Category Archives: General

This is a category for general topics relating to blogging and blogish-like behavior

WARNING: Contains Science! (Okay, so not really so much)

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Occasionally I will decide to read the whole of a blog.  This is because I often find myself with an abundance of both time and bandwidth, which I’m sure will come as a surprise to very few of you.  So I find a blog that I’ve been meaning to check out, but haven’t because I don’t like to just start in the middle of something.  I have to start at the beginning.

This is why I’ve been reading The Bloggess for three days straight.  I’ve read from June 2007 to December 2008.  And then I was confronted with this post, in which Jenny goes to Jesus camp in Texas somewhere and is confronted by a frightening insect.  ”Ha!” I thought,  ”Insects in Texas are not so bad.  You should see the centipedes in Iowa!  They’re crazy scary looking!”

Then I clicked on the associated Flickr image.  Holy shit, you guys.

Holy shit.

Commenters (how is that not a word yet, dictionary?) correctly identified this as a mole cricket.  As in it’s kind of the creepiest cricket/scorpion/silverfish you’ve ever seen in the back, only it’s fucking huge and it has mole hands in the front.  Like a mole.

So I go to Wikipedia for anxiety relief.  ”Surely,” I thought, “surely this abomination only exists in Darkest Texas and maybe in Australia, because all of the worst bugs are in Australia.”  But Wikipedia only makes things worse.  First, there is the distribution map, which shows that two of the three species are present in THE WHOLE OF NORTH AMERICA.  (Except Alaska.)  Then, Wikipedia calmly reassures me that “because they are nocturnal and spend nearly all their lives underground in extensive tunnel systems, they are rarely seen.”  Whew.  Thank goodness.  Oh, but wait.  ”They can also fly.”  WHY DO THEY NEED TO FLY IF THEY LIVE IN TUNNELS?

If you are looking for me, I’ll be hiding in my closet.  Forever.

(Note: I do not recommend you click on any of the links in this post lest the mole cricket haunt your dreams, too.)

(Note the second: I am not posting a picture with this blog because I think that if I Google image search “mole cricket” I will not be able to leave my house ever again.)

“We’re going with you. To Massachusetts. To Keyhouse.”

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I credit two of our own (Ajee Prior and Weapon of Math Instruction) for turning me on to graphic novels. I must have spent hours on the couch pouring through Neil Gaiman’s masterpiece, the Sandman series. Since then I’ve read quite a few fine examples of beautiful storytelling in this format, although I’ve never found anything that’s captured my imagination quite the same way that Gaiman did. Until now.

Some of you may be familiar with Joe Hill. He published his first novel (Heart-Shaped Box) in 2007 and a second (Horns) in 2010.  Both are excellent additions to the horror genre–I particularly enjoyed Heart-Shaped Box, which made it all the way up to #8 on the New York Time bestseller list.  Now Joe Hill is dabbling in graphic novels, and I am enthralled by the results.  Behold!  Locke and Key.

I’ve read the first two hardcover compilations (Welcome to Lovecraft and Head Games) and I’m dying to get my hands on the third.  It’s a story about children, but it’s not for children.  It’s about secrets and lies and how the past can come back to haunt you.  Hill has created a magical world with compelling characters, and the illustrations are just beautiful.

Wikipedia informs me that it’s also been optioned for a television series that started shooting in February.  Of course, there’s a good chance that in adapting it they will fuck it all up, but here’s hoping they won’t.

(It may be remiss of me not to mention that Joe Hill is Stephen King’s son, but he really seems to be trying to make it on his own merits.  He may have learned his storytelling skills at his father’s knee, but he’s coming up with some amazing ideas all on his own.)

Terrible character ideas

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Mind Flayer

Mind Flayer

Some time ago, RPGNet had a thread about some of the worst character concepts ever encountered in pen-and-paper RPGs. I have no idea if posters were making some of this stuff up, and frankly I don’t give a shit. I came across some notes I made about this and thought I’d share with the group.

  • Triangular slab of magic lard
  • Zombiefied weremoose with six arms and ninja training (Buffy)
  • psychic fetus who controls his mother from the womb (BESM)
  • Ron Jeremy as a Setite (Vampire)
  • Silver Fang Garou whose only goal in life was to become the district manager for his local McDonald’s chain (Werewolf)
  • “The Invincible Hammer-Wheel. He has hammers for hands and wheels for feet. Or maybe it’s the other way around. He was born that way. He was raised by farm implements. He lives in the woods.” (Supers)
  • Ghost of Robot: a robot that died, but his ghost remains! Now he haunt machines and electronics, but is very frustrated because they cannot be scared. Also hates the living, but not anywhere near as much.
  • A talking grizzly bear wearing a pimp suit driving a super-high-tech flying caddy convertible, bright red, and attended by a disembodied robot hand that he insisted was his Cybernetic Third Hand. His primary goals and motivations were listed as “Fuck With Shit”.
  • A nine foot tall skinless demon with a huge wang. He could breathe fire, was superstrong and could summon an Elemental, of his choosing, three times a day for seven hours each. (Which is 21 hours out of the day.) His one weakness was that to maintain his powers he had to find an Asian whore, tie her up in rope, and then masturbate over her, at least twice a day. Failure to do so would leave him vulnerable. he also had an ability called Know Everything which gave him a slim chance to know anything, going by the idea that at one point he had seen all of time and creation but could now only remember parts of it. He and the talking bear were from the same campaign and would always go in to stores and restaurants and convince people that they were simply humans in elaborate and expensive costumes, not the impossible horrors they actually were.
  • Poontangula: a superhero from Over the Edge he had a giant nose and eye’s like binoculars, or more like the cardboard tubes from inside rolls of paper towels, he was covered in stripes and had flaps of skin running between his arms and legs allowing him to fly. He could summon Mustard Goblins, which were like Black Puddings made out of mustard, and Animate Spam, which created Spam Elementals which were kind of like shoggoths made out of potted meat food product. He also shot laser beams from his goofy extended eyes. His sheet was amusing because all of his Traits were things like Falling Over Own Feet, and Smells Weird In A Bad Way, and then he had a list of flaws like Laser Eye Beams (Over the Edge)
  • a Rancor Jedi. Because lightsabers were too small for him, he’d just hold up other jedi who held on to their lightsabers. (Star Wars)
  • The Fudge-Hammer. Stretching, Density Increase & Hypnosis. All kinds of drawbacks & flaws based on his father, The Fudge-Packer. Wore an Orange and Brown Union suit, and a purple Domino Mask, with a fake mustache hanging from it. Generally sported a pair of six-shooters, which were a lot less effective than his super powers, but he liked knee-capping villains. (Supers)
  • Womb Boy…he can grow things (like guns or other useful implements) in his womb. And then he has to birth them… (Supers)
  • Super Newf. A Newfoundland trawler fisherman is caught in a radioactive storm caused by aliens. When he returns to shore, he’s a superhero. He wears a souwester and raingear, and he can fly. He carries a fishing net which he uses to entangle villains, then pummel them into submission with a radioactive codfish (Supers)
  • Dak Bigolo, Bothan Gigolo (Star Wars)
  • Gibberish McSlitherlips – The Mind Flayer Pirate. Gibberish – or Gib for short – was an Illithid pirate and slave trader. Although he could understand several languages, he was (or at least claimed to be) incapable of actually speaking any save his native tongue, which sounded like an incomprehensible string of gutteral gibberish to all non-Illithids – hence his name (his real name was supposedly impossible to pronounce without ripping out your tongue and ramming it up your nose). Rather than use his telepathic abillities to get around this handicap, Gib instead chose to communicate through his interpreter/assisstant/emergency food supply – a cowardly albino halfling named Boing, whom the Mind Flayer kept on a leash chained to his belt (or carried around in a harness strapped to his back). Boing was technically an NPC under my control, but was a coward with no combat abilities or skills, making him effectively useless for anything other than acting as his master’s translator. In combat, he would generally curl up into a quivering, whimpering ball and wait for it all to be over. He spoke with a pronounced cockney accent. Gib also had a peculiar fascination with eyebrows, and wore an oversized pair of fake ones at all times, though he steadfastly refused to acknowledge their existence, and would become annoyed whenever someone commented on them. One of his favorite methods of interrogating people was to sit across from them in an empty room and wiggle his eyebrows at them until they slowly went mad. (D&D)

Clearing up a possible misconception….

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By now, I’m sure you’ve all seen Grady Warren’s cringe-inducing, please-be-a-Colbert-bit video in which he defends the Teabaggers from charges that they are racists. (And to answer Grady’s oft-asked rhetorical question: Yes. Spending all of your time and energy making broad generalizations based on religious and ethnic identities *does* make you a racist.)

There is one area where I think our two sides could come together, though. At about the 3:37 mark Grady asks, “Are we racist when we ask that our children not be taught that little Johnny’s got two moms or two dads and that’s normal?” For starters, this is one of the few things you said that *doesn’t* actually demonstrate that you’re a racist, so good job there. Secondly, I think this might have all been a big misunderstanding. I’m a dyed-in-the-wool Ignorant Liberal, so let me assure you – we are NOT asking that your kids be taught that having two mommies or two daddies is normal. It isn’t. In fact, when you consider that gay people are just a few percent of the population and that many, many areas still have policies that impede the ability of same-sex couples to adopt, I think it’s safe to say that it’s downright unusual, perhaps even rare. So we’re in agreement – nobody should be taught that it’s normal.

What we *do* want people to understand is much simpler and shouldn’t be at all controversial. We just want people to realize that this unusual thing isn’t something to be afraid of. We’re not even using a values-based argument here – the science shows that kids raised in same-sex households aren’t any more messed up than the rest of our kids. Actually, values do enter into it, but they’re the kind of American values – people should be free to live their lives without interference from outsiders if they aren’t causing any harm, people should be equal in the eyes of the law, etc. – that I’m sure we both share.

I’m glad we could clear that up for you. Also, part of your problem may be that you seem to think that any Hispanic-looking person who is photographed looking angry is an illegal. I think a number of those people could just be Americans who, like I, believe you’re a douchebag.

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit…

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I’m so geeked about this movie, you guys. I’m assuming you’ve all seen the two recently released shots from the set, but I’m going to reproduce them here for posterity.


Filming is underway with a tentative release date of December 19, 2012. A bunch of the last film stars will be back, including Sir Ian McKellen, Andy Serkis, Cate Blanchett, Sir Cristopher Lee, Elijah Wood and Orlando Bloom. Martin Freeman will be Bilbo–you may remember him from Hot Fuzz, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, or Love, Actually.

They’re doing it in two parts. I’m torn about the 3D vs 2D thing. I generally don’t like 3D movies, but occasionally it works really well. (Note: I don’t actually know if they’re releasing it in 3D–I’m just assuming.)

Other movies I’m hyped about include: Jane Eyre, Your Highness, and X-Men: First Class. Anyone else have upcoming movie recommendations?

Fucking metal!

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A series of coincidences has me listening to a lot of metal lately. Full disclosure: I was a HUGE metalhead in high school. We had a big lawn to cut, so every summer as I was mowing I’d break out the trusty Sony Walkman for Metallica’s Master of Puppets, Ozzy Osbourne’s Shout At the Devil, W.A.S.P.’s The Last Command, Iron Maiden’s Live After Death, etc. After starting college, I think I revolted against a lot of elements of my life in high school, and heavy metal was foremost among them. My love for acts like Peter Gabriel and R.E.M. grew and I came to be embarrassed by metal’s theatricality, its aimless revolt, its unabashed corniness. The last few years have seen me more at ease with myself and I can once again admit that there’s a place in my musical life for Viking imagery, frantic double bass drum drives, and the Gibson Flying V.

Goatwhore

Part of that is driven by the most excellent Map of Metal website–it’s just one of the best-done musical genre sites out there. There was also a radio drive-time coincidence; the time I happened to be having lunch on Sundays was coinciding with a college radio metal show. And a friend of mine who’s not terribly computer savvy doesn’t really explore the world of music available online, so I wanted to clue him in to some of the great metal that’s been recorded in the past 20 years. I’m enjoying the dark, heavy sounds of Southern American bands like Baroness, Kylesa, and Goatwhore; the sludgy gloom of England’s Electric Wizard and Japan’s Boris; the intricate math rock of Don Caballero and Chavez. There’s an ambition and drive for excellence in those acts that you can’t always get from self-effacing indie wunderkind, and that makes for a damn nice change of pace.

It’s a Christmas miracle!

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An unexpected meeting with an old friend has led to joy at the Wendigo household. Happiness reigns, Rankin-Bass Christmas specials were enjoyed, hot dogs were consumed. In a completely unrelated topic, here’s a clip from the Asylum Street Spankers’ concert DVD.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3tqwNcfOhA

First person shooters have lied to me

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Apparently, real-life soldiers do not bunny hop around the battlefield. They don’t stop and stand still in the middle of an open field due to lag. Nor do they call their teammates “n00b” and “gaywad.” Most of all, they apparently do not run straight at an unknown enemy, firing from the hip as they go. When unexpected gunfire hits, they apparently hug the ground, try to figure out where the shots are coming from, and attempt to bring heavier weapons to bear while spending a bare minimum of time anywhere other than “heavy cover.”