I watched the film Silent Running with my parents a few days ago, and a couple days after that, we were talking about it in the car. My dad remarked that he didn't find it as good as it was when he first watched it, and this comment segued into a general critique of the movie from all three of us as we noted how the dialogue seemed a bit amateurish and the special effects were a bit dated by today's standards.

Then my mom jokingly said to me, "I bet Mystery Science Theater 3000 must have had a lot of fun with this movie, right?"


Then my personal Irony Meter exploded.






(For those of you not in the know, the general setup of MST3K [one lone guy stranded on a satellite with three small robots as his only companions] was inspired by Silent Running.)

Something right outside my window was making this noise in the wee hours of the morning. I couldn't see it, but obviously, I did record it.

It was either a demon from Hell or a barn owl. Either way, it's just a little creepy.

There is a van that I've seen parked in various places in my town as well the neighboring towns. It has been painted silver and covered with writing warning all that gaze upon it that the end is nigh, along with a number of newspaper clippings and Bible verses to "prove" this. I got into the habit of calling it the Doom Buggy until I discovered that the carriages in The Haunted Mansion at Walt Disney World were called that.

Anyway, several months ago, I noticed a large banner stretched across the top of the van reading "9-9-09: MAGNITUDE 9 EARTHQUAKE." No specific locations or hours, mentioned, just that text. I thought about this a few times and eventually forgot about it until today.

Well, it's almost midnight here in California (arguably the most earthquake-prone state in the union), and we haven't gotten any earthquakes, and according to this site, no part of the world suffered any earthquakes over 5.7.

How disappointing. :(

Jainism is probably the most non-violent, peaceful religion in the modern world. Its members believe in inflicting as little suffering as possible on other living beings, human and non-human, in order to reach a pure spiritual state. Jains are strict vegetarians, many of which don't even eat root vegetables like carrots and garlic because that would mean ending the life of the plant.

Some of its more devout members (in the past, at least) only eat fruit once it has dropped from a tree and wear cloth over their mouths when they are outside to keep them from accidentally inhaling flying insects. They even use a broom to sweep the ground in front of them clear while walking, so that whatever crawling lifeforms that might be in their way aren't stepped on.

And somebody has apparently put me on a mailing list for a Jain dating site.



WHAT?

Holy flame-broiled mother of Dionysus...

Apparently when Hell got frozen in Telltale Games' last Sam and Max: Season 2 episode, it froze over for real sometime afterward.

"Telltale and who Presents"!?!?

Elaine's eyes are green again! And Guybrush...

...has a BEARD! A visible BEARD!!

Two years ago, someone requested that somebody make a version of Adventure Game Studio without the default font (which happens to be from Space Quest IV), since the prospect of making a free game that uses a font from a 17-year-old commercial one was causing him some moral conflict.

Two years later he resurrects his own thread and makes the same request, this time asking for a version that doesn't have MP3 support, advising all who read the thread to "Repent and turn from sin to God". Remarkably, one of the members of the forum was thoughtful enough to actually do what this person asked, creating an entire new version of AGS just so this person wouldn't have to be tempted to the default font or import MP3s into his game.

Maybe it's just me, but wouldn't it have taken a lot less time and effort for this person to, say, delete the default font and use one of the many others available to download? Or only use MIDIs or Ogg Vorbis files instead of MP3s?

And then he starts another thread essentially asking for a Christian version of AGS. When you start acting in such a way that even other members of your religion start criticizing you, I'd say it's time to step back and start re-evaluating things.


And just to show that I'm not completely full of negativity, after a month's absence, my tablet is finally back, fully repaired and almost good as new. It's been so long since I used it that I had to retrain my drawing hand for a bit.

I had an endocrinologist appointment today. She had my file open on her computer while she was talking to me, and I was occasionally glancing at the screen. Then I looked at the top of the window to see that there were several fields that had been filled in with various information about me: NAME, AGE, WEIGHT, SEX...and SPECIES.

This last field was blank, for some reason.

---

I recently got an email from someone who was asking my permission to link to WSSQUID Contd. from their page and asking if I could link back. The problem is that the page in question was a blog updated with news about new styles of sneakers being released. What in the world does a blog about sneakers have to do with a webcomic based on an old computer game series, a comic that stars one character who wears boots, while the other one is perpetually BAREFOOT?

(And yes, I know it's been a while since I've updated the strip. I'm working on some more, but my tablet is being repaired, so they may be even more delayed than I previously thought.)

---

MY mom's birthday was a little while ago, and as part of her party, we had a front page of a major newspaper from a date close to her birthday (no editions were released on the actual date) copied, enlarged, printed out and displayed. One of the headlines on the page reads "Woman Killed by Propeller of Big Airliner".

There's not much more that can be said about something like that.

---

Book title I noticed in a thrift store: If God Loves Me, Why Can't I Get My Locker Open?

My "'Freddy Pharkas, Frontier Pharmacist' Outtakes" video on YouTube got spammed by a user named "canadianpharmacyshop", advertising cheap Canadian prescription drugs.

Good golly gosh, spam that doesn't seem all that out of place! Amazing.

It's New Year's Eve (well, in some parts of the world, anyway), and I've collected another collection of comments from our favorite stubborn, dense, immature, annoying troll wannabe, Inscest (not his real username).

( More inane TLK drivel )

Nothing Christmassy at all about this entry unless you consider it as a gift of entertainment to the TLK fandom.

( Very long, pointless Lion King fanbabble under cut )

I heard the Jim Carroll Band's song "People Who Died" a few days ago on Flashback Radio for the first time.

What with a big heaping side portion of the heck.

A few days ago I uploaded by sole contribution to TLKFAA's "Canon Days", and took the opportunity to reiterate what it says in my Arist's Comments, which is, "Please read my Artist's Profile page for information about requests and art trades, etc." At the end of the comment, I also mentioned something that I'd been putting off for far too long, which was the fact that generic one-word comments make me sad.

And the very first comment on this picture was a generic one-word comment. I am sad.


Then today, I noticed a marquee advertizing my town's Friday night movie, where a popular movie (usually a well-known family-friendly one) is shown in the local park every week during the summer. This week's movie, according to the marquee, was "Rat Chef".

"Hey, Bob, what's the title of this week's movie?"
"It's Ratatouille."
(Oh crap, I don't know how to spell that! What should I do??) "Er...what's that about?"
"It's the animated one about the rat chef."
(*IDEA!*)

The 10 Most Bizarre Species Names, from Oddee.com. Funny stuff, though the Goldenpalace.com monkey's name was a bit depressing. And I thought that urban legend about the couple that met online and named their baby "Yahoo" was a bit much.

Writing rant.

( Read more... )

Oh, and new pictures today. This is the one that I'm the least ashamed of.

My parents and I were going out to dinner and we parked right behind an SUV with the rear window open a few inches. There was something in the back of the SUV, but window had tinted glass, so all I could see of whatever was back there was a bit of orange-brown fur and a pair of ears sticking up just over the top of the window. At first I thought it was a large dog, but then we got close enough to see through the glass, I could see the animal's face...

...and it had a bridle on.

It was a miniature horse -- in fact, it turned out to be two miniature horses. In the back of an SUV. With their owners having dinner nearby.

Who says living in a small town is boring?

After a nearby church's marquee displayed a quote from the movie Gladiator (a film about an empire which wasn't exactly crazy about Christianity during most of its existence), I figured something like that was the full extent of its oddness.

Today I saw a sign underneath the same marquee that read "Drive Thru Prayer".





I can't remember the last time I've been so wrong about something.

I recently finished reading Joseph Campbell's Myths to Live By, and since I was apparently in a masochistic state of mind afterwards, I decided to look at some of the more unfavorable (and unintelligable) Amazon.com reader reviews of his various works, surmising that there would be several at the very least.

And lo and behold, there were. There were a few people complaining about The Hero With a Thousand Faces (the book which greatly influenced George Lucas as he was creating the original Star Wars Trilogy) was boring, and that anyone thinking of reading it should watch the Trilogy instead. Lame.

There was another negative review of the same book with the witty satiric title, "Hero with a Thousand Feces". Lamer.

Then there was an exceptionally long one-star review ranting about how Campbell is disrespectful of Christianity and was an "Athiest-Darwinist", and included this statement:

"All Darwinists (I like to call them what they believe they are: Slime-Snake-Monkey People) must deny the possibility of an Eden, and deny every bit of evidence that suggests or points to a Creator; likewise, they must deny all the evidence which points to the inextricably related idea that the Book of Genesis is a true account of human origins."

Holy shaving cream, what profound wisdom! Reading such a scathing truth would surely make any Slime-Snake-Monkey-Person abandon his oozing, slithering, brachiating ways and realize that everything in the Bible is true and must be taken literally!






_{Honestly, some people's children...}

An excerpt from a message entitled "Information about your products and activities" that was delivered to me a couple of days ago:

Sir / Madam,

As we have been attracted to your site "WSSQID: Who Says Space Quest is Dead?" and according to its description "An online comic featuring the continuing misadventures of Roger Wilco.", we believe, that the cooperation with us could bring you many new trade leads and opportunities.

Promote your company and your products in very efficient form using the ecomVia Global System (eGS). Don't miss out the chance to register and use all of the services at no cost and create free profile for your company and set up presentations for your products.

So making an infrequently updated fan comic based on a defunct game series qualifies as a "business" these days?

Ha!x10³

Also: Recently, there has been an oddly large volume of spam in my inbox with both the subject line and the body in Cyrillic. Are statistics showing that Russians are more likely to fall for these email scams or something??

Those of you who played Area 50.5 might have noticed that if you look in the trash can, Una reaches in and pulls out a damaged DVD of "The Pumaman", a movie which she unsubtly expresses her dislike for.

Recently, I noticed that one of the members on the Adventure Game Studio forums took his username from this movie's title, but just now I've discovered that this "pumaman" isn't just any forumer, but the guy who created the whole bloomin' AGS engine.

Awkwarrrrd.