Careful, Doctor Freeman

Gordon Freeman pauses in the stairwell and wonders for the hundredth time today whether this job at Black Mesa- Ferrari notwithstanding- is worth it.

Stuff No One Told Me (but I learned anyway)

Stuff No One Told Me (but I learned anyway)

Stuff No One Told Me ( but I learned anyway ): 41

Stuff No One Told Me ( but I learned anyway ): 41

Stuff No One Told Me ( but I learned anyway ): 42

Stuff No One Told Me ( but I learned anyway ): 42

Stuff No One Told Me ( but I learned anyway ): 43

Stuff No One Told Me ( but I learned anyway ): 43

Duamuteffe: Now it's hot chocolate time.
Owlvark: #singing# I believe in miracles...

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, and die gallantly. Specialization is for insects." - Robert A. Heinlein

There's a marked difference in MMA audiences between here and England, and the major one we've seen tonight is that when a competitor gets kicked in the groin hard enough you can hear it from the announcers' box (this is not legal, by the way; it was an accident and it halts the fight until the kick-ee is ready to continue) is that the American audiences, as one, will make a noise of dismay and empathetic pain. Some of the British audience groans in sympathy, but rather a lot of guys stand up and cheer the guy who did the kicking, never mind he's apologizing like mad to the guy on the receiving end because that is not how you win fights in the MMA. We didn't expect to see Bisping showing more class than the audience, but there you go. He was even gracious at the win- we think he might have been replaced by an alien clone. :)

I have just discovered that when you click on the tags at the bottom of the posts, it doesn't actually show you all the posts I have with that tag. I was trying to find some bit of snark I'd written about a film, and it doesn't show up without a search, yet it's tagged like the rest of them. #grumbles#

Two-Sentence Movie Reviews

Eragon

I'm not sure two sentences is really going to cover it, really, but I'll try- my annoyance with the film stems from several sources, partially from the rampant-yet-incompetent theft from many, many other films and books, including (but not limited to) everything J.R.R. Tolkien ever wrote, The Dragonriders of Pern, Dune, Star Wars, Pitch Black (check the head on the lint creature the Christopher Walken guy rode at the end) the terrible dialogue, the ridiculous editing, the juvenile plot, the skips in narrative, the dragon just bloody growing to adult stage over ten minutes and being able to breathe fire in two days (and hey, did you know the average flame doesn't have enough heat to melt rock into glass, but apparently the dragon can melt freaking rocks and yet not breathe flame yet [edited to add: and Wikipedia tells me it's supposed to be *diamond* - chemistry and physics have gone right out the window there, and that much heat would completely melt the body anyway]) people teleporting (seriously, you flew several hundred miles on a damn dragon and then Jeremy Irons just gets there ahead of you on horseback and somehow just arrives in time to throw himself in front of a spear?) the wooden "acting" of the lead, the insistence on not telling us who or what anything was ever until it couldn't possibly be put off any longer, the terrible closing song with every single cliche ever in the history of the English language (Disembaudio does a great karaoke version of it on the Rifftrax, though) and the final battle sequence depending on you a) never having seen a decent battle sequence in your life, b) assuming every single one of the defenders was nowhere near any of the fire the dragon just rained down on everyone, c) never having seen or heard of the battle for Minas Tirith, and d) taking on faith that the hidden outpost was big enough for the dragon to fly at high speed through in a straight line for seven whole minutes. Yet among all this lameness there was one bright point; not only does Jeremy Irons wear leather and look scruffy, but he can actually ride and they give him a lovely Friesian- mmmm. :)

Apparently Duke Nukem Forever has been pulled from the grips of destruction and will actually get published now. I did a post a while back where I listed a sampler of the things I had done in my life since DNF was announced, and the list has expanded since then. Still, we (and apparently a ton of other people, since the lines at PAX to see it were four hours long) are interested to see the final product, if only to see what they've been up for for the past twelve years.

So the Owlvark will be going as Gordon Freeman for Halloween. He's already most of the way there, but we're currently searching out a lab coat (the HEV will take too much duct tape and cardboard to get it done in time) and henna hair dye (a few shades darker should be sufficient) and he's growing his goatee back (hee hee ^_^ ) A pair of cheap BCG frames are in the mail, and a cardboard crowbar is being built (he's not comfortable carrying our actual one out on the town :)

Me, I'm taking the easy route and wearing my show clothes. I can't wait until random people ask me whether the dressage whip is real ("Well, what does it look like?" THWAP! :)