Anima's Interesting-chip Cookie Journal

Why is Sarah Palin back in the news? Why is anyone paying the slightest bit of attention to anything she has to say? It's difficult to parody her, because the shit she pulls already makes her look like a parody of herself!

She sounds like she expects to be elected into one office or another. If you voters give her any authority, I'm joining the 'it will take an armed coup to solve our problems' party.

So, between Monday and Wednesday, we're expecting 10-12 more inches of snow. I think it's time to invest in a flamethrower.

Friday morning: Well, where's this half foot of snow we're supposed to get?


Friday evening: Well that was a bust, we got an inch *if* that. Pfft, good night.


Saturday morning: Aww crap.

This Valentine's, why not treat your sweetie to a romantic candlelit dinner at...

WHITE CASTLE?!

http://www.whitecastle.com/promotions/valentine

You need to make a reservation, but it nets you table-side service, flowers and candlelight. ...Fine, but it's still WHITE CASTLE!

Anyone knowledgeable about necromancy? In either a gaming-world context, a historical one, or as part of your belief system?

I'm doing research for what I hope will become a full-fledged novel.

Happy birthday suerankin! The only pun I can think of for deer and birthdays involves switching over to French, so I'll abstain.

Does this bring back any fond memories for you folks?

Another image I'm ashamed to admit I'm highly amused by.

Psychonauts is 2 bucks from Steam! http://www.gamerhotline.com/psychonauts-pc/ If you never gave it a try, now's the time!

Yay! The Guitar Hero II bundle I got from Amazon with Christmas money finally arrived. (Excellent deal: 35 bucks shipped. I can haz juicy licks?)

Just spent about two hours playing, and my fingers gave up on me. This is the first fake-guitar game I've owned; all my experience with 'em has been playing at Soltris or Joe's place.

Cherry Pie kicked my ass, ;,; 3-starred it on medium.

First purchased song: a Freezepop track, of course.

Later, when I'm sure I can do it without breaking anything, I'll disassemble the X-plorer and give it a fancy new paintjob complete with stencils.

Which reminds me, if any of you'd like to add me on Xbox Live, my gamertag is Spootz09. I only have the silver account so no head-to-head play, but you can send me misspelled greetings and laugh at my achievements.

So...I've had two notable exposures to films in the last couple days.

Yesterday it was Meet the Feebles. I just accepted it as it happened, and I didn't think it affected me at all in the brain-melting sense those who'd seen it assured me it caused. But in the hours after viewing it, reflecting on the movie... I can sum it up best by saying 'my brain wanted to vomit.' It felt sick, deeply regretting what it had taken in. Having the chorus stuck in my head didn't help.

Today I watched Schindler's List. As I told Lly, it was a very beautiful and ugly movie. If, like me, you never took the time to watch it then I recommend you set aside three hours sometime soon and give it a try.

It's hard to think of a larger gap in more respects between movies than these two. The Abyss and Dune have more in common.

I have a headache. -.-

Sharing a couple images from the Christmas dinner I cooked.





And this curry came a couple days later, 'cuz of course family was sticking around and still needed fed.



Click the pics to go visit Flickr and see the recipe links in their descriptions.

This got at least a dozen laughs out of me.

A list of 'the best movies of this past decade' list suggested I see There Will Be Blood.
Deceptive title, though eventually true.

I didn't like it. Not only because the protagonist, an anti-hero for sure, was a ruthless oil tycoon who stepped on people constantly.

It was disjointed. The narrative was interrupted frequently. I appreciated some of the specific scenes, where they performed long takes with no cuts. It made you feel like a bystander.

No sympathetic characters. Very limited point of view. We never see the improvements promised to the town, for instance. I thought for sure that would crop up, but nope.

Of course the major upside is that I now understand the whole I DRINK YOUR MILKSHAKE meme.

Though Basil died in December, I didn't learn of it until today when I saw the announcement of an informal funeral to be held for him on Feb. 6th at 1 p.m.

Basil was a beautiful fox, and the animal I most looked forward to seeing on my trips to Wolf Park. While Devon and Ember were skittish to say the least around whatever group I happened to be with, Basil was willing to eat our craisins and receive a few strokes.

I heard stories he would even perch on visitors' heads now and then.

Rest in peace, Basil. I'm glad to have met you.

Another Cris Rose robot. This may be the first I recall seeing with no moss or rust on it.

Night Guardians Defenders of Dreamtime "Skye"

Night Guardians are here to comfort children during the night. Place sun crystals in areas of the room that children find scary. Read a story and inspire confidence with Night Guardians tales of adventure & courage. Children comfort themselves by using Night Guardians to remotely illuminate Sun Crystals throughout the room.

http://www.cookieskids.com/Product.aspx?l=00210055000000000000&p=JAM01234

Lil bit of thought-provoking comicness.

http://www.egodialogues.com/words-language/huxley-orwell.php

M'gonna have to start reading this Huxley fellow.

Volpin made this amazing Fallout 3 weapon prop replica a few months ago, but he's working on an even better version this year. Go check out his photostream. He's working on everything from Zelda gear to Portal equipment to Daft Punk costume pieces.

He's also the one who made that amazing Big Daddy suit from Bioshock that I LJ'd about awhile back.

My friend has gotten their account and most if not all of her gear back. Last I heard, they were working on retrieving her lower level characters. I guess maybe one vicious asshole was responsible for the permanent closure thing? *shrugs*

I got quite a bit of fun out of this site, in delicious five-second installments.

http://5secondfilms.com/watch/running_on_empty

Your daily dose of 'I'm embarrassed this amuses me.'

http://swgalaxies.datastart.hu/modules/Videos/files/vader-loituma.swf

So my friend foxwing here on LJ had her World of Warcraft account hacked. It happens, and while it's tremendously annoying, most of the stories I've heard indicate that at least the characters come back unharmed, if naked and poor.

Her alts were deleted, every vendorable piece of gear on her main and in the bank sold, and the hacker was attempting to move her main to another server when she discovered the hack.

After hours on hold with Blizzard, she got her main's transfer halted, and her account access restored, only to have it blocked again...necessitating another horrible phone call. She discovered her bank had been filled with high-price in-game items, which is the only effective way to transfer huge sums across servers. She informed Blizzard of this via trouble tickets, fearing retribution if she even deleted these stolen goods. An 'investigation' was started, which could take up to 9 days.

Blizzard permanently closed her account.

According to their EULA and TOS, she is liable for anything done with her account. Her password was very strong (random letters/numbers) and she did everything right in handling the situation...and they treated her like a criminal.

How much money do you suppose her account was worth after 4 years of intense play? Countless hours not just leveling and gearing up, but accruing rep, pets, achievements, etc? You can't replace those as easily as you could grind a new character up to 80 and get them geared. Because in-game items are worth real world currency (there's absolutely no denying that) this really strikes me as a criminal offense on Blizzard's part. If they're protected by their ludicrous documents, then the documents themselves are a travesty.

You know what I think would be a good idea?

A bi-annual Presidential Cornering. A member of the general public (no celebs) is chosen via an online voting system and supplied with a list of hard questions (also compiled via popular vote) and closeted with the president. Video and audio pumped straight to the web, no one else present in the room.

Our representative grills the president, and until he/she is satisfied every question has been actually answered and not maneuvered around, the cornering ends. If the prez pussy-foots around or tries 'no comment' he doesn't get to come out.

That screams transparency a lot louder than a few new websites which contain surprisingly little information.

I'm still wincing.

Have a chilly, fluffy bird!

I could learn a lot from this guy. Click for the best painted Nerf Vulcan you'll ever see.

http://utini420.blogspot.com/2009/12/i-call-her-eunice.html

This is the last video I got of Daniel while at the renfaire this year. Balancing on a ladder while carrying on a comedy act must be tough, but he makes it look easy.

Happy New Year to y'all. Here's hoping 2010 rocks our socks and doesn't wreck our necks like '09 did.

Happy birthday to neonkitty, and mrs_pholph!

Well, thanks to Joe and Kat, I now have an Xbox 360. And Ghostbusters!
I've been playing it in chunks, and here are my impressions.

It looks pretty good! Especially the neutrona streams; I'm sure they spent tons of time getting that right. The new weapons are fun, and so is the jargon associated with them. The controls are simple and work well. I suppose the Ectogoggles can be a lil annoying, walking around with them equipped, but in-game warnings about things you should examine with them make that unnecessary really.

The ghost-wrangling mechanics are good. You feel a definite sense of satisfaction when trapping a ghost. I bet it's even more fun on the Wii version, if the wrangling is at all similar.

It's spooky! I was impressed that they managed that. Of course dark foreboding passages are present, but unlike Doom3 that's not their only tool. The ghosts also have some pretty gruesome back stories, unlike most of 'em from the movies. The story in general is pretty loose, but it sort of makes sense and hangs together so far.

People were right about the 'social' aspect of it. Playing through the one-player game, the rest of the Ghostbusters are either with you or nearby, and they give you feedback on how you're doing. I like Winston's comments best, like 'You've got a MEAN streak, rook!'

I had worried that the various equipment addons for the proton pack would make it look very unwieldy (well, MORE so, you know what I mean) but they did a fairly elegant job on that. Small details and different colored cyclotron lights let you know which weapon is equipped.
I must admit I don't really pay much attention to the on-pack status indicators. There's usually too much going on to spare a glance at them when they're important.

The game's difficulty is uneven. I found certain portions very frustrating with a lot of 'mission failed' messages. But others (including bosses) were disappointingly easy. There really hasn't been a difficulty curve...more like an EKG pattern.

I was very disappointed to be hit with an 'end of KOTOR II' situation with the latest level. There was no cooldown period at the firehouse between the last level and the start of the new one, so no dialogue saying why we're going to x and what we expect to find there. Also, if you quit the game at the firehouse before you listen to the dialogue/exposition? When you resume later, you don't get any of that. You're just pushed into the next mission. It has happened twice now, and ticked me off.

The lip syncing is frequently off. Peter got the worst lines of the four Ghostbusters. I had hoped for some interaction with the containment unit, but other than damaging it in the intro, no joy there. The destruction of property with your weapons is good, but not all there. You can't burn through walls for example. The targeting on your slime blower is kinda lousy. You can hose down an area for five seconds and fail to register a 'hit' on what you're sliming. I had hoped for a vehicle segment but no luck there either so far.

Merry Christmas, all.

Christmas dinner menu:
Alton Brown's city ham recipe: ham brushed with dark mustard, plastered with brown sugar, spritzed with bourbon, and then encrusted with pulverized ginger snap cookies. Delicious. Instant hit with everyone.

3 cheese garlic scalloped potatoes: Thinly sliced Yukon gold potatoes, layered with cheddar cheese, sliced garlic, and cream, then topped with provolone and Parmesan cheese. Failure. Edible, but a failure. Should not have doubled cream when doubling the recipe; the potatoes just floated in it, and the cheddar just dissolved into it in a greasy lumpy mess.

Creamy peas and mushrooms: Sauteed mushrooms and onions, mixed with flour and light cream to form a sauce, combined with nutmeg, salt, pepper, and a metric ton of peas. Failure: didn't plan correctly to triple the recipe, turned out more like a metric ton of peas with occasional bits of mushroom to be found within.

My niece was a huge brat as usual. I ended up getting several kitchen gadgets, a couple of T-shirts, a movie, and a few odds and ends.

Denny's very early this morning was fun. Missed seeing Tigerwolf there though.

Lly just pointed this out to me. It's a must-see for anyone owned by a cat.

So we've heard for awhile now that High Fructose Corn Syrup is bad for us, but if you're like me, you've never really understood why. This video shows you why, on a number of levels, with a view broad enough that you can instantly make different dietary and lifestyle choices. There's a summary page at 1:25 or so if you don't want to kill an hour and a half watching it.

I encourage you all to watch it from start to finish though, because this is a problem that, in all likelihood, affects all of you every day.

I saw this at Big Lots last night. It's...wow. I wish the camera had gotten a better angle of Santa's butt, because the cheeks move. >,

Yesterday I found Skunky on her side by the water bowl, stiff and still. I don't know what happened...

Rest in peace, kitten.

Happy birthday Ionotter! May your day be filled with feeshes and joy.

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

One of the videos I took at the ren-faire this year. Enjoy jokes and juggling!

I wish I'd found this a decade ago.

http://thatwasnotok.com/

Taking three and a half hours to make a good tomato sauce: the only advantage in being unemployed.

http://www.artlurker.com/2009/09/the-rape-tunnel-by-sheila-zareno/

An artist wants to build a 22-foot long tunnel that constricts to a quite narrow opening, forcing people into a submissive posture when they enter the otherwise-exitless room at the end of the tunnel. In that room is the artist, and the artist will rape you.

This builds upon a similar installation he built a couple years earlier called THE PUNCH-YOU-IN-THE-FACE TUNNEL. Three people took him up on the 'offer' and he broke the nose of a young female model in the process who consequently sued him. (You miss, are retarded.)

What is truly the point of this 'artform'? To hi-light the self-destructive properties of the human species? To challenge our concepts of what is permissible under the umbrella of 'art'?

Or is he laughing at the art world? Lots of people, including the police of course, are trying to get this project crushed. The gallery owner is fighting to keep it, even hiring lawyers to defend it. I'm sure he has many supporters as well as antagonists. Does he respect his supporters? Or are they the object of his derision and disgust, the real target of his work?

I'm actually having a hard time believing this is happening at all. It sounds like an article from The Onion.

***

...Ah. It isn't real. I typed the above without reading the comments. I got trolled.

Happy birthday foxwing/Elly! Love ya suneling, have a great day.

....Wow. This isn't just a skin for an existing car. It actually, somehow, seems to travel through time in-game. It leaves the flaming tire tracks. It makes the sonic boom. It emerges from the wormhole frosted over. KICK. ASS.

This is very impressive, http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=180436488073

It has fans, red LEDs for the mask portholes, and the drill actually spins. The shoes provide some lift, so you'd be appropriately tall if you're at least somewhere in the neighborhood of 6' already.

Go here for the build process blog, http://volpinprops.blogspot.com/2009/09/big-daddy-bioshock.html

Most recent entry here has a nice gallery from a photo-shoot they did at an aquarium for the proper atmosphere. http://volpinprops.blogspot.com/

Amazing what beauty you can find even in your backyard.

Bored? Try a little post-apocalyptic cinema. "A Boy and His Dog!" http://blip.tv/file/1100366 Stream to your heart's content.

It's a film about...well, a boy and his dog, but set in a post-nuclear USA that the Fallout games drew a lot of inspiration from. It's funny, rather twisted, and not at all PC.

StumbleUpon took me here today, http://www.michaeldashow.com/zoom/zoom_wanderingmonsters.html
and I'm floored by this guy's work. It's funny, the details are rich, the colors and shading are excellent...just top-notch. If he's still around when I start getting books published, I'll definitely try and get him for the cover art.

http://www.disinfo.com/2009/11/pentagon-unveils-new-chembot/ It's a blob! It's a robot! It's a reconissance tool! It's...CHEMBOT!

The explanation is interesting, and seeing it in motion is...truly creepy. It seems to breathe, and its grub-white coloring doesn't help.