Real-Time Zombies

A zombie real-time strategy game where you control the zombie outbreak? As a PS3 launch title?

AWESOME!

Why I'll Never Vote Republican, Ever

Because the motherfuckers ban books.

The next uninformed fuckwit that accuses liberals of censoring opposing views is gonna get my finger in their eye.

ZOMBIE ALERT!

Prepare yourself by keeping a pair of pants handy.

And then watch the first trailer for Land of the Dead!

Dennis Hopper! June 24th!

Oh! My! God!

The Bodies of the Recently Deceased..

I admit, for a minute I actually fell for this news story about zombies in Cambodia. Maybe I just want to believe my psychosis is useful.

Attention Browncoats!

Drop what you are doing, watch the Serenity movie trailer, and then go about your work.

Movie: Undead

A few days ago, a trailer appeared on apple.com for a movie called Undead. I looked it up on IMDB: an Australian zombie comedy. It cost me less to order it on DVD from Australia than it would to buy two tickets to it when it comes here. Thank you, exchange rate!

Undead reminds me of Dead-Alive. There's a fairly silly plot that gets sillier as it goes along, gore and dismemberment and humor that keys off those things, and that strange humor from down-under that makes people like Yahoo Serious endearing for a few minutes. I'm still torn as to whether its a great zombie movie or not. Certainly its not bad, but I still keep coming back to Dead-Alive, which for me is kind of a second-tier zombie flick: good but not one I'd watch over and over. Certainly worth seeing, and there are some priceless moments in it, but the "WTF?" factor kicks in more than it should.

Its worth renting or watching on DVD, or buying if you're into the whole masses of crawling undead thing.

Light @ End of Tunnel = Oncoming Train

So as you might have surmised, I spent a lot of time on Saturday grouting the tile we've laid. Since I had no idea how to do it and no experienced grouters around to help, it was a learning experience, and there was a bit of a learning curve involved. The good news is, we didn't screw anything up too badly, and now our kitchen and entryway are grouted and look unbelievably good. That helps, because our fridge and stove are still in the living room so its one step closer to being able to move them back where they belong.

Speaking of moving, that's the other thing that's been going on. We've got an unbelievable amount of dishes, and its been taking forever to pack them up all safe and sound for their 8-mile journey up the road. This week is pretty much going to be all moving, all the time. I can't say I'm happy about that, but time is starting to run short.

Unfortunately, I discovered the greatness that is Rome: Total War, or should I say Rome: Total Timewaster. Its got enough fiddlybits that it plays well to my OCD, and the battle system is (thankfully) devoid of Starcraft-like battlefield building and "rushes." Its also re-ignited my interest in the Roman empire - if anyone can suggest a good book, fiction or not, set in the Roman empire, I'd read it.

Two Words

Grout sucks.

Quote of the Day

"I am just a dreamer, but you are just a dream."

-Neil Young

The Good Old Days

Remember when Republicans said things like:

However, on religious issues there can be little or no compromise. There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious beliefs. There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than Jesus Christ, or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this supreme being. But like any powerful weapon, the use of God's name on one's behalf should be used sparingly. The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both. I'm frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in 'A,' 'B,' 'C,' and 'D.' Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of 'conservatism.'
- Sen. Barry Goldwater

Not exactly a fount of liberal thought, but certainly applicable to the nonsense occuring regarding the judiciary.

Movie: Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story

About what you'd expect. If you paid any more than a couple of dollars to watch it, I'm sorry. The best bit: the commentary for the original, "depressing" ending that the studio made them change where the director claims his idea had artistic merit. It may very well have, but boy was he on the wrong train if he thought that was the appropriate place for it.

Movie: 25th Hour

Couldn't hold my interest for more than an hour. Someday, I'll find a Spike Lee movie I can watch the entire way through. Someday.

Papal Domain Parking

Most excellent.

Via Mark Evanier: writer Rogers Cadenhead parked the domain www.benedictXVI.com, and he's got a list of demands for the Vatican before he gives it up:

I. Three days, two nights at the Vatican hotel they built for the conclave.
II. One of those hats.
III. Complete absolution, no questions asked, for the third week of March 1987.
IV. A back-cover blurb from the Pope for the next edition of Movable Type 3 Bible Desktop Edition. But only if he uses the book to create his own weblog.
V. World peace.

V is my favorite.

Gorilla Marketing

An interesting story about apes and language. They get to use vending machines!

Ten Years Ago

I walked into my American History class (Social and Geographical History of the United States) and someone told me "'they' just blew up a building in Oklahoma." Isn't that where I was going to move next summer? Indeed it was. And indeed 'they' did. Details were sketchy at first, but the death toll started rising - administrators made an announcement over the PA. We saw it at lunch, on the TV in the restaurant. I went home and watched the 24-hour CNN coverage that night. President Clinton made a speech promising to hunt down and punish the evildoers responsible. I, like many others, caught the religious overtones in Clinton's speech: he was implying that Islamic extremists committed the crime.

But it wasn't.

It was two white conservative Christian males who thought they were being patriots. They put (what they considered to be) the good of the United States over the individual rights of its citizens. They referred to the dead children in the Murrah building's daycare as "collateral damage," necessary and Utilitarian casualties to fighting their war to liberate the American people.

But these two were brought to justice. No new federal agencies were created. No color-coding system was displayed on our televisions warning us of the next attack. The Army did not invade Idaho, or Oregon, or Michigan to assault the other members of the militias to which McVeigh and Nichols belonged. There was no more "collateral damage" beyond what the evildoers themselves perpetrated. And they were caught, tried, convicted, and in one case executed within six years.

Ten years ago. How times have changed.

Movie: The Music Man

To balance my taste for horror, Liz has been educating me in the finer classics. We concluded The Music Man tonight - I see its influence everywhere. It's like having finally heard Bach after listening to Beethoven, Mozart, and Brahms.

Movie: Saw

I kind of avoided this one at the theaters, but I picked it up on the cheap-cheap recently and finally got around to watching it. For all of its MTV-style editing and nasty drop-frame techniques, it was actually a pretty tight little horror-thriller. Not particularly gross and gory - not a slasher film by any stretch - but it had enough to keep me guessing until the end, and I'm usually the one who goes "he did it!" in the first ten minutes.

If you liked Seven and The Game, you'll probably like Saw.

Lazy Weekend

Liz and I joined Brook and Wendi and Chad for a weekend at a cabin outside of Mt. Rainier National Park. We did a little hiking, but mostly stayed inside and drank far too much alcohol and played way too many silly games. Most of the park is still under snow (there was quite a bit on the ground at the visitor's center), but the deer were out in force - a whole freakin' herd of them awaited us outside the cabin this morning. Kind of creepy, really.

I did some writing, but like a total doofus I left the computer sitting in the cabin. So I have to wait for it to arrive by mail. D'oh.

Expanding the Western Pantheon

Here's an interesting story: decoding ancient scrolls that could contain hundreds of lost Greek and Roman plays, poems, and philosophy. Via the SA forums.

Cheap Military Hardware

For the patriot on a budget, I suggest Amazon.com's offer of a $20,000 tank.

Zombies For Kids

Verily I say unto you, maketh thee a zombie children's show.

Listless

Rather than see the movie (read post below), we hit dinner with Angela and John at Beth's. We're preparing for a little get-together here, probably our last huzzah before the move, so the rest of the evening is going to be running to and fro. Still, I feel listless. I tried to write, got some words down, but nothing I'm terribly proud of. I have a feeling I'm going to be up fairly late tonight.

No Hustle

I was supposed to see Kung Fu Hustle tonight. Liz was detained at work, so we arrived at the theater a half-hour before it started. Unfortunately, that was too late - the theater was already full (seating isn't guaranteed for these preview shows.)

So for those of you waiting on a review, you're gonna have to ask someone else, sorry.

Undead Movie News

What happens when the writer/director of the original The Texas Chainsaw Massacre puts his mind towards zombies?

This.

On Bunnies

Thanks to Seth for providing a link a nice little piece of Flash animation that shows an example of Warner's re-imagined Buzz Bunny.

Do not click on that link unless you are over 18 years of age and are wearing headphones, especially if you're at work!

Frustration

Supposedly, I work at a company that values creativity. Why is it every time I suggest something new, or a different way to do things, the first response is no?

Just once, I'd like people here to say "how can I make this work?" rather than "no." Just once.

The Secret Code

Coo-loo-coo-coo coo-loo-coo-coo = 1 3 3 3 2 3 9 9
Coo-loo-coo-coo coo-loo-coo-coo = 1 3 3 3 2 3 2 1

I Thuppowrt The Thwoops!

The next douchbag I see with a "Support the Troops" bumper sticker on the back of an SUV or pickup truck that gets less than ten miles to the gallon on gas is going to get curbstomped out of our gene pool.

Conversely, the next person I see with a "Support the Troops" bumper sticker on the back of a gas-electric hybrid, I'll buy that person lunch.

Another Great Meeting

The Alliterates joined for food, beverage, and writing last night. I got some more good comments on my work, and a couple of seeds were planted. I'm getting to the point where many of the seeds are starting to germinate, so I'm fairly certain I'm going to have to hit this book pretty hard in the next few months. My goal is to bring my total up to around 50,000 words by June. Ambitious, but if I can do 1000 words a day, not un-do-able.

Deliberately Misleading The American Public About A Deliberate Misleader

Via Mark Evanier, an excellent article about the media's treatment of the image of George W. Bush - statistically speaking, one of the most unpopular presidents in decades.

Paging Dr. McCoy

You scored as Beast. Codename: The Beast Full Name: Henry P. McCoy Mutant Powers: Increased agility, strength and stamina. Henry "Hank" McCoy is a founding member of the X-Men. Among all his original teamates, Hank had the best childhood, between loving parents, and so his temper and way of living was one of the happiest at the mansion. Beast's mutation at first was hardly noticable, but while away from the team, Hank made a terrible mistake: testing a new substance that he was using to study the x-factor. Beast tried the substance on himself. This caused a further mutation on his body, covering him with gray fur (that later became blue), fangs and great nails. He had then indeed become a "beast". One of the only students at the mansion who took up an education beyond that of the Xavier school, Beast's studies were in the biogenetic area of his field. Possessing a quick wit, a wry sense of humour, and scholarly wisdom, he also has a penchant for quoting the classics and poetry. Despite his beastly exterior, he is possesess incredible genius, making him one of the most intellingent minds in the world. Beast 85% Nightcrawler 80% Shadowcat 70% Iceman 55% Professor X 50% Wolverine 50% Banshee 45% Storm 40% Cyclops 40% Archangel 35% Colossus 25% Rogue 25% Jean Grey 20% Which X-Men member are You? created with QuizFarm.com

The Hitchhiker's Guide Has This To Say About Bad Versions Of Itself:

The initial reviews of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy indicate that it, well, sucks. Badly. One of my co-workers saw it on Friday, so I'm going to mine him for opinions tomorrow, but now I'm a bit worried. How hard is it to screw up a movie that was once a radio play, then a novel, and then another fairly decent if psychotropic movie? Via MeFi.

Major Mojo

Yesterday Liz and I attended a Mariners game (#5 of the season) and had a great time. Like true Seattle yuppies, we avoided peanuts and cracker jacks in favor of salmon ceaser salad and chowder from Ivars, and got coffee rather than beer. It was an excellent game: the Mariners were down, then up, then down again at the last second, and it came down to the last at-bat. I would have been disappointed in a shutout either way, or a game where no one scored.

Then we bummed around the UD for a while, going to church and picking up the lone funnybook of the week, until we hit a co-workers house for a fine dinner and great conversation. It was one of those evenings where everyone sits around the table after dinner ends, and no one suggests retiring to the living room because it might change the vibe of the discussion and things seem to be going just fine as they are, thankyouverymuch. We left several hours later without realizing how much time had passed. That's a good evening.

Writes and Wrongs

Tonight my gaming group opted to go with Star Wars d6 rather than my tarot game; I can't really say I blame them, but I was a little disappointed that I won't be able to give it a test drive. I'm thinking I might open myself to criticism galore and stick it on The Forge soon, but maybe I'll toss it to the Alliterates and see what they think.

I sat down to do a repeat of last night's chapter-writing, got a paragraph and a half in, and said "screw it." I just feel too damn tired to write at the moment, and I don't think anything I'm going to put down will be all that good.

I downloaded an album by Frou Frou, who does Dido better than Dido does Dido and does a great song on the Garden State soundtrack. Much digging it. I'm a little disappointed that the Postal Service song I like so much now seems to be on the radio every time I'm in the car; I just don't want to reach a point of oversaturation.

Wish I had more interesting things to report or discuss. I'm sure you all are sick of hearing about my house, and I'm kind of sick of working on it and talking about it. I'm going over to have dinner with a co-worker and her husband after an afternoon Mariners game this weekend; that's my exciting plans.

Writes and Wrongs

Tonight my gaming group opted to go with Star Wars d6 rather than my tarot game; I can't really say I blame them, but I was a little disappointed that I won't be able to give it a test drive. I'm thinking I might open myself to criticism galore and stick it on The Forge soon, but maybe I'll toss it to the Alliterates and see what they think.

I sat down to do a repeat of last night's chapter-writing, got a paragraph and a half in, and said "screw it." I just feel too damn tired to write at the moment, and I don't think anything I'm going to put down will be all that good.

I downloaded an album by Frou Frou, who does Dido better than Dido does Dido and does a great song on the Garden State soundtrack. Much digging it. I'm a little disappointed that the Postal Service song I like so much now seems to be on the radio every time I'm in the car; I just don't want to reach a point of oversaturation.

Wish I had more interesting things to report or discuss. I'm sure you all are sick of hearing about my house, and I'm kind of sick of working on it and talking about it. I'm going over to have dinner with a co-worker and her husband after an afternoon Mariners game this weekend; that's my exciting plans.

Writes and Wrongs

Tonight my gaming group opted to go with Star Wars d6 rather than my tarot game; I can't really say I blame them, but I was a little disappointed that I won't be able to give it a test drive. I'm thinking I might open myself to criticism galore and stick it on The Forge soon, but maybe I'll toss it to the Alliterates and see what they think.

I sat down to do a repeat of last night's chapter-writing, got a paragraph and a half in, and said "screw it." I just feel too damn tired to write at the moment, and I don't think anything I'm going to put down will be all that good.

I downloaded an album by Frou Frou, who does Dido better than Dido does Dido and does a great song on the Garden State soundtrack. Much digging it. I'm a little disappointed that the Postal Service song I like so much now seems to be on the radio every time I'm in the car; I just don't want to reach a point of oversaturation.

Wish I had more interesting things to report or discuss. I'm sure you all are sick of hearing about my house, and I'm kind of sick of working on it and talking about it. I'm going over to have dinner with a co-worker and her husband after an afternoon Mariners game this weekend; that's my exciting plans.

'Nother Chapter

Finished another chapter on the commie invader book. It looks like Wolfgang is gonna beat me like a rea-headed stepchild at the Alliterates meeting next week, but I'll at least have two chapters and a game to show for my absence.

News From The House of M

Seth sent me this incredible image of Magneto from the upcoming House of M series from Marvel. This is probably sketch-art, but it looks great.

Can We Talk?

The last week or so, I've been interviewing candidates for an internship we're opening at my company. Before this, I'd never interviewed a job candidate before; it's a very strange experience being on the other side of the table. If nothing else, I've learned a lot about how to present myself and answer questions during a job interview (at least, if I were the one interviewing, uh, myself).

On one level, it's a little surreal, because it represents a point in my career where I'm not just the bottom guy on the totem pole anymore. Not only will I be in charge of selecting an intern, I'll be in charge of that person's career development. Yikes!

Otherwise work has been acceptable, not necessarily good or bad. I'm in one of those phases where work is something I go to during the day and it doesn't really matter to me one way or another. Since I finished my game, I'm going to hit the novel(s) pretty hard - I want to knock out at least two more chapters on the Mars one, and I want to finish my first editing run through The Crocodile Man.

The house has been such a time-suck that it's difficult to conceive of free time beyond what we're doing to work on the house, and my weekly gaming sessions.

Speaking of, a big box of really cheap tarot decks arrived today, so I'm going to make some people playtest that system very soon.

I Like The Pope

John Paul II, the only Pope I've ever known, is dead.

The media has quit giving the pathetic souls surrounding the Schiavo case time in the limelight to focus on a person whose accomplishments will be felt well beyond his time. And not a moment too soon. See post below.

John Paul II was inagurated eight days before I was born. He presided over the Church as I grew in the Catholic faith, lost it, regained it, and lost it again. Even though I haven't been to church in years, I still feel like a piece of my life - one of the supporting pillars of it, actually - is gone.

There's no need to go into his accomplishments or shortcomings. There's no need to discuss Catholicism today, whatever its state might be.

But I do feel just a little bit empty.

A Game Completed

This evening, I finished the first draft of my RPG.

If I know you and you're a gamer, be prepared to hear all about it and be subjected to requests for playtesting. Fair warning.

Movie: Sin City

Yesterday I skipped out of work a little early to catch the last cheap-seat show of Sin City. To say this is one of the films I've been anticipating the most is an understatement; my expectations were incredibly high, and for the most part, they were met. It was a successful adaptation of the comic - frame by frame. The actors looked great and for the most part delivered their lines well (there were a couple of instances where they sounded a little too - as Jon put it - comic-book).

What I didn't leave the theater with was the feeling that I get when I'm simply overwhelmed by a film. Its a rare experience. It's the one where you don't look at your watch and you ignore the pain in your lower back because what's happening on screen is so damned interesting. I can count the number of movies where I've had this experience on one hand (OK, a hand and a half), and I wanted very badly to add Sin City to that list. I just couldn't.

It was great, though, and I'll see it again and probably a third time. I feel like I probably missed a lot of stuff. I want to appreciate the brilliant artistry without focusing as much on the action. Worth paying full price to see, it is. I hope you get the feeling I was looking for but didn't find.

Article on RPG Theory

Here's an interesting article on RPG theory, by one of the fine fellows over at The Forge.

Conservative Christian Morality Creates Blowjobs, Cornholing

Since this is from an article on Salon.com, and most of my (two) readers don't care to go through the rigamarole of watching their little movies, I'm going to reproduce it here.

Abstinence Pledges Suck -- Literally
As news spreads that teens who pledge chastity have lots more kinky sex, millions of aging boomers ask: Where was Bush when I was in high school?

New Rule: Abstinence pledges make you horny. A new eight-year study just released reveals that American teenagers who take "virginity" pledges of the sort so favored by the Bush administration wind up with just as many STDs as the other kids.

But that's not all -- taking the pledges also makes a teenage girl six times more likely to perform oral sex, and a boy four times more likely to get anal. Which leads me to an important question: where were these pledges when I was in high school?

Seriously, when I was a teenager, the only kids having anal intercourse were the ones who missed. My idea of lubrication was oiling my bike chain. If I had known I could have been getting porn star sex the same year I took Algebra II, simply by joining up with the Christian right, I'd have been so down with Jesus they would have had to pry me out of the pew.

For a bunch of teens raised on creationism, these red state kids today are pretty evolved -- sexually, anyway, and for that they can thank all who joined forces to try and legislate away human nature, specifically the ineluctable urge of teenagers to hump.

Yes, the "What do we tell the children?" crowd apparently decided not to tell them anything. Because people who talk about pee-pees are potty-mouths. And so armed with limited knowledge, and believing regular, vaginal intercourse to be either immaculate or filthy dirty, these kids did with their pledge what everybody does with contracts: they found loopholes. Two of them to be exact.

Is there any greater irony than the fact that the Christian Right actually got their precious little adolescent daughters to say to their freshly scrubbed boyfriends: "Please, I want to remain pure for my wedding night, so only in the ass. Then I'll blow you." Well, at least these kids are really thinking outside the box.

There's a lot worse things than teenagers having sex, namely, teenagers NOT having sex. Here's something you'll never hear: "That suicide bomber blew himself up because he was having too much sex. Sex, sex, sex, non-stop. All that crazy Arab ever had was sex, and look what happened."

Well, that's our story -- of how faith and the party of smaller government combined to turn your kids into a generation of super-freaks. Which shouldn't be surprising: Prohibition didn't work, "Just say no" didn't work, and I understand there's a host of Americans who illegally obtain and smoke marijuana. They're the ones who've been giggling every time I say anal sex.

Astronomy Milestone

Astronomers have taken the first photographs of an extrasolar planet.

How freakin' cool!