Check the right pane for updated info on the Ultimate and Dynasty leagues. Still two spots left for the dynasty league.

The 360 page has been updated and Kart/Cijid have been busy keeping track of our console communites and adding avatars.

Carl slapped together some IRC stats.

Rant time again. Whats with everyone needing to be on facebook/myspace, Honestly?

“You’re not on facebook, you don’t matter” I was told at a recent get-together. “You are on facebook, you think you matter” was my immediate drunken response. They walked away. Oh, a minute ago we were about to be online “friends” now you aren’t on speaking terms with me.

Without fail, every time I go to a bar and meet someone who I barely talk to, they ask for my facebook info. What? We went our entire lives without ever considering ourselfs friends. I’ve never called you. I’ve never had your phone number. I don’t have your email. We’ve never hung out unless a mutual friend throwing a party was involved or we happened to see each other at the bar, like tonight. Why would you want to be my friend on facebook/myspace? We aren’t friends! I just don’t get it.

I refuse to join the online revolution that is myspace/facebook. Social Networking is mostly for scene kids. For the people who needed to be in the popular clique in highschool. That is not entirley true, its also great when used as free marketing. Both of those things I want nothing to do with.

Good luck landing that new job you’ve been ranting about all night to anyone within earshot with that myspace page of yours. You know the one with you in a bra holding a solo cup drawing a penis on your passed out friends face. Employers use myspace too, moron. You better hope they have a shitty HR dept. “I KeEp iT rEaL WiT My GuRlz ~o~ ChiX Be4 DiX!!~! HaMmErD aNd HolDiN iT DoWn!”, let me guess… That isn’t on your resume.

I liked this recent article on someone creating a fictional facebook account and getting 100 friends in days. Without even being a real person. More like FakeBook, am I rite?

Sean Avery is at it again. He has mostly laid low since he publicly stated “I bleed Ranger blue, It would be very disappointing if I don’t get to come back and play here” then immediately took the first big offer thrown at him from the Dallas Stars in the first days of free agency. But this year he decided to get back in the spotlight in his special way by bashing the commissioner of the league for not advertising its games well enough while at the same time taking the opportunity to call Iginla boring. Wait, what? Seriously?

First off, Iginla plays for a Canadian hockey team. Hes more popular than any American based player will be. The NHL is bigger than just its American audience. Take a gander on how all 6 of this this years top 6 Eastern Conference All Stars are all Habs. So basically the Habs have enough fans to votebomb their starting lineup into the All Star game.

Secondly, the NHL has really turned a corner with its new advertising. Most of it is focusing on its new, exciting stars. Check out this new winter classic commercial for example. The NHL might actually get Americans to watch a hockey game that isn’t the playoffs. The league actually does decent advertising for once.

Finally, who is Sean Avery to say no one cares about Iginla? Avery is only known for his pest antics or his diving or maybe even his obnoxious goal celebrations. Iginla puts up the points every year and has no problems dropping the gloves. There is talk on hockeyfights.com of renaming the Gordie How Hat Trick (1goal – 1 fight – 1 assist) to the Iginla Hat Trick. He is a fan favorite all around.

I’m no Avery hater and that is rare coming from a Devils fan. I’ll be the first to admit Avery is one of the best pests in the NHL. Until this year he was an amazing bargain. Unlike most pests he has the hands and smarts to score goals. There is also no denying he pulls in some amazing tail but not all of it for free.

Lets not forget even in the off season he is a media whore. A huge media whore. He was quiet off the ice during last years playoffs but on the ice he ran Marty pretty consistently. I’m not going to say I believe Marty needed to fall as hard as he did on more than a few occasions, but the fact remains, Avery was in the crease entirely too much for sporting conduct. Then the shit that lead to the Avery rule culminating in the handshake debacle.  Avery immediately cut short his media blackout to call Marty a fatso and spin the classless act back on him. Anything for the spotlight.

So now, heading up to Canada to play the Flames after making the previously mentioned shit talk on their star, Avery decided to step it up a notch. He came out of the dressing room, asked if there were any cameras around, and stated “I am really happy to be back in Calgary, I love Canada, I just want to comment on how it’s become like a common thing in the NHL for guys to fall in love with my sloppy seconds.  I don’t know what that’s about.  Enjoy the game tonight.”

That is obviously a direct bash on Calgary’s other star, Dion Phaneuf who is nailing Sean’s ex Elisha Cuthbert. The NHL wasted no time suspending him indefinitely for that. I don’t see it as a bad thing. What gets me is you know Sean says shit like that on the ice all game long, then turtles up like a bitch when someone acts upon the NHL’s unwritten self enforcement rules. See fights keep the NHL honest, you can’t run players and talk endless shit without consequence, unless you are a on ice pest like Avery who will turtle in hopes of putting his team on the powerplay. So he may get away with it on the ice but after bashing the league that pays his bills it is no surprise they aren’t going to let him get away with it off the ice.

In the end, Avery is again making headlines as the NHL’s greatest pest. I have a feeling that is what he set out to do.

I was consolidating backups tonight and came across a lot of stuff I had forgotten about. Thought I’d share…

Remember When…

• Everyone thought Dreamer cheated?
• ShatteredRain showed everyone what happens when you disrespect [Ht]? (now on youtube!)
• NaN was voted the best scout of all time?
• kmn got warningd?
• Ho’Style V2 was on packetlost?
• Ho’Style V3 got 200,000 hits? (bonus kmn rage circa 2003)
• karttoon showed kidriot the power of surge?
• BF2 was cake to dominate?
• BF1942 was non stop hilarity?
• charj tried to deny it?
• alc showed ironhide what happens when you post your picture on the internet?
• WarCan hammed it up at the PlanetSide Fan Faire?
• We let Rang lead the planetside team for a day?
• dubba didn’t know what a rally point was for?
• kmn made headlines?
• giga got caught?
• ETF had potential?
• PlanetSide still had a influx of new players?
• I found out FEAR had a railgun?
• HOGG got griefed in AoC?
• I was good at Forza 2?
• I led the British line and we sunk a ship that takes months of game time to make?
• I scored the best NHL07 goal, ever?
• We pioneered the Tower of Doom?
• KrazyKlown documented what it was like to Roll with [Ht]?
• We thought Valve would ruin the greatest game we’ve ever played but really just dragged their feet for 7 years?

Am I the only person who thinks Cyber Monday is not the most appropriate name for marketing? It has certain connotations associated with it for some time now.

Fear 2 went with some viral marketing this weekend. I have to admit its pretty interesting and has sparked a lot of interest in the game out of nowhere.

Skate 2 devs say they have a concrete release date of Jan 21st for North America. Pre ordering will get you some code that gives you retro clothing and gestures. Meh. So far the biggest selling points are the web based graphic editor and moveable objects. The devs are going crazy with the media for this game with about 2 videos a week. Its all over their official blog and they even flew out many prominent community members to Vancouver for a sneak peek last month. There was a NDA signed but the little they could say about the game was nothing but praise.

NHL 09 has solidified its rules for the EASHL championship which will end with top teams flying out to Vancouver (surprise) to participate in cross console finals. Home ice gets to play 4 games on thier console. They recently released a patch to stop the cheese goaling and in general improve upon an already fantastic game. Sadly they still haven’t addressed many of the matchmaking problems that are no doubt going to be an issue with whatever in game playoff structure they decide to use to pick the top teams that get to fly out.

Here is how we stand after 12 weeks in the Free Ht Open FFL League. I’m sitting on top pretty much because of Boldin. Despite missing a few weeks due to that needless game out of reach freight train hit he took still leads the NFL WRs in fantasy points with our scoring system. I’m most likely going to take a loss to Fidd this week putting all 4 playoff spots still up for grabs. Mad has been holding down a steady second. Make It Rain, despite a 0-4 start, has won 8 straight and is tied for third with Burn (Sweetness). Plenty of teams still holding strong at 7-5 and it looks like it will be a interesting finish. Naptown Riot Squad got some bad news today as news made it around that Plaxico shot himself in the leg last night at a club, but PFT reports numerous sources claiming it will only be about 2 additional weeks missed. Don’t worry though, I’m well aware of the fuckup that Plaxico is off the field which is why I have had his replacement Hixon on my bench for weeks now.

This year might be the end of our open league (for real this time). With the Ultimate Pool off and running, val looks motivated to kick off a Football only dynasty league next year on a better site than our usual Yahoo getup. Factor in everyone’s work and friend leagues and its just too many leagues to juggle for most. If you are interested in being involved in the upcoming Dynasty league post in the thread linked above, obviously were talking about league dues and prize pools, details still to be finalized.

Mad updated the Ultimate Pool standings a few weeks ago with this blurb:

__________________________________

Bucky: 51 pts
1st in EPL (12), 4th in MLB (9), 6th in NFL (7), 2nd in NHL (11), 1st in NBA (12)

Mad: 45 pts
2nd in EPL (11), 3rd in MLB (10), 3rd in NFL (10), 6th in NHL (7), 6th in NBA (7)

Fro: 32 pts
6th in EPL (7), 1st in MLB (12), 10th in NFL (3), 5th in NHL (8), 9th in NBA (3)

Still 4 leagues going and points will change but right now Bucky has the inside track on winning the ultimate. There’s some other people still in contention namely Kenyon and bren but most of the others are mathematically eliminated thanks to finishing last or low in one or two pools.

If you needed further proof not to let MMOs steal your life, its looks like Gunny has lost tf2.com to Valve. Gunny was last seen playing Karts EVE online account about 3 months ago. Gunny come back man, we miss your crazy German ass. Maybe he was the unfortunate recipient of a Black Friday Stampede? One of us has got to have his contact info laying around somewhere, hit him up with a free text msg.

Plenty of videos kicking around #hostile today to burn up some time. There are a bunch on Shacks latest replay couch.

I was really impressed by the latest Shaolin Production VQ3 movie  – Griffin, thats what im sayin.

I hope this is photoshopped.

From lbrandy

Mad departed for vacation today so its on me to be the blog bitch since no one else ever does it. Got to put some time burners up because I know mostly everyone who hits hostilism is Canadian and stuck at work today (suckers).

Lunks got a good post on Djedi’s site about playing left for dead on dustbowl.

Cijid dropped into IRC to share this, but its got nothing on the classic Sales guy vs Web dude.

With Black Friday coming up everyone is out looking for the door buster deals, but don’t bother. Daily deal sites are becoming more abundant by the day, its like every day is Black Friday.

• woot – Just about everything, one item a day
• whiskeymilitia – Snowboarding multi items per day
• chainlove – Mountain biking multi items per day
• gotapex – Electronics multi deals per day
• fatwallet forums - huge deal community
• Slickdeals – mostly electronics another huge community
• RedFlagDeals – Bit of everything just for you folks north of the border.

Mad might think organized gaming is on its way out, but I beg to differ. You have to wade through the countless games that just aren’t worth your time and find the few that shine. Granted the last few weeks have been tough. But hey, if you are one of those people that need to try every game for 10 minutes maybe the Xbox Live Marketplace Black Friday Sale is for you.

Its a great time to own an Xbox thats for sure. Theres nothing that can pull me away from logging a game a night in NHL09, regardless of what great game launched this week. Aside from the horrible “lets be like nintendo” portions the NXE is a pretty sweet. Leave it to kart to make the entire hassle of creating an avatar worthwhile. Netflix subscribers and Xbox owners in general might be a little miffed about Sony owned Columbia blocking thier movies from being streamed to the 360 right before NXE launch. I just enjoy installing games to the hard drive so its not so god damn noisy.

Link of the day: The Office shows some love to a daily favorite of mine by leaving a passive agressive note.

I am fucking sick of games lately. There’s a ton of great games out but the over saturation of them all causes clan play to be pretty non-existent lately. Sure, we buddy up and play co-op or 3 or 4 of us will run together in an MMO for a few hours but with so much to play it’s tough to coordinate anything. Our Warhammer guild is pretty dead right now thanks to WoW’s expansion and Left 4 Dead pulling the hardcores away. Godamn you stupid MMO’s. I know a few Hostiles are still eagerly awaiting the release of Darkfall, which I still feel is vaporware, but supposedly the beta is rolling and more accounts have been given out. In fact, there’s even some proof people are not only playing it but really liking it. Great, another game we all go AFK in…

In the day of high budget movies it’s nice to see not everyone cares about pyrotechnics and CGI. It’s time to go back to our roots and explore what made movies great and that doesn’t mean re-hashing every godamn original movie and slapping on a new coat of paint. It’s about re-inventing the mold. Here’s a movie called Black Dynamite that fully brings back the blaxploitation flicks to current day.

Some words never get old. Douche, is one of these words. Fuck, is another one of those words. I think anyone who caught the season finale of Entourage last night will agree the best line of the episode was E’s “Yeah, Fuck you”. These words always have their place, are a great insult and a staple of most everyone’s daily vocabulary. Okay, most everyone who visits hostilism that is.

Some words need to die. Over used internet cliches/memes are the worst of these words. Memes are like Napster, they are great, until you are out and about one day and overhear someone in line at the grocery store discussing it.  Fuck, its mainstream, its about to get shutdown. Lars Ulrich will be at your door soon. Tubgirl, goatse, both were great. Lolcats, Rickrolls, well they are about all the internet can muster these days since the internet is now mainstream itself. Anyway, what was I talking about? Oh right, words that need to die and join “pwn” and “b0rked” into the depths of internet hell only to be relived years later through the bash.org archives.

• EPIC
• FAIL

You fucking worthless words are next. Just go away already. People are putting EPIC in front of everything, if you say EPIC more than once a week as an adjective, it probably wasn’t EPIC now was it.

People put FAIL on the stupidest shit these days. Do they do it because they cannot think of a better caption? I’ve seen countless images labeled “FAIL” that actually are pretty inventive or something I would think to as a success. Take this one for example.

Funny – Not Funny

Notice how much better the original is. (Sidenote: I was surprised to learn that our favorite chacha veteran L0x was not behind this). The next time you see the word FAIL plastered over an image in somethingawful’s thick white image macro font that has become the staple of shitty image captions… Ask yourself, three years ago would this have even made sense? Would you have laughed at it then? I know the answers to both those questions and so do you.

So EPIC, and FAIL, you are on notice. Go away, no one likes you. You belong on the WoW forums and in Elementary school halls for the rest of existence. Get the fuck off of my internet.

On to some more trendy shit, this director sxephil on YouTube is actually pretty good. Props to his douchebag of the day section of his videos. Catch him at PhillyD.tv. Don’t watch it too much or you will grow tired of his reptitive editing style. I think I’d like to pick out a douchebag of the day today. My douchebag of the day is anyone who configures a blog, slaps some half assed skin on it, and leaves the “validate my xhtml/css” links on it when they have well over 100 errors on them. Would I dare link this blog to that? Obviously not, but the links on the bottom our forum do work, because well, I actually tried over there.