Dead City Scrolls

Sweet Christ I have not updated seriously in a while.  Been busy writing other things.  Don’t worry blog, you’re not abandoned yet.  Here you go, have a lazy-ass Links of the Day entry.

http://network.nature.com/blogs/user/rpg/2008/04/03/my-spaghetti-takes-up-more-room-than-yours “And my catchphrase — I yearn to learn how the worm sperm turns — is now obsolete. Time to find another.”

phun is fun.

so is foldit.  and you can help science while you play!  hooray!

via William Gibson’s blog: “The street finds its own uses for things but…*ouch*. “

When gay marriage is outlawed, only gay outlaws will be married.

the results are in.  This seems like something I’d be willing to put some money down on next year.

I have have a hard time convincing people to watch Canadian television shows, because people have seen Canadian television shows before.  I understand and accept your reluctance to believe me, but please trust this: ReGenesis is amazing.

Wikipedia describes it well: “NorBAC (The North American Biotechnology Advisory Commission), a fictional organisation with a lab based in Toronto. The organisation investigates problems of a scientific nature, such as bio-terrorism, mysterious diseases or radical changes in environment throughout Canada, the United States, and Mexico. NorBAC is headed by David Sandström (played by Peter Outerbridge), the chief scientist and molecular biologist. Through this character the show often addresses topical social, political and ethical issues related to the science at hand.”

But that doesn’t really do it justice.  It’s very smart and absent all of the “look, these people are doing SCIENCE! (You don’t have to understand it just go along with it)” moments that shows like CSI have, and keeps the “it’s okay if you don’t understand, it’s just here to make it look realistic” science dialogue to a minimum without dumbing things down.  How does it do that?  It demands that you actually understand the science it’s talking about at least in a v. basic way.

Very brilliantly written characters.  The main character is a legitimate asshole a lot of the time, but he’s still very sympathetic.  It’s not a House style pop culture character study, he’s just very well developed.  There are some other outstanding characters, and the directing is pretty clever for a TV show.

Imagine if CSI were on a large scale, and also daring and unusual and truly thoughtful and AMAZING.  First and fourth seasons are especially good.

I haven’t been updating much lately because I am writing and because new version of Opera backwards indents.  I hit enter and it takes everything down a line.  Whaaat?  I hate new Opera.  It’s got all the features of old Opera: slightly worse!

The Outbursts of Everett True.  Historical!

I Dream of Barack

Uwe Boll’s Postal picks up top awards at Hoboken.  Can anyone confirm whether Hoboken is an actual film festival?  If it is, do they give non-ironic awards?  Folkar figures Uwe Boll is actually a brilliant director who’s intentionally trolling basically the whole world, but videogame people in particular.  I think that would be fucking amazing, and I’ve been wondering whether someone like that has ever existed.  A person talented enough and willing enough to become famous and dedicate their carreer to being reviled or mocked.  It seems like it must have happened at some point, right?

Science teacher fired for burning cross into student’s arm, but not for the two decades+ of crazy mental patient behavior prior to that.  I can’t even get my rage up for this one.  It just makes me really sad.

BeatriceOdello: The first thing I read was #150. I have to say it seems to be the best one too.
BeatriceOdello: “He is really productive.”
Boneyard Jones: Hahah! Yeah, Jesus, that’s weird.
Boneyard Jones: “That man was Barack Obama.” Like it’s an action movie trailer.

I’ve been trying to make a dangerous and terrifying dragon in Spore.  I have so far only succeeded in making him dangerous and adorable.

He seems so happy to exist. Everything about himself makes him happier than anything has ever made me.

Also:

His name is Harmless Flowers.

Improvidence: What a disguise!

Bee species outnumber mammals and birds combined

Miracle Fruit.  I bet this thing would be outlawed for some reason if it ever got popular in the States.

Duck confit & cassoulet, as made by Tony Bourdain and Michael Ruhlman.

Spore creature creator demo.  This is how I’ve spent most of today and yesterday.

Disclaimer: this replay no longer works with current versions of Warcraft 3.

The first fully annotated replay of many or not very many or just this one to come!

Bane Escapes! STARRING!: Rudra as Invoker! Dodger3 as Alchemist! Gram as Thanatus as Pudge! Fortinbras as Bane Elemental AKA Murderghost! And introducing living quasi-sentient garbage as Drow!

Early game: Watch Bane Elemental and Alchemist. See why Fortinbras is so much happier than everybody else. Great First Blood at 9m.

13:40ish: Brutalities in top lane.

15:00: Invoker has an idea. Pudge has a hook.

18:00: Pudge hooks a Tinker.

20:00: Every terrible thing that exists converges on mid lane.

20:40: Pudge sinks a very nice hook into Troll Warlord. Drow the DotA prodigy ignores it and troll escapes.

20:50: Fortinbras says a bad word.

21:30: Hi-larious kill on Tinker by Bane and Alchemist.

INTERMISSION: Some fat guys meet in the woods and have a pleasant conversation.

23:00: Fatsos inflict terrible violence on unsuspecting Furion and Tinker.

26:20: Highlight! Pudge gets an epic hook on a doggy.

28:00ish: Drow doesn’t need to help teammates in need or get any kills, he’ll carry the game later!

30:00: Pudge jukes a troll for about a minute straight, but then some jackasses show up.

33:30: Brutal team fight near Roshan.

34:30: Great hook.

35:40: Somebody buys a gem… because of Invoker?

46:50: Highlight! Bane gets a beautiful double kill and then performs the greatest escape ever witnessed. Drow almost bones it royally.

49:00: Fun, not very productive team fight in bottom lane.

51:30ish: Furion gets hurt. Really bad.

53:00: Pudge and Bane harm a werewolf, which leads to a great team fight.

55:20: Pudge and Bane get the fear.

57:00: Second Great Bane Escape.

1:00:00+: Lycan to Pudge: “Waaarrioooors! Come out to plaaaaaay!”

1:01:00: A dog and a goblin unwisely interrupt some of Pudge and Invoker’s business.

1:04:15: A troll is eaten and also hit by a meteor.

1:08:00: Awesome Alchemist escape leads to awesome kill on troll by Alchemist and Bane which segues into an unexpected and hilarious double kill on Furion.

1:11:45: Highlight! Pudge and Bane ult-disable Troll and Lycanthrope respectively, then when ults break swap and one-shot each other’s target.

If any good moments have been left out (I’m sure they have) or if you would like to add anything or comment on any of the things above or if you are that drow and are here to apologize, please do so!

I wasn’t planning to post any more of this for a while, but Alex was interested and was itching for some sinister doings.  Here’s something that might fit that.

“Never saw this place before. The city I mean. You see pictures of it around, they look almost as bad as it does now in a different sort of way. Except for the colour of it. It’s all different colours in the pictures, and now it’s gone all black and white and sepia. Seems backwards, doesn’t it, Cat?” The cat stopped infront of a big splintered double door and let him approach. He leaned the bike against the building, slung his bag onto the seat and sat on the dirty step to rest. Golden distance turning bronze as evening wore. Through the splintered door a narrow stair. On the wind a threat of sandstorms.
May would be travelling at night if she could, and he didn’t know his way as she did but he wanted to find her and so he wanted to travel at night as well. He could stay here if he could hide the bike inside. Check it first to see if anyone’s here, something said so strongly that everything else rattling around lazy and cumbersome in his head evaporated at the thought. He got the flashlight from the bag and gave the revolver a look over, checking with care to make sure his hands were placed properly on it.
The lobby was all grimy patterned tile and wood panelling. Railings from the stairs sat on the ground, twisted over into dust covered spirals. The cat bounded up the stairs and out of sight. He wanted to check the elevator to see if someone might be hiding there, but he could find nothing to pry the door open and, not thinking it a very likely hiding spot, he cleared the rest of the lobby and followed the cat up the stairs.
He was expecting hallways filled with branching rooms and found a big open room, once a cubicle farm. It would be much easier to check, but it seemed dangerous. An open space with plenty of places to hide. The cubicle walls had mostly come down, and he kicked the ones that someone could be under aside. He wanted to simply stamp on some of them but that cat was nowhere in sight, and he wouldn’t have forgiven himself for days for injuring it.
The supply closets were cleaned out, scrupulously well looted. One office had an empty lacquered stand that he thought he could imagine three cheap samurai swords sitting in. Another was very dark, and he remembered just then that he was still wearing the blast goggles. He lifted them to his forehead to find that there was nothing in there anyways. The third office door was blocked by something, and he had to shoulder it open. Smell of death wrapped strongly around him, familiar in a way that never got remotely more comfortable.
The setting sun through portrait windows lit the room in orange and cast long black shadows, and through the nauseating haze of stench he saw: this was not the smell of old death. He felt something heavy and cold on his shoulder, went forward and watched a section of pipe graze down the length of his arm. It was swinging back again for his head before he turned all the way to see. He fell back, aiming a kick at where he thought the attacker’s stomach might be. Cushioned by a tangle of bodies he had a moment to look at the stumbling assailant, something shambling back and forth, filthy and asexual. So caked with dirt they might have been assembled purely from shadows except for the wide pale blue eyes and flashing beige teeth. It brought its pipe down on his knee with both hands and he raised Gleason’s revolver and fired.
He’d expected noise and a lot of blood and maybe a ragged bit of gore depending on where the bullet hit. He found himself scrambling back away from the corpses and the thing with the pipe when he discovered the real function of the gun. It didn’t make holes. It took away limbs.  The shivering beast’s whole shoulder and bicep seemed to disintegrate in a fine red and white cloud, wished away by the shattering roar of the gun, scared out of existence by violence the sound of the shot and the explosive burst from the muzzle implied. The pipe and whatever shreds remained of the assailant’s arm fell into the bodies it had accumulated there and seemed immediately to match. He only noticed then that they, too, were missing a variety of parts. Eaten? Shadows in the room were getting longer as the sun fell further. In the sprawl of bodies and long black shadows his attacker might have vanished except for the bright and constant spray of blood and the ghastly howling coming from it, as asexual and inhuman as its appearance. Eaten.
He sat pressed tight against the window for a long time, unable to stop watching the awful thing twisting and wailing on the ground in front of him. Just as incapable of bringing himself to kill it or to find his legs and run.

Went to the beach with some friends this morning, and there was this spot, just a little trickle of water, where these huge dark green fishes were swimming up from the lake and sort of squirming through the sand to migrate into the pond.  One got its face kind of stuck, and I have no doubt it would have been fine in a couple seconds, but at that moment Abby POUNCED and grabbed it with both hands and heaved it over her head.  Then she went “RAAAGH FISH” and stamped over to the pond, and she threw it in.  Then she came back and told us triumphantly, “I helped nature!”

Byakko says: I got to save a fish once, although it appeared to be dead at the time
Fortinbras says: Neat! How did you save it?
Byakko says: I put it in the ocean! Fish like the ocean
Fortinbras says: That is a place that fish like a lot.
Byakko says: Sure is