Minimum Safe Distance

I'm Riff. I'm a writer for a popular online game called Kingdom of Loathing. This is my blog. There are many like it, but this one is mine.

Sites I frequent:
Comics:
Cyanide and Happiness
Scary Go Round
Overcompensating
Achewood
Starslip Crisis
A Softer World
Wondermark
Dresden Codak
Questionable Content
Penny Arcade
Dr. McNinja
White Ninja
Dinosaur Comics
Boy On a Stick
Cat and Girl
XKCD
Order of the Stick
AppleGeeks
Goats
Zebragirl
Gunnerkrigg Court
Buttersafe
Kate Beaton
Bear & Kitten
Wigu
Wonderella
FreakAngels
Lucid TV
A. Charles Christopher
MS Paint Adventures

Blogs &c.:
My Blog Loves Me
Boing Boing
MetaFilter
Slashdot
Rock, Paper, Shotgun
Tobold
The Comics Curmudgeon
Warren Ellis
Slumbering Lungfish
X-Entertainment
Defective Yeti
Play This Thing
Jay Is Games
Ectoplasmosis
TokyoMango

Tags under construction
Pics

Fri Jul 30
Dude #2 in my massive crossstitch group-shot of cute video game characters is revealed: Raichu. Or, I guess, a raichu. He’s a pokémon (in case you’re one of the few people who both a) can’t identify pokémon on sight, and b) read my blog); more specifically, he’s sort of the adult version of Pikachu, with a taller and thinner body and more muted color palette. I prefer him to Pikachu, because he’s a bit less… “twee”, I suppose. He also has a cooler tail, although someone is standing in front of his tail in this scene, and you can’t really see it. He’s not my favorite pokemans, but he’s probably in the top three. Also, I needed a character who was looking sort of upward, the reason for which will be apparent when you see the next guy.

Dude #2 in my massive crossstitch group-shot of cute video game characters is revealed: Raichu. Or, I guess, a raichu. He’s a pokémon (in case you’re one of the few people who both a) can’t identify pokémon on sight, and b) read my blog); more specifically, he’s sort of the adult version of Pikachu, with a taller and thinner body and more muted color palette. I prefer him to Pikachu, because he’s a bit less… “twee”, I suppose. He also has a cooler tail, although someone is standing in front of his tail in this scene, and you can’t really see it.

He’s not my favorite pokemans, but he’s probably in the top three. Also, I needed a character who was looking sort of upward, the reason for which will be apparent when you see the next guy.

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Thu Jul 29
We also went for a little tour of Blizzard’s offices. I can’t really talk about anything I saw there, but they have got a lot of sweet statuary.

We also went for a little tour of Blizzard’s offices. I can’t really talk about anything I saw there, but they have got a lot of sweet statuary.

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Back from the San Diego Comic-Con! I didn’t take many pictures this year, but here’s one. I didn’t know what it was for a long time, and eventually had to go up and ask one of the guys working there — turns out it’s Odin’s throne from Marvel’s new Thor movie. The actual set piece they used. It’s pretty fucking huge. And shiny. The guy also mentioned that Anthony Hopkins is playing Odin. I was surprised, but not as surprised as I was when the dude laid the next bombshell on me: the movie is being directed by Kenneth Branagh. Kenneth fuckin “Henry V” Branagh is directing Marvel’s new superhero movie? I am still kind of reeling from the mindblownness.

Back from the San Diego Comic-Con! I didn’t take many pictures this year, but here’s one. I didn’t know what it was for a long time, and eventually had to go up and ask one of the guys working there — turns out it’s Odin’s throne from Marvel’s new Thor movie. The actual set piece they used. It’s pretty fucking huge. And shiny.

The guy also mentioned that Anthony Hopkins is playing Odin. I was surprised, but not as surprised as I was when the dude laid the next bombshell on me: the movie is being directed by Kenneth Branagh. Kenneth fuckin “Henry V” Branagh is directing Marvel’s new superhero movie?

I am still kind of reeling from the mindblownness.

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Thu Jul 22

Hey people who tagged me in Dragonquest at SDCC, check out the Kingdom of Loathing booth at 1431 and Fuzzy Balls Apparel at 4839!

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Sat Jul 17

Idle Thumbs has a new pogblurst! After like a month! To celebrate, here’s the video for my favorite Idle Thumbs song, “Space Asshole”.

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Fri Jul 9
New cross-stitch project. This time I’m doing a group shot of a bunch of game characters I like — because they’re particularly cute, or fun, or representative of a game I particularly liked.This first guy is a Clayman from Mother 3. He’s actually rather minty-greener than this photo turned out; I tried to use some software to do my color-picking this time, because there’s more than 150 colors in this project. Turns out software is not better at choosing colors than I am, so I get to do it all by hand. Fuuuuuuck. Anyway I’d finished the Clayman by the time I made this decision, so he’s green instead of gray. Not a big deal, he looks pretty decent green, and the piece as a whole needed some more green in it.If you’ve got a sharp eye, you can probably guess one of the characters standing near him. We won’t be getting to that dude for a while though.

New cross-stitch project. This time I’m doing a group shot of a bunch of game characters I like — because they’re particularly cute, or fun, or representative of a game I particularly liked.

This first guy is a Clayman from Mother 3. He’s actually rather minty-greener than this photo turned out; I tried to use some software to do my color-picking this time, because there’s more than 150 colors in this project. Turns out software is not better at choosing colors than I am, so I get to do it all by hand. Fuuuuuuck.

Anyway I’d finished the Clayman by the time I made this decision, so he’s green instead of gray. Not a big deal, he looks pretty decent green, and the piece as a whole needed some more green in it.

If you’ve got a sharp eye, you can probably guess one of the characters standing near him. We won’t be getting to that dude for a while though.

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Thu Jul 8
zdarsky: Listen, I’m not going to lie to you. I really need some of this old-book-meets-whatever money.

zdarsky:

Listen, I’m not going to lie to you. I really need some of this old-book-meets-whatever money.

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Via Metafilter.

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Mon Jul 5

BIG BANG BIG BOOM: From the beginning of time to the end, in stop-motion.

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Sun Jul 4

Here's what I have to say about Puzzle Quest 2.

  • [clan] Riff: what the... So I'm playing Puzzle Quest 2. I found a magic amulet, the power of which is to increase your maximum mana in the various colors.
  • [clan] Riff: ...By 0.
  • [clan] Riff: Every color is listed. Every one says +0.
  • [clan] sMOOve MOOth: O.o
  • [clan] Riff: jesus there's another one just like it in the shop now. What are these fucking for?
  • [clan] Chrono Mage: They're obviously for confusing people ;)
  • [clan] Riff: This game has some issues that make me feel like nobody actually played it with any sort of critical thought.
  • [clan] Riff: Like they bug-tested for crash issues and that's it.
  • [clan] Riff: For example, there's a skill that gives you an effect that costs 2 mana every turn to keep running. And it says if you cast it with X or less mana, your turn doesn't end.
  • [clan] Riff: Except it DOES. Your turn ends and you get a bonus free turn.
  • [clan] Riff: On which you get charged the mana cost.
  • [clan] Riff: So if you don't have 2 more mana of that color than you spent to cast it, you can cast it and have it do absolutely fuckall because it instantly goes away.
  • [clan] sMOOve MOOth: That sure sounds like a lack of a sanity check
  • [clan] Riff: Also shit scales to your level and I fucking hate that.
  • [clan] Riff: other than that I guess it's pretty good. It's up there with the original. But dang. I just get this feeling like it was made by two guys in their garage.
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Thu Jul 1

Another pretty sweet looking video game trailer. XBLA, this summer sometime.

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Fri Jun 25

The teaser trailer for RED, starring holy shit a lot of people, and based on an extremely gritty and excellent 3-issue miniseries by Warren Ellis. The movie looks to be not at all as gritty as the book; Warren shares his thoughts on this.

I think it looks like a good time.

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Mon Jun 21

“Elementary, my dear WaAAAAAA”

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Sat Jun 19

Hit the Vimeo link in the corner for more information and links.

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Wed Jun 16

OK Go have done it again.

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