fish and plankton and sea greens and proteins from the sea

OH GOD NO NOT THE BEES NOT THE BEES

Sat, 11 Jul 2009 21:56:32 GMT

My Nicholas Cage Moment of the day:

I'm using my dad's truck to move my mom's furniture. I go to put gas in the tank. I open the gas flappy door thingie (do those things actually have a name?) AND INSIDE IS A BEE'S NEST AND SEVERAL VERY ANGRY AND PISSED OFF BEES.

Needless to say, I coasted home rather than risk annoying the bees further.

/oslo

The Carls are a'flutter about Persona 4. This comic is about me, if I were playing Persona 4, which apparently has an interior decorating mini-game, which apparently would appeal to my tastes in gaming. I am the Helmet Dude.

I only play video games where the collection of furniture/pretty dresses is a sufficient percentage of playtime. Someday I'll write a TTRPG entirely about my obsession.

Sat, 11 Jul 2009 04:22:57 GMT

New userpic.

"Get Me Hennimore!" is the awesomest fake television show that should actually exist.

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 07:30:30 GMT

So, today I mowed the lawn, which was the biggest mistake I've made in a very long time.

I wound up feeling like I had somehow had a magical brick teleported into my sinuses. My eyes were burning, I couldn't breathe out of my nose, and I was sneezing every five seconds for 15 minutes. This is not an exaggeration.

Anyway, after downing some Claritin, which might as well have just bounced, I decided it was time to take matters into my own hands and track down the damn Neti-Pot. I did this because last time I felt like this, I got an ear infection, and I was in bed for two weeks in absolute agony. I'm due for my every-other-year ear infection fairly shortly, since I'm one of those guys who just rarely gets sick. Allergies, yes. Sick, no. I'm not going to allow my allergies to mutate into sick, which has happened.

This horrible device hails from the Far East, where nasal irrigation is apparently the coolest thing ever. It consists of a little blue plastic pot, with a tight lid, and 100 packets of sodium chloride and baking soda, which is put into lukewarm water and rammed up the nose. I'm surprised there isn't any gay porn fetishes growing up out of this procedure, it's just so damn ludicrous looking that you'd just assume that somebody somewhere is jerking off to the Neti-Pot.

So, after preparing the packing and the lukewarm water, I proceed to ram the spouty end of the tea pot up my nostril, and allow the water to swish and swash around in my nasal canals, and indeed it works. I could feel vast glaciers of whatever the hell was in my nose slowly breaking up and drizzling down. The problem, however, was that I also felt as if I was being waterboarded, and my "Help help I'm drowning!" mechanisms starting to kick in.

There you have it. Possibly the strangest thing I've done in a while: stick a tea pot up my nose.

Sun, 05 Jul 2009 04:46:17 GMT

The Ravenite Social Club, meeting place for gangsters such as Carlo Gambino and John Gotti, is now a Starbucks.

Sigh.

Sat, 04 Jul 2009 23:18:52 GMT

Jul 4 1984

For the first time, Nancy Reagan utters the immortal words: "Just say no."

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 23:40:06 GMT

Lol, somebody just referred to adorablepuppies as "sophisticated".

So damn many things can be referred as "sophisticated", but adorablepuppies is not one of those things.

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 19:08:04 GMT

Forward this to everybody you know. This needs to be the new "Mission Accomplished". Throw this in their faces.

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 07:01:23 GMT

adorablepuppies continues. Read it.

Holy. Fucking. Pissing. Shitting. Christ. On. A. Pogostick. Crap.

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 13:44:31 GMT

No words... should have sent... a poet.

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 07:17:58 GMT

Sorry I haven't updated the LJ in awhile, I've been busy painting, drawing and playing Wii. Most specifically, I'm playing Wii Fit and Paper Mario on the Virtual Console.

While the N64 was by and large a forgettable system, what it did excel in was eccentricity. The N64 established Nintendo's future tendency toward insularity and self-referentialism. With the sheer weirdness that is Majora's Mask and the oddball idiosyncracy of Conker's Bad Fur Day, Paper Mario is possibly the strangest of them all.

I enjoyed this game back in college during a Christmas break, and I recall it being a pleasant bit of fluff then. Now, it's downright sunny. Everything about this game is warm and friendly and accessible. For an RPG, it's clever and efficient. Nintendo's RPGs, including Pokemon, are very stripped down as far as RPGs go. Paper Mario takes the stripped, power-by-possession rules of Pokemon and sucks it down into an even more compact form. There's tons of customization and exploration possibilities, but it's not anywhere near as fiddly as other video game RPGs tend to be.

As for Wii Fit, I'm up to 30 minutes a day, and I've just unlocked the Island Lap, so I'm coming out of it just drenched. I'm absolutely awful at yoga, I'm getting better at the strength exercises, but where I really have fun is the aerobics exercises. The step aerobics are a DDR style rhythm game and the island jog is downright charming. I adore it.

Sat, 27 Jun 2009 22:33:52 GMT

Well, I got the Wii Fit for my birthday.

On the downside, it says that I'm overweight (duh). On the plus side, it says my "physical age" is 28, which is good news on one's 29th birthday. It has a time piggy bank on it, so that you can keep track of how much time you spend on it and don't underutilize/overspend yourself on it. My ideal time is 30 minutes a day, with three segments spent on the jogging game.

I really can't recommend it enough, it's pretty nice for those of us who don't really see ourselves in with the gym crowd. My main problem with starting just about anything, be it music lessons or exercise or anything involving a time investment on a regular basis, is that I hate being instructed. Give me the basics, tell me what I need to do and how often, and I'll figure it out myself.

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 23:17:30 GMT

This is just too bizarre to be believed.

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 12:33:14 GMT

Three adorablepuppieses done.

No, there will never be puppies in it. Bunnies, kitties and a raccoon shaped hand puppet, but no puppets.

That hand puppet is a cock.

Coil of Embrace

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 23:18:16 GMT

From a discussion on the White Wolf forums, where a nitwit had a ludicrous idea for a Coil that didn't make any sense but had a spark of originality to it, here's my take on this rather original idea for a new Coil.

Coil of Embrace

The Coil of Embrace is a relatively experimental Coil that, as yet, has a great many sketchy proponents and few actual scientific Control experiments with which to deduce whether or not this Coil should be pursued as "legal" within the Ordo Dracul. The official ruling from the Sworn of the Mysteries has yet to arrive. It is clear, however, that they are observing the results and seeing just what exactly can be done about it.

The chief moral concern that the Sworn of the Mysteries holds is the worry that the Ordo Dracul's newfound abilities of Embrace might cheapen and lessen the impact of the Great Work as a whole. More vampires in the world, and more vampires in the world with access to spurious Coils, slackens the Ordo's control over its teachings. This is, without a doubt, the most worrisome detail.

First Tier: The Warmest Chill

With this tier, the Dragon does not need to feed the monthly maintenance Vitae to his ghouls. The ghoul will still need to procure Vitae from his Regnant as usual, but on an as-needed basis or in preparation for necessity, with all threats of Vinculum intact.

Second Tier: The Curse Lightened

The second tier allows a vampire to Embrace another childe without the expenditure of a Willpower dot. The Sworn of the Mysteries are obviously distressed about this new discovery, since profligate Embraces run a risk of the Masquerade.

Third Tier: The Embrace of Death

Perhaps the most controversial Coil, and the one the Sworn of the Mysteries most vehemently question, The Embrace of Death turns Diablerie on it's ass and into something far more hideous. Even worse, it can't be proven anyone has it until they're being Diablerized.

Upon a successful attempt to Diablerize the Dragon with this Coil, the Dragon is allowed a roll equal to the total number of her Coils, contested against the Diablerist's Blood Potency. If more successes are gained in favor of the Dragon, the Dragon's soul immediately transfers into the body of the would-be Diablerist. The mental/social Disciplines of the Dragon are lost, however, the physical Disciplines of the Diablerist are kept. Furthermore, the Dragon's Coils are maintained and immediately adopted by the new host body. No Diablerie marks the new Dragon's aura.

I'm forcing you to watch this, because I hate you and want you to suffer.

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 21:48:03 GMT

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 02:34:58 GMT

It occurs to me that a vampire could theoretically live on a diet of gravy, since gravy is just blood and flour/cornstarch.

Imagine the KFC vampire.

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 02:01:45 GMT

Sun, 21 Jun 2009 08:25:08 GMT

A secret code dropped by Neil Gaiman today, next time you're in New Orleans (I know, right?), go to the Green Goddess restaurant (yes) and say "Mezze of Destruction" to the bartender. Enjoy the absinthe.

Sometimes, it's like the things I pull out of my ass have a weird way of manifesting into reality. Hopefully you get to see the gallery of Jimmy Vellum, too.

....geeeeet.... reeeeeady....

Sun, 21 Jun 2009 03:29:27 GMT

This is truly something magical.

Sat, 20 Jun 2009 21:01:08 GMT

A good day for macabre history

Sat, 20 Jun 2009 07:07:22 GMT

Jun 20 1756

In Calcutta, 146 British prisoners are placed in a 18 foot by 14 foot cell known as The Black Hole by a Bengali, Siraj-ud-daula, and held there until the following morning. Of those imprisoned, only 23 survive.

The original tourist trap.

Jun 20 1893

Lizzie Borden is acquited of murder. The jury of public opinion, however, is still out.

Lizzie Borden took an axe
And gave her father forty whacks;
And when she saw what she had done
she gave her mother forty-one

Jun 20 1947

Bugsy Siegel is shot to death at Virginia Hill's mansion, on orders from Meyer Lansky. Siegel gets it twice in the face, and his right eyeball ends up on the dining room floor.

The original Moe-Green-Special.

Jun 20 1993

Vince Foster, Deputy White House Counsel for President Clinton, apparently commits suicide with an unnumbered pistol at Fort Marcy Park in Virginia. Foster's empty briefcase later turns up at the White House. But after it is searched again, it is miraculously found to contain his suicide note.

...and thus begins the Clinton Murder Sprees, which suspiciously end the second Barack Obama becomes a leading candidate and Republican conspiracy theorists have to quickly change tack out of shock...

A poignant observation.

Sat, 20 Jun 2009 04:47:11 GMT

Outrider: it must be hard to be a filmmaker in hollywood today and to know that no matter how much money you spend or what actors you get or how hard you try that you will never come close to surpassing "Uncle Buck"

Cross posted from the NCN "Twilight" conversation.

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 06:22:54 GMT

I think my point was that by removing the one thing that kills vampires dead, sunlight allergy, the disadvantages of being a vampire are incredibly few. It's not a bad thing to be a Meyerpire, and that's probably what is most artificial and weird about it.

She's like a gothy Thomas Kinkade. It's just a little too cozy. The Germans have a word for it, I wish I could remember what it was, but it translates to "the coziness that frightens". Being smothered to death by Norman Rockwell.

The core thematic of the vampire mythos is that of the Faustian bargain. The vampire gets immortality but at the price of never again seeing the sun or sharing the communion of broken bread. If you take out the weaknesses of the vampire, and you make sure he's a "vegetarian" (oyyyyyyy), you lose the entire point of the vampire. You might as well just bypass calling it a vampire altogether, and the success of the Highlander films is testament to that. Highlander is about creatures with immortality and very few weaknesses. It's not a Faustian bargain.

Anne Rice, despite her myriad flaws, caught this detail very early on, and while the later books turn into cast-of-thousands fantasy epics, Interview With The Vampire seized this thematic and ran with it. Yes, she was inserting erotica and purple prose, but at heart it's just Faust's bargain.

Meyerpires, and indeed any of the YA vampires being thrown out by the bushel right now, are missing that fundamental crux upon which the whole point of the exercise hinges.

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 07:51:47 GMT

After months of Brianna hectoring me, my webcomic is at last up and operational.

adorablepuppies

Updating Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. I have two months worth of comics stacked up, so hopefully I won't fall under my "instant burnout" system.

Let us bow our heads in remembrance

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 02:14:38 GMT

Jun 16 1999

The founder of the United Kingdom's Monster Raving Loony Party, one Screaming Lord Sutch (real name David Edward Sutch, 3rd Earl of Harrow), is found hanged at his late mother's residence. Sutch was the longest lasting party leader in the UK at the time of his death, ruled a suicide. One of the Loony Party planks was to ask rhetorically, "Why is there only one Monopolies Commission?"