I don't care what you say:

Google Maps are cool.

If you've got more nifty Google Maps, post your links in the comments. So far I've seen plane taking off, a volcano erupting, a battle in Iraq, and the Stealth bomber above.

Hook me up.

I'm not normally this cruel, but...

This is for all you snake haters out there.

http://flyingsnake.org/

There's a species of South Asian snake that not only can leap from tree branch to tree branch, but can also glide in an amazing display of aerodynamics.

Go to the movies page, and check out the GLIDING movies towards the bottom. While some of the videos are a little hard to see, it's quickly apparent that these snakes are flying like frisbees.

If you didn't like snakes before, I fully expect you to never feel safe in a forest again.

I sense a horror movie coming on. With Jennifer Lopez in it.

This has been a public service announcement.

Oh, good, I'm not the only idiot in the room.

This fascinated me:

A recent study found that the majority of Nobel prize-winning economists are really lousy investors.

Normal investing tasks that ordinary folks have trouble with seem to create the same problems for the academics too.

Now I don't feel so bad.

Lvl 50 Senator LFG

I am so sorry.

(Profanity warning.)

I am weak.

I broke down and bought Guild Wars.

It is enjoyable.

You can only use 8 skills at a time, and navigation is really easy, much like Neverwinter.

All this adds up to the biggest selling point for me:

I can still play while my daughter sits on my lap.

Now to round up my buddies for fight/kill.

Badger

Almost Forgot!

If you don't celebrate Free Comic Book Day,

YOU ARE AN IDIOT.

http://www.freecomicbookday.com/

Tell your friends.

Divided Kingdoms: FightKillRendTearDestroyHurt

Got a call from an old friend today. Way back in the day we helped another buddy start up a Neverwinter Nights server. When it started out, I pumped out a lot of the scripting and started the local thieves guild. For you non-Dungeons-and-Dragons folks out there, this thieves guild was not true organized crime. More on that later, there's a whole array of surreality associated with that part of the story.
We started the server in the winter of 2003. I got burned out with school and scripting after about 4 months. Played for another 6 months or so, then called it quits.

So it sounds like my buddies are turning over the keys to the kingdom.
If you have Neverwinter, definitely check it out. It's called Divided Kingdoms, and they have a rabid, dedicated fan-base. The server is, hands down, an excellent world to play in. A whole squadron of DMs handle plots and quests.

http://www.typhoondigital.com/nwn/

It's about as much fun as you can have online without paying a subscription fee. Check it out. Go get your portable hole.

You Guildwars guys in the back there, hush up.

Turing Machines

jaywalkers move
red blood cells shuttle
forward forward write back read

Photons hit my eyes
the light of her
forward forward write back read

electrons, nerves
amped and sluggish
forward forward write back read

no amount of rain will clean this stain
Pacing away from her I
hear her smile as she bursts into flames
hear her smile as she bursts into flames

excellent posture
forward forward write back read
forward forward write back read

our minds meet
with shuffling feet
forward forward write back read

bleeding shins
counters of beans
Know the two of us are Turing Machines

forward forward write back read
forward forward write back read

There's no stopping us two Turing machines

forward forward write back read
forward forward write back read

It has occurred to me...

That that last post could have appeared on any blog in the entire universe, on any given day. You too can make a completely generic whiney work post of your own!
Here's the formula:
I am at work.
I dislike what is happening at work.
Wah wah wah.

I promise I won't let that happen again. I was a bit distracted.

In other news, I have unleashed an unholy tentacled monstrosity in our kitchen. My purchase of the $19.95 home training course, "Conjuring Hellspawn for Fun and Profit," has proven to be a sound investment.

Now I just gotta clean up this brimstone. How do you get demon slime out of kitchen tile?

Grraaaaahhhh!

Fridays. These are the days where everyone holds off their problems to dump them on me right before the weekend.

So considerate. Sometimes I think I need to pretend like I'm a complete idiot.

Perhaps if I project more of an aura of incompetence, these problems will be avoided.

My life is not a Dilbert cartoon, I swear.

It's Call-In-An-Airstrike-On-Your-House-Day!

Here's a fun game.
1) Go to Google Maps.
2) Punch in your address.
3) Switch to Satellite view.
4) Zoom aaaallll the way in.
5) Feel really creeped out as you realize that you have nowhere to hide.

I can see my house from here!

My Zombie Valentine

Behold:

http://65.127.124.62/south_asia/4483241.stm.htm

Keerazy zombie happenings. The US will fight conventional wars, nuclear wars, wars on terror. But how will the US handle... ZOMBIE WARFARE?!?!?

Every fallen ally becomes our enemy.
Get an ax.

(Updated: Link's dead, I'm looking for a replacement.)

Firefly

I'm not in love with Joss Whedon. I didn't really follow Buffy or Angel. He writes quirky dialogue. Quirky is good.

So I finally got around to pulling down the Firefly 4-disk set from Netflix. I won't go into the maddening history of Firefly's amateur-hour cancellation. It's a show that should not have been cancelled.

I hereby declare that I greatly enjoyed this series. And I'll tell you why.

I can recommend this show without being embarrassed. I've always felt a stigma with "sci-fi" films or TV series. With the majority of these, there have always been elements which I simply felt the casual viewer would be immediately alienated. This is especially true of sci-fi television. Shooting straight from the hip, for the guy on the street, sci-fi is boring. The costumes are generally lame, the characters are unlikeable, and the stories are unintelligible. There was always the fear after recommending a show/movie/anime/comic that the question would come back, "You really like this stuff?"
Normal-guy-on-the-street wants good looking people, shooting each other, with funny dialogue interspersed. It is this market that has made Bruckheimer a powerhouse. This is a huge market that sci-fi as an industry should be exploiting.
Firefly offers this, but adds decent, grown-up storytelling to the recipe. Instead of themes that can be summarized in one sentence (i. e. Stealing is bad), this show offers shades of grey. The character's decisions are morally questionable (oh, crap, just like in real life). People kill each other. Sometimes in fair fights, but usually not. Sexuality is an often revisited topic. Sometimes it's a punchline, but usually it's not.

I guess what I'm saying is that Firefly has mainstream appeal, but it's more sensible than typical popular television. It avoids stereotypes, doesn't offer clear answers, and if there were any fart jokes, I missed them. It's a show for adults.

Go rent this or buy it. Then recommend it to others. You won't be embarrassed.

Addict: Natural Selection

This is a placeholder for a review on the Half-Life mod, Natural Selection. Shoot aliens. Eat space marines. Burn out your mind.
I'm hooked on Combat mode, which moves extremely fast, but has a few major flaws.
I missed out on the whole Counterstrike mania, I've only played CS once or twice a year ago. I was eaten alive by the fellers who've been playing CS forever. I was discouraged, and went back to Return to Castle Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory. Ohhh, RTCW. Delicious, delicious RTCW.
There are quite a few inherent similarities between NS Combat and RTCW:ET. Your in-game rewards are performance-based.

I'm going to stop right here, as I don't have time to finish this right now. Great game, go download it.

Gettysburg

This isn't new, but I love looking at it. It's the first panel of a comic my talented brother and I are working on. It'll be web-based. It will not be a funny webcomic, at least not intentionally.
Behold:




I have no comments about this image.

Build your self esteem!

Play this for a while. I'm no game columnist, but after a while of playing this, I felt pretty darn good.

http://www.tetris1d.org/

Games aren't just about fun, they're about growing as a person.

Memo to self:

Steal the kiddy menus from every restaurant I hit for the next few weeks.

Those things are a cornucopia of creative content. They overload the senses.

Hop-Frog Kollectiv

I won't lie to you, I'm a huge fan of ambient music. I dig primal beats, I'm just wired that way. Sometimes lyrics get in the way of the vibe.

I'm also a huge fan of free music. If I could tie up the RIAA with duct tape, throw them in the trunk of a foreign-made car, and push it off a cliff, I would.

So Warren Ellis popped this up:

http://www.hop-frog.com/Musik.htm

I'm resonating at the frequency of Track 6 of the Jester Devotional.
Track 7 reminds me of playing Fallout 2: A desert, a beat up car, and lots and lots of guns. Music to survive to. If the world ended and you climbed out of a bunker in the aftermath, this would be the soundtrack.

Feel free to disagree if you like.

Blogger killed my words.

I wrote something, then tried to spellcheck it. I'm finicky in that way.

And my words are gone. I can't remember what I wrote.

Odds are good it was unimportant. Most of what I write is unimportant.

In that way, it is very much like the Federal Tax Code.

-Badger

Pavement: Chapter 1

First off, I'm positive that I did not fall asleep at the wheel.

I had gotten my eight hours in the night before, a practice that was not a habit. The first snow of the season was brushing the highway that morning, and the sun had come over the mountains. The road was quiet and sparkling. Louis Armstrong's "'Zat You, Santy Claus?" was spilling out of the radio, and I was cold. My work gloves were on, to keep my fingers from locking around the steering wheel.
I remember thinking that I was unusually calm, and that it was going to be a good day. My paper route was done, the driving around in the dark was over, and I still had half an hour before I had to be at the hospital. Normally I get all wound up before work. I work janitorial, and my stomach gets all bound up when I think about all the things I should be doing instead of cleaning up biohazardous material. I'm not worried about getting sick, I've had my shots.
I stress, because I spend eight and a half hours a day thinking about the car I wish I was driving, the girl I wish I was with, and the jetpack I wish I had strapped to my back. Paper boy by morning, janitor by day, and James Bond filling in all the gaps.
I wasn't dreading my day of wiping up blood and properly disposing of sharps, and I wasn't sure why. I was too calm for a Monday morning in November, and I was worried. Pondering on that, I turned down the radio to let myself think. My yacht of a car began to fishtail.
I know how to drive in the snow. I turned in to the skid. My foot came off the gas, tapping the brakes to regain control. I failed. I did not fall asleep or pass out. I was conscious the whole time.
The Malibu plowed through the rail, the right front end dipping into the ditch. Sliding on the gravel, 3000 pounds American steel rolled over onto its back. We slid for a few seconds that way, my car and I, me hanging upside down, my 1985 Malibu screeching across snowy gravel, and Mr. Armstrong asking "Would you mind slipping it under the door?"
We slid to a stop. I popped my seatbelt, dumping myself onto the ceiling of the car. Several idling noises came from the engine, then fell silent. A crack spidered its way across the windshield. Crouching down, I peered out the broken windshield.
A white plastic bucket sat on the ground in the snow.
Louie sang on.