Baby Cakes - The Role Play Tournament (Be Aggressive)

Hey Guys! It's Christmas Time! - Sufjan Stevens

Cute little video.

I first heard this song on an AMC commercial. The band seemed familiar but was shocked to learn it was Sufjan. Didn't think think it sounded like him before looking it up.

Once Upon A Long Ago - Paul McCartney

Syrupy sweet song and animation, but it moved me.

The Owls

Heard some songs by this group called The Owls awhile back and liked 'em:

Baby Boy
(Kind of a sad song. "Cat's in the Cradle" style.)


Channel


Afternoon song

The lyrics to this song can be found here. Apparently they were written as part of the Songs From Scratch project by an MPR station in which various groups wrote and preformed songs based on this poem by Stephen Burt.

Guilty Pleasures: Lewd Rap

Not that I espouse the ideas these songs suggest, but sometimes the lyrics or delivery are so over the top it almost makes me chuckle to hear it. It makes me wonder if writers and performers are really serious about what they're singing or have to stop themselves from laughing while they're recording.

Cases in point:

Control Myself - JLO & LL Cool J
(a.k.a. "The ZZZZZ Song")

Jenny needs a scrunchy to keep that hair out of her face. Also keep an eye out for the snoring at 3:10 and girlfriend slam-dunking his head into her crotch at 3:28.

Sexy Back - Justin Timberlake

For one thing this is a Timber double feature (both -lake and -land). For another, until I looked up the lyrics just now I could have sworn that the refrain (or hook? or bridge?) for this was "Like your sexy back!". But apparently this song is actually about regaining one's "sexy" rather than an attractive posterior. There's a throbbing intensity to Sexy Back that really speaks to animal hunger, but something about it just makes my eyes roll of their own accord.

Baby Got Back - Sir Mix A Lot

Don't know if this one should count since it's clearly intended for humor sake. But almost two decades later I still find it amusing. See also Jonathan Coulton's rendition.

My Humps - The Black Eyed Peas

I have no real commentary on why I find this song amusing except to add that Alanis Morisette's self-deprecating version is also a blast.

Taylor Swift

Apparently I'm a closet Taylor Swift fan . . . or at least, I gradually came to like these songs, and Google just revealed to me they were both sung by Taylor Swift:

Mine


Love Story


Or it could just be that I like traditional, sappy stories of love triumphing over adversity and ending in an enduring relationship. Still, I get this awkward feeling that I'm pretty far from the demographic these things are aimed at.

The video for You Belong With Me also deserves honorable mention simply for trying to pass Taylor Swift off as the Pretty-Ugly girl. Never has the transformation been so amusingly transparent and predictable since Strictly Ballroom:


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Whale of Noise

From the Famicase (fake/fan-made 8-bit Nintendo cartridge) 2008 exhibition:

I want to play this game very much.
I really wish it existed.

Flash Games I've Kinda Liked 3

Crush the Castle 1 - Destroy enemy castles with carefully placed catapult shots. Physics shooter.

Crush the Castle 2 - More of the same, new weapons, etc.

The Deeplight Expedition - Search the caverns for tablets telling of the labyrinth's creation and magical runestones ultimately granting access to the Deeplight Stone. Fun and cute little exploration focused platformer.

e7 - You are a probe landed on a bizarre planet, apparently coated with a thick layer of animate organism. Find and destroy a bomb aimed at the Earth fighting alien drones and using the planet's weird properties along the way. Simple but neat concept and graphics, nice design.

Little Loki - A leet little imp trying to escape hell. Neat sort of silhouetted design.

Halo 2600 - Halo as designed for the Atari 2600. Can't say I loved play, but did enjoy the retro style design.

The Fountain - Novel platformer where you start out as a single pixel only able to jump a small distance but grow in size and capability as you recover missing pieces of yourself. Maybe some sort of commentary on something.

Raiden X - Top scrolling air/space ship shooter game, modeled on Raiden I & II with a nice retro feel to it. If you have a hankering for top scrolling 2D flight/shooter games then you would be hard pressed to do better than this for free.

Starmageddon - Yet another top scrolling space ship shooter game. Ok, but not as good as Raiden X.

Nostradamus - As far as I can tell the name has little to do with the contents of the game. Another nice retro top scrolling air/space ship shooter game.

Outzone - Single character retro-shooter. Essentially futuristic commando vs. alien invasion. Vaguely like a top scrolling version of Contra.

That's all that come to mind at the moment.

Flash Games I've Kinda Liked 2

The most recent waste of my time:

Nob War: The Elves

Cute little side-scrolling fantasy battle game.

The Sahal-Shaped Hole

Peter: Today was busy.

Adrienne: Did you miss him? (my boss who is away for a month getting married)

Was there a hole in your heart? A Sahal-shaped hole?

A tall, Somali-shaped hole in your heart?

The House Beyond Your Sky

By Benjamin Rosenbaum

One of my favorite short stories.

Text here.

Podcast here.

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Plunder Funnel!

The sketch is ok. But just the name "Plunder Funnel" for an advertised scam tickles me inside. It seems so apropos and there's some semi-rhyme going on there that gets me.

Via The Consumerist.

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Sleepwalk(in')

I never realized it until recently but the song Sleepwalkin' by Modest Mouse appears to actually be based on Sleepwalk by Santo & Jonny:

Sleepwalkin'
Modest Mouse

Sleepwalk
Santo & Johnny

Penny Arcade OD&D idea

Noting this post for future reference.

Gabe used old-school D&D rules to run a "historical period" side-adventure to his current 4th Ed. D&D game. Basically used an old-school D&D clone to do so (to give a "things worked differently back then" feel).

Interestingly he used the Swords & Wizardry game whose Peter Mullen's artwork I love.

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Can't Tell Me Nothing - Kayne West ( w/ Zach Galfianakis & Will Oldham)

With Zach Galifianakis & Will Oldham.

Funny story.

Flash Games I've Kinda Liked

Civilization Wars - Real-time strategy game. Lead your civilization to recover ancient magitech and beat their rivals to world conquest.

Dino Run - Have your dino outrun the blast an apocalyptic asteroid barrage to safety. By Pixel Jam, the same folks who brought you the awesome:

Gamma Bros - Help the gamma bros commute home to their wives through an alien-swarming asteroid field.

StarBaron - Real-time strategy game. Develop your fleet and conquer sector after sector of space.

Icebreaker - Puzzle solver about how to free trapped Vikings frozen in icebergs.

Portal: The Flash Version - Puzzle solver. About as close as I'm likely to get to actually eating cake.

Shift (and it's sequels) - Puzzle solver with a vaguely similar premise to Portal.

Worm Land - Imagine Dune, but from the Makers' perspective.

Soap Bubble I and II - Soap bubble trying to escape dubious underground realms.

A Crow In Hell (also 2 and 3) - A crow trying to escape dubious underground realms (ie. Hell).

Cosmic Crush - Essentially Katamari Damashi starting at the planetary scale.

Boomshine

Hobbit Rampage - Pretty much what it sounds like.

IndestructoTank! (and it's sequels)

Infectonator! - Unleash a zombie plague upon the world.

Probably more to come later.

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DMing advice

Q: How do you deal with players who try to break the game?

A: Lie to them. Rob them. Drive them Mad. Concoct impossible scenarios whose only outcome is their death.

And then when their eyes glisten with shame and rage, drink their tears.

- Gabe on how to deal with difficult players in D&D

From Penny Arcade.

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Celtic/Gaelic words

Three words of interest came up while perusing the Wikipedia entry on the Gaels (pursuant to naming my next bang Gaelic Lightning (a knockoff of Celtic Thunder)):

Nemeton - A sacred grove (or more generally other sacred site). Also the pagan organization which was refused funding during John Silber's tenure at Boston University.

Echtra - Celtic "voyage to the otherworld" stories focusing on the heroe's journey rather than the otherworldly destination itself.

Immram - Celtic "voyage to the otherworld" stories focusing on the details of the otherworldly destination.

The Trinity

Saw this recently and thought it was neat:

I think it's supposed to be reminiscent of this:

Via Dirty Russia.

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Japanese papercraft store interiors

Just what the title says. Can be found here.

Apparently free.

Peter Mullen - The Cave

Do you vaguely approve of swords and sorcery? Does the term "webcomic" not completely bewilder you? When you espy images of honest-to-God pen and ink art, do you sometimes not turn away in utter disgust? Would you suffer an attempt that combines all of these elements into one semi-tolerable product? We would too.

- Peter Mullen

Man, I have loved this guy's work ever since I first saw the cover image for the Swords & Wizardry White Box edition:

If I ever publish a game and can afford it I'd like to use him as an artist.

Check out a ton more at:
The Cave

Rebecca Pidgeon - The Raven

The Raven


Army Brat

May not be a huge fan of her acting, but Rebecca Pidgeon can string words together in a pretty melodic fashion.

Scott Dunbar One Man Band - Billie Jean & Tin Foil Hat

Billie Jean


Tin Foil Hat

Fan Death - Reunited

The song's pretty nice, but I especially like the sort of retro 1980s cult movie/video thing they have going on here.

Chewing Sticks

Thursday Plantation
Tea Tree Chewing Sticks

Sort of intriguing, always interested in passive or non-time-consuming solutions to personal hygiene. But not sure if they're actually effective and/or available in the U.S.A. and/or worth the price.

Whitey's Lindy Hoppers - Hellzapoppin'

Version with the clearest image.

Extended Version


Version with different music.
Makes it seem more intense somehow.

Nuit Blanche

Via Videome, via Boing Boing.

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The Galvanick Lucipher

Both Waterhouse and Ghnxh are encased in planklike wrappings of genuine Qwghlm wool, and the latter carries THE GALVANICK LUCIPHER. The Galvanick Lucipher is of antique design. Ghnxh, who is about a hundred years old, can only smile in condescension at Waterhouse's U.S. Navy flashlight. In the sotto voce tones one might use to correct an enormous social gaffe, he explains that the galvanick lucipher is of such a superior design as to make any further reference to the Navy model a grating embarrassment for everyone concerned. He leads Waterhouse back to a special room behind the room behind the room behind the room behind the pantry, a room that exists solely for maintenance of the galvanick lucipher and the storage of its parts and supplies. The heart of the device is a hand-blown spherical glass jar comparable in volume to a gallon jug. Ghnxh, who suffers from a pretty advanced case of either hypothermia or Parkinson's, maneuvers a glass funnel into the neck of the jar. Then he wrestles a glass carboy from a shelf. The carboy, labeled AQUA REGIA, is filled with a fulminant orange liquid. He removes its glass stopper, hugs it, and heaves it over so that the orange fluid begins to glug out into the funnel and thence into the jar. Where it splashes out onto the tabletop, something very much like smoke curls up as it eats holes just like the thousands of other holes already there. The fumes get into Waterhouse's lungs; they are astoundingly corrosive. He staggers out of the room for a while.

When he ventures back, he finds Ghnxh whittling an electrode from an ingot of pure carbon. The jar of aqua regia has been capped off now, and a variety of anodes, cathodes, and other working substances are suspended in it, held in place by clamps of hammered gold. Thick wires, in insulating sheathes of hand-knit asbestos, twist out of the jar and into the business end of the galvanick lucipher: a copper salad bowl whose mouth is closed off by a Fresnel lens like the ones on a lighthouse. When Ghnxh gets his carbon whittled to just the right size and shape, he fits it into a little hatch in the side of this bowl, and casually throws a Frankensteinian blade switch. A spark pops across the contacts like a firecracker.

For a moment, Waterhouse thinks that one wall of the building has collapsed, exposing them to the direct light of the sun. But Ghnxh has simply turned on the galvanick lucipher, which soon becomes about ten times brighter, as Ghnxh adjusts a bronze thumbscrew. Crushed with shame, Waterhouse puts his Navy flashlight back into its prissy little belt holster, and precedes Ghnxh out of the room, the galvanick lucipher casting palpable warmth on the back of his neck. "We've got about two hours before she goes dead on us," Ghnxh says significantly.

The Cryptonomicon
Neal Stephenson
pp 289-290

Maybe I should've been born Canadian

This is the life I covered as a teenager.

Of course if that had been the case I probably wouldn't have the wonderful wife and children I do now.

Quote: Henry Emerson Fosdick

"Hating people is like burning down your own house to get rid of a rat."

- Henry Emerson Fosdick