Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Non-depressing things I've learned in the last week:

1) Despite the beard, I am apparently still quite recognizeable as a zombie Steve Irwin, thanks to my stunningly cheap costume (even though I kind of look like a dead boy scout).

2) Nostalgia for old games is great for procrastinating/reliving your gaming console-less childhood; I myself have been playing through the old Marathon games of late. Bungie was responsible for some of the best old games (especially ones that could be played on the Mac), like Marathon, the Myth games, and the anime-style Oni (which I've yet to manage to beat thanks to those damndable ninjas!), before they got pwned by the industry, lost the rights to their best games, and fell to making nothing but Halo. Which, by the way, is a loose continuation of the Marathon story.

3) Knowledge of the Exalted world is, apparently, useful in some academic settings. I've had the "privelege" to take a class on Daoism this term, which sounded very interesting but has degenerated into most of the students just marvelling at how fucked up and self-contradictory most of the religion is. However, in discussing their mythology, I was able to bullshit my way through a class discussion having done only a tiny fraction of the reading and knowing a whole lot about the celestial hierarchy and celestial bureaucracy in Exalted. So thank you, White Wolf, for being cleverly derivative!

4) Pants are the devil.

Monday, October 30, 2006

Things I've learned in the last week:

1) Campus cats are awesome to begin with; they're even more entertaining when one is drunk.

2) EDIT 10/31/06: Moved to next post to facilitate discussion.

3) Rape is bad. Sorry to bring the blog fun to a screeching halt, but yeah. I found out last week that one of my friends had been drugged and raped (by another student on campus) only a couple weeks prior, and have been struggling with this since. I've still barely wrapped my brain around it - I've helped with some of the sexual violence awareness campaigns/readings/events since, and there's been a fairly good response from the campus, who realize it is, in a somewhat unfortunate way, something that the students pretty much need to take care of themselves because by the time the deans/cops/authorities get involved, it's pretty much too late. So, I've been thinking about this a lot, though I'm not sure this is the best forum for airing those thoughts, so I'll just leave with the imperative to watch out for your friends. Watch out for strangers, for that matter. Do not allow sketchy shit to go down. This is probably less of an issue for people not attending lots of college parties, but yeah. There it is. Be safe.

Thursday, October 26, 2006

Stuff and Nonsense!

Hey! They stole my title!

In response, I attack the darkness:


So, during this afternoon's excessively long nap, I had a dream where I was, for some inexplicable reason, a member of the British Royal Family. We were vacationing in the beautiful golden cornfields of Iowa and, for some equally unknown reason, none of us had British accents. Anyway, one of our servants summoned the Jabberwocky, which took the form of a bright yellow couatl and led us on a merry chase through the cornfields. It was bizarre.

Thanks to Hans and some patented interweb genius, I've just frittered away the last hour or so watching

and

Dangerously entertaining.

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

All hands, brace for turbulence.

BATTLESTAR SPOILERS: If you don't know what's going on, watch the damned episode already, you hippies!

Yeah, I wasn't quite sure what to expect when Adama said that. I figured they'd just be going into some heavy Cylon fire or something. But no. He meant turbulence.So. Yeah. I don't know if any other show out there could have pulled off what Battlestar just did. I mean, the rescue plan sounds, while very cool, kind of over-the-top. Something bad sci-fi would do. But damned if they didn't make it just about the coolest thing I've ever seen. It's not hokey, it's not contrived, and to some extent, it's pretty damned realistic and clever (assuming, of course, the existence of space-folding starships). I mean, how else do you get the flimsy little Vipers into the atmosphere without burning up? Jump the carrier into the atmosphere! Huzzah! I really have nothing more to say. I just wanted to rave about how sweet that scene was. Granted that was an incredible episode all-around - look at how much most of the characters have advanced now (especially Starbuck, Tigh, Gaeta, and Baltar in some weird way). The scene with Tigh and Ellen is one of the most powerful in the series so far...anyway. I'm done for now.

In other nerd news, Dawn of War: Dark Crusade is quite fun so far. I've only had a little time to play, but so far, the Tau rock hardxcore. We should get a game of that running at some point. Though in the meanwhile, it's funny to entrance my roommates with how gorgeously it let you blow stuff up.

Oh, so sadly I didn't get to watch the Battlestar episode on Friday (hence my delayed nerdgasm) due to an all-weekend quiz bowl tournament, which we dominated. The tournament was sweet though and it's one of the quirkier ones of the year; there were questions about, among other things, World of Warcraft-related internet fads (Lerooooy! and -50DKP came up), the GI Joe PSAs, and all kinds of anime. Hans, thank you for exposing me to all kinds of esoteric anime and related music - I got a whole lot of points in the Anime round just off of music and artists you and Stella gave me a long time ago. Good times.

Sorry there's not more interesting stuff to report - recent times have been dominated by the tournament, and plenty of homework - I have to revise my research proposal, and read more pages than are, I think, strictly allowed by the Geneva Conventions. Fortunately for my professors, we live in America (fuck yeah) where such trifles as anti-torture convetions are considered quaint, like that lamp in your grandma's house, or all the Matlock reruns she continually watches.

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

The New Motion Capture Technology

Wow. My roommate just showed me this, and holy cow. The possibilities are extremely, extremely numerous. And shiny. Imagine when RPGs start using this level of technology, or if they'd had it when the were making Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. Or that one from the Animatrix. Anyway, the video pretty much speaks for itself. Discuss!

EDIT: Andy has just informed me that the link doesn't go straight to the video itself, just the video PAGE for the NY Times. Stupid html. Anyway, it's not actually a link to some random story about firefighters dying, just look through the stories at the bottom of the page for one entitled "The Future of Digital Filmmaking", that's what I'm talking about. I'm trying to find a YouTube link but am unsuccessful at this point. Sorry!

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

Point/Counterpoint: North Korea

A Point/Counterpoint that my roommate and I put in the literary paper this last week, with a special guest appearance by Colonel Tigh:

---------------------

Point: No Good Can Come of Nuclear Testing by North Korea!

By Peter Berry, Senior Slippery Slope Analyst

There can be no question that even the hint of nuclear testing by North Korea is an extremely unfortunate turn of events, both for the Pacific Rim region and for the world. But amidst the obvious political and military implications of a rogue state with nuclear capabilities, we have forgotten one very important wild card in the situation: Godzilla.

Have we learned nothing since the dawn of the nuclear era? It was a mere 52 years ago when Godzilla first awakened from his watery somnolence in response to – you guessed it – a nuclear bomb.

There has been plenty of time to prepare for the reemergence of this menace – numerous military simulations have been carried out, cleverly disguised as poorly-dubbed cinematic releases, and the “Gojira” scenario (now a staple of game theory, according to our Professor Emeritus of Gaming, Maxwell Parrish) has been applied not only to Japan, but also in a revolutionary test case in New York. In spite of this extensive analysis, however, world militaries are still not equipped to deal with the giant, vaguely anthropomorphic menaces that wait insidiously off the coast of Japan. The Green Ranger’s Godzilla-mimicking Dragonzord is only 47.3% complete, and South Korea’s revolutionary “Mothra-ball™” anti-air defense is still only in its planning stages. And now, in the face of this gross negligence on the part of the world’s militaries, someone is tempting the fire-breathing, awkwardly animated hand of God.

And is it really any coincidence that “Godzilla” starts with “God”? No. Occult studies carried out in bunkers deep beneath Leighton indicate that Godzilla is almost certainly the wrathful avatar of the cruel, reptilian god “Reptar.” According to Occult Specialist P. Douglas Wieben, “Godzilla appears to be the 4th incarnation of Reptar, a terrifying deity whose true name would case my mouth to implode if I were to even attempt to pronounce it. Reptar’s principal concerns in this plane of existence appear to be string cheese, painful dental surgery, and the maintenance of atomic integrity. As you might guess, he’s not a big fan of nuclear weapons.”

“Also, excited electrons are a carnal sins in the eyes of Reptar,” Wieben added.

So today, friends and colleagues, we stand at a historic crossroads – do we make a stand and force North Korea to cease this dangerous course of action, or do we resign ourselves to a fiery destruction of Tokyo the likes of which has only been seen 23 times on the big screen? The choice is ours.

Counterpoint: Tons of Good Can Come of Nuclear Testing by North Korea!

By Captain 1st Class Cary Tiernan, Head of Long-Division Death Squad, 2nd Army

While North Korea’s confirmed possession of nuclear weapons is a grave concern for the whole world, there are some positive repercussions. As one of the most diplomatically and economically isolated states in the world, no one is safe when, with the push of a button, Kim Jong Il can rock the world security and economic order to its core. While this may be true, every mushroom cloud has a silver lining.

Japan has recently developed a heretofore unknown light, incredibly durable alloy known only as “Gundanium.” This gundanium would be ideal in a future Japanese heavy armor division. With the threat of Korean aggression looming, the Prime Minister and his cabinet have taken steps to bolster their forces in kind. In fact, recent talks between the Japanese National Defense Force and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. as have been stated as “fruitful” by both parties. The cornerstone of any such partnership between Japan and Mitsubishi would be the research and development of a Mobile Suit made primarily from gundanium. At completion, these human-shaped “Gundams” would be approximately 10 stories tall, move up to 100 km per hour, and have awesome laser cannons attached to their heads.

As I am sure you all are aware, giant robots with laser cannons are pretty damn cool. But, to dissuade any potential critics, I have assembled a crack team of fifth graders who, trained in the long-lost art of long division, have calculated that every Gundam produced has a 300% chance of being frickin’ sweet. On top of that, Swankologist Brandon Root estimates that a fully operational gundam might supplant Walldrug and gain the much-coveted title “The Niftiest Thing Since Free Icewater.” If this is indeed the case, giving an unstable dictator the most destructive weapon known to man is, in this writer’s opinion, a small price to pay for giant robotic samurai and, soon afterwards, giant robotic Kim Jong Ils.


Incontinent Point: No Sissies!

By Colonel Saul Tigh, Coloniel Officer and De Facto Resistance Leader of New Caprica

What are you all, a bunch of cry-babies? This isn’t a game of patty-cake we’re playing here. This is war! People die in war! Good people. Nice people. Do you think the Cylons thought twice when they vaporized 50 billion innocent souls? Pretty soon we aren’t gonna have anything to throw at the Cylons except rocks! Those metal bastards don’t have any limits! Why should we?! It’s about frackin’ time someone showed those chrome sons-of-bitches a thing or two! And in case any of you are wondering, the eye is gone. They plucked it straight out of my skull, picked it up and showed it to me. Looked like a hard-boiled egg. Frackin’ bastards. Where’s that bottle? I haven’t had a frackin’ drink in four frackin’ months. {sip} Ahhh! That’s the stuff! You know, when I look at you sops, sometimes I think you’ve got ice water in your veins and other times I think you’re a bunch of sad puppies. There are no sissies in this outfit, mister! We're on the side of the demons. We're evil men in the gardens of paradise, sent by the forces of death to spread devastation and destruction wherever we go. I'm surprised you didn't know that. No sissies!

Monday, October 09, 2006

Me, I follow the theory of Interior Design

Found by my friend Hannah -

"The citizens of the Dover area were poorly served by the members of the Board who voted for the ID Policy. It is ironic that several of these individuals, who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the ID Policy. With that said, we do not question that many of the leading advocates of ID have bona fide and deeply held beliefs which drive their scholarly endeavors. Nor do we controvert that ID should continue to be studied, debated, and discussed. As stated, our conclusion today is that it is unconstitutional to teach ID as an alternative to evolution in a public school science classroom....

Those who disagree with our holding will likely mark it as the product of an activist judge. If so, they will have erred as this is manifestly not an activist Court. Rather, this case came to us as the result of the activism of an ill-informed faction on a school board, aided by a national public interest law firm eager to find a constitutional test case on ID, who in combination drove the Board to adopt an imprudent and ultimately unconstitutional policy. The breathtaking inanity of the Board’s decision is evident when considered against the factual backdrop which has now been fully revealed through this trial. The students, parents, and teachers of the Dover Area School District deserved better than to be dragged into this legal maelstrom, with its resulting utter waste of monetary and personal resources...."
-Judge John E. Jones, Conclusion of Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District
So yeah, the ID debate had been silent for almost a year now, and I'm glad that the first peep I hear of it is a reasonable judge smacking it out of the public school system. He even goes so far as to say that it should still be debated, thus (hopefully) avoiding the firestorm of "you're an atheist judge so you're biased" bullshit that so often follows these rulings. All in all, very reasonable, and still firm that this theory has no place in a public school science classroom.

Also, the season premiere of Battlestar - SWEET ZOMBIE JESUS FUCKING CHRIST. Ahem. Pardon my lack of elocution on that point, but damn, that was a helluva way to start a season. I kind of wish I hadn't watched the preview for next week, as it eliminates a certain number of possibilities (at least relating to the end of the episode), but it's also somewhat comforting. Ahh. I'm so proud of the show...they topical political issues and then invert them in a way to make you wonder just how the fuck you feel about them. Kudos, Battlestar Galactica! Kudos.

I shan't say any more about the episode in case anyone hasn't seen it yet, plus I should probably go work on one of the two essays I have due in the next two days. Hehheh. Heh. Oy.

Tuesday, October 03, 2006

Damn you, words that are too esoteric even for me!

The word we lost the spelling bee on was "geusioleptic", if anyone wanted to know. It's so obscure that it's not even on Dictionary.com. Laaaaaame! Lame sauce, spelling bee.