This is why I do it. :)

My Rock Band pedal broke over Christmas. I fixed it, and replaced the snapped metal plate with brass. Step 2: replace that pesky plastic with wood. :)

Something must be said.

Where to begin?

1) Oh, the internet...

2) I know it's fake, but I wish it was real. Why don't sharks attack more helicopters?

3) I'm not sure that 'officialquiz.com' knows what an illusion is.

4) I guess if crap like this means I can have free ad-driven services like Pandora, I'll take it. Ad-clicking morons are subsidizing a good portion of my online life--yet another way in which stupid people are useful.

5) This is just one Syfy meeting away from becoming a movie (in the same vein as Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus). The sequel will feature the offspring of a Pave Low and a Great White; it will be called "Sharklocopter."

What is it?

I'll give you a hint: it has a head and legs and flipper arms, and though you can't tell from this photo, it's very good at wiggling. Oh, and it's stuck in my wife's innards and it's making her throw up all the time.

An alien parasite? No (close, though).

Give up? It's a 10-week-old fetus-baby!

Pay attention, parents

I can't say it any better (or more humorously) than this:

In other news, the semester started yesterday and it's too humid outside.  In further other news, I'm at Radina's planning for tomorrow.  When I'm done I'll go eat lunch with Netty and then... home to play Batman: Arkham Asylum!  Woot!

Totally worth it

If we spent half as much time actually playing Necromunda as I spend making things for it, our campaign would be over now...but it's just so fun. For those who haven't read my Guilder reports (so...everyone, I'd guess, especially since the first one is just now working again), the campaign involves two competing companies--Neat John's Brewery and Creep Fine Liquor. I just finished making the main Creep distillery. It was built in a converted Guilder stronghold after the Guild was driven out of the region years ago.

I spent a ridiculous amount of time on this little project, but summer is the only time I can spend ridiculous amounts of time on things, so I have no regrets. I've also started designing signs and billboards that will add a little variety to the tabletop. Here are a few samples.

Over construction?

That's enough reblogulating, I think. Time to make some ice cream.

Under Construction

The change isn't complete yet, but you get the idea. I'll probably finish up tomorrow.

Wow (the good kind)

The term 'customer service representative,' in theory, refers to an individual who will provide service to the customer. Most of the time, these people provide headaches and frustration to the customer instead. How many times have you had to practically yell into the phone to deal with these people to get them to reading from their prepared scripts that are designed to frustrate/confuse you into giving them more money?

But I'm not here to rant, because I just had the best customer service experience ever. Here's how it went down: Two years ago, I bought a domain and hosting plan from GoDaddy.com. In the last month or so, I've been getting emails telling me the plan was about to expire and that it was set to auto-renew (i.e. automatically debit my account). I didn't want the plan anymore, so I went to the website and turned the auto-renew off, expecting that to take care of the problem. But then today I check my email and there's a receipt for the auto-renewed plan.

Sighing the deep sigh of a guy who hates phones because of things like this, I called GoDaddy. The dude asked how he could help, and I told him what happened. Without missing a beat, he said, "Alright, I'll just go ahead and cancel your plan and get you that refund." No annoying questions about why I didn't like the service, no trying to sell me on the benefits of a hosting plan, no tempting me with a 30-day free trial. Just one 20-second conversation and the problem was solved to the customer's satisfaction. Wow.

The sad part is that I'm amazed by something that should happen all the time.

2 in one wake?

Here's the second Guilder report from our Necromunda campaign. I'm using a different hosting site this time, so we'll see if this one works better. I forgot to add a start button again, so this one autoplays, too. Oh, well.

Can I have 4 beers?

Hi, punk!

It took the brilliant combination of Will Ferrell and a baby to bring me out of my four-month blog retirement. I was searching Funny or Die for a series called 'Drunk History,' which I'd heard about on Current TV. It's actually not as funny as I'd hoped (well, Volume 3 is actually pretty good) but while I was there I came across the following hilarity:

[Edit: the embeds apparently don't like to load promptly. If you get tired of waiting, click on the links.]

The Landlord from Will Ferrell

Good Cop, Baby Cop from Will Ferrell

This is the kind of stuff I want to do with my own kids. You know, exploit them for the sake of comedy. :)

[Update: There's also an outtakes vid.]

Guilder report

Netty and I have started a long-term Necromunda campaign (long-term because we don't play often, not because the campaign is particularly epic) and I wanted a creative way of recording its progress and such, so I came up with this over the weekend: (I can't for the life of me get it to stop autoplaying, so you'll have to refresh the page to watch it from the beginning.)

[Update: I still can't get this embed to play properly, so here's a direct link.]
[Update 2: Right after adding the last update, it started working, so...]

Three Deceased People I Would Clone...

...and the Ridiculous Jobs I Would Hire Their Clones to Do:



1. Colonel Sanders, whose clone I would hire not as my chef but as a guy to sit on my front porch, shouting chicken recipes and shaking his cane at passers-by.










2. Paul Newman, whose clone I would hire to follow me around everywhere, each day dressing in a different costume based on his Newman's Own products.

3. Buckminster Fuller, whose clone I would hire to say the phrase "bucky balls" whenever I press a button on my Bucky Remote®. In theory, this will help accelerate my new plan to phase out the word "shenanigans." In the future, when you hear a load of crap, you'll say "I call bucky balls on that one."

And...cue repressed disappointment

Obama's being sworn in right now, and when I felt a twinge of the Fever that's running rampant, I decided it was time to say something. I mean, this excitement is infectious, but so is avian flu.

Constant media-induced aggrandizement has elevated a President-Elect (not a President who has done anything, mind you) to the status of Savior of the Free World in a matter of two short months. I obviously have a problem with heaping praise on anyone before they've earned it. But let's table that issue for the moment. The bigger problem here is that it's rare to hear someone say with any clarity or specificity how Obama might actually become worthy of their praise. That is, relatively few people are saying, "I can't wait until Obama does ______." They're simply saying "I can't wait until Obama." This is lazy thinking at its worst. So many people out there have only vague notions about our new President, notions like "notBush" and "firstblackpresident" and "ohboychange" and "holyshitimbrokemaybeobamawillfixthat," and somehow these vague notions were enough to earn votes. Obama voters who can actually justify their choice are in the minority.

I imagine this atmosphere of mindless Obamania will lead to some interesting results. I expect he'll start his term with a couple of high-profile "game-changers" that won't actually change the game in any significant way at all, but will make a lot of noise in some circles and quiet a lot of noise in others--that's the "Change" we've heard so much about. Once people realize he's not a messiah and isn't going to "fix" the world (because that's not really his job, after all), I anticipate a two-year, nationwide period of cognitive dissonance that should be all sorts of fun to watch.

Let me be clear: I don't have any major fears about Obama's presidency. In fact, I'm hopeful about at least one of his plans. If he actually closes down Guantanamo Bay, that would be a good thing. We're not the freaking Inquisition here.

Yes, he'll try to socialize health care and I don't care for that. But if we're being honest, the country has been moving in that direction for years now, and if it finally happens on Obama's watch he still won't be solely to blame for it. (On a side note, the very act of establishing a government is a step toward socialization, so the world has been on this road for a while, like it or not--and I don't.)

No, I don't anticipate any significant reduction in gun rights, at least not within a single term.

Yes, I think that, to the rest of the world, it makes us look good to have a black president, and to a certain extent I may even agree that it's a big step for us. However, the world is fickle and racist and has relatively little interest in Obama as a person or political figure, only as a member of a particular race, so screw them.

No, I don't interpret the election of a democrat as a sign of the End Times, any more than I would interpret the election of a republican as such. In fact, in a country that enjoys polarizing itself (and if that sounds dirty, it's because it is), we actually must have a democrat for a few years to balance out all those republican years. If we were willing to elect reasonable, moderate candidates, we wouldn't have this problem. But, alas, despite my vote for the impeccably-mustachioed Bob Barr (said vote being, as I understand it, one of several tens of tens), we will, apparently, continue on in our zigzag journey, first riding an elephant that consistently veers to the right and then a donkey that tends toward the left of the Path of Reason, which runs arrow-straight toward The Future. We'd get there a lot faster if we were on a Segway--those puppies only veer if you do.

Necessary to adhere

There are mods that are fun to play, and then there are the ones that have no earthly reason for existing. This one's hilarious. It changes your pet dog in Fallout 3 from a normal-looking dog:

To this:

I laughed pretty hard when I saw this. I don't know...maybe having a dog with angry eyebrows would make the game more fun. The description this modder gave makes it even better:

"Icannot speak English. Sentences are made on the WEB page of the translation. Thus, please forgive me though sentences might be wrong. This is a texture that puts up the eyebrow to the dog. It is lovely that the eyebrow has adhered to the dog, and always thinks that it is necessary to adhere. Nevertheless, because no one made it, it made it formyself."

If you're interested in an eyebrowed dog (And why wouldn't you be? It is lovely that the eyebrow has adhered to the dog, after all.), you can get it here.

A handwritten post, for kicks

This is what you've waited over two months for.

So, I'm giving an exam tonight, which means there's not much for me to do, so I was clicking around my computer and found something I wrote two years ago.  I don't know if it was meant to be the beginning of a story, or something I wrote in the middle of the night, but I've decided that it makes a great story on its own.  Here it is:


"Romance Chicken"



     “Tell me something romantic.”

     That damn chicken better get here quick.

SNL debate

If you watched the actual VP debate, this is hilarious.  If not, it's proably still mildly funny.

The Braskey Chronicles: Episode Two

Ok, that didn't take long. My GCast player is now in the sidebar, and Episode Two is up (it's not nearly as long as Episode One was, but it is a bit harder to understand because it was recorded in public).

P-p-p-podcast!

I wanted to discuss Spore, but I didn't feel like typing (and yet, here I am typing...) so I decided a podcast was the way to go.  I'm tentatively calling this experiment "The Braskey Chronicles," and the first episode features Netty and I discussing Spore and other things for 25 minutes.  Enjoy! (If this becomes a regular feature, I'll probably put the player in my sidebar.)



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