The Ziggurat of Doom

This is as shameful as it is awesome, which is why I share it with you.

I’ve been attending meetings of SUNY Albany’s Anime Gamer’s Alliance. They encouraged costumes for our Halloween meeting. I’d like to point out in this picture the person standing furthest right. Yes, that is George Washington-Ivy (Soul Caliber 2). Yes, he is a man normally. That is our secretary. He had the best costume by far (as you can tell).

We played Soul Caliber 3 that night. It is equally awesome, different yet the same. Some favorite characters from SC1 are back. Rhad will be happy.

From our friends at Bethesda Softworks, I bring news of new demo videos of the upcoming RPG following the Elder Scrolls name: Oblivion.

I offer only this warning. If you didn’t already want the game, after watching the videos, you will; which, I suppose, is their intention. As if my expectations for the sequel to Morrowind weren’t high enough.

Dissapointingly, no word yet on a release date. As soon as I know, though, I’ll add it to our Important Events list.

I was out of town all weekend, drinking and eating and having a grand old time. I’m back now, with stuff.

Specifically, this hilarious music video titled: “Everything Sounds Like Coldplay Now”.

So, I was bored in Nord tonight.
Boredom leads to Internet.
Internet leads to Metaquotes.
Metaquotes leads to Scary Harry Potter Dance Team Routines.

The associated quote, from Rackstraw: “You know how JK Rowling always said she wished she’d written the Harry Potter books in the eighties so that the movies would be more like Footloose? Me neither.”

Judge Samuel Alito Chosen by Bush for Supreme Court, from Bloomberg (because they had the top search result in Google)

Alito, from Scotus blog (becuase they have the best bio info)

“What’s green, hangs on the wall, and whistles?”

So I went to see MirrorMask with Post and Arashi tonight, now that a theatre near here finally decided to pick it up (hooray for you Cedar-Lee). Anyway, it was, not surpringly, good.

Do you like Neal Gaiman? If you do, you’ll probably like Mirrormask
Did you like the Neverending Story? If you did, you’ll probably like Mirrormask.
Do you like surrealist dreamscapes? If you do, you’ll DEFINITELY like Mirrormask.

Mirrormask is sort of like crossing the Neverending Story with Requiem for a Dream and adding 100% more Gaiman.

While I enjoy Sandman a great deal, I think Gaiman is at his best writing short stories, which is what this is. He does well with the fairy-tales. One good metaphor or moral, and he can wrap it up in a delicious pita of fantasy covered in the, umm, cucumber dressing of, uh, surrealism. Or something. Gyros!

It’s all very British, and I find something unnaturally delightful about British accents, so that is always a good +10 points in a movie’s favor for me.

I stepped out for a moment to hit the bathroom. Apparently all I missed was the World’s Best Knock-Knock Joke. Except the Hermit already told it to me last year. Sigh.

So, I hate spoilers. Here’s my summary of the movie:
1. Circus folk.
2. HOLY CRAP I like those drawings. Who did all of those?! They’re freaking great. And then I learn they’re the backdrop for most of the film? I’m pretty much sold.
3. Twiddles thumbs waiting for somebody to fall through a hole into a fantasy world or something.
4. Angst.
5. Hole!
6. The all-consuming darkness will consume us all!
7. I’m relatively nonchalant about the whole issue. Let’s be friends. I want to use you to make money. Sound good?
8. Hi, I’m a story being constructed using classic story building blocks. Aren’t you glad you won’t care?
9. Best. Riddle-game. Ever.
10. Auto-gothination chamber, ACTIVATE! The only way to de-goth yourself is to juggle. Strange you say? Well then I ask you: have you ever seen a juggling goth?
11. Catharsis, Story book ending, denoument…no not really.

Anyway, it rocked, and above all was visually stunning in a way you are not likely to see again soon. This is gonna get more attention when award-time rolls around, I’m thinking.

One of the ZoD’s favorite holidays is brought to us courtesy of the British, Guy Fawkes Day. If you don’t know anything about it, go ready the wikipedia about it, and then nod your head knowingly.

A BBC program, with all of the scientific rigor that suggests, looks into just how much damage Fawkes would have done.

The civil engineering firm Arup concluded that the blast would have propelled the timber floor upwards so fast that everyone in the chamber would have been killed.
Anyone who did manage to survive would have been finished off by the subsequent fireball, flying timber fragments or the impact of falling back to the ground.

There are worse ways to make a political point.

(hattip: DP)

From Ars Technica:

Under current law, the government is allowed to forcibly extract DNA from people who’re convicted of a crime. However, if Senators Jon Kyl (R-AZ) and John Cornyn (R-TX) have their way, law enforcement officials will be able to demand a DNA sample of people who’re merely arrested, even if they’re not charged with a crime.

As part of the, oh, 99.99% or so of the US that probably has a violation on my car that could possibly lead to arrest if a cop tried to push it, this doesn’t make me thrilled.

When I got first found Superdickery, I pretty much read through the whole thing. Checked back every once in a while, but it really never updates enough.

That’s where What WERE They Thinking comes in. One update every day, almost without fail.

The following is a list of jobs that I am glad that I don’t have

1. Personal trainer to Starr Jones
2. Sewer inspecter
3. OBGYN
4. Iraqi Minister of Public Information
5. Assistant crack whore
6. Pet psychiatrist
7. The guy who has to deal with all the DMCA RFCs
8. Title Ops
9. Data entry

Ok, I’m only posting test results because I think its actually a good test, and if I can convince the other Ziggurati to take it, I want to compare what the test returns vs. what I think of them. Anyone is free to post their results in the comments (assuming the HTML doesn’t break anything).
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Once you read this, you can never unread it. I know. I’ve tried.

Great way to kill time. Note that images may be nsfw, since they’re random.

toothpaste for dinner: random livejournal picture generator

And now for something completely different, a plug for a show that has nothing to do with any sci fi or fantasy. Actually, everything in this show could actually happen, with the exception of the medical stuff. That, I don’t really know enought about to comment.
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Looks like the Creationists are investing more money in Google Ads, if what I’m seeing is any indication.

How annoying. Ignore those ads, citizens - Intelligent Design creationism is still bullshit.

Cow holy, that’s a lot of crayons. Well, it would be if all three parts were up yet. But for now, it’s still 32 crayons worth of amusing commentary.

Thanks to my friend Alison, who finds lots of random stuff on teh intarwebs.

President Bush has withdrawn his nomination of Harriet Miers for Supreme Court Justice. Apparently pretty much everyone disliked her. Also, she had no idea what she was doing, and her only qualification was being a close friend of Bush. Mmm… smells like cronyism. Of course, he’s blaming the Senate; after all, it’s clearly their fault that he wanted to nominate someone with no judicial experience and no record ANYWHERE of what she actually thought.

This week sucks all over for the White House, between this, the possibility of indictments over the Plame/CIA issue (about which I may blog later, but I may not, because it’s a very strange situation), and the news earlier this week that the U.S. military death toll in Iraq topped 2,000.

Wow. Neat gadget with a variety of potentially evil/hilarious uses.

Some people were having trouble getting to the attack hamster post earlier. I looked back, and it looks like the target of the link was having a number of technical problems, including loosing some text. It was originally posted here.

Enjoy. It should be worth the wait.

This would make Rhad very happy, if he had cable, and a pvr.
This would make me very happy, if my cable carried the cartoon network, and if my pvr worked reliably.

Gigantor is coming. No one can stop Gigantor.

(Hat Tip: Cinerati)