Interesting take on Ophelia from Hamlet- it makes a lot of sense, really. I had wondered why Gertrude had apparently watched Ophelia's death for so long and so clearly without doing anything about it. She would understand Ophelia's prospects with no father and no chance of marriage. And it's funny, I knew about the uses of rue but never really put two and two together.

I do enjoy Cracked.com's articles...

Seven Popular "Chick Flicks" That Secretly Hate Women

Hollywood's Five Saddest Attempts At Feminism

I forgot how insane the final battle in "The Battle Wizard, " was. By my collection's standards, the rest of the movie is rather straightforward, but in the last fifteen minutes you have fire-breathing, laser weaponry, mad gorillas, an evil man-mole with steel hooks for hands, and a villain with extendable bird feet. It's just as much fun as the description suggests.

I think that we need to get the gang together and have a crazy kung-fu movie marathon sometime soon.

"On the turning away
From the pale and downtrodden
And the words they say
Which we won't understand
Don't accept that what is happening
Is just a case of others' suffering
Or you'll find that you are joining in
The turning away

It's a sin that somehow
Light is changing to shadow
And casting it's shroud
Over all we have known
Unaware how the ranks have grown
Driven on by a heart of stone
We could find that we're all alone

In the dream of the proud
On the wings of the night
As the daytime is stirring
Where the speechless unite
In a silent accord
Using words you will find are strange
And mesmerized as they light the flame
Feel the new wind of change
On the wings of the night

No more turning away
From the weak and the weary
No more turning away
From the coldness inside
Just a world that we all must share
It's not enough just to stand and stare
Is it only a dream that there will be
No more turning away? "

- Pink Floyd, "On The Turning Away"

Wow, Dungeon Siege sucks so badly it actually made my cable cut out. I think it just couldn't handle Ray Liotta as an evil wizard for one second longer.

If I hear one more comment about how the Sherlock Holmes movie doesn't have anything to do with the literary Holmes, I am going to kickbox said person across the room. It's a comment only made by people who *think* they know the books because they saw a handful of the old Basil Rathbone movies, which had only a nodding acquaintance with his character. Since I spent my childhood and early adulthood pouring over the complete annotated editions (in the original typeface and everything, just as it appeared in the Strand) I feel that I have some authority to speak on the subject. The actual literary Holmes didn't stroll about blithely pontificating and sidestepping any action, and neither did he wander around *in town* wearing a deerstalker and tweed cape- considering the fashions of the time, it would have been as if Philip Marlowe routinely wandered around 1940's LA in a Woolrich jacket and a buffalo plaid hat with earflaps, i.e. utterly out of place in an urban setting. Off the top of my head, he boxed semi-professionally under an assumed name, used and abused cocaine, depending on his mood and work level, played the violin obsessively (again, depending on his mood and work level), studied martial arts (and practiced them!), could shoot, hike, and ride, was considered an expert on an incredible variety of subjects and had written well-respected monographs on most, and more than once dealt with villains physically as well as mentally. His final battle against Moriarty was at the top of a waterfall, for crying out loud!

Okay, internet, you've been warned. Don't make me get the books out and create a master list of quoted references backing up the modern interpretation, because I bloody well will.

Emulators = Awesome.

This is an illustrative screenshot from one of my favorite Sega Genesis games, Exile, which I just spent the afternoon playing through for the nth time since we bought it for the Genesis back in 1991. The game never makes any more sense than this. The plot is insane, the translations are rudimentary at best and hysterical at worst, and there are endless discussions about the dimensionalization of mandalas, which are supposed to somehow bring peace to the world if Sadler, our hero, could only understand what the heck is going on. It's sort of like the designers wanted to make Assassin's Creed seventeen years early, but dropped a bunch of acid instead and started flipping through history books.
Despite its insanity, it's a very decent game, a lot of fun to play, and the first one I snagged for the emulator. We still own the cartridge version, and I was pleased to see that my old dodge for grinding worked with the USB controller; to whit, taping a pencil down over the attack button and setting Sadler in a place where enemies respawn from one side. It's a whole lot easier to play once you've maxed out your attack power in the second act...

*This* must be where my Call of Cthulhu players get it from!

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Win.

Duamuteffe: So I dreamed there was this amazing tornado and thunderstorm outside, but you wouldn't come and look at it because you were watching a documentary on TV. And you had black hair and a mustache.
Owlvark: That's my evil twin! I hate that guy!

Why is it so hard to believe that someone might have solved Simon's Quest without a walkthrough? It's not that hard of a game! We did it when the game was new- you just had to pay attention to the clues you were given, and everything was pretty clear. About half the comments are "U uesd a statedgy gide! Yes u did!" No, he didn't. You know how I know that? Because we didn't. We never used a strategy guide for any original Nintendo game, because if you actually paid attention and thought about it, you figured it out. End of story.

I know, I know, never read the comments. But still, a strategy guide for Simon's Quest? Come on, already!

Sadly, I can't upload photos of the dogs from here, being as I don't have the camera software (and I don't really like putting new stuff on someone else's home computer, anyway-I wish I did, though, because IE sucks) but I can assure you that for at least part of the day, the house looks like this :)


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Dude!

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Yeah, I know, it's a tattoo of Bob Ross. But it's a tattoo of Bob Ross! Bob Ross was awesome, gods rest his soul. There are few things quite so relaxing at watching him paint happy little trees in "The Joy of Painting."

YouTube is great for reminding one of things. For instance, even twenty-five years later, Sesame Street songs still randomly pop into my head. And if I've forgotten some of the words, hey presto, here they are!

Whoa, they have Klark Kent? Going back to dialup is going to be difficult...

Tangerine Dream -> Kraftwerk -> New Order -> Mr. Mister -> Pink Floyd -> The Police (live)

I love Pandora.

Having broadband for the week means I can go back to listening to Pandora, which is extremely fun. Instead of having different stations for different kinds of artists, I put them all on one station, so I can be amused when Aphex Twin plays right after The Reverend Horton Heat.

I truly believe that anyone should wear whatever they want, at any time. I also believe that certain outfits were not a good choice, and that it's okay to laugh as long as you're not laughing right in someone's face. Thus my general amusement at the following. The picture alone is all right as far as funny goes, but the commentary that follows made me nearly fall out of my chair :)


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"I know that those tracks in the snow are probably from a vehicle, but I like to imagine this guy just slid up the road from the distance, exactly in that position.

Every time he slides anywhere, you can hear Daft Punk’s “Around the World” playing."

I'm still confused by Perseus' line, "Everybody I loved was killed by the gods!"in the trailer for the remake of "Clash of the Titans." Not only is it overdramatic and ridiculous, it's also completely inaccurate. Mortals were the cause of Perseus' woes (such as they were.)

But they did ask Ray Harryhausen to join in, and it looks like a big Hades vs. Zeus bash, so it could be fun.

The Bacon Explosion: OMGWTFBBQ, rather literally.

I have to make this, once. Only once, because I think any more often in one lifetime and your arteries would permanently clamp closed. Amazing.

We have our apartment back, woot! The floor is finally done in the stairwell and, as a bonus, they put up some shelves for us. Now our unruly pile of stored crap is now neatly stacked stored crap. It makes quite the change.