Damn, Christmas movies

I'm watching Elf. It is the end when James Caan starts singing. And I am crying like a baby.

I don't dare go near It's A Wonderful Life any time soon.

Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid is on AMC. I think I'll watch that.

Riot Art

I have no idea who made this. If anyone does, please tell me so I can pass on the credit.

MIT hackers Zelda-brate the Wii

I realize this may be failing of mine, but I have never played a Zelda game in my life. I feel like I should. I know if I ever get a Wii (which I of course want... although a better digital camera would be better) the new Zelda will be on the top of my list.

But I do like MIT's history of 'hacks.' Eniviromental pranks. So the picture above is of the MIT dome with the Zelda Triforce on top. I have no idea what a "Triforce" is but I am assured that it is darn cool. Here are some more pictures. And here are some past video game related MIT hacks.

The Boy Who Cried "PWNED!"

I wrote this in response to a post in a video game forum. Just a quick knock out sort of thing.


Once upon a time there was a boy. It was his job at night to watch the sheep and make sure wolves didn't eat them. It was a sucky job. Bad pay, horrible hours, boring as hell. The bennies were good, s he stuck with it. And at least he wasn't at Starbucks.

But it was boring. So, to entertain himself, he decided to start yelling, "WOLF! WOLF! OMG! A WOLF IS GONNA EAT THE SHEEP!!!" All of the town folk come a runnin', pitchforks and torches and assault rifles ready. When they get there, the boy yells, "PWNED!" and laughs and laughs. The towns people are pissed because they were punk'd and didn't even get on MTV. Heck, they didn't even get on the Jamie Kennedy Experiment. And they were woken up from nice sleeps or had their love making interrupted. And these were people with really jobs, not minimum wage sheep watching BS.

Why they didn't fire the boy right then and there, I'll never know. Maybe they gave him a warning. Made him sign one of those official written warning forms. Most likely they didn't have much choice because no one in the town wanted the job and the temp agency would take a few days to fill the position. But whatever. They went back to bed, cursing the boy.

The next night, the boy is bored again, and not being smart enough to have brought a book or a DS or PSP or even a magazine or his iPod, he decides to do the joke again. (He also lacked a lot of creativity. A little too much of the toke toke, if you know what I mean.) So he cries out, "WOLF IN THE FIELD! WOLF IN THE FIELD! MUTHER F*CKIN' WOLVES IN THE FIELD!" And the towns people run out and the boy yells, "PWNED!! DOUBLE PWNED!!" and he laughs and laughs.

Okay, the towns people are really pissed. They promise that they will call the temp agency tomorrow and get this crap sorted out.

The next night, the boy is kickin' back, thinking that he is the next Dana Cook (because that is how is taste went, so sad), when he sees a whole pack of wolves enter the field. "Oh, crap," the boy says. And he starts to yell, "WOLVES! LOTS OF WOLVES! A WHOLE BUNCH OF THEM! OMG, THEY ARE REALLY EATING THE SHEEP! THE BLOOD! THE HORROR! THE SCREAMS! IT'S JUST LIKE JODI FOSTER SAID IN THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS! IT'S HORRIBLE!"

But the towns people didn't come. They just stuck ear plugs in there ears, cranked up their TV volume, put Spinal Tap on the stereo and turned it to 11. They'd been burned. And they hated the boy.

The boy was panicking, running around in a circle like a 5 year old girl... well, not a brave 5 year old girl. I've known little girls who were damn brave. So not like them. But he didn't see that the wolves had finished with the sheep and had encircled him. When he finally looked up, he saw their eyes, red with hunger, their teeth dripping in the blood and flesh of the sheep. And the boy said quietly, "I have pwned myself."

Best not go into the rest.

The Geek Holy Grail

To put as simply as possible, video game Lego Princess Leia in chainmail bikini table dances for Han Solo. Until we get he Optimus Prime / Lara Croft porn on the Enterprise, this will have to do.

(via GayGamer)

PS3 Launch a Success! (If by "success" you mean "bloody")

So the PS3 launched yesterday. I am sure it "sold out" in record time... easier to do when you ship half of the units you estimated. But don't worry. It appears most of the buyers were planning to sell them on eBay. So, one way to look at it, is that this is great for the economy. Think of the 100-200% price increase on eBay as a "fanboi tax."

I was going to post a list of incidents of violence at the launch, but GamePolitics did a fantasic job, so I shall just direct you there. And you can check out Destructoid's nice collection of vids.

(Note: the picture is of the Denver anti-chinese riots of 1880, which as nothing to do with the launch of the PS3... except for the controversy created by stories of Chinese nationals in Japan being paid to stand in lines to buy the PS3 in Japan. I googled images of riots and liked that one... there just happen to be the nice coincidence.)

One last thing...

I was playing with Say-It.com earlier. Good simple fun.

KHAAAN!

I am spent from writing all evening. It's going a bit better.

I wrote some fun scenes tonight. Conversation with all of the babies left in limbo after the Church got rid of Limbo. The torture of a lawyer (no, worries, Papa Six... I promised a friend I would torture her ex... and he happens to be a lawyer). A glimpse of Heaven. Last night I wrote a sex scene, which is such a pain, but at least it was funny and not horrific. A lot less drinking in this book. Almost none.

I hope to get to Mexico tomorrow or Sunday. It's going to be a combination of the wedding I went to in October and a school trip I took in high school. It will be similar to the Burning Man chapter in last year's book, but less trippy and more horrific. A combination or horrific and beautiful. That is kind of the contrast I am working on in this story. Extremes and extreme points of view. I have also turned 180 degrees on the whole Job thing.

Anywhozits (I should patent that word... I think of it as uniquely mine), I am going to crawl into bed with a pint of rocky road and watch Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan. I have never been a big Star Trek fan, especially Original Crispy, but lately I've been jonesing to see Wrath of Khan. I don't know why. It may be a reptilian brain thing.

Behind the scenes of "Make Love, Not Warcraft"

Last month, South Park had an episode dealing with the World of Warcraft. It was pretty dead on with tons of inside jokes. And, like the best South Park episodes, addressed real world issues in an intelligent and moronic way at the same time.

Anywhozits, there is a good artice about the making of the episode over at Machinima.com. Ths could be the way animation (at least television animation) is done in the future. Take a look.

(via Kotaku)

Will It Blend?

Usually the ads of the type "This knife can cut through a can!" or "This cleaner can clean 40 year old blood!" don't affect me. But BlendTec has a whole line of videos... blending everything. And I maybe sold. They blend just about everything. A can of Coke? Sure. 40 pens? Yep. An rake? Why not.

Their site is broken up into "Try at Home" and "Don't Try at Home." First let's look at a try at home one: An Extra Meal.
Now how about golfballs?
Yeah, I want one.

(via Gizmodo)

More Sci-Fi Cover Love

I'm not even sure how to describe this. It's a big pile of sci-fi covers. Put let your cursor settle, and it will pop-up. Click and get a larger view. I'll be playing with this all night while I wait to see if assorted Best Buys, Circuit Cities and EB Games erupt into more violence at midnight. 200,000 PS3s. Half a million people who have been standing in for 24 or more hours. This is not going to end well.

(via Wired)

So, O.J., how would have YOU murdered your wife?

So, O.J. Simpson is coming out with a book called If I Did It. Now that title can be read in a few ways. The nicest way is as the start of a sentence like "If I did it, then why did such and such happen" (like "why didn't the glove fit?"). That's the best spin I could put on it.

But then we get the announcement of the two part interview O.J. is doing on FOX. The intervie is being titled "O.J. Simpson: If I Did It, Here's How It Happened." Yep. Kind of puts the worst possible spin. But let's give it the benefit of the doubt.

But then we get this quote from FOX:

"O.J. Simpson, in his own words, tells for the first time how he would have committed the murders if he were the one responsible for the crimes," the network said in a statement. "In the two-part event, Simpson describes how he would have carried out the murders he has vehemently denied committing for over a decade."

I like do think the best of people. I like to think that our justice system works. I like to think that people operate from the best mortives and not crass commericalism. But...

IS HE FUCKING INSANE!?!

Sorry about that.

Withdrawal

It as only been two days, but I already feel withdrawal kicking in. I am trying to write up a storm. I haven't been updating my word count, in part because I'm feeling jinx by it for some insane reason. Also, I've started jumping all over the place chronologically and the book in currently in seven separate files.

Anywhozits, I am off to Harold night at UCB tonight. I need my fix.

Rabbit: A Reading Primer

Right of the bat: The Valet should not watch. I am telling you right now, you will not be happy about a minute in. Matt L., you might also not be so over joyed (depending on whether Hank Madison as assaulted anyone lately).

Astounding Covers

While researching the ol' novel to night (this morning?), I found a full collection of scanned covers from the sci-fi magazine Astounding... from 1930 to 2005. At some point when I am not dead tired, I am going to have to look at them all. But here's a taste.

"You can't get rich by working and love doesn't last forever"

To get you in the spirit for Christmas...Created by Finnish artists Tellervo Kalleinen and Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen. Most of it I related to. Not the sauna stuff. And thank got we don't have "TV licence inspectors."

(via Jonathan Carroll via Neil Gaiman)

Daily Show Update

If you watch tonight's show, you can hear a "woo" right after the announce says, "Novemeber 13th, 2006." That's me.

Update to the Update: You (or at least I) can hear me all over the place. Apparently I'm the loud ass.

"Don't make me get Mario out of the car!"

Again, another test of your nerdocity. What is the exchange rate for Mushroom Kingdom gold coins?

(via Destructoid)

Save a Piñata

Okay, you will have to have a touch of the nerd to understand why this is exra funny now.One funny thing is that it was made in 2003, so is not supposed to have any relationship to Viva Piñata. It is by Turnpike Films. They have other funny stuff you will probably be familiar with.

(via Kotaku)

At the Daily Show

I just got back from watching The Daily Show with Jon Steward being taped (thanks, Uday!). Very fun. He is a actually very funny and a very relaxed performer. There is a great bit tonight by Rob Riggle that is reminiscent of my Survivor application video.

Tina Fey was the guest and, now that I have seen her in person, she is still on my "list." Glasses. Why to I have a think for smart girls in glasses?

Anyway, you will see her tonight mention that while she was at Second City in Chicago, Stephan Colbert and Steve Carell were both main players there. She then went on to say that one of them was a "notorious ladies man," but she refused to say which. While Steward was talking to Colbert (not on tape... just before they did their end show capper), Steward asked him about it. With a mischievous childlike grin, Colbert burst out with...

"Carell would fuck anything that moved."

Sadly, you will not see that tonight.


Oh, and I forget to tell the Valet last night: I passed right by Joel Grey in the street yesterday afternoon. Does that count as "meeting"?

The Performance

I'm not going to recount the performance, but I thought it was great. Not perfect, but it demonstrated to us, as a team, that we can can be consistent. I know that sounds like weak praise but it isn't. It means that we have a very very solid base to work with. We showed that we fully understand the Herald and can only keep getting better at it. We had so great moves and great energy and little fear. I am insanely proud of ourselves.

I have to say that I am uber-happy with how my scenes went. At risk of sounding like an ass, I thought I rocked. In no small part due to John Roberts setting me up so magnificently. He gifted me with so much and so unselfishly... he basically wrote himself out of the scene by making me the most interesting thing. I'm just happy I didn't drop the ball. (For the curious, I played a young man is disgusted by old people who has just got job at a S&M club/retirement center. The bennies were just too good to pass up.)

PappaSix came out which was great. Sadly he had to return the 3 Rivers... so he missed another interesting night at the Garden. Highlights (in no order): Listing to the dichotomy of Casey's and Abra's music choices; Summer Lovin'; Larry and I running away from weird Marine/Washington Heights bar owner, leaving Casey alone with him... and then get Abra to go save her; Ginger-Balls; The Simpsons Movie trailer; and Vin's amazing interpretive dances.

All in all a great night.

(Oh, one final shout out to Chris Gethard. Great great teacher. Thank you for an amazing eight weeks.)

Yep, watch your back, righty

So, conservatives, just so you know... this is what we believe it.

Yes, we are just that scary.

Viva La France.

Robot Pulp Fiction

Just something for a Sunday afternoon.
Robots performing the "Royale With Cheese" scene from Pulp Fiction.
(courtesy of Glyphjocky)

In case you forgot what day it was...

If you are wandering around Chelsea at 5:15pm with nothing to do... you might as well catch a show... Is that really Chelsea? I don't know. It doesn't feel like Chelsea to me.

Virtual Property as Events

I am just fascinated by online realities like second life... even if I only spent a grand total of twenty minutes there. But it is on the edge of where a lot of us will be going, like it or not.

For awhile I have been ruminating on the importance of these worlds, trying to come up with a cohesive article n the subject. I'm not there yet. Maybe after November is done. But until I do, I think you should read Prokofy Neva's article in The Second Life Herald. It may not make 100% sense to you, as it is written by a Second Lifer for other Second Lifers, but give it a read. This my be the future of creative content.