Morning Observations

• After being subjected to the end of a marathon of The Parkers, I'm still lost a to why Nikki and the Professor ending up together at the end is supposed to be a happy ending. Doesn't that just reinforce the message that stalking works, it just takes a while is all? But what do I know? That's the same way I felt about Steve Urkel and Laura on Family Matters. That, and that Laura Winslow was one of the most shallow and superficial women on the face of the earth.
• Why is the guy in front of me at the drive-thru window always the one that either needs to make a special order or talk to a manager or whatever it is he needs to do that takes twice as long as every other person in the line?
• How did the movie Batman and Robin manage to go an entire two hours without finding a way to make Uma Thurman look attractive once (and for this example, I'm not counting my mysterious attraction to bookworms)?

Things to Avoid on Television...

Or... How Nicholas Cage robbed me of 90 minutes of my life.

I know what you're saying: I should have known better. But you have to understand my position on this one. I'm coming off of a tooth extraction earlier in the week. I'm just a little under the weather. I caught just enough of a Mork and Mindy marathon the other day to find it quaint and nostalgic, and I had just caught Crank the previous morning and found it to be not so bad.

So when I saw that the Cage-fest known as Next was coming on this morning, I figured, "What the heck?" It can't be as bad as everyone says it was, right?

As Cage's character Chris Johnson says during a critical point in the movie: "Something's wrong... I made a mistake." Only unlike Johnson, I have no power of prognostication. It was far too late into the film to turn around or change my decision. I had been screwed hardcore.

Most of the film isn't that bad. Sure, it's got it's cornball moments, and Cage will be Cage as they say, but the visual effects are pretty to look at. I've watched corny or lame films before. But this film, oh this dirty bastard of a film, has the one sin for which I cannot forgive: the non-ending.

I don't care how pointless or contrived you make a movie. I will literally watch garbage as long as it has a beginning, a middle, and an end. But this film had a classic "you should be able to figure out the rest" ending that left me feeling completely cheated. Did someone think there would be a sequel? Did someone decide the effects would sell the flick, so why bother finishing the script up?

Were you just testing the limits of yur fame, Nic? For crying out loud, I defended you in Ghost Rider, and this is how you treat me? I had to watch Jessica Biel attempt to act in this film, Nic. Wasn't that punishment enough?

Ah, well. It's my own fault. I should trust my own common sense next time and just watch... well, anything. Or nothing. A nap would have been more enjoyable in the grand scheme of things. And it probably would have had a stronger plot, too.

Not Quite an Obama-bration

It’s time for a holiday mash-up. All the joy and goodwill of a Thanksgiving post. All the fun of Friday Fun Day. All the old school of Thursday Retro Day. And a little bit of funk.

Okay, maybe not so much of the last one.

First the big update. As any who have stopped by know, I have been on a noble quest this past month. I took on the challenge of National Novel Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo, for short), which asks you to write a 50,000 word novel in the 30 days of November. Well today, it is my fond and sincere pleasure to inform you that I have hit the benchmark. 50K, 30 days. A winner is me. Let us celebrate the greatness with some old school music. You know the song, so sing along. (And yes, I did have to go with the Disco Inferno version. Roll with it.)


I have much more to say on the subject, but I think that for now I'll just bask in the partying. And possibly pass out.

Morning Observations

Things not to do on a Friday morning:

• Spend an hour waiting on your jaw to start aching before taking your pain medication.
• Only have one piece of pie from the previous day's festivities (really, it's good pie).
• Stumble across the Mork & Mindy marathon that you swore that you were going to avoid (this one hurts more than the jaw thing).

Avengers Assemble... Eventually

Tere's a new trailer out for the new Avengers animated series. No embedding allowed or I'd link it here. I could probably get around that, but I'd hate for my first piece of reader e-mail to be from Mavel's law offices. I personally think it fails for showing Giant Man being almost adequate in combat. But hey, at least he grows more than he shrinks.

NaNo: Day 24 Update

Okay, so long time no hear. I was busy with writing and putting off writing. Leave me be.

The good news is that I am just breaking over the 40K mark. The bad news is that somehow, through an accounting error, I am just breaking the 40K mark. As best as I can figure it, somewhere between switching from a manual word count management and an elctronic one, I must have screwed myself.

See, what I decided was that since I was bouncing around to various points in the story, it made more sense to break things up into multiple "chapter" files. So when I went to do word totals, I had to manually write down each chapters count and add them up (using a calculator, of course).

Then two days ago, it occurred to me that if I did a makeshift Excel spreadsheet, I could update each section I added words to ten times more efficiently than if I did it by hand. Genius really, and a wonderful thing to come up with with just ten days left in the project.

But somehow, one of the chapters ended up getting a word count inthe 4000's when it only should have been int he 2000's. And this was after I had put more work into it after the fact. That meant that insted of padding the 40K I thought I had, I ended up pushing just up to that point last night.

But the good news (and this is good news) is that I have hit the 40K mark. I have just enough or more than enough story left to tell to slam right past that, and if my recent dental related adventures leave me as able as they have so far, I should have plenty of time in the next few days to work on it. I want to tell you that it won't mean anything to me to pull this off, but if I can... there will be a party going on. Even if it's just in my mind.

Why Drugs Are Sometimes Cool

For anyone not in the know, I spent the better part of the morning having my wisdom teeth extracted. And while that's about as much fun as you would expect, I have to say that so far, the while thing has been pretty positive.

First, I want to thank whoever invented deep sedation. With any luck, what you did passes as humanitrian work, the likes of which will offset any misdeeds that would otherwise have you hellbound.

Really. They hooked me up to some monitors, got an IV drip going, gave me some oxygen tubeys and then blee blah blur it was over. It turns out my friend Richard was right on point in that you barely remember being out at all (and yes, it is a creepy feeling to go from seemingly normal to having a mouth full of gauze and a lip that feels three times its normal size.

But my mom (bless her and her diligence) was there to get me (legal) drugs and take me home, and for the most part everything after that has been fine so far. Granted, most of the rest of the day involved me sleeping and my mom doing some minor cleaning around my house (really, there's no stopping her), and I don't know where the slight twinge in my jaw that seems to be bulding up will eventually end up, but I'm trying to remain positive. If nothing else, I'm already 200 percent more lucid than I thought that I would be.

... unless I'm not, in which case I will enjoy reading this in a few days and trying to figure out why type "monkey bubble" 400 times in a row...

HouseTV: Giant Robot Advisory

I am a lover of many things. I love comics. I love TV in general, and specifically I love quirky shows and sci-fi. It should come as no surprise, then, that I am a fan of many an anime series. yes, that's "Japanese toons" for those who don't know or who don't want to be snooty about it.

Needless to say, I am more than thrilled anytime a new anime series not only appears but when said series comes stateside complete with english dubbing. I don't mind a well subbed series, but there is still something to a show you can watch without the burden of reading the dialogue. Not to mention since I don't actually speak Japanese, it's interesting to see what nuances an English script will bring to the table (for better or worse).

Which brings me to my current series du jour, a little ditty known as Mobile Suit Gundam: 00 (that's "double oh", just like the start of the James Bond numbering). The astute among you will note that the series is a Gundam series, but fear not. While it features the titular giant robot suits known as Gundam, it is not connected to the main series' continuity. Hence, any of you nervous about not being able to follow the series should rest easy.

That doesn't mean, however, that there isn't a lot going on. Truthfully, you almost need a scorecard to keep up with some of the lesser characters, especially when they pop in and out at will and may take several episodes off before appearing again. But that, to a certain degree, is part of the joy of the series. I've already seen all of season one myself, and what I can say about it is that for all of the many different secondary characters running around, not a single one is a waste of time. Whether you want to believe it or not, they are all connected or will eventually be connected in ways that you cannot possibly imagine. And Lockon Stratos will own your soul.

So if you happen to have the TV time free this Monday night, go ahead and check out Gundam 00. It begins airing as part of Sci-Fi Channel's Ani-Monday block (which has actually had its moments the past few months) at 11PM. I'll warn you that the series starts a bit slow, and there is a lot to keep up with. But since they're showing two episodes a week, that should help offset the learning curve. At the very least check out the intro, and God help them if they did something to the intro! It's one of the cooler themes I've seen in the past few years.

Friday is Fun Day

No, I don't consider this political. I consider this hilarious. Ah, the joy of pardoning turkeys. The one thing I still continue to love about life is that you can't script nonsense like this.



And now for my regularly scheduled nonsense. For everyone that thought that MacGuyver was completely non-violent, he totally hit that one guy once. Sort of.



And you can't have a YouTube clip like that without someone creating a remix.



That guy needs a C-C-C-C-Combo-breaker!

And to close things out, a pair of SNL Digital Shorts. One's a bit old, but they're always classics.

HouseTV: Thursday is Retro Day

At least it is this week. I was going to revisit a few older cartoons today, and certainly a few quirkier ones. But because of a conversation I had yesterday, I felt inclined to cover this pair in more detail. Fans of piggybacking (or straight ripping off) concepts will love this particular discussion.

True glory lies within...



Let's be honest. If you were a child of my generation (meaning you're now an adult in your 30's.. embrace it), then you clearly know of the Thundercats. In fact, Thundercats were relatively popular even outside of my childhood. Panthro, the engineer who was clearly black even though he wasn't (the man had nunchucks and he drove the van... er, Thundertank). Tigra and his whip of... illusion (sigh... well, he was useful once or twice). Cheetara the speedster who single-handedly proved that a brown one piece could, in fact be disturbingly hot. Wily Kit and Wily Kat, the kids who were always trapped or captured. And of course Lion-O, wielder of the greatest phallic symbol known to toondom, the Sword of Omens.

But my story today is not about them. No, my story today is about their lesser known "cousins" if you will. Made of silver, nerves of steel. Partly metal, partly real? I speak of course, of the Silverhawks.

Now, anyone with half a brain could see that the show was a near and clear ripoff of Thundercats. Not that this is a surprise. Anytime something on television is a big succes, someone looks to emulate it. In this case, it is still the same production company, which means that the show itself was terribly similar in concept.

Having said that, there were only a few true recurring themes. The main premise, that of being half-human, half-something (cat-person/metal-person... or specifically metal hawk-person) and the bad guy who inexplicably became more powerful by transforming while reciting mantra (Mumm-Ra/Mon-Star) being the most notable. But from there the shows diverge heavily. While the Thundercats struggled to survive on their new planet Third Earth, the Silverhawks fought crime in the galaxy of Limbo.

And how could you not love these guys? Leader Quicksilver and his bird Tally Hawk. The twin siblings Steelheart and Steelwill. The Copper Kid from the Planet of Mimes (and they should have gone there at least once; the beeping alone could have caused Pokemon level seizures), and Bluegrass. Now I should note here that I was having a discussion yesterday about this show, and Bluegrass was the only one of the original Hawks that I couldn't name. It should be no surprise then, that I had an uber geek moment at work and ended up sending this e-mail to someone I know at 2:52 AM:

His name was Blue Grass. He flew the ship, and
played Hot Licks, his guitar.

No, I did not look it up. Yes, it was still
bothering me. Yes, I should be up at this time of night.

-TH

It was not until I stumbled upon Wikipedia later that I remembered that there were, in fact four other Silverhawks over the course of the show and they each ended up with weapon birds (that's how you sell the toys, yo). But enough pointless rambling. You're here for the clip, right?

Things of note/interest from the intro:

• Bluegrass was lame in retrospect, but cool at the time. Sure, Roy Rogers played his guitar while riding a horse, but did he ever do it while riding his horse through an asteroid field? I think not. Also, Bluegrass could kick Shipwreck's butt any day of the week.


• This show took place back in the olden days, where a rainbow had no implications other than being pretty colors. In this day and age, someone would no doubt be trying discover who was sending a "hidden message" by including one in the exhaust stream of the Hawks' ship, The Maraj. Despite the fact that it's even mentioned in the intro song.


• Shoulder mounted twin lasers are made of win.


• Not seen here but equally cool were the "space quizzes" at the end of the show where Bluegrass would question Copper Kid about his knowledge of space. See, Copper Kid wanted to pilot The Maraj, and this was Bluegrass' way of making him ready. I note this only becasue there were a few select times when Copper Kid did in fact pilot the Maraj. Also, learning is cool.


• Like many intros of the day (and now even), this intro is a measure of degrees better than the actual show was quality-wise. That's probably why I love it so much.

But for those of you who really, really remember your toonage, I'm sure that you also recall that the creators of the above listed shows went to the well one more time with this concept and created the Tigersharks.

Yes, Tigersharks. The show covered the adventures of a team of deep sea specialists exploring a virtual waterworld. Unlike their other toon-mates, however, the Tigershark team didn't remain in their hybrid forms permanently, but instead transformed into them by entering the "Fish Tank" (which is exactly what it sounds like)

Things of note/interest about the intro:

• The Tigersharks show was a part of a syndicated block called The Comic Strip. Since each episode was broken into parts to coincide with the other shows' 15 minute formats, the Tigersharks intro is notably shorter than the average show of the time.

• The only character I really noted on the show was Dolph, who became (naturally enough) part dolphin. This was relevant mainly because of all the other Tigersharks, Dolph was the only one that had to occasionally leave whatever they were up to to and go to the surface for air. Which, considering the goal was to change forms to remain underwater, had to suck for him.

• Unlike the other two shows, I have no doubt that I wouldn't find Tigersharks nearly as entertaining as I do the other two. But then, I didn't follow it nearly as closely either. As an early syndicated block, it was prone to rescheduling and preempting by the network that aired it at will.

• Yes, that guppy looking thing right near the end was a sidekick/pet. Every team needs a lovable sidekick/pet. Ugh...

• Not seen here but fondly remembered was the rally cry used by the team, a telepathic transmission of the message, "Catch a tiger by the tail." This would lead to the responding heroes responding, "Hold on, Tigershark." So the theme song makes more sense, then. Ehh....

And now, because I couldn't leave without giving it up, the original and the greatest:

On the Gaming Front...

In gaming news today, with Persona 4 on the horizon, Persona 2 says, "Not so fast, big brother!" Nintendo says, "Wii, Wii, Wii all the way home... and stay put when you get there."


Atlus' Persona 4 is due out on the PS2 this in jsut a few short weeks. I'm hyped, even though I haven't gotten around to finishing Persona 3 yet. But Atlus, true to form, decided to make a re-releease of the game Persona 2: Eternal Punishment. Old school Atlus fans, true to form managed to sell out the entire reprint run in just under an hour. I was bummed out that I didn't even have a shot at snagging a copy, but then I remembered that I already had one. One more in a big pile of RPGs that I never finished. But that's better than the pile that I never started. A sad, terrible pile indeed.

In other news, Nintendo has apparently decided that it's new Wii Speak peripheral (the one seen being pimped during some of their Animal Crossing commercials) is so cool you should buy it twice. Or as many times as you have consoles, anyway.

According to reports, the Wii Speak comes with a code that lets you download the Wii Speak channel (which you obviously need to do to use the device). The downside? The code can only be used once. That means that the mic is useless if you were to buy one used, which I guess is supposed to be the goal. On the other hand, it also means that you can't take the mic with you on a trip or over to a friend's house with another Wii. In theory, you could take your entire Wii over to their house, but who's really going to bother to do that?

I understand the principle of wanting to restrict secondary market sales, and really this is just a fancy microphone we're talking about here. But this sets a bit of a bad precedent for future hardware as well. Hopefully no one comes up with a nifty party or social game off of any new peripherals that might get handcuffed like this.

A party or social game... on the Wii? Never happen.

General HouseKeeping

You see what I did there? I... yeah, it's stupid.

First, a few general notes about the site. I'm right in the middle of doing some minor renovations. For one, I'm playing around with the template code so that the site generates read more tags and restricts part of the post to its own page. I'm doing this mainly because I have a tendency to get long winded at times, and it helps keep more posts near the top of the page.

What this does mean, however, is that now every post has a "Read More!" link at the end of it whether it has more post left or not. I may figure out a fix for this, but until I do I'll make sure to note when a post has more text beyond the front page.

I've got some more things planned, but they'll probably have to wait for another few weeks. My life is NaNoWriMo and sporadic posts here until the first of December.

Nano: Day 18 Update

First the good news. I'm currently at about 26,700 words. That's back on pace for finishing things, and if I can keep surging like I have been it shouldn't be a problem. The bad news? I've gone and scheduled to have my wisdom teeth removed next Monday. Which means that I will no doubt lose any chance to work on Monday, and probably not feel all that much like working the next few days, either. That means I'm going to have to work my tail off to get this done. But hey, I'm already 24,000 more words into this than I thought I would be, so more power to me.

Speaking of which, I believe I did say that I'd show you a little something of my work. Be warned: it only gets wordier from here...
(Click 'Read More!' to read the excerpt)




Prologue: Shadow in the Fog

"Farley!"

In the woods outside of the city, drifting just past the safety of the gates and the within earshot of the walls, Larry's voice echoed softly in the small wooded patch he was in. He stopped along the path and turned to one side to shout again. "Farley! Where the heck are you?" Larry wiped the sweat from his brow with his hankerchief and adjusted the balance of the basket he was carrying. He had performed his early morning foraging outside of the walls like clockwork three times a week for as long as he could remember. It was a gently brisk morning, thick with the humidity of the morning fog. His proximity to the security gate had more or less made him complacent in the endeavor. That, and the security his dog Farley brought him.

"Farley!"

He'd provide much more security, Larry thought, if the dumb mutt would actually stay near him.

"Farley, I swear I'm going to leave you out here if you don't..." A shuffle from ahead drew Larry's attention. He looked forward into the shifting mists and strained to see what it was.

The dim light of the early morning conspired with the lowly clouds to prevent visibility beyond 20 feet, but still Larry strained to see anything. He heard another shuffle from the same area, then looked again to see nothing. But slowly, ever so slowly, something began to appear. At first, Larry thought that maybe he was imagining things. A glimmer of the early morning lights combined with the opaque of the mists to create some sort of optical illusion. But then, as more seconds went by, he could make out a form. Not enough of a form to see exactly what it was, but a shadow. A shadow in the fog.

"Farley?"

Larry thought that it could be his pet. The shadow, after all, was relatively low to the ground. And it stood in place as he watched it. Farley wasn't the kind of pet to be overly disobedient, but he might stand in place if he had found something.

"What is it, boy?" Larry asked jokingly, "You find some nice 'shrooms over there?" The shadowed form remained still but still somehow shifted, almost as if moving on its own. Larry found the entire situation odd. He wanted to think that it was his dog ahead of him in the path, but at the same time he had a feeling that something just wasn't right. Almost without realizing it, he began to reach down towards the utility knife tucked into his belt. Normally it was only there for cutting loose a pesky root or clipping a mushroom, but Larry was slowly beginning to fear that he might need if for something else.

A sharp growl from behind nearly caused Larry to leap out of his shoes. He turned his head without turning his body, not willing to give up his position to whatevere was in front of him, but desperately needing to see what was behind him. There, another shadowy form had appeared almost an equal distance away as the one ahead. But unlike the one in front of Larry, this one slowly began to move closer. Larry was just moments away from truning in earnest to defend himself when his sense of recognition kicked in.

"Farley!" Larry cried out as his mutt of a dog stalked its way up behind him. The dog had an uncharacteristic snarl on his face. Larry had seen Farley worked up over things before but never like this. The animal's growl was guttural, the kind of noise that immediately reminded one, be they man or beast, that the animal still remembered its primal roots.

Slowly Farley treaded up to and just past his master, his gaze locked on the uncertain shadow in front of them. The shadow endured with no actual movement, its image still seeming to flicker in the morning haze.

"Come on, Farley..." Larry spoke softly as he still fingered the hilt of the blade in his belt. "Let's get out of here before..."

But it was too late. The shadow in the foggy path lunged forward with a sudden bolt. Almost as quickly, Farley leapt forward in defense of his master. Before Larry could try to stop him, Farley was on top of the mystery creature. Larry struggled to make out what was going on, but all he could see was that there was a struggle. Farley's vicious snarling growls could be heard, but they were met by an equally vicious set of growls from his opponent.

Larry chanced to move a few steps closer. The shapes in front of him began to take more recognizable forms. There was of course, Farley, bounding and grappling tooth and claw with another creature. As best as Larry could make out, it appeared to be a wolf or something similar. Larry thought about running for help, but he was much too far from the main gates to reach them in time. Not to mention the fact that there was no guarantee that he could even lead anyone back to this one spot, and on top of that it was unlikely that anyone would even help him save his dog from a wild animal.

Worst still was the other thought that Larry had, mainly that he should just run away and leave Farley to his own fate. He could never face his wife Gertie once he got home if he left Farley like that. The dog meant too much to him and to her to not at least try to help. Larry drew his knife and attempted to steel himself enough to approach the fighting animals.

The situation was close to being taken out of his hands. Before Larry could think to approach closer, the two beasts carrie dtheir fight further into the mists away from him. Larry stood frozen for a few more moments before finally chancing a few steps forward. The growling and snapping continued on, the sound drifting further away until finally it died down with a single sharp yelp.

Larry stood frozen in concern and fear. He waiting silently for what seemed like an eternity, afraid to move for fear of discovering what may or may not have become of his canine companion. Slowly he found his voice again, and called, his voice barely a whisper, "... Farley?"

The ground crackled ahead of him. Again a scant twenty feet ahead of Larry, a shadowy form appeared. Larry gripped his knife tighter, his hand trembling as an indication of just how woefully equipped he was to do any sort of real fighting.

The shadowy form began a slow approach. Larry's arm poked forward as if he expected to cause damage to something by having it run into his knife by accident. But alas, that would not be the case.

From amidst the fog, the familiar form of Larry's dog Farley came into focus. The dog, its spirit as worn as its body, limped ahead weakly. Its body had several scratches and bite marks, most notably a large gash along its left side.

"Oh, Farley!" Larry practically dropped his knife as he ran to be at his friend's side. "What were you thinkin', fella? You didn't have to do that. Are you, okay, boy? What did that thing do to you?"

Farley whimpered quietly, struggling to move closer to his master but not able to make it due to his wounds. His body collapsed into a furry matted pile on the cold wet earth.

Larry fell to his knees, his eyes starting to mist from the emotion. His body began to tremble as he tried to tend to his fallen pet. His knife fell from his hands as he sought to stop the animal's bleeding. His hands moved forward, gently lifting the dog into his arms and bringing it close to his body.

"Don't you worry, boy..." Larry whispered. "I'm not going to let you... You're gonna be okay, boy. You're gonna be just fine." The animal whimpered in his arms. Larry felt the trembling of its furry body and the warmth of the blood flowing from its open wounds. And then, much to Larry's horror, he felt its teeth.

The attack was as viciousas it was sudden. The animal that he'd raised since it was a puppy had inexplicably rebelled. He tried to calm it with soothing words dripped in panic, but to no avail. The animal was beyond reconcile. Larry felt the claws of the beast gripping into his chest , its teeth driving themselves into his neck again. His flailing arms reached for the knife that he had just discarded, but it was too late. With a greusome snarl and brutal tearing at the man's neck, forceful attack was over. The man was mortally wounded.

Larry's body collapsed into a limp pile on the cold soil. His mind was adrift, spiralling through its final confused thoughts as the warm fluid of his life drained from his form. He thought of Gertie, the wife he would never see again and prayed for her happiness. He idly thought of the basket of roots and mushrooms that wouldn't go on sale today and prayed for the peddlers who would come up short. He found that thought in particular oddly comical and out of place given the one that had come prior to it. He prayed for the sick, the young, and even his enemies. And then finally, he prayed for his longtime companion Farley, and silently forgave him for losing control as he did. He was after all, just a foolish animal, and even if anyone found him he would surely be put down for having attcked his master as he did.

He could feel his last gasps coming. His body registered no pain, and he found himself at peace among nature. The gentle morning breeze gave him comfort. The cooling mist of the morning drifted away as the new day, his last day, began to start in earnest. Larry, through the haze of his mind, saw another shadow in the fog above him. A familiar shape that was followed by the familiar feeling of a furred paw upon his bloody chest. Gone was the bestial ferocity that had occurred just a few moments ago. All that seemed to remain was the last traces of loyalty between owner and master. The last pages of a tragedy of small scale, but a tradgedy noentheles.

Larry's mind swirled peacefully downward. The thought of reaching out and giving his pal a final pet. The random guess of which pie his wife would fix for Sunday dinner. His first kiss. His last confession. That little blinky gadget he could never get to work properly. Awake.

The dying man's senses were stunned by the sudden interjection. While he knew full well that his mind was practically dreaming itself to death, his heart pulsed one final sharp tone as he realized something far more disturbing. The last thoughts... the final thoughts of his life... were not his own. The paw on his chest began to press onto his heart with an awful, immeasurable weight as his thoughts once again began to speak on their own.

Finally... finally awake...

But for Larry, the burden of this terror would be fleeting. His body wounded, pressed and failing, Larry finally surrendered to what could have been a far more merciful death. In the woods outside of the city, drifting just past the safety of the gates and the within earshot of the walls, a shadow in the fog howled omninously, its scream drifting into the early morning light and changing... changing into something far more ominous.


(Ooo-oooooh! But the rest of it isn't nearly as creepy as all that. Note this is just a draft. It's all just a draft. But this part felt like it was put together well enough to show the curious public. With any luck, I'll feel up to showing more of it later.)

NaNo: Day 16 Update

Okay. I got things rolling today my word count is just under 23K, but I'm going to count it as 23K because I can pretty much drop the 50 words I need to get there right after I hit enter on this bad boy. Today was good because I really got some wordage in. Furthermore, I feel like I might just be able to get that much done again a few more time. If so, then I'll be able to do this thing.

Booyaka, baby!

Somewhere in the next day or two, I'm going to try to post a snippet or two. But only if I can find a good section (I.E. one I don't need to edit to kingdom come to be legible).

"The father of the boy that does not win..."

In a brilliant display of athletic prowess, two NFL teams today showed that proving who was the better team isn't always an acheivable goal.

Yes, the Cincinnati Bengals and Philadelphia Eagles combined for 26 points and were nice enough to split them evenly among themselves. While I'm sure there were plenty of lowlights to be had, my favorite snippet of the day came from Philly QB Donovan McNabb coutesy of ESPN:

"I didn't know that," said McNabb, who played a leading role in keeping it tied. "I've never been part of a tie. I never even knew it was in the rule book. I was looking forward to getting the opportunity to get out there and try to drive to win the game. But unfortunately with the rules, we settled with a tie."

Yeah, Donovan. It was the rules that failed you in this game. But in his defense, it's not unreasonable to think that he wasn't aware of it. After all, most games have a team that's capable of scoring at least 2 points in the course of 15 minutes. Why you seemed to think that you needed another chance to redeem yourself after having to fail so many times prior to that, I'll never know.

Then again, I do have trouble imagining that no one on the sideline pointed out a tie was imminent. I'm sure there was a geek somewhere oover there that should have been spreading the info around. That third string receiver that nobody really talks to... pay attention to him when he's pulling on your sleeve next time. He might have something to say that you'll want to hear.

But hats off to the Bengals and Eagles. There were no losers in that game you guys played. Except, of course, for any fans that managed to watch it.

Wanda at Large... Indeed.

So, I'm sitting on a slow news day, as usual, and something inevitably comes out of the blue and clobbers me. Case in point, in the aftermath of the Prop 8 vote in California, Wanda Sykes has decided to come out in favor of gay marriage. Actually, she's decided to come out. Period. Here she is at a rally speaking her mind:



This falls in pace withan old familiar pattern with me. Because unlike every woman in America who is lying, I actually do find a sense of humor attractive. Which is why I am almost bummed to run into of female comedians that I have found in some way attractive only to find out later that they are lesbians. But it's not like I had a real shot with her to begin with it, so it's not a huge loss.

(Thanks to Sam Johnson for the news link above. You're my buddy, and I commiserate with you and point that although we both had no shot, you had even less of one. Because even in a girl-on-girl world, the lure of the Mocha King still eclipses all other males.)

Strike! And Strike! And Strike Again!

Anyone that knows me knows that I'm not a big fan of college football. I'll watch a good game if it's on and I have nothing else to do (when do I ever?), but I don't follow it religiously. I did, however, happen to catch something that I thought was very cool this morning.

ESPN College GameDay, which always does remote shows Saturday morning at various sites, did their show this morning from the campus of Florida A&M University.

This is great to me for two reasons. First, FAMU just happens to be my alma mater, so it's cool to see the school on the big screen and in a national spotlight. Second, it's the first time in the history of GameDay that they've done the show from the campus of an HBCU. That's any HBCU. And while some may argue it was just because it was a slow week nationally, I'm quick to point out that they could have just as easily drove the mile and a half down the street they would have needed to to hang out at Florida State. So kudos to ESPN and the gang.

And for fans of GameDay that know that Lee Corso puts on a mascot head at the end of every show, I'm sure that you can understand why I found this moment at the end to be particularly satisfying.



And since Lee the added snake strike, I feel contractually obligated to add this:

Friday Night Nonsense

Submitted for your Friday viewing pleasure, a snippet of something that actually aired on Comedy Central today. Tenacious D at their finest. Search for Part 1 if you'd like, but Part 2 is where all the action is.



And then, simply because I can... Japanese Bruce Willis.

Japanese Bruce Willis | Viral | SPIKE.com

Why must Japan make everything better?

HouseTV: Chase: Not Exactly Logan's Run...

...although a palm crystal really would have been overkill.

So this Tuesday, the SciFi Channel premiered their new reality game show Chase. The show touts itself as a real life video game, and in truth it's probably about as close as you can get to one. While I watched it primarily out of morbid curiosity, I ended finding the show oddly compelling.
The premise is simple enough. The entire thing is basically a grown up game of Tag on crack. Ten contestants called Runners are set loose on the selected "game board" in an attempt to win money. They win money by finding money flags along the routes and by evading the Hunters, people designed to track down and capture the Runners, which they do by "tagging" them (like I said, Tag on crack).

It's these Hunters that make the show entertaining. Each one has a specialty, be it speed running, agility, endurance, or stealth. There's even one that's only job is to act as a spotter, calling in the location of Runners to the other Hunters but unable to capture them himself. Each Hunter roams around the board in shades and a suit. Yes, they look like rejects from The Matrix, but there's a reason people dug that film.

Furthermore, the Hunters literally prowl the game board like drones or zombies until they find a Runner, at which point they take off in a full blown sprint towads them. The myriad of "I'm okay, I'm okay... Oh, **** he sees me!" moments are more than worth the price of admission.

Also entertaining is the small arsenal of items that the Runners can pick up along the course of the game. My personal favorite is the Deflector, which automatically forces a Hunter to reverse direction. This is made more entertaining by the Hunters, who on cue stop their chase, turn, and walk away as if they'd never seen the person they were just stalking.

But lest we forget the Runners, who are supposed to be the true stars of the show. They're good for only one thing: the epic ways in which they fail. Yes, this is one of those shows where the true joy is not in witnessing the success, but in mocking the failure. Players will trust each other even though there's no reason to. Players will have the genius notion to hide somewhere even if it doesn't really benefit them. Players will fail to read their maps properly, lose their maps, waste their scarce supply of tools, and any number of other miscues that make you point and laugh. All while being stalked by men (and women) in black.

I'm not saying set your TiVo or anything, but if you happen to have a free hour and it happens to be on Chase is bound to be a pointless distraction for your life.

Reasons to be Done With Fast Food (Part 7)

(I'm going with a smaller font, because this might take a while.)

I know this is technically the first post I've made on the subject, but I assure you that 1) there had to have been no less than 6 other events in my life that should have convinced me that it was a good idea to quit it and B) there is no way on earth that you'd actually want me to recount all of those stories. For starters, some of them are horribly boring.

But this story involves this afternoon, and why not even the lure of the almighty barbeque glory will get me to revisit a certain store again in the near future.

First, the backstory. There are several seasonal things that occur in life that always grab my attention. Some grab it obssessively so, and most revolve around some sort of foodstuff. Of the many things I become incredibly excited over are the return of egg nog to store shelves in November (an event counterbalanced by the sadness of its departure almost exactly at midnight January 1st) and... the McRib.

Now I know that the McRib is not a quality sandwich. It's probably more hip or foot than rib (assuming that it's even meat to begin with) and there are any number of barbeque sandwiches that would be considered better. Still, for reasons I can't fully comprehend, I truly enjoy the "limited time only" that the McRib exists on the McDonald's menu. Perhaps it's the memories of being treated to the specialty sandwich as a child (I have similar memories of the McDLT) or even the pitch offered by the stores themselves (the signs proudly proclaim "McRib is back", which sounds like the start of a great blaxploitation movie, by the way).

So it is with great joy that today, having encountered the perfect combination of availability, global postioning, and hunger, that I found myself at the McDonald's on Victory and Montgomery. Mind you, I don't stop there often; I much prefer the other stores to begin with. But it is the closest McD's to my house, and it gives me the opportunity, upon leaving, to have a near straight shot to said house. Yes, I am that lazy.

For whatever reason (let's call it that laziness thing I just referenced), I decided to make use of the drive thru. There are several reasons I tend not to do this, the most prevalent being that entering the building tends to give you some idea of who might be working there and in what environment. Sometimes all it takes is the right eye contact to convice you that maybe a PB&J at the house is a better idea. But we forge on here, since my love of McRib is worth the risk.

So I'm at the drive thru speaker, and I get prompted for my order. I, of course, order a McRib extra value meal (but what a Shamaylanian twist it would have been if I hadn't, huh?). The young man coming through the speaker then asks me the question that is the cornerstone of this story:

"Medium or Large?"

Now, I should note that I really couldn't care at all about fries or a soda at this juncture. I'm getting them just because it's cheaper to pick them up, and I can almost convince myself that this passes as a real meal. It's at this point that I opt to go for the Medium, because hey, it's not like I need to go large on this one.

I'm halfway to picking my beverage of choice when I look at the LED screen (provided, by the way, to allow you to check your order, and notice that the cost seems to be higher than I had guesstimated. The reason? From looking at the screen, my guess would be this: "1 MCRIB ML-LRG". Now, I'd like to think that LRG stood for "Looking Really Good", but I know that it stands for Large. So I go against my natural instinct not to raise too big of a fuss at a drive thru (because I know I can't see what anyone's doing in the building there), and I ask.

"You do have that as a medium, right?"
"Yes, it's a medium."

Now I know the kid is full of crap, because I'm looking right at the screen and it's saying that it's a large. It's also saying that I owe them 50 cents more than I expected to pay, which is aggravating me to no end. But again, this is about the McRib. So I suck it up, and decide to ask about it when I drive around to the first window. The conversation goes something like this:

"That'll be $5.61."
"Are you sure that's a medium and not a large?"
"Yes."
"Because the screen back there said it was a large, and this costs more than the medium."
"... $5.61."

At this point, I'm incredulous. I'm actually in a zen state where I cannot conceive that the events that happened just happened. I understand fully how the Jedi mind trick works now, since I was so stunned that I paid the poor kid and pulled ahead. So now I'm at the pick-up window, and I get my food, and... big surprise here... large fries, large drink.

At this point, I don't particularly care that it's a large. All I need is for someone to tell me that I'm not crazy. So I ask the guy at the second window if this is a medium or a large. He tells me, of course, that it's a large. I tell him that I asked for and was told that I had a medium. He tells me that he can refund me difference.

Now I know that in theory that would be fair compensation, but I don't want fair compensation at this point. I don't particularly care that I bought more than I actually wanted to (it's just 50 cents, and I can actually afford that). What I care about is that in the back of the store is some kid who either is so woefully trained that he can't find the right button to press on the register or so blatantly deceitful that he's upsizing people for no reason. That, and the fact that I'm the only one that seems to care about the fact that this kid effectively called me a liar by insisting that he was right.

So Kudos, you wacky McDonald's. For screwing me out of 50 cents when all you had to do is admit that you were so very wrong and that I'm not stupid, you earn the right to have me not stop at your restaurant in the near future. That's right. You've lost all of my McRib business. I'd rather pick up one at some further away location and have to reheat it at my house than give you any more business. But thank you for giving me yet another... Reason to Be Done... With Fast Food!