Volume 11: Part 4- Vierdestad: Sunday, October 23rd, 6:16 P.M.

Sunday, October 23rd, 6:16 P.M.

I don't know how I got here.  I don't.  I know that I wanted to leave Trebyer and I'm aware that I was in the process of doing it, but I don't know how I was doing it or how I got to be here.  I'm aware of who I am, Hato Shurtleff, and that I am intent on getting to Amcan, but why I'm in this place right now is a question I don't have the answer to.

Rinoa says that we were in a plane crash and I believe her.  A plane crash would explain my headwound and begin to explain how I got here.  Rinoa doesn't exactly know where we are, she says that she was planning to figure that out once I had woken up.  That tourniquet on my head feels nice, I'm going to have to ask Rinoa where it came from.

It's getting dark now.  Rinoa had already fallen asleep.  She looks so peaceful.  So serene.  So beautiful.  It's too bad that this won't last for much longer.  Eventually this peace will break, and, if it's anything like before, everything will slide into shit.

Later.

Hato Shurtleff

Volume 11: Part 4- Vierdestad: Introduction

Part 4

Vierdestad

Introduction

Although Vierdestad has a rich history, filled with culture, politics, and education, for the purposes of enlightening people about the current situation going on in Dolore, this introduction will deal with the history of Vierdestad starting in August 2002.  In order to understand the situation going on in Vierdestad at the time Hato Shurtleff reached that city, you must first understand the 2002 Northland Opfer Massacre.

On August 4th, 2002 in the city of Trebyer, three incidents occurred where a group of men stormed into a family's home, killed the occupants of the home and left the home in disarray.  In each of these incidents, the perpetrators tortured, maimed, shot, slashed, hacked up, and killed their victims.  Despite the noise these attacks generated and the emergency calls placed by neighbors while the attacks were happening, no police reported to any of the scenes of these murders.

On August 11th, 2002, four more incidents occurred that matched the incidents on August 4th.  On August 18th, eight incidents occurred.  On August 25th, twelve incidents occurred.  Throughout the month of August in Trebyer, twenty-seven home invasion murders occurred, resulting in the deaths of 147 people.  Each of these incidents either received no response from the police or only a minimal response, meant mostly to keep the public and the press away from the ghastly scene.  The common element in all of these incidents was that the houses that were attacked were the homes of predominantly opfer families and all the people killed were opfer.

Despite the negligence of police and politicians and the condemnation of conservative verbrecher groups, media organizations were dogged about pursuing this case, particularly media organizations from Trebyer and Vierdestad.  There are many aspects of this case that come to light because of the work of journalists like Hanna Dunham and Allison Kirke.  First of all, the name of these incidents, the Northland Opfer Massacre, was christened by the media.  Ballistics testing and the identification of the weapons used in these incidents was done by the media.  Tying the tactics used in these incidents with tactics practiced and used by several verbrecher supremacist groups in and around Trebyer was done by the media.  Finally, getting undercover footage from inside a meeting by one of these verbrecher supremacist groups where they praise the people who did these incidents as "courageous heroes and leaders of a righteous crusade" was done by the media.  Despite all of this information being uncovered by the media, to this point, no judicial or police organization has launched a substantive investigation into the 2002 Northland Opfer Massacre.

In response to these murders and the lack of action by any governmental body, a number of opfer families left Trebyer for other cities, either in Dolore or in neighboring Velas.  Many of those opfer families moved to Vierdestad, a city with an already large and vibrant opfer population.  This opfer population shift caused the small population of verbrechers in Vierdestad to get squeezed out of the city.  As of 2010, when the last Dolorian census was conducted, no families of predominately verbrecher descent were living in Vierdestad.  This is a situation that some verbrechers in Dolore do not like.

Vince Fielding, reporter VBNS

Red Reacts- Xbox One Reveal

 

On Tuesday, Microsoft revealed it's next console, the Xbox One.  If you haven't watched the announcement yet, you either do not care about the announcement or your internet is out.  If you internet is out, how are you reading this?

I couldn't watch the announcement live due to work.  Thankfully, Microsoft is allowing people to watch the Xbox One Reveal through their Xbox 360 consoles for free without the need for a Xbox Live Gold account.  I watched the announcement through my Xbox 360 console the evening after the announcement was made with only a small amount of trouble, trouble which I attribute to my unbearable ISP.  My kudos go to Microsoft for allowing potential consumers to view the announcement on their own time in a way that is readily accessible to them.

The announcement showed off many features of the Xbox One in ways that were deemed to be "spectacular", "inspirational", "over played", and "OHMYGODWHEREISTHEMASTERCHEF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1!!" by people in the Twitterverse.  The feature shown at the announcement that stood out to me was the TV capabilities.  Being able to switch between TV and games is something that I already have, but it's good to see that the transition will be more seamless...... if it works.  The presentation showed how well the Xbox One's TV features can work with a cable provider that has a working relationship with Microsoft, namely Comcast.  It will be interesting to what other television providers will work well with seamless switching between TV and gameplay works with.  Specifically, I want to know if my current DirecTV will work with this feature, or if I'm going to have to upgrade my system, or switch to a providers in order to use this feature.

There were a lot of games promised during the Xbox One Reveal presentation, but not a lot were shown in detail.  One game that was shown in detail blew me away.  Call Of Duty: Ghosts.  The kind of graphics shown during this part of the presentation astounded me to the point that, despite having not done so in a couple of years, I sincerely want to play this year's installment in the Call Of Duty franchise.  It will be interesting to see, come E3 time, what other developers can do with their games on the Xbox One, and how these developers can astound consumers once again.

Overall this presentation made a real impression on me.  The Xbox One Reveal presentation motivated me to want to buy the console in a way that similar announcement from Sony and Nintendo did not.  This presentation made buying the Xbox One a high priority on my To Do List..........

...right under buying a New House.  Like many other consumers out there, the recent economic climate has caused me to change how I look at recurring expenses, as well as my approach to debt.  For over a year now, I have been eliminating large recurring expenses, decreasing debt, and positioning myself to buy a new house in a hope of one day eliminating my biggest recurring expense, rent.  This new mindset has caused me to also re-evaluate my spending habits, including entertainment.  In recent months, my entertainment spending has been slashed in favor of eliminating debt and increasing my savings.  For me entertainment spending includes the purchasing of new video games and video game consoles.  This is why I do not own a Nintendo Wii U and have been buying less and less games recently.  Hell, my Pile Of Shame, referring to the games that I have purchased and have yet to play, is at the lowest point it's been in decades.

My desire to purchase a new house is why I will, in all likelihood, not be purchasing a Xbox One at launch.  While I am not outright saying this will not happen, the Xbox One, along with the Playstation 4 and the Wii U, may be purchases I make with my tax return next year.  It would be nice to have a bright shiny new video game console to play with, but I think it will be nicer to have a bright shiny new house to call home.  A bright shiny new home that I can fill with all kinds of bright shiny new toys, including the Xbox One.  Untill then, a boy can dream.

Project Buy A House- Saving For A Down Payment: 27% Complete

Donate to the Red Cross at this link.

Face Of Humanity Kickstarter

So I've been kind of lax on my satirical blogging recently.  This is due to me focusing on Project Beacon.  Don't worry, I'll annoy you about that later.  Anyway, I'm writing a quick post to tell you about this thing I was told about on Facebook

Face Of Mankind is a MMORPG that one of my friends, CJ Allford, is involved in.  I've been hearing about this game for a while and it looks interesting to me, which is rare for a MMORPG.  Recently, Face Of Mankind launched a Kickstarter campaign, which can be found at this link.  Go support this.  It'll give you something to spend your gaming dollars on in this time when next to nothing is coming out.