers, and I was having a good old snoop around and went into the dental surgery, only for my vision to go cloudy. Mildly disoriented I turned around a full 360 degrees and stumbled forward, my vision cleared again and I was greeted with a dentist's chair. This room had an air of ambivalence about it, so I thought I'd quickly check the table in the corner and get out of there. As soon as I got to the table my vision clouded over again so I hastily turned around to find the door, it was at that point that my vision cleared and standing right in my face was a masked Houdini Splicer. I panicked, but luckily I had my trusty wrench to hand and gave him a swift whack around the chops. He then disappeared into a flutter of red ashes and appeared outside the door whilst shouting some random abuse at me, I managed to catch up with him and proceeded to beat his head in a panicked rage a few more times before he finally fell silent to the floor.

Spoons of the Ages

noreply@blogger.com (AcousticToad) — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 14:27:00 +0000

Quite a fitting title for what I am about to write about, since I've not wrote anything for a while because of what I'm about to write about...errr

So then, without further ado, I present "Spoons of the Ages - One Argonian and a Silver Spoon" which will not be in story format, but rather a tale of what happened and why it ultimately ended the life of a poor Argonian. By the way, this is about The Elder Scrolls 4 - Oblivion, just had to make that clear as my rambling may have missed that completely.

It all started in the town of Bravil, a run down dump, it was ideal for my Argonian due to the amount of water and people to steal from, rather it was until I murdered everyone I could lay my dagger into, still, that left a lot of empty, locked houses to case which is where the true story begins - How much do the Guards care?

I decided to test this theory, since there was no one to beat up bar punching rats in their stupid furry faces, I broke into one house and stole one item, a silver spoon, I then took it across the world to Chorrol and spoke to a guard.

Completely ignoring the fact that I had my dagger out and all the corpses around me, the guy took the logical step of trying to arrest me for stealing a spoon, now, I'm not sure how far telepathy goes, but I'm pretty sure none of the murdered people told them of my glorious deed and I'm sure the guards didn't send out a signal to alert everyone in the world of said deed. Perhaps everyone in Tamriel have their belongings electronically tagged for safety and convenience, yet they don't care when I stab them multiple times in the face.

I decide to go to jail and see what all the fuss is about, it seems a quite cosy place, no one else around though, I seem to have a lockpick that I decide to not use as it is late and my murdering has made me tired.

I get out and seem to have suffered some ability changes, it's hard to care though, a bit of anger rises in me so I stab a few rats to vent it out, which brings up another point, I was arrested, thrown in jail for a few days (spoon crime is a growing threat in a world where people cant use their mouths anymore) yet I get released with all my armor and the blood covered dagger I used to kill everyone with, not that I mind, saves me time looking for another.

I enter the Imperial City and see that there is one man walking around (not a clone guard) and I come to the conclusion that he was the one who squealed, I follow him for 13 days, learning his route, finding his house and taking on his habits. I break into his house one day while he is doing his daily wall staring exercises, and steal all of his belongings, right down to the blueberries he had on the table and the raw meat on the plates. I leave to punch some deer in the forests and return 3 days later, the guy isn't at his usual places so I go to his house. It seems that taking everything he had was just too costly and the urge to feed had came over him, his tables were full of fruit and meat, just lying there, uncooked and without a plate with just a spoon to eat with. I go outside and wait, his misery shall end tonight, the last man in the province and he has to use a spoon to eat raw meat with, it's a pitiful life. Being kind (heh) I go back in and steal what he has replaced and place one poisoned apple on his table, I go out and wait again, 2 days pass and the apple is still there, the man is nowhere to be found until by a freak chance I find him in a bush, dead, with 9 arrows in him, he was a hunter, and judging by the corpse of the forester near him, they had an epic battle, each was pierced with arrows, each left for the wilds...

I am now the last person alive (and this being the 360 version I can't use the mods that allows you to kill quest people) it's a lonely life so I head to his house, I leave a parchment and quill on his desk after pretending to write my confession and proceed to eat the poisoned apple, the effect takes hold, I fall back over the stool, dead.

This Argonians tale is over, next time they will all die by the warhammer of a frosty Nord named Alfred Bestlo...

All in all, that seems pretty crap now I'm looking at it, but I'm not bothered.

Short and greasy

noreply@blogger.com (ntwrock) — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 22:49:00 +0000

I can't stop adding bloody useless crap to the side of the blorg.

You now have an option to subscribe to the blorg, and though it says we have 2 readers, one of them is indeed myself.

I also added a little bugger that plays my last.fm playlist, so if you want to hear what The Wombat listens to, click the big play button over there. A few songs I'm thinking are a tad heavy to listen to whilst you're reading this fine blorg. So I may amend it so it plays just Biosphere and Bohren und der Club of Gore (German doom jazz, if there is such a genre. Well, nothing else seems to fit them so that will do), and any other quiet electronic musics or 'post rock'. Everyone likes post rock so can't go wrong with that.

Edit: Now less Rocket From The Crypt, more wootin' ambience!

I was half way through writing more about Crysis, but got kinda bored with that idea, so yes I'm still playing it. I'll leave it at that.

Title of blorg

noreply@blogger.com (ntwrock) — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 22:06:00 +0000

Seems like only a day or two since I last blorged it large. We are two lazy insociable buggers so we rarely feel we have anything interesting to write. I'll have Toad get another blorg of nonsense on the go.

Tis probably quite obvious what I'm going to write about now, yes, Crysis. As you can tell I like to take my sweet time when playing games, and in Crysis all I seem to do is play for five minutes, stand around messing with the graphical settings and taking pictures for fifteen minutes, and then play another five minutes. Therefore, I have a total play time of 17 hours (and have just knocked WoW out of my top 5 at bloody last).

As a budding photographer (currently without a camera due to the fact that the battery life is shocking on my current one) I enjoy taking pictures in games too. I've built a fair collection of Crysis shots, all of which can be found here (newest ones at the bottom).

I'm also experimenting with panoramas in Crysis, vertical panoramas at least. I'm not the greatest photoshopper so I have to smudge the pictures together to get rid of the hard lines across the middle, they don't look too bad though.

The first one being when you come across the entrance to the mountain, and the second when you exit it. Check the truck at the left of the second pic for the sense of scale, looks most wootsome.

Time for a quick barth.

Black.

So I should be getting my passport through in the next few days as I'm heading to Canada for a driving holiday next May which will be ace. This got me and El Toad talking about a possible trip to Pripyat, Ukraine. Apparently they do tours to the city and around the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, both shown in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and moist recently Call of Duty 4 which we are both quite fond of. As of now there is a lack of funding/motivation stopping us from going, but if my car is still alive next year (I got it fixed by the way) it would be nice to take the 'Beast' (unofficial nickname for my car) on a trip across Europe.

Crysis, snoo and dead cars

noreply@blogger.com (ntwrock) — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 22:00:00 +0000

I'm not very creative when it comes to blorg titles so that's the best you're getting. And I apologise Mike for turtally screwing up your recent formula with this here third post in the space of 2 days.

Woke up rather hearly today as some noisy buggers came round at half 8 to install wooden flooring doonstairs. From that point on I sat half dead watching tedious Sunday morning television, until 11 when I decided it was time for more Crysis.

I'll try my best to avoid any spoilerage, hactually, there will no spoilers seeing as the other Wombat won't have this game until Crimbo. I resumed on the level 'Relic' and worked my way slowly up to the part of the map marked... erm, no this isn't going to work. OK I'll continue in the same fashion as I did yesterday. I'm still enjoying the battles with the Koreans. I was standing there in cloak mode watching them go about their business, and noticed a nice little touch, a few times now I've seen them running towards a fence or similar obstacle which they proceed to jump over and land flat on their face. It's funny watching how confused they get when you mess with the different settings on the Nanosuit, switch to cloak mode to get that funny "what the crap?" tone of voice.

I'm also having much fun blowing up anything and everything, every red barrel must be shot, every large white tank as seen in the villages must have 'nades chucked at 'em, every one of the Korean's cars must have that little petrol tank shot and the same goes for the big trucks.

So far I think it's most wootsome, and the intro to the 'Assault' level is bloody ace. Still not had a chance to battle the haliens yet, but I know it's coming.

Yes, it's quite randomly snooing here in Brumingham, can't quite figure why, hactually the fact that it's cold may have something to do with it. I like driving in snoo, so I agreed to go and pick up my sis from her hoose about 6 miles away to bring her here for our Sunday meal. On the way there all the little lights on my dashboard seemed to get gradually darker and darker, and the wipers almost ground to a halt. I soon realised that the battery was nearing the end of it's life. I got to my sister's and left the engine running, turned all unnecessary things off and was left with just the wipers and my headlights. So I had 6 miles to drive with my extremely dim headlights and near dead wipers. We somehow managed it, but the end of the journey is a pitch black country road, my windscreen was frozen and clouded, and lack of headlights meant I couldn't see a thing. Somehow came out of that unscathed and now my car sits out there dead in a few inches of snoo. May be quite difficult getting to worm tomorrow.

Shout out to Chris, who could have been part of the Wombat, but instead decided to get a life and go to University.

Oh Lordy!

noreply@blogger.com (AcousticToad) — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 23:34:00 +0000

Mayhap it is time for me to also partake in this fine blorgage (not to be confused with mortgage, oh no) that Matt set up many months ago. As stated, we can't usally find the creativity greater than a squirrel trying to dodge cats and angry whales while (whales while! Aiee!) trying to grab food from the side of a space shuttle-uttle, I, myself have had different "free" sites and blogs for a while and all that have came out of them is 2 or 3 lines of text and maybe an image (Not to be confused with the F3 key on your archaic typing pad creation) So, creativity of 0 and a will, also of 0. As a result, the most creative things we make in sandbox games such as Gmod end up exploding or just plain not worming, which we still find funny and crash our servers out of spite/peppers.

As you, whoever you are, if you exist and read this, which I dont believe you do, do you? Anyway I digress so I shall get to my point, which I was going to make before I interupted myself, I am a random person, not random as in you can randomly pick me out of a crowd (try it and see!) but random in thought and speech, I find anything and everything hilarious unless its funny then I just smile, its the little things that make me guffaw like a Velociraptor, things like cats jumping on people or people jumping on cats, it matters not as it is humerous none the less.

This appears to be the most i've written in a whale, most recent were a series of short news stories that dried up quite quickly which none of you can find on our sparkling Steam community page located over there.

Not much else to say really, just a quirky fact, this blog is "maintained" by 2 people, there have been 2 posts in two months and I have just made the second post today, lets do the maths:

2 people = 2
2 months = 2
2 posts = 2
2 posts this day = 2

So 2+2+2+2 = 8

8, EIGHT, people, remember it...

Lazy buggers

noreply@blogger.com (ntwrock) — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 15:14:00 +0000

Time for an update one thinks.

As you can see, The Wombat ~~the lazy buggers we are~~ have been so unbusy ~~not~~ playing games lately that we haven't got around to updating our blorg.

So what have we been doing? Me, playing Mafia, The Orange Box on both PC and hexbox 360, Woims Armageddon with Mike and my moist recent purchase Crysis (and soon a bit of World in Conflict - half price at GameStation ftw!).

As for Mike, as far as I'm aware, The Orange Box, which was then sold to make way for Call of Duty 4 and Hellgate London. Of course some Woims, and his moist recent purchase The Witcher.

In between these profusions of gaming, me and Mike have grown very fond of the channel Dave on freeview. I've been falling asleep to Biosphere, and have been listening to 'Curses' by Future of the Left indefinitely.

Yes, so I've been playing Crysis for the past few hours. First impressions - good. Being honest I never really got that far in Far Cry, the majority of the time I spent in it I was dead, mainly due to the enemies shooting me in the head from the other end of the map, which I didn't find very fun. And the Trigens... In one word? 'Gah!'

But Crysis on the other hand is fun, the Koreans are good enemies, and I giggle every time one of them shouts "yankee shankeeeeeoooaah!". Granted I haven't got to the halien parts yet, even after 5 hours. I'm quite content in just wandering around aimlessly, looking at the lully scenery, and poppin the settings up to very high so I can take a few shots (which can be found here). I can't stay on very high settings too long unfortunately, I get 5fps when there's no action, and -1fps when I meet an enemy.

And that's all I can think to write at the moment. Stay tuned for 'Yorkshire Zombies' - a short story from Mike, which I've been promised will be finished sometime in the next 5 years.

The Basics - A formal introduction to the introduction of our introduction

noreply@blogger.com (ntwrock) — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 21:59:00 +0000

And so, you have stumbled upon the blog of the mighty Wombat. What could you possibly expect to find here? Herein lies an introduction.

If you haven't yet read the 'about us' section to your right I suggest you do so. Done? Fine. First I will note down a few words from the language of the Wombat, and the translation.

Aiee! - Used in situations of mild panic
Woot - Said in times of joy (usually quite often)
Wppt - As an alternative to 'woot'
Twoot - Another alternative to 'woot'
Turtally - Totally
Beef - Goodbye (can also be 'in a beef')
Bugger - Burger
Burger - Bugger
House - Horse
Horse - House
Hose - Man with horse head at sea holding a cat (see below)

A Hose, yesterday.

Yabbit - Rabbit
Blorg - Blog
Monkey - Money
Worm - Work; "Does it worm?" "I am going to worm now, in a tit!"
Snog - Song
Sned - Send
Thee - You; "Could thee sned me that snog thee mentioned earlier? Donkey."
Donkey - Thank you
Murt - Used as offensive; A: Ouch, I just twunted myself in the pelvis. B: Thee is murt. A: Aye :(
Yorkshire! - As an alternative to shouting 'Kamikaze'
Chokie - OK
Chuppa - Cup of tea

To conclude, I finish with a small summary as to the purpose of this blorg.

As avid users of the inherently exquisite Garry's Mod, they will use this space to provide coverage of their pursuits within the game, in whichever form they see fit. Screenshots, Movies etc.