Meanderings Archived
08/17/06 - 10/03/06
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Meanderings Archived
08/17/06 - 10/03/06 |
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Capote (2005)
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HCCAPTBSFI (How Come Cartoonists Are Paid To Be So Fucking Idiotic) CARTOON 1: So, Hillary and Bill are in bed, and Bill is reading like the newspaper, and it says on it “Bill gets Mad” or something, something about how he’s all pissed off, you know, cause he threw a fit in that interview or whatever, and he’s even got like a mad sneering look on his face, you know? And Hillary (I swear her face is like a moon in this one – the eyes are so perfect!) is all “You haven’t been this mad since I threw out your girls gone wild,” or maybe it was like “interns gone wild” or something… it was sooo good though. Got him again! I mean, his wiener absolutely killed his credibility as a human being. Forever! Like, he shouldn’t say anything, ever again. Ever. CARTOON 2: So, Paris Hilton is standing there, and it looks juuust like her, and there’s like two scientists standing there, and they’ve got charts and computers and whatnot, a picture of a mouse’s head and brain, and the one female scientist (she’s all fat and frumpy) is all, “We’re ready to map the next higher brain,” and the man scientists is like “Whaddaya say, Paris?” Cause, you know, the next higher brain would be like, Paris Hilton. Above a mouse I mean. Did they just finish looking in a mouse brain or something, in science for real I mean? I’m not 100%. But seriously, this cartoonist is like, one of the best. I like that hair behind the man scientist’s ears. I think this guy’s been doing it for years. Just gets better every time. He should be on TV after Letterman, maybe like an animated late night show? I don’t think they’ve done one of those before. CARTOON 3: Oh yeah, this one was kinda scary! This guy is in like a 711 or something, and he’s reading the paper, and it says something about bin Laden on the front, and the guy, he’s talking to someone, I think there’s a lady at the counter, and he’s all “I bet he’s just like hiding out, chilling out somewhere, laughing.” You know, laughing? Ooh. But that’s not even the creepy part – the guy, this guy – he’s Osama bin Laden! He’s like hiding out in America , or something. I mean, it looks like America. Er… wait. No, you know what I mean! Hahaha! I am not! Fuck you, whatever! CARTOON 4: I didn’t really get this one. Who is Bernie Ebbers? Did he like have really big eyes, cause everyone in this one’s got big eyes. And the little wheels on the car are so cute! Anyway I didn’t get this one, something about stockholders, prison… whatever. Next! CARTOON 5: Oh this one was good, I didn’t get it at first but then it sorta came to me, like dawned on me, I was laughing. Ok, so this one guy’s outside smoking cigarettes, and this other guy comes up, and he’s got some food, some French fries or something… and he’s all “want to smoke?” No, the guy with the cigarette says that. And the other guy is all “No, I wanted to eat some cheese fries.” And at first I was like, why does he have to eat those outside? And then, oh I forgot – there’s like a newpaper machine, one of those old quarter ones or whatever, and it says on it “Restaurant Ban on Trans Fats.” So I think the French fry guy is like a tranny! And he has to come outside to eat, cause they won’t let fat trannies in, or something. Where do you get cheese fries at anyway? Anyway, whatever. Trannies are weird, huh? That’s a weird word, Tranny. I think this one was probably like a smart comic, and I was laughing, but I don’t know if I got it got it. CARTOON 6: This one was kind of violent, huh? This one was about the white house report thing, or whatever, that was saying how if you kill terrorists it just makes other ones spawn, or get created, or whatever? Anyway, its like if you kill one, then more come out or something. Like on Goonies. I mean Gremlins! Gremlins. The one where the guy gets the little cute thing from the old Chinese… ok anyway! There’s like a dead terrorist in the middle, and then an American soldier is standing there, and I guess he shot him? And this guy from the national intelligence or whatever is like right there in Iraq or whatever, and he’s all “Look out, he’s gonna spawn.” Yeah, I didn’t know either! I had to look it up. It means like creating or giving birth. So maybe his legs are up because he’s going to have a baby? He’s got kind of a big tummy. I’m not sure. That would be scary, huh? Are all terrorists bisexual, or homogenized, or whatever? Comment on this entry... |
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DPs Are Hardcore (Here Comes A Bunch of 40k Bullshit) Arr, there be a 40k cityfight tournament at the end of the month using the latest Cities of Death expansion. After some deliberation I decided to field Chaos, because I haven't actually played with my *first army ever* in quite a while (I normally play against it in games with Mucky), plus I think it could be quite killer in a dense terrain environment. Over the years it’s grown to be about half "vanilla" Black Legion and half Khorne-loyal madmen. Not a bad place to start, but there were some necessary modifications before I took the traitors running through the urban jungle. First I finished up the base for my Chaos Dreadnought, complete with razor wire loops and entangled skeleton (pictured). Tactically he’s kind of a wild card, so I armed him with the less-expensive autocannon option. He could either shoot up light vehicles or infantry in the open or charge in after anyone holed up in a building (or just destroy said building using the wrecker stratagem). Then I had to convert two additional heavy-bolter toting Havocs to make four total for my squad of eight marines. Infiltrated into a good firing position, they will serve as my main firebase, and together with a power-weapon wielding champion they’ll hopefully be able to hold down a building and provide some good covering fire for all my advancing Khorne-nuts. Speaking of which, I’ll have eight berzerkers in a Rhino led by an aspiring champion. I had bought a Khorne champion model earlier in the summer, but I never got around to painting him because his right hand only held a chainsword. Well, any assault boss worth his salt needs an honest-to-blood-god Axe of Khorne! So I cut off the one on my old Khorne Juggernaught rider (who Mucky never really uses) and secured it to the champ on foot using little rare-earth magnets. Right now I’m in the process of finishing his paint job. The whole mess of them will have frag grenades so they can more effectively charge in after anyone hiding indoors. Also getting the paint-up is another Khorne biker, making a total of four including another AoK-wielding champion. Seeing as how they’ll probably be moving in and out of ruins, I decided to give them Skilled Riders rather than the usual Furious Charge. With frags they’ll be attacking simultaneously with any defenders in cover, so +1 initiative is pretty moot. I'll miss the +1 strength bonus, but I think it will be well worth it when I get to reroll the inevitable 1's from dangerous terrain tests and not have to kill off one or more of my bikers. At squad size 4, they have to be completely wiped out in order to prevent them from claiming or contesting a ruin. Thankfully the Flying Khornate Possessed squad is long finished. Unlike the bikers, these big bronze hosses will be able to jump clear over intervening terrain instead of having to go through or around. Together with the Demon Prince and the Biker squad, I should be able to claim several buildings quickly. They can all obviously hold their own in assaults. The Demon Prince is sort of a touchy subject… I want to use my old Bloodthirster model, but according to the description in the codex, the "Demonic Stature" attribute has to be represented by a model over 10 cm high on a 55mm base. I’ve got the right base size but he only comes up to about 7 cm on his tippy-toes. So I suppose I need to add some height or face complaints from any WYSWIG whiners that might whip out a metric ruler and try to DQ him. My plan now is to use some left-over material from my ruins (under construction as well) and stack him up on some rubble. All of the Khorne units will serve as possible gateways for a 10-strong squad of Bloodletters, nasty S5 demons that carry power weapons and make anyone within 12" of their arrival point have a bad time. If you get charged by Bloodletters, you’re gonna have a bad time. The remaining bulk of my army, strength and points-wise, is the 8-man Chaos Terminator squad. I can decide on their approach before each game depending on the mission and the enemy – if aggressively deep-striking seems like a good idea, I can pick that stratagem and hold them in reserve. If not, I can just sit them up in a building with the Havocs and *shazam* ain’t nobody getting in that muthafucka. With two twin-linked autocannons and a bunch of combi-bolters, they’re pretty damn shooty themselves. I finished a second Terminator champion a while back, using parts from Abaddon, Ahriman, an old Chaos Terminator model, and even the old Howling Banshees Phoenix Lord, Jain Zar. In the game he carries a Kai Gun (a S6 AP3 demon weapon) and balances out the other Champion who, with two lightning claws, is more specialized for assault. Unless they scatter off the table or into enemies, the Terms will be a big honking mess of rugged death for anyone to handle. Piddlier armies will be able to field many more models than mine, but on my side I’ve got tons of guns, chompy assault squads, and thick armor. Throw in a generous pinch of madness and there’s no stopping these fockers. Comment on this entry... |
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Loggins! I second A-Rod's emotion about Yacht Rock. All episodes must be watched and enjoyed, starting from the first, with a supreme quickness. It's imperative to your legacy as 80's youts. This is fucking brilliant. I was applauding at my computer as the show played. Comment on this entry... |
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Moonwalkers Out Of My Butt Don't get me wrong; I love it when the moon looms large and yellow on the horizon. I like it when things like rooftops or trees are silhouetted against it - messes with your perspective and really instills that sense of awe at how small we really are. What I do not love is some douchebag couple out on their roof dancing the boogaloo or whatever the fuck these two are doing, repeatedly over and over again in my peripheral vision as I'm trying to read a CNN article. And the goddamn thing is particularly insidious because I have to look over and see if the fat fat with dreads doesn't fall on her ass this time - which might even earn the ad a click - but she never does. It's always back and forth, back and forth, with this nauseating sliding motion that matches up so horribly with their actual steps it looks like they're on a conveyor belt. And what the shit does a pair of dancing nitwits have to do with refinancing anyway? I'll jump on the thought train - are we saying this couple is so happy about getting a mortgage loan that they're up on their roof dancing? I might be remiss if I didn't observe that his groove is somewhat suggestive - I guess dude's gonna get a lil' suh-in suh-in tonite? It all leads back to sex. Goddamn ads. So irritatingly distractive, it might as well be a popup any damn way. I'll balance all this negativity with some heartfelt praise for fucking NASA! Yes, an exclamation point for those beautiful bitches! Driving around Mars with these robotic geologists, it's incredible. Martian days are "sols!" Oh man... spectacular. Comment on this entry... |
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"Choking on the Sands of Time" or "The Two Shitty T'rones" Looking back through older Meanderings, I guess I never reviewed the original PS2 Prince of Persia. It was a good game, lots of puzzles and slow motion fighting, pretty fun. A story that was mostly sensible, up until the end anyway (I did beat it), but honestly I forget what came to pass with the plot. So when the sequel, The Two Thrones, started off right from that point with no plot refresher, I already had no idea what was going on. That combined with the fact that the cutscene dialog is a different output than the game sound (so it comes out much quieter) meant that I really just gave up on keeping track of the evolving plot. But I don't think there was much of one anyway. Just a bunch of wall-running. There's sand monsters and fighting, but it's not as fun as the first one. And plenty of times when you die you've got to repeat a cutscene that you can't skip through... arghh. And then there's some you can! It makes no sense and just adds to the half-assed feel of the whole game. I tortured myself through the whole thing, and when I finally beat it, it was like stomping a nasty bug. Don't bother playing it. Comment on this entry... |
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How the Fuck You Goin Cross the Dog With Some Bone Shit Back to Meanderings. The last few weeks has been a blur of work, Lost, 40k, and bearding. I'll talk a little about each. Work is going well. Lately I've hit a few new levels; the learning curve is straightening out a bit at a time. I'd love to be more candid but I don't really feel like dishing it on the interwebs. I will say that I participated in my first potluck last week, and considering how grousy and antisocial some of these engineers can be, it went over quite well. The resplendent diversity up there payed off handily and there was plenty of exotic dishes. Had some curried rice and chicken that was amazing. Much more enjoyable than the old UHCU events where main dishes consisted of tepid, chewy microwave tacquitos and expired veggie trays that stank up the office for two days. Also, my high score at MS Pinball is 14.5 million now. Beat that and take a screenshot, I dares ya! Captain rank, beatch. Lost is fucking amazing as always. We're burning through the second season DVDs as fast as possible to try to make it before the third begins. Somehow I made it through the first network run of the 2nd season without finding out about the second group of survivors... I would have never expected the entire original cast to be completely shadowed by newcomer Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje... amazing character, love the Jesus stick. I've played in 40k tournaments the last two weekends. First was the DL vs TH event, pitting qualifiers from the two stores against eachother in a two-day extravaganza. It was a new experience to play in a two-day event, but overall it was so-so. Our team (DL) didn't have enough players to begin with so the son of a TH player was recruited for us. And in my personal opinion, only one of the opposing teams' members had reasonable army composition... Meh. I did win Best Army (the painting/composition category). Pictures here. Then yesterday I played in a normal monthly DL tournament. Got a nice crushing victory, a draw, and a loss by solid victory. Altogether not too shabby but not enough to win a category. Pictures here. If you like great creative writing about a number of topics, fiction and non-fiction, I heartily recommend the magazine The Oxford American. I just got their music issue in the mail and it came with a ridiculously great music compilation. I expected it to be something like a bunch of new southern bands, but it's all archivey kinda shit, including jazz, R&B, country (Gary Stewart's got a great track on there - "Single Again"), and novelty pieces. This last one has a ridiculous swing number by Andy Griffith, "Mama Guitar." Very silly shit. The writing in the magazine is excellent. Comment on this entry... |
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Confedererated One of the perks of having school all wrapped up has been the freedom to watch tons of tennis over the last week. It helped that it was the US Open, and that all the great games were on prime-time TV. Some ridiculously epic matches, starting with Agassi over Baghdatis, which apparently became the last game Andre ever won in his career. And it was awesome. Sensational gets, great play from both guys. Didn't see Andre lose to Becker, but I did get to watch Roddick send "the other B. Becker" home in the 4th round. I saw several more early round games, including a spectacular match between Blake and Federer that went to four sets, Federer's first in the tournament. Alas, American tennis lost out in the end, regardless of Jimmy Connors' return to the court as Roddick's consulting coach. Blake and Roddick both fell to R-Fed's mighty Swiss axe and the magician became the first man ever to win three consecutive years at both the Wimbledon and US Open slams. Fucking amazing. It's a great time to be a fan. Even if you didn't watch any of the matches you'll probably hear about the new Hawkeye instant replay system they incorporated into gameplay, where ball drops are reviewed on the basis of player "challenges"... very cool, except for the fact that the crowd just screams "challenge!" after every other goddamn point... still if it means never having to choke down a loss like Serena Williams' against Capriati two years ago, it's a small price to pay. It does have the potential to be abused, if it isn't so already - turning into something like a mini-timeout. Well, at least they limit the challenges. With every televised major there comes the new crop of ads nauseum. I'm never really paying attention during the breaks, but its such a hassle to turn the sound off every time... the words and soundtracks get driven deep into my subconscious like a railroad spike. This year the best was probably a tie between the expensive-looking "I Feel Pretty" Nike ad with Sharapova and Andy vs. Pong (I forget the sponsor). Same old Geico toolery. There was a new "hired celebrity" ad with Peter Graves, who now looks like a creepy wax version of himself. Honestly Geico could probably make a run for my business if they just stuck to the caveman clips: "I'll have the roast duck, with the mango salsa." Lots of Lexus, a couple of those mostly uncomfortable Riding with Roddick pieces, and also a tiresome one about "a select few" tennis balls rising to greatness *yawn*. Then there was the "I didn't have a going problem - I had a growing problem" prostate shrinkomatic tablets ad, with a great montage of all kinds of things you can do when you don't have to pee every fifteen: fishing, the theater... all in all a nice, well rounded, small prostate life. The absolute worst has got to be these American Express ads, where various Amex call center employees describe their "favorite" calls where they got to help some poor schmuck/ess out with member rewards. Every time I had to hear "Ok, here's a romantic one..." I wanted to fucking projectile vomit. Comment on this entry... |
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Thumbsucker (2005)
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Too Bad He Never Cries
Went to the UT - North Texas game on Saturday, took a few pictures with the crappy camera phone. I do love this pixellation effect. Like a lego Norris. Anyway, his appearance at the game definitely the surreal highlight. The crowd erupted with noise the first time he appeared on the megasuperjumbotron they got going now... Definitive cult status. He was pimping some traveling carnivale-style fighting league that appears to be after UFC marketshare, bleh, whatever.
Then of course the 2006 SGS Reunion... the wiffle itself cut short by the ineptitude and decrepitude of Austin Parks and Rec. Something about the breakers and the lights not coming on, ah fuck all. Still, a moderately good time. Did I get some pictures? Yes, I did. I didn't make the replay during the day on Sunday.
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Mustaine Remover
CNNsanity:
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Sexy Beast (2000)
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Brick (2005)
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What a totally fucking bizarre picture and headline.
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