Gazebo baiting at it's finest!

Farewell, my childhood.

Sun, 12 Aug 2007 10:18:16 GMT

Yep, they've redesigned the Space Man "Candy Stick" sweets...

Thanks to Brett Taylor at http://inner.geek.nz/ for being together enough to have comparison packet for the shot and nailing the whole fiasco with a most appropriate facial expression.

You know what really doesn't work for me?

It's not the DBZ haircut, the Michael Jackson cast-off that he's wearing, or the discarding of decades of tradition.

It's the glassy, dead expression. He is having no fun. He's not even asphyxiating convincingly.

The Original Space Man?

He's out of his mind with having fun!

Does he care that conflating space travel with counterfeit cigarettes for children makes no sense?

No sir, he does not!

Well, this is morbid and creepifying.

Mon, 06 Aug 2007 10:20:35 GMT

A nice and creepy flash animation linked off a forum discussion about Changeling.

Never woke up...

Okay, this damn near killed me.

Mon, 06 Aug 2007 09:59:46 GMT

I don't know how long it's been a since I LOL'd for real, but this had me guffawing like a super villain.

No, I never did this.

Bloody Sephiroth.

Are your socks more well travelled than you are?

Sun, 05 Aug 2007 09:32:35 GMT

Shamus Young has a fascinating dissection of the migratory habits of the common sock today.

The diameter of the chamber in my clothes dryer is about 2 feet, or 0.6 meters. The circumference is roughly 1.9 meters. Movement in there is pretty chaotic, but we can simplify things by assuming that items travel halfway around (from the bottom to the top) and then drop down to the bottom again. So, for one revolution an item will travel half the circumference plus the diameter. About 1.5m. When running, the dryer seems to do a revolution every two seconds. This works out to 42.6m a minute. A typical drying session lasts about 45 minutes, which means that items typically travel just over 2km - about 1.2 miles - while being dried.
This means my socks do most of their travel while I am not wearing them.
I could even this out by washing them less often, but this solution is unpopular with others. I could also balance things out by getting out more, but that solution is unpopular with me.

I'm certainly aware that with line-drying my socks are certainly outdoors more than I am, so this is pretty thought-provoking...

..slowly, and surely, they drew their plans against us...

Thu, 19 Jul 2007 06:49:06 GMT

Why!?

Why do I want to go and see Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of The Worlds, Live on Stage!?!

It's insane. I hate being in crowds, my hearing damps out most amplified performances to an irritating sine wave, and have a fondly held notion that "musical theatre" is neither.

Besides, I'm extremely cheap. And paying money I don't have for an intangible (and untested) "experience" never struck me as smart.

Is it simply that having been exposed to it's twiddly prog-rock glories at a tender age has rendered me vulnerable to madness?!

Have I the brain worms?

If this didn't exactly describe the last couple of weeks at work....

Sun, 08 Jul 2007 10:46:02 GMT

Your results:
You are An Expendable Character (Redshirt)

An Expendable Character (Redshirt)		85%
Jean-Luc Picard		55%
Mr. Scott		55%
Geordi LaForge		55%
Leonard McCoy (Bones)		50%
Chekov		45%
Data		42%
Will Riker		35%
James T. Kirk (Captain)		35%
Spock		32%
Uhura		30%
Beverly Crusher		25%
Deanna Troi		20%
Worf		5%
Mr. Sulu		0%

Since your accomplishments are seldom noticed,
and you are rarely thought of, you are expendable.
That doesn't mean your job isn't important but if you
were in Star Trek you would be killed off in the first
episode you appeared in.

Click here to take the Star Trek Personality Test

Over-hyphenated ramblings...

Sat, 16 Jun 2007 11:28:00 GMT

Just dropping in to share some Flash game goodness.

Hoshi Saga is a collection of little puzzles with a single purpose; find the star. Simple, and beautifully so.

Mindscape is a wacky little platformer with Invader Zim-esque styling and mind-bending twist in game play.

And I also rediscovered Nanaca Crash, a charming little anime themed game in which a hapless student is propelled hundreds of meters through the air after you hit them on a bicycle. Frighteningly, you can do this more than once a run. And in mid-air.

These were all ganked from a site called JayIsGames which has pretty good explanation and strategy discussion for the last, if you think it needs it.

And thanks to debxena for helping me sort out my hyphens.

Laughed? I could have ascended.

Tue, 01 May 2007 09:47:14 GMT

I just spent a cosy evening with Richard Dawkin's two-part TV series The Root of All Evil, in which he jets around the world being a pissy atheist. It was pretty funny, and I must credit him that certainly managed to lock horns with theists who were prepared to be just as pissy.

Nothing remotely revelatory (duh) in there, though the appearance of genuine "Hell Houses" that I'd come across through Something Positive was nicely creepy. The guy presumably playing the devil was a complete ham and appeared to be enjoying himself WAY TOO MUCH.

I should probably read some of his actual books on genetics and evolution at some point, but since I appear to be getting my world view from web comics these day it might be too late for me.

Since it fell of the back off the Internets it still had the voice-over channel promo from it's first screening. Which is a great thing, because otherwise I'd have missed the announcer stumble through this little gem:

"Turn over to More4 now where historian Michael Burleigh argues that a faithless world has lead to a collapse in the fabric of society; 'A Dark Enlightenment'.

[Read in a faster, clipped manner as though control is slipping.]

Channel 4 next; Celebrity Big Brother.'"

Sold! Which trump was that again?

Troubles at home, son?

Wed, 07 Mar 2007 05:38:02 GMT

"A man accused of a stealing underwear from a shop in a knife point raid believed he was a female elf at the time, Belfast Crown Court has heard."

Elf defence for 'lingerie thief'

As much as I have to share the tale of a man driven to steal underwear by his Shadowrun character, this has a fascinating legal twisting as well.

The accused claims not to remember the events, but the prosecution 'claim that Mr Boyd knew "perfectly well" what he was doing on the day of the robbery and was "using this memory loss scenario to avoid answering very difficult questions".'

...like why he was stealing frilly apparel for fictional friend? They could be walking straight into something there.

It might all come down to who's size the garments were in the end.

I bet Judge Ito's glad he's not trying this one.

The Horror

Mon, 25 Sep 2006 10:29:24 GMT

If, and I must stress *only* if, you wish to spend the rest of your life picturing Spock as a twitching, autistic, heroin addict who habitually beats Kirk, his vapid, narcissistic, man-child boyfriend to the tune of "Closer" by Nine Inch Nails, follow this link...

Closer (Fan Vid)

On the other hand, you could risk going to your grave happy.

Thanks, debxena

Let me count the ways...

Mon, 31 Jul 2006 10:26:48 GMT

Okay, I'll admit to having seem a fair amount of Spam in my day, it it just me thinking has it been getting weirder lately?

No, I'll stretch that to wilfully surreal. Like they are trying to pull some sort of psychic ring-out so you will be powerless not to buy their shonky products?

I just laughed my arse off at this piece of "enticing" advertising.

Hi there lovely,This kind of opportunaitcyc comes ones in a life. I daon't want to miss it. Do you? I am coming to your placae in few days and I though may be we can meet each other. If you don't mindI can send you my picture. I am a giarl.You can correspond with me using my email nom@glorymorningz.com

What's a nice giarl like you doing in a placae like this? I has no idea what a "giarl" is but it had better stay away from whatever the frell my "placae" is or it'll know all about missed "opportunaitcyc", I can tell you.

Other gems include;

One entitled "great denunciation" from someone styled "antisemtic", with the bad-ass address of "backwaterborneo at scientist dot com", flaunting stock tips.

Another one entitled "shame of sex? we can change it" - which is a pretty radical solution, especially when they only offer pills.

Or even "FearsThe Urban Etiquette Current" (more stock tips), "religion" sent by "Machines Graphics" (more little blue pills), or "early magical drug." being flogged by "authority take" (pills, pills, pills).

But these randomly generated babbling haikus are infinitely less sad than glimpsing a recognisable fragment of "The Hobbit" woven into yet another little blue pills pitch.

Well, less sad than being too damn lazy and short of entertainment to block the damn things in first place, I suppose...

This is how we do it downtown...

Sat, 08 Jul 2006 03:57:49 GMT

In a misguided attempt to look in on Douijn Overload, the local amateur manga festival, being held at the Mecure Hotel tomorrow, I found myself wondering around Custom Street at 11am this morning with just enough V in my system to keep me moving. Bafflement ensued...

It probably wasn't entirely my fault I was a day out,as there are posters floating around that have the wrong day on them, but I felt pretty silly anyhow.

However, I decided to have a walk around and, since I hadn't yet, have a squint at the
Britomart thingumy. As advertised, aggressively modern architecture, whacky sky-lights, and oodles of glass. And virtually no people. Almost completely deserted. There were, in point of fact, more people in Marbecks, two blocks away. It was like one of those B-grade post-apocalypse movies shot in deserted public places after hours.

Wandering around a deserted space that large was quite an unnerving experience, no doubt fueled by a can of V and half a bag of sour sweets, the breakfast of wanna-be paranoids. It was also really rather hard to imagine the city is getting it's moneys worth from the place when it's a ghost town at nearly midday on a Saturday. Especially when the rest of Queen street and Custom street seemed quite populous.

I guess trains really are just for commuting...

This is just like the Father Christmas deal, all over again...

Sat, 01 Jul 2006 03:11:23 GMT

You might want to sit down for this ... Did you know there is no such thing as a Brontosaurus?

I feel so *betrayed*.

Nah-uh, what you though was the much loved Brontosaurus is actually a misnamed chimera of a bones, largely belonging to an Apatosaurus, aptly meaning "deceiving lizard", assembled by publicity crazed palaeontologist.

I found this out, which was apparently established as scientific fact the year *before* my birth, while reading through Diesel Sweetie's recent dinosaur fetish, which just goes to show you that you can learn something from web-comics.

Cat And Girl managed to remind me that you probably aren't going to learn anything good though.

Anyhow, the Santa Claus thing? As in the no-existence of? I can't remember ever not knowing, or being traumatised by the revelation.

No. For me it was a damn dinosaur...

More Hosenbügler!

Sun, 16 Apr 2006 09:28:24 GMT

Lovely debxena and I just finished watching Bill Bailey's "Part Troll" live performance DVD, supplied to us by the kindly doc_spatial.

As advertised, it was mad fun.

We are now currently hanging out even more for Dylan Moran's show on Friday.

You know you're pretty deep in the Dork Forest...

Wed, 29 Mar 2006 11:18:51 GMT

...when you are listening to a dark ambient concept album about a band of Orcs marching against a vampires castle.

If it's in the protagonists native tongue you may have gone too far.

"Za Shum Ushatar Uglakh" by Swedish group Za Frûmi ("The Spirits") is the first part of an epic musical saga with lyrics entirely in Orcish. And copious liner notes to tranlate.

And based on the mp3 off the site, it's not bad, actually... ...though it makes feel like I should looking for a quest item or some such. And if you want to baffle someone who likes to play games of "guess the obscure world music, you pleb", this would be perfect.

http://www.waerloga.com/zafrumi/index.htm

Science Heroes and Underwear-perverts

Sat, 25 Mar 2006 06:42:45 GMT

Apparently the more common phrase used to refer to people with their under garments on the outside has been trademarked sometime in the mid 60's (and the plural in 1979) so I'm clearly out of touch here. It's a little harder to get outraged about a gigantic travesty of common sense, which incidentally pretty much defies the ideal the now trademarked individuals are supposed to symbolise, when it's been a done deal for longer than you've been alive but I'm working on it anyway.

In the meantime feel free to follow the link below and laugh at the capes on their bad days.

www.superdickery.com

I am a voice in their choir...

Fri, 24 Mar 2006 09:48:24 GMT

Well, here I am.

Whether it was reckless or not, I made a pledge to my lovely debxena to start an LJ (why does that sound better if you treat it like it starts with a vowel?) and here it is.

Well, it's not much to look at but I intend to use it to forge the up-coming BtVS RPG game into some sort of giant fighting robot and go destroy a neighbouring metropolis.

Gah, I pretty much aired out all my fixations in one go there didn't I? I guess that's why when at parties I claim to be employed designing land-mines shaped like children's toys, people are way passed the flinching stage.

Okay, I don't do that. But sometimes I want to.

Speaks volumes, really.

We are, we are. The many sings to us...