Das Projekt Gutenberg auf Deutsch.

Netflix lets you compile an online queue of movies that you want to see and when you return one, the next on your list is sent automatically. A big bonus for me is that Netflix has a good selection of Anime and UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) videos. Their recommendation system is based on your ranking of movies you have watched. Most of the time, the recommendations are good.

MUD, MUSH, MOO, MUX etc.

As of June 2nd, I have been involved with Carnage Blender. This is a great site to burn time into the wee hours of the morning. You set up a fighting group (a set of minions) to do battle with other groups set up by other players. You get experience points to build each of you charaters, and money to buy items. There is an auction house for rare items and a regular business that sells items. You can have from 1 to 4 minions in your group. Your minions can specialize in many forms. Some of the most effective players have skillfully trained their minions to enhance each others strengths and weaknesses. One of the interesting facets of CB is the use of tatoos. Tatoos are worn in-place of armor. They do not give protection like armor; instead they boost attributes of the wearer or they provide an extra minion (which means you can have up to 5 minions per team). Drop on by and sign up. You will definitely spend a lot of time here. I have been into Multi User Domains (MUDs) for a little while. I like the talker MUDs (minimal fighting, ussually no player kill (PK), more interaction with other players), but even the most horrible hack-and-slash MUD can be fun to talk on.

My first experience with a MUD was at Waste Lands. They may not be running anymore. Try to telnet to telnet://wl.gamepoint.net (homepage). On MUD, MUSH, MUX and MOO, you can communicate with other players from around the world in small to large virtual text worlds. On some, you can kill bots (part of the program) or each other. Abydos was my second experience with MUDs. The Abydos MUD is big (I'm not sure how many rooms) with 4 races and >10 classes. People seem to be quite friendly and willing to help out. Like Waste Lands, you can kill bots or each other.

If you want to run your own MUD from home, your best bet is to load up a UNIX flavored box (FreeBSD or Linux) and download a copy of a MUD server and build your own world database. I personally like PennMUSH (Info). Invite others to help you build. The LambdaMOO server is highly recommended.

I have used the AMCL (Another Mu* CLient) early on in my MU*'ing days. It is well worth getting the new version called Gnome-mud. Right now I am using TinyFugue. It is possibly the most powerful of all clients (due to the macro scripting language), but it is awfully hard to learn how to script.

Try out these links:

• Blood Dusk (Homepage): I just found this one (2005/04/02) through Mud Connector and it is great. The battle sequence is unique and the number of players is around 5-10 most days.
• The Premier Tolkien MUSH--Elendor MUSH (Homepage) or Logon by Telnet (telnet://mush.elendor.net port: 1893)
• Abydos: This one is fun for newbies. For information, go to their web page. You can find me online as Quitar. When you sign-up, put me down as your referer.
• Abydos.tf is my TinyFugue macro.
• NetHack is a download-able "visual" MUD with ASCII characters. Give it a try.

Animation is by far, the most under-rated art form here in the USA. We put too much emphasis on "real action" and not enough into the art of the movie. I will state right now, that I do not like Disney Movies for any reason save the nostalgia. I grew up with them, and loved every minute, but I have grown up and my taste for sappy, sicky-sweet, cartoons has waned. Good animation from the US and/or anime (Japanese Animation) can tell stories that Hollywood could never do with actors and computers.

One reason I like animation more than movies is that an actor must be able to "sell" their character by voice alone--that is the true art of acting. In the Iron Giant Jennifer Aniston, Harry Connick Jr., Vin Diesel, and others do a super job to make their character seem real. The charaters are believeable. You can feel the emotions brought out by these voice actors. DVD allows the viewer to select different languages when watching the animation. One of my favorite anime is Record of Lodoss War. This movie has Japanese and English audio tracks. The English voice acting is poor; the Japanese voice acting is great. The English version lacks the emotion that the Japanese version displays. Give these two animated films (Iron Giant and Record of Lodoss War) a try, you will not be disappointed.

My latest addition is Lain. This is a story of a young girl who's classmate commited suicide. The line between life, death, and the "wired world" have blurred. Students, including Lain, are getting email from the dead student. This would not be a movie I recommend if you are new to anime. Seasoned anime fans will appreciate the color and artistic style that brings out the emotional side of the story. By the end of all 4 Discs, I'm not sure that I fully grasped the story line of Lain. I think that this is a series that must be watched twice at least to gain the full experience of the theme and art.

Below is a list of some premium animation and anime. If you want to discover how good movies can be, then I suggest renting one or more.

1. Record of Lodoss War: Beautiful Epic tale of a land that was split by the Gods of Good and Evil. A band of misfits who become friends during their journey to help balance the forces that shape their lives and the continent.
2. The Iron Giant: A modern look at the 1950's Cold War scare. This movie has many emotions. Sometimes funny (Mr. Mansley, "I'm Kent Mansley, I work for the Government"), tender (Hogarth tells the Giant "I love you"), and scary (when Kent Mansley launches the nuclear weapon in haste). Definitely worth owning.
3. Ghost in the Shell: Beautiful anime that uses both computer animation and original hand drawn cels. Outstanding visuals and articulate commentary on the future.
4. Spawn: Dark tale by Todd McFarlaine. Not a good versus evil--more like an evil soul who does good versus a really evil-backstabbing-troll and the deamons from our hero's past life.
5. Devil Man vol. 1 and 2: A young man finds himself being hunted by demons (his father's legacy). He seeks the help of a friend. They seek to meld with a deamon to gain its power, but only the pure hearted can contain the evil of a deamon's form. The young Akira merges his body with the strength of a deamon to become the deamon killer--Devil Man!.
6. Iria: A young woman bounty hunter named Iria volunteers with her brother (Gren) for a dangerous mission. When they arrive, on a stranded space cruiser the crew has been killed and eaten by something. After Iria's brother is killed by the horrible thing, she must face her brother's killer--the unstopable Zeiram.
7. Akira: Young Neo-Tokyo biker punks have a run-in with a super-natural force that affects one of them deeply.

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