Anamanaguchi is a 4-man “band” that uses hacked NES and Gameboy consoles to make epic 8-bit rock music. Check out their website here, and get a free download of their album “Power Supply” here.

Their first songs were simply 8-bit rock, like Power Supply, Blackout City, Jetpack Blues, Dawn Metropolis etc (these are thought to be songs made by just NES consoles). Later on, they have made some “Weezer” albums that include them singing, and other songs with distinctly different 8-bit sounds (possibly the addition of the Gameboy console). They also go on tour or something. That’s gotta be the best job.

1. Yesterday, I beat an Expert CPU in Age of Empires III in 10 minutes and 2 seconds. Overjoyed, I attempted again to see if I had gotten lucky that time. Turns out, I beat the Expert CPU again in 10 minutes and 24 seconds! My rushing tactics are even better now.

2. I recently read The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan, which supposedly was on the New York Bestsellers list for 9 months. Sorry, Joy Luck, but you have just won a place in the “Swiz dislike” pile of books. Not a book for me.

3. This week I’m going to have to sing in a choir for the play Pirates of Penzance by former pirates Gilbert and Sullivan. It’s a really strange play with all sorts of weird, funny bits in it, but I’m not going to enjoy singing in it at all.

Gotta go do my 5 projects due Monday now. Ta ta.

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-Town Center-

The Town Center is the most important building of the Discovery and Colonial Age. If you are going for a rushing tactic, this is the first building you want to destroy. And if you’re going against a rusher, you better protect this building. This building is where you get your shipments, Age up, and build settlers. As we all know, Settlers are the units that gather resources to support a colony – thus, the more settlers you have, the bigger your economy is. This is why keeping a continuous stream of settler production from your Town Center is vital for Booming or Turtling success (or even Rushing).

Aging Up is another extremely important attribute that the Town Center is unique for. Once you hit 800 food, you better Age up as fast as you can using the Town Center so you can get to the Colonial Age – the Age where you can build military units for pillaging or defending.

Lastly, Town Centers act as the spawn point of the ever-useful Shipments from our Home City. To get to the Home City, one clicks on their nation’s flag in the lower part of the screen. If you have a Shipment, you can send one by clicking on the appropriate card. And when the queue finishes, the thing you wanted appears right at your Town Center and a sound alerts you that it has arrived. The 2/3 Villager shipment is extremely important to making it to the Second Age in time, and the subsequent military shipments are absolutely key to most rushing techniques.

After a lot of matches, you may feel that the Town Center actually isn’t much. After all, Settlers don’t need the Town Center to gather resources, right? You can still keep a military without the Town Center. However, you will find that if your Town Center is gone, then you will face several huge issues:

-You can’t Age Up. If your opponent attacked you while you were in the Discovery Age and defeated you, you have absolutely no way to get the Colonial Age and thus get an army.
-You can’t build Settlers. Once the TC is gone, every Settler killed is irreplacable. After you only have a couple Settlers left, it will be impossible to fight back with a sizable military.
-You can’t get shipments. Once the TC blows up, and if you have no Outposts, there is no spawn point for cards, and thus you cannot use them. This cripples all hope for “back-up” support.

And to make matters all the worse, the first Age you can start BUILDING Town Centers is the Fortress Age. So, you will always be TC-less once it’s gone in the Colonial Age. The only exception is the Portuguese, who will get a Town Center Wagon every time he/she Ages up.

-Market-

The Market is another extremely useful building in the first two Ages, especially to reach that golden 800 food pile faster and save yourself seconds of breath. If you have any excess Wood in the First Age, a Market would be a smart idea. And, if you’re going Booming or Turtling, it’s highly encouraged and basically required.

So what’s so great about the Market? Well, first off, you can buy and sell resources. How does this work? In most cases, you can sell 100 of either Food or Wood for a smaller amount of Coin. You can also buy 100 of either Food or Wood using a greater amount of Coin. Is this good or bad? For a Booming or Turtling society, it may be the shortcut to the Fortress Age. For example, if you had 2k Food, 1k Wood and 500 Coin, and you sold 500 wood and 500 food to the market, you would come up with enough money to Age up. That saves the time you have to wait for your villagers to gather 500 coin in resources.

The other, and more important benefit is economic improvements. Need your villagers to gather Food faster so they can reach the 800 food mark early? Well, get the Hunting Dogs improvement, and your villagers will be gathering 20% faster. Need a faster Wood production? Why, just throw your hatchet away and grab a Gang Saw; it’ll make things 20% faster as well! In addition to these wonderful, gather-improving upgrades, you have bonuses to your Settler attack and HP. For Boomers or Turtlers, the HP bonus is an extremely vital and important improvement; in case of a rush, your settlers have more HP to seek refuge in the TC.

-House-

Fairly straightforward. The House costs 100 Wood and supports 10 population. If you are over population or at the population limit, then you cannot build anymore units. That includes Settlers AND military units. So, it is a good idea to use most of your starting Wood building 1 or 2 Houses.

The British have a special type of House called the “Manor House“. This House costs 35 more Wood (for the mathematically challenged, 135 Wood) and takes longer to make. However, once completed, you get a one-time muster of 1 Settler. That means that whenever you finish building a Manor House, a free, extra Settler spawns from it.

-Bank-

The Bank is a unique Dutch building that separates the civilization from the other seven. This Bank, once created, will give the player a small, free trickle of Coin. This amount of Coin is probable to about 1-2 Settlers on Coin, but easily stacks up and supposedly multiplies in speed as more as built. Although there originally is a build limit of 4 Banks, with shipments and improvements, you can get up to 10 Banks.

The letdown to the Bank, though, is the ridiculous amount of resources it costs to create it. It costs 350 Food and 350 Wood to make. Because you want to use your first 800 Food on Aging Up, it’s difficult to get a Bank early on. And that means that you probably will only be able to build Food/Wood military units early on (the Dutch do not have Crossbowmen; they only have Pikemen). However, once multiple Banks are created, you will find that you need absolutely no Villagers on Coin because the trickle rate is so fast.

-Livestock Pen-

The last economic building for use in the First Age is the Livestock Pen. Like the name suggests, it is a pen designed to fatten livestock faster.

What counts as livestock? Sheep are the most common forms of livestock, although livestock also includes cows and llamas. Any animal that you can move (that is under your control) is considered livestock. So, once you have selected your livestock, simply task them to the Livestock Pen, and they will fatten much faster. Livestock Pens can also build Sheep. There is also an improvement for making livestock fatten faster.

Why would one want livestock? Well, for one, livestock do not run away like wild animals do when being killed. Also, the gathering rate for livestock is 3 times faster than that of wild game. This makes Livestock a common Food “investment”, like a good stock in the stock market – it starts out without anything, but when fattened, you get more benefit than any other Food source.

Although the Livestock Pen and the Bank are less commonly found in the First Age, all economic buildings are extremely important and worth defending, especially your Town Center. There are various ways to defend your buildings and settlers:

-Build Outposts. Outposts are buildings with an attack that can garrison settlers. These are important when your settlers are gathering in an unprotected area.
-Minutemen. Minutemen can be trained once in a batch of 6 through the Town Center for a small price. They are very powerful but lose HP over time.
-Defenders. Defend your settlers with military and your buildings with ranged units.

Overall, the best option is the creation of Outposts; however, they do cost 250 Wood.

And those are the economic buildings of the First Age!

2. Flip (as in flip the words upside down) – http://www.revfad.com/oldflip.html

3. Free Manuals – http://the-manuals.com/

4. Pocket Mod – http://pocketmod.com/v2/

5. Youtube Time – http://www.youtubetime.com/

6. IP Tools – http://www.iptools.com/

7. DLL Files – http://www.dll-files.com/

8. Font Finder – http://www.fontfinder.ws/

9. Print What You Like – http://www.printwhatyoulike.com/

10. Be Funky – http://www.befunky.com/

11. InstaPaper – http://www.instapaper.com/

12. Print Friendly – http://www.printfriendly.com/

13. Multiple Search – http://www.multisearchengine.co.uk/

14. Scrim – http://scr.im/

15. Who Is Hosting This – http://www.whoishostingthis.com/

16. Keybr – http://keybr.com/

17. Favicon – http://www.favicon.cc/

18.Wakerupper – http://wakerupper.com/

19. Privnote – https://privnote.com/

20.Soshiku – http://soshiku.com/

21. Email Future – http://emailfuture.com/

22. Hey! Paste It – http://www.heypasteit.com/

23. Joopz – http://www.joopz.com/

24. Whspr – http://whspr.me/

25. Remember The Milk – http://www.rememberthemilk.com/

26. Ta-Da List – http://www.tadalist.com/

27. Xdrive – http://xdrive.com/

28. My Fonts – http://new.myfonts.com/

29. Spamato – http://www.spamato.net/

30. Meebo – http://wwwl.meebo.com/index-en.html

31. Ning – http://www.ning.com/

32. Box Widgets – http://www.box.net/widget/

33. TuToogle – http://tutoogle.com/index.php

34. Sizable Send – http://www.sizablesend.com/

35. Feedity – http://feedity.com/

36. Awesome Highlighter – http://www.awesomehighlighter.com/page/highlight

37. Hit Me Later – http://www.hitmelater.com/

38. Read It Later – http://readitlaterlist.com/

39. Wordoid – http://wordoid.com/

40. Namechk – http://namechk.com/

41. Bing Vs Google – http://www.furia.com/code/bg/bg.cgi

42. Please Notify Me – http://pleasenotify.me/

43. Top Web Based – http://www.topwebbased.com/

44. Quick Thumbnail – http://quickthumbnail.com/

45. Feed My App – http://www.feedmyapp.com/

46. Netsurf – http://www.netsurf-browser.org/

47. Upload Pie – http://uploadpie.com/

48. Photoshop.com – https://www.photoshop.com/

49. Funny Sign Generator – http://captions.illmeyer.com/

50. X Marks – http://www.xmarks.com/

2. Numbr (US only) – http://numbr.com/

3. Zoho Mail – http://mail.zoho.com/

4. BugMeNot – http://www.bugmenot.com/

5. FakeNameGenerator – http://www.fakenamegenerator.com/

6. Convert PDF to Word – http://convertpdftoword.net/

7. Convert PDF to Text – http://www.convertpdftotext.net/

8. Convert PDF to Image – http://www.convertpdftoimage.com/

9. Convert PDF to HTML – http://www.convertpdftohtml.net/

10. Convert Text to PDF – http://www.texttopdfconverter.com/

11. File Dropper – http://www.filedropper.com/

12. Waze – http://www.waze.com/

13. Speed Test – http://www.internetfrog.com/mypc/speedtest/

14. Gliffy – http://www.gliffy.com/

15. XFruits – http://www.xfruits.com/

16. Down For Everyone or Just Me – http://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/

17. Thinkature – http://thinkature.com/

18. You Convert It – http://www.youconvertit.com/

19. Improve Your Images – http://www.improveyourimages.com/

20. Pimp My Icon – http://www.pimpmyicon.com/

21. Scrutinize This – http://www.scrutinizethis.com/

22. Text ASCII Generator – http://www.patorjk.com/software/taag/

23. Media Converter – http://www.mediaconverter.org/

24.FuzzMail – http://www.fuzzmail.org/

25. Keep Vid – http://keepvid.com/

26. Big Small – http://www.neoformix.com/Projects/BigSmall/index.html

27. Twiki – http://twiki.org/

28. 10 Minute Mail – http://10minutemail.com/10MinuteMail/index.html

29. Web 2.0 Scientific Calculator – http://web2.0calc.com/

30. Seal Maker – http://www.says-it.com/seal/index.php

31. Online Clock Radio – http://onlineclock.net/radio/

32. Virtual Video Map – http://www.virtualvideomap.com/

33. Time and Date – http://www.timeanddate.com/

34. Pando – http://www.pando.com/

35. Computer Hope – http://www.computerhope.com/cgi-bin/systeminfo.cgi

36. Joongel – http://www.joongel.com/welcome.php

37. Go2Web20 – http://www.go2web20.net/

38. Parody Motivator Generator – http://diy.despair.com/motivator.php

39. Watch That Page – http://www.watchthatpage.com/

40. Mail Big File – http://www.mailbigfile.com/

41. Prescription Maker – http://www.prescriptionmaker.com/

42. Download Any Stuff – http://downloadanystuff.org/

43. ResizR – http://resizr.lord-lance.com/default.asp?gen=true

44. Twitbuttons – http://twitbuttons.com/

45. PollDaddy – http://www.polldaddy.com/

46. Empressr – http://www.empressr.com/

47. World Wide Metric – http://www.worldwidemetric.com/Measurements.html

48. Open Drive – https://www.opendrive.com/login.php

49. Netscrap – http://www.netscrap.com/netscrap.cfm

50. Lowgolink – http://www.lowgolink.com/

When a pirate said “shiver me timbers” it was actually a request for another pirate to shave an especially difficult to reach portion of his back. While pirates would allow their faces and chests to get hairy, there was a strong superstition against hairy backs. By the way, “shiver” means “shave” and “timbers” means “lower back.”

Blackbeard’s peg leg was a medical necessity, he lost his leg to diabetes, but all the other pirates got wooden legs as a fashion choice. Some of the peg legs used by pirates were actually quite gaudy and covered in jewels.

The combination to Davy Jones’ Locker was right 32, left 17, right 26.

The golden age of pirates was 1764-1856, but there are still pirates today. Today’s pirates are not the colorful figures of the past, just boring pretenders to the throne.

Although much is made of the fact that pirates used the phrase “arrrrrr”, actual pirates actually punctuated their sentences with the letter “q.” For instance, “Q, me treasure is over there, matey.”

Gilbert and Sullivan were the two most dangerous pirates to ever live. Born conjoined twins, they were finally blown apart during a vicious sea battle with a British Major General when an errant cannonball struck their shared hip. While together, they were considered to be the King of Pirates. Apart, they were forced to retire to a life in the theater, reenacting their final battle in Penzance for pennies a day.

While it was perfectly fine to use an enemies skull as a goblet, it was considered rude to use their entire vivisected head as a puppet. Especially if you mocked them by making their own head talk in a high-pitched voice.

Female pirates were very common and much prized for their hair-free lower backs.

Maps with x’s to mark the spot are a creation of the movies, pirates would simply memorize where they left their treasure and communicate it to others through dance.

Immediate reaction: Check the wires, see if you can steal a neighbor’s Wi-Fi, then get up and do something else.

What you do while waiting for the connection to come back: Read a book, watch a movie, go for a walk. Is this a trick question?

If it doesn’t come back in an hour: Call your service provider, then go back to whatever you were doing.

Stage 2 Internet Dependency:

Immediate reaction: Try to steal a neighbor’s Wi-Fi. Walk around the house with your laptop if necessary.

What to do while waiting for the connection to come back: Watch a movie or something with your laptop close by so you can see if the connection’s back up.

If it doesn’t come back in an hour: Call your service provider, then check the connection every half hour just in case it fixes itself.

Stage 3 Internet Dependency:

Immediate reaction: Try the neighbor’s Wi-Fi trick, including making a few guesses at the passwords of their locked-down networks.

What you do while waiting for the connection to come back: Try connecting again. And again. Try to watch a movie, remember you only watch movies that stream online, go back to your computer and try to connect again.

If it doesn’t come back in an hour: Call your service provider, then pack up your laptop and head for an internet cafe.

Stage 4 Internet Dependency:

Immediate reaction: Shocked disbelief, followed by a thorough inspection of your network settings, DSL modem, router, Wi-Fi configuration and the state of local radio interference fields. Then try the neighbor’s Wi-Fi trick. Then stand and glare at your modem for a while.

What you do while waiting for the connection to come back: Try connecting again. And again. Go down to watch a movie, remember you only watch movies that stream online, go back up and try to connect again.

If it doesn’t come back in an hour: Call your service provider, then pack up your main computer and monitor and head to a hotel that offers reliable internet access.

Stage 5 Internet Dependency:

Immediate reaction: Get up on the roof and point your homemade Wi-Fi antenna at the library 15 blocks over. If that doesn’t work, hook your cellular modem up to your laptop. If that doesn’t work, pull out your old 56K modem and log into the dialup service you pay for every month just in case something like this happens.

What you do while waiting for the connection to come back: Write a long, involved blog post about how your ISP is costing you time, money and/or effort because of its incompetence.

If it doesn’t come back in an hour: Call your service provider and fire them. If there aren’t any other DSL providers in your area, move.