Lockstep Tango

2008-02-24T10:17:00.002-05:00

I have on my computer a file called "failure.mp3." It's a homemade recording of someone playing a rather sad piano piece; it's titled "failure," as far as I can tell, because something about the recording setup gave it a nasty buzzing overtone whenever the pianist plays a certain note, unfortunately the tonic of the key the song is in. Then again, maybe that's just the name of the song.

The file's been sitting on my hard drive for years. I have no idea who made it or where it came from, and I'm pretty sure I never did--it just showed up one day. It kept turning up whenever I'd scan my music folders for new media players, and I always didn't delete it because even as sloppy as it was, it was an okay piece. Still, it was a close thing.

And just now, when I went looking for a soundtrack for my short film for school (coming soon to a youtub near you, based on this) I thought of it instantly. And when I played it over the edited footage, it synced up perfectly. Ridiculously well. It goes loud when I'm silent, quieter when I'm talking, changes key at just the right time. It's beautiful, and uncanny.

2008-01-06T20:33:00.000-05:00

The X Days a Sauerkraut series of object puzzle games are just as good and atmospheric as everyone says they are. Tough but rewarding and really scary. I recommend them to anyone. The only problem is an excess of "guide dang it" moments. You need to open the door, so obviously you should go into a hotel room, light a match, set off the fire alarms, go down the fire escape, steal a crowbar, shift realities to a realm of fear and destruction, go through the door, and drug yourself into such a stupor you fall back into the real world. Nothing could be simpler!

2008-01-04T23:53:00.001-05:00

I just saw my old classmate's A Capella group perform--they're pretty damn good. As soon as they show up on Youtube or something I'll link them. In the meantime, the cover they did of Guster's Careful made me realize how much the verse of that song sounds like BNL's I'll Be That Girl. Just sayin'. Both great songs though.

2007-12-20T17:41:00.000-05:00

A few times for the past couple months I've had an idea for a post, but then gone "bah, it's been dead so long, nobody's reading it, I won't bother," which clearly self-fulfills, so I better start with something.

I just got myself a Facebook. I'd rejected all forms of social networking websites for years on the grounds that I'd seen a few of my middle school sister's friends' Myspaces and I wanted to put myself as far away from that as possible. But Facebook is basically Myspace for people who've figured out how much Linkin Park sucks, and I had to get one for a school student group, so there you go. It's not so bad.

School thing in question: an A Cappella group. We're arranging this and you have no idea how happy that makes me.

2007-09-29T23:59:00.000-04:00

How come nobody told me RPGWorld had started updating again? I'd given up hope years ago. Hell, maybe this means we might get Starsomething back. Though I haven't checked, so for all I know we have. The new content starts here, if you wanna see it. (You might have seen the first few pages of that short re: Reka and the robot, but anything but the first few pages was only available in print until recently.)

look at the graceful way she dances, one foot speaks the other answers

2007-09-25T19:16:00.000-04:00

I just auditioned for the school play with this, turned into a monologue. I was quite proud of it myself. I just want to say something to Capcom here:

You've made a great game in Resident Evil 4, really. But letting a player unlock new cool weapons by beating the game...and giving him a new game plus to play with those weapons in...and also giving him a harder difficulty mode...but not letting him use his new game plus equipment in the harder mode, in fact not even letting him buy the new weapons at all in the harder mode, without beating the game on the harder mode without them, is just stupid. The main purpose of a New Game + (which, for the uneducated, is when you start the game over with all the powerful equipment you ended it with the first time through) is so that you can play the game on the harder mode, now that you're better and stronger, and have goodies you can only get by beating the game. Now I'm left with two options: play the game in Normal with the new stuff, which will make the normal difficulty--already easy for me, since I've beaten it--laughably simplistic, or else play it on Hard, which will be exactly the same experience I just went through except I'll die more. Neither of these options are fun. What I want is to use the new, powerful tools on new, powerful enemies, or at the very least on old, newly powerful enemies, who will present a challenge even when I use the new, powerful tools. Why would you ruin your own replay value like that?...

¡Detrás de ti, imbécil!

2007-08-21T22:10:00.000-04:00

Just picked up a new comic--the excellent The Far Reaches. This could be a much-needed replacement for A Miracle of Science; the art and story both have a similar feel, but this is less hard sci-fi. It's basically a Jeeves in Space thing. Jokes are funny, though the author breaks the fourth wall a bit too much--a very common problem in webcomics, but not normally in ones this well-drawn and -written. Check it out, it's good.

even I, pantaloon gallant, I cannot

2007-08-21T12:13:00.000-04:00

I was remembering a scene from a book today and trying to remember which book it came from; a bit of quick Googling revealed it to be from Cryptonomicon, by one of my favorite authors, Neal Stephenson. The scene was immensely memorable to me because it essentially consists of a man eating one bowl of Cap'n Crunch for six pages. Rereading it here, I have decided that my goal as a writer will be to be able to duplicate the feat of being able to write about a completely dumb event for six pages or more and make it engaging, interesting and funny.

you can catch up with yourself if you run

No, Maude, COLORS

2007-08-02T11:58:00.000-04:00

The following is verbatim, as closely as I can remember an hour or two later, from what I overheard while applying for my learner's permit at the local RMV. (I passed, since you ask.) Names have been changed to protect the guilty. I swear nothing else has been added, changed or exaggerated. Sometimes, apparently, stereotypes are true. Note that at least two people were talking at pretty much any point, and both women involved had Bawstun accents.

"Alright, ma'am, please put your eyes on the testing device. "

"A, C, K, L, F, no E, G, O, sorry..."

"Wait a minute, ma'am."

"...P, F, no, R, F..."

"He said stop, Maude!"

"I heard him!"

"Please read the first line, ma'am."

"A, K, F."

"...The whole first line, please, from left to right."

"A. K. M. F. No, E. P. L."

"No, the first line, please."

"A. K. M--"

"No, Maude, he said the first line--"

"L. Q. P. C, M. No, O, M. U. K. L. S."

"Alright. Please list the colors, from top to bottom."

"L. Q. P--"

"The colors, please, ma'am."

"Oh. A, K, M--"

"No, Maude, cullahs, he said cullahs--"

"Oh. Red, yellow, blue, yellow."

"Could you try that again, ma'am?"

"Red, yellow, blue--"

"There's no blue in a traffic light, ma'am."

"--yellow, blue, red--"

"Ma'am, none of the colors are blue."

"What?"

"He said there's no blue, Maude."

"Red, yellow, blue--green--red."

"Alright...Can you see flashing?"

"Well, not right now."

Twenty seconds pass.

"Do you see flashing, ma'am?"

"I don't see anything!"

"Put your hands on the machine, ma'am."

She puts her hands on the base of the machine."

"I don't see anything."

"Up by your face, please." She does so. "Do you see anything flashing."

"I don't see anything!"

At this point I had to leave to take the small test, and was therefore sadly unable to see what happened and whether Maude got her license or not. I can only hope not.

barbaric barbaric barbaric

2007-07-20T05:10:00.001-04:00

Quick quiz: how many of these quotes can you remember the originals of before resorting to Wikiquote? I myself scored three out of eight, though I could vaguely remember the fourth, just couldn't recall what "wet t-shirt" replaced. What's much sadder than that is that I didn't actually know the guy was a playwright until I noticed that all of the quote sources on that page were marked Act Something. I had had a vague idea that he was a poet but mostly I thought he was just a high society guy who spent his time sitting around at parties being witty at people. Surely the plays must have been good, how come I've never heard of any of them? Maybe they were satire, that clearly wouldn't age well. I'll have to go look them up.

2007-07-18T06:10:00.000-04:00

It's interesting that the one creative outlet I seem to be able to keep putting effort into, and that I still haven't gotten bored with after any length of time, is dungeonmastering. Even though four people are are actually counting on me to write it on time and have it be useful, there's somehow less pressure than if I just sit down to try to write something. I know they're going to have fun fighting the monsters even if the story bringing the PCs to them is flimsy, which lets me have them do whatever I can think of, which somehow ends up being much less flimsy than the stories I try to write for their own sake. Nobody else is expecting to see those, whether they're any good or not; really, I should just be writing torrents of utter crap. That's what you're supposed to do, reliable sources have informed me. But I'm too proud to write something that I really think is bad...except, somehow, in DnD, where it seems like it ought to be kind of B-grade anyway, and it ends up just being fun. I'm setting up a nice haunted mansion next, and actually looking forward to spending an hour in MS Paint drawing the maps. Weird.

2007-07-14T21:03:00.000-04:00

It's weird how being an absolute jerk on the internet is so attractive to people. They don't actually mean anything by it, they don't really hate the people they're insulting horribly, and if you don't take them seriously while they haze you then once they get to know you they'll be just as likely to be nice as they are to be nasty. But when they're nasty they're awful. It's sometimes almost impossible to tell whether somebody is insulting you because they actually dislike you or just for fun, banter they expect you to respond to in kind. Casual racism and sexism and horrible concepts tossed around for laughs, even if the people are truly deeply against those things. I'm sure there's all sorts of deep psychological truths at work about the freedom of anonymity and so on, but it's still strange to see it in action.

2007-07-12T13:30:00.000-04:00

Y'know what would be interesting, what would happen if the Discworld came into contact with a miniature black hole? There's short stories about the same thing happening to Mars or Earth, but it gets whole new implications with the Disc. The pinhole left by a mini black hole would be smaller in relation to A'Tuin than something half a molecule wide would be to a normal turtle; would he even notice? Long term, it would orbit the Disc's center of gravity and gradually suck up all the matter over millennia. Where is the disc's center of gravity anyway? Surely A'Tuin is more massive than the Disc itself, and who knows the exact volume and density of the elephants...perhaps it would just end up orbiting in space between the elephants and do nothing at all. If something ended up punching a hole through the Disc somewhere in the middle, would all the air fall out? What if Cori Celesti was an inverted massive impact crater like that mountain in Ringworld? There's all sorts of interesting possibilities here...

2007-07-11T13:55:00.000-04:00

This blog is coming back to life this summer. I swear it. Hundred words a day minimum. No, a hundred and one, as a nod to anacrusis. This may sometimes mean they won't be very interesting, but i'd rather post random snippets every day than say "I'll post when I have something good to post" and then never do it. Today's link: a Jonathan Coulton song I already loved, made into an anime music video with a series perfectly suited to it. Anyone who reads this blog has a fair chance of reading Joey DeVilla's excellent blog, The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century, and will thus already have seen this, since that's where I got it, but eh. See you tomorrow.

code monkey like you

2007-05-06T09:24:00.000-04:00

Blogging from New York, whoo! Or actually, from a hotel lobby in Jersey, but close enough. Band trip to the apple, saw Chicago, going to see Spamalot today. It's all good. Also bought a second Guitar Hero controller and did some reasonably competent DDR, both at the enormous Toys 'R' Us, and then played GH2 with like ten different people back at the hotel. the billboards are, as promised by assorted movies and so on, enormous and ubiquitous. It's pretty cool all in all. Forgot the camera so no pics, i'm afraid, but eh.

'cuz everyone's your friend in new york city

2007-04-20T16:36:00.000-04:00

THE ALGORITHM CONSTANTLY FINDS JESUS
THE ALGORITHM KILLED JEEVES
THE ALGORITHM IS BANNED IN CHINA
THE ALGORITHM IS FROM JERSEY

Don't ask. All shall become clear.

’cuz the stars are only painted on the ceiling of oz

Codex Alera

2007-04-15T14:04:00.000-04:00

As I've said before I'm a big fan of Jim Butcher's Dresden Files books, so I recently got around to reading the first book in a fantasy trilogy he did, the Codex Alera. The book's called Calderon's Fury and it's very good; not high fantasy exactly, no elves or dragons or so on, but a similar kind of thing, and set in a magic-ified version of something half Roman and half Germanic tribes, which is refreshingly different from the standard. The magic system is nice and original too. It reminded me a bit of A Game of Thrones--the only George RR Martin I ever read, since I frankly didn't like it, but this has some of the same feel while being much less full of itself and annoying. The only problem I had with the book was that the big twist Jim obviously plans to unveil in the last book is hugely obvious. I really hope Butcher is trying to fake the reader out, because otherwise it's just way too easy.

It’s my business to know what is and what’s not

2007-03-01T19:06:00.000-05:00

If it is at all possible for you to avoid having to read and summarize the entirety of Les Miserables in three days, I heartily suggest doing so. It's not fun. The book is quite good but that doesn't really help.

she said that she was hungry and that i was brilliant

2007-02-23T19:59:00.000-05:00

Josie and the Pussycats was such a goddamn good movie. It's ridiculous. And the soundtrack is pure gold. Check out this clip of the climax--the good punky bit starts a little ways in, give it thirty-four seconds.

and when you're gone it's like i'm goin' blind

WikiBible

2007-02-06T18:42:00.000-05:00

I have no idea if the actual content is any good but it's the best idea ever. The actual name of the project is WikiWrit.

give us our daily bread in individual slices

2007-02-03T16:18:00.000-05:00

Oh my God, it all makes sense. An entirely new way to look at Star Wars ep4 in the light of the first three that's really a whole lot more interesting than the first three.

i got hypochondria, i think my beats is sick

Anacrusis again

2007-02-03T15:26:00.000-05:00

Have I mentioned lately just how awesome Anacrusis is? Blink fiction is apparently the term, if you're willing to be that pretentious--101 words a day, self-contained and whole, some funny, some sad, some adventurous. They aren't truly stories, there's no beginning or end--they sound kind of like excerpts from novels. They all work as their own thing, and most of them are unconnected to each other, but one appears every once in a while with recurring characters that occasionally overlap--taken together, one character's thread, doesn't quite tell a whole coherent story, but the characterization is phenomenal and what you do get about their stories is really interesting. I suggest reading Chicago (intense, dramatic) or The Chosen Ones (actiony, funny) first. Start at the bottom and work up.

nerves our nerves to seize the burning stars

2007-01-31T22:48:00.000-05:00

Something Awful is still awesome.

Leeloo Dallas in:
MULTIPASS

words like conviction can turn into a sentence

Top 100 songs

2007-01-26T23:40:00.000-05:00

I got bored with my mammoth playlist of everything that isn't crap in my mp3 collection, so I distilled it into a greatest-hits-type thing. Probably it's not my actual 100 favorites, some things should be switched in or out, but I would get up, dance, and sing along to anything on it. (Well, except for the orchestral stuff.) Read or ignore at your pleasure; they're shuffled, so in no particular order, and the concentration of Elvis Costello is mostly because there's more of him in my collection than anyone else, since my dad owns nearly every CD he ever released. I could make most of them mp3 links but for my mother the sysadmin probably throwing a fit if I did--wherever there is a link, that means there's a legal mp3 available there.

Clint Eastwood - Gorillaz
Get Over You - The Undertones
I've Got Some Falling to Do - Lemon Demon (a great web-based musician)
High Fidelity - Elvis Costello and the Attractions
TKO (Boxing Day) - Elvis Costello and the Attractions
Let Them All Talk - Elvis Costello and the Attractions (computers suck at random numbers)
Peace and Love - Fountains of Wayne (one-hit wonder for God knows what reason; one of my favorites albums ever)
Final Fantasy I-III - Nobuo Uematsu
Train in Vain - The Clash
I Feel Fantastic - Jonathan Coulton (an incredible web-based musician)
Bones - The Killers
Tempted - Squeeze
Punk Rock Girl - The Dead Milkmen
She Turns Me On - Smashmouth
Heart - Rockpile
Blues Drive Monster - The Pillows
Come On Eileen - Save Ferris (great song, even greater cover)
God's Comic - Elvis Costello again
What You Live By - Harvey Danger (who are actually giving away the album online, which is utterly fawesome)
When I was 19 - Songs to Wear Pants To
Radio, Radio - Elvis Costello
Ride on Shooting Star - The Pillows
Tenderness - General Public
The In Set - Smashmouth
When You Were Young - The Killers
Everything is Alright - Motion City Soundtrack
Take Me Away - Joe Jackson (with one of the greatest bassists ever, Graham Maby)
Wine, Women and Song - Harvey Danger (again, giving away.)
Deep Dark Truthful Mirror - Elvis Costello
Mexican Wine - Fountains of Wayne
Adagio for Strings (Agnus Dei) - Samuel Barber (better known as the song from the first level of the computer game Homeworld)
Wonderboy - Tenacious D
Penny Arcade Theme - MC Frontalot
Gary Gilmore's Eyes - The Adverts
Logos Naki World (The World Without Logos) - Yasushi Ishii (theme to the Hellsing TV show)
Bought for a Song - Fountains of Wayne
Strength - The Alarm
CARNIVAL - The Pillows
Love Plus One - Haircut 100
...Not Forever - Tsunami Bomb
Sleep (Finger's [sic] Lullaby) - Boomtown Rats
Tramp the Dirt Down - Elvis Costello
Mandelbrot Set - Jonathan Coulton (best song ever about a mathematical concept)
Fett's Vette - MC Chris
Goody Two Shoes - Adam Ant
Flagpole Sitta - Harvey Danger (this one isn't on that particular album)
Weapon of Choice - Fatboy Slim
The Jeep Song - Dresden Dolls
Here It Goes Again - OK Go
The Sound of the Suburbs - The Members
Creep - Radiohead
Possesion - Elvis Costello and the Attractions
Fresh Dog - MC Frontalot
In Between Days - The Cure
Sing Along Forever - Bouncing Souls
Little Busters - The Pillows (I get a little teary-eyed whenever I hear this song, no lie. That's how much FLCL affected me.)
Little Red Light - Fountains of Wayne
Veronica - Elvis Costello
Valley Winter Song - Fountains of Wayne
Please Do Not Go - Violent Femmes
Half Jack - Dresden Dolls
Hackensack - Fountains of Wayne
Bonzo Goes to Bitburg - The Ramones
Little Round Mirrors - Harvey Danger
Rolling Thunder - Gray Code (they're Danish, I think, though they sing in English. My friend Rutger of irc.sorcery.net/#avengia linked me to them.)
Sunday Papers - Joe Jackson
Duvet - Boa (theme song to Serial Experiments Lain)
Tank! - Yoko Kanno (theme song to Cowboy Bebop. Why are anime themes so often awesome?)
Ana Ng - They Might be Giants
Skullcrusher Mountain - Jonathan Coulton (a touching tale of a mad scientist and the woman he loves)
20 Tons of TNT - Flanders and Swann
We Like the Moon - Joel Veitch (remember those Quiznos commercials, with the mutated hamster things? This was the original.)
Just What I Needed - The New Cars
No One's Looking - Tsunami Bomb
Pinch Me - Barenaked Ladies
Rudie Can't Fail - The Clash
Grits Ain't Groceries - Andrew Strong/The Commitments
Dr. Who on Holiday - Dean Gray (made off with the mp3 before the site got shut down. RIP, American Edit.)
Uh-Oh, Love Comes to Town - Talking Heads
Fools In Love - Joe Jackson
Are You Gonna Be My Girl - Jet
We Want the Airwaves - The Ramones
Bright Future in Sales - Fountains of Wayne
The Invasion from Within - Tsunami Bomb
Tribute - Tenacious D
Alternative Ulster - Stiff Little Fingers
Psycho Killer - Talking Heads
Blister in the Sun - Violent Femmes
Needles & Pins - The Ramones
The Fields of Athenry - Dropkick Murphys
All Of This - Shaimus (from Guitar Hero)
I Should Be Allowed to Think - They Might Be Giants
Hey Julie - Fountains of Wayne
Mr. Brightside - The Killers
Kiss Off - Violent Femmes
Bangs - They Might Be Giants
One Step Beyond - Madness
Blank Generation - Richard Hell and the Voidoids
Bad Habit - Dresden Dolls

2007-01-23T18:41:00.000-05:00

The Dresden Files books are awesome, but the TV show was laaaaaame. I'll still watch the next few episodes, just in case, but...laaaaaame.

(also the line about loving something so much i'm almost insane, in that recent post, that was a song lyric and not part of the post. just fyi.)

And while it’s killing you dead it will mess with your head/And it’s the light in the dark that will guide you

2007-01-13T15:04:00.000-05:00

Oh dear god so awesome

i love you so much that I’m almost insane

2007-01-05T15:52:00.000-05:00

I do desperately need to post more. But i saw this, and as it said i'm blogging it right now. The music's mediocre but the video's pretty interesting. click.

it's movies time, reducks

2006-11-28T16:43:00.000-05:00

Once again it is that most hallowed of all times, Movies Time. The song is being written as we speak. And songs are, in fact, the topic. First there's Solla Solla Enna Perumai, which is some sort of Bollywood funk thing, I'm told, though it seems more like Colombian to me (i wonder why?). The song isn't that bad but you watch it for the antics of the hairy-chested frodude. Secondly we have a guy with some incredible singing skeelz play one four-measure piano backing over and over, meshing perfectly with the lyrics to about fifty hits from the eighties, nineties, and today. And I'll toss in this, sent by my friend Cam. Crispy.

EDIT: After reading the description on that last one, I found the creator's site. It's all pretty good, but it's this one that I'm going to do for my school talent show.

2006-11-26T23:19:00.000-05:00

A Miracle of Science is one of the best webcomics I've started reading in a long time, and there's a lot of real science in the blog posts too. Check it out.

2006-10-31T15:14:00.000-05:00

Sorry about not posting for a while, stuffs have been happening. i probably won't post much for the next month either. NaNoWriMo is starting up once again and this time I really intend to get somewhere with it. In the meantime, today was halloween, and I went to school as an emo. The sad part was that several people didn't realize I was in a costume, which basically tells me i need a haircut, since I sprayed my hair black and did that Robert Smith thing with it. I found I actually liked the look of fingerless gloves though. I might keep those. Pics to be posted later.

I'm so postmodern I bought a round the world plane ticket, and stuffed my clothes with eggplant and pretended it was me

2006-10-10T20:57:00.000-04:00

Oh seven hells yes. This is the best thing ever. What's more, all the content was approved by Lois herself. It isn't out yet but I need it--physically need it, as with air--once it is. GURPS: Vorkosigan

2006-09-30T22:25:00.000-04:00

I think I've fallen in love with this girl. We will be together forever while her zombie minions take over the high school.

2006-09-22T14:55:00.000-04:00

Tell it to the one-legged man so he can bump it off down the road

2006-09-21T21:01:00.000-04:00

ZOMG LAWLZ GAY KISS ON TEH OFFICE

2006-09-04T13:40:00.000-04:00

Holy crap, Steve Irwin died. He wasn't even doing anything particularly stupid at the time. The world shall be bereft of his "Croikey" forevermore.

everyone you know is workin' for the man

2006-09-03T09:10:00.000-04:00

Okay, what if a rebellion seized control of the government...but the president escaped...and he and his secretary fought a two-person guerrilla war against the usurpers...IN THEIR GIANT ROBOT? And screamed things like "I'M THE PRESIDENT OF THE GREAT UNITED STATES! YEEEEAAAAH! HOW D'YOU LIKE ME NOW?" It'd be kickass, that's what. See the trailer. I am soooo buying this game.

traveled all around the world and only stupid people are breeding

I have two questions.

2006-09-02T00:27:00.000-04:00

First, what's the highest point on Earth from which one could hang-glide without death? I imagine the higher the point, the more drop space there would need to be from the jump point to the next solid surface, as thinner air would provide less lift.

Second, has anyone ever hang-glided (hang-glid, hang-glidded, etc.) from it?

we'll never live forever, but maybe things could be worse

2006-08-20T11:58:00.000-04:00

You, too, can watch Buzz Aldrin punch a guy in the face

my case is closed, my case is packed

2006-08-20T00:29:00.000-04:00

GHOSTRIDE DA WHIP

("This activity is extremely dangerous and very illegal and should not be attempted by anyone under any circumstances" -Wikipedia. Also of interest may be this page, which is hilarious all by itself.)

2006-08-17T22:14:00.000-04:00

The world now has two new words. Or actually, two new meanings for old words. As of now, everything in the world can be divided into two different categories: "Decrepit" and "Severe." Good things are severe and bad things are decrepit. I urge you to use these words in conversation at every opportunity.

we flourish and we flaunt our flavor freshly

OBJECTION

2006-08-16T07:40:00.000-04:00

This is kinda stupid but making your own is fairly entertaining the first couple times. (go to the root URL for that.)

voodoo librarian

2006-08-14T22:35:00.000-04:00

Let me relate to you a story I was just told. My mother is a tech services librarian who works at universities, but some years ago in a time of economic hardship she took a job working at a local library. The director of the library at the time was soon fired on account of her being a complete nutcase. However, it was heard by said mother on the news that this library director, while the city government was in the process of firing her, had been seen by neighbors and subsequently caught by police burying baby food jars full of hot peppers, roosters' feet, and other voodoo-type items and also the names of several city officials and selectment in her backyard.

She was subsequently hired as a childrens' librarian in a nearby town.

2006-08-09T16:02:00.000-04:00

I picked up Escape Velocity Nova from a friend a couple days ago, and it's ten shades of awesome. A year or so ago my uncle gave me a game called Freelancer, which claimed to basically dump you into a unvierse of planets with a lame little ship and let you do whetever--become a great pirate, get filthy rich trading, join the space navy, whatever. In reality it was a half-decent space shooter with a very linear plot that you could either advance or go off and do piddly nothing-missions for no real pay and accomplish very little. But that game's premise and most of its design was very clearly stolen from EV Nova. Seriously. The plot is different, the governments and arrangement of planets are different, but the games are essentially the same in most every aspect of gameplay, and the only advantage Freelancer has is that it's 3D. EV is by far the better game in every other area. There is no one plot. You really can become a great pirate or an admiral in either of two navies or just make buckets of money trading goods or any number of other possible threads. Or you can just take the same piddly nothing-missions, except here even those generally turn out vastly more interesting. The whole thing is just badass.

2006-08-07T15:37:00.000-04:00

"...Well, unfortunately, self-esteem and the ability to like yourself only come after you've done something that makes you likable. You can't bullshit yourself. If I think Todd over here is worthless for sitting in his room all day, drinking and playing video games, doesn't it follow that I'm worthless for doing the same thing?

It doesn't matter what you tell yourself, or what slogans you memorize about how everyone is special. You'll think of yourself as special when you do something special. If you think of yourself as special prior to actually doing something special, you're not healthy and well-balanced. You're a narcissist, disconnected from reality."

Seven Reasons the 21st Century is Making us Miserable

Submachine

2006-08-03T14:09:00.000-04:00

Okay, please note this post is directed at gamers and their ilk, BUT ALSO at those who often don't play games, because these are the sort of games for them. I has played #1 in this series before, never beat it because I got bored, but #2 recently debuted on Newgrounds and with much effort and a small allotment of help from those who had already beat it I beat all three games in the series (#2 only came out on NG after #3 came out someplace else, for some reason.) The game is called Submachine (here's 2 and 3) and it--at least the first two--are essentially object puzzles after the style of, say, Discworld 2. The third is less object-y and more puzzling, but just as good. The plot involves the main character being mysteriously trapped in a building, and then an underground lighthouse, and then the titular Submachine--nothing so cliched as waking up there with no idea who you are or how you got there, no, the character knows, they just aren't telling the player. They're all pretty hard but entirely enjoyable. All of you, at least give them a try.

i know you think that you know, but how do you know that what you know is true?

2006-08-01T23:54:00.000-04:00

Alright, I realize all the hip people saw it in the theaters, but I read the comic then and only saw the movie of V for Vendetta now, when it came out on video. The movie was good, we all know this, as well as kinda disturbing. What surprised me was how different it was from the comic book, and how much I liked the differences. The subplot with that guy's wife is gone, V dies in a completely different way and so does the high chancellor, a couple key scenes don't even happen, but really the story is better overall. It was more fun this way. And it struck me how much (many?) guts it took to make this movie now...

mellow out or you will pay

2006-07-22T07:05:00.000-04:00

Y'know, I'd kind of like to be into some really niche kind of music, just for the sake of it. Really hardcore industrial or screamy paint-my-fingernails-black angst-rock or something. I just find them all intensely uninteresting.

2006-07-22T04:09:00.000-04:00

They will try to tell you that King Dork, by Frank Portman, is a book. Do not be decieved. It is a joygasm in a box. Or, well, it would be, if you put it in a box.

It's like this. Excuse me while I get teenaged for a moment: Nobody understands me. Or actually, a lot of people probably do, but they're not talking about my situation, they're off talking about something else that, to be fair, is probably a lot more interesting. Most everyone who writes anything involving the state of living for a teenager these days in an average high school is living in some kind of fantasy world that I can only assume bears little relation to even their own childhood, let alone anything in the past decade. See my John Hughes-related rant from several months ago. Now, King Dork still seems a big exaggerated about certain points--mostly how overt people can be about hostility towards one, and of course about how much sexing the average dweeb royalty gets--but I get the feeling it's completely true in some high schools, just not mine. And the protagonist is me. I don't mean he's like me, I don't mean we share traits, I mean he's me. It's freaking scary. His surroundings are pretty different, but hell, he even has an army jacket he wears everywhere. The book is a surreal mishmash of highschool life, codes, conspiracy, tits, Catcher in the Rye, band names, pseudohippies, and murder investigation, but the plot is essentially incidental to the feel of it, the atmosphere, like an artsy movie. It's like talking to the best friend I never had. Just read the thing.

the monkey and the plywood violin

2006-07-19T13:38:00.000-04:00

Oh now this is just nifty.

even if i quit there's not a chance in hell i'd stop

2006-07-14T04:34:00.000-04:00

Alright, much to say. First of all, I recently (well, for a given value of "recent") got back from my aunt's beach house in the fine state of Maine. I appreciate that through the magic of nepotism my family gets for free a week of lodgings that would probably cost several grand in one of the greatest vacation spots in the US, and yes, Maine is an incredibly nice place, but I must mention something to you: for some reason, many people consider Maine to be a great place for swimming. Do not be fooled. I have been to the place, and felt the water, in every different part of summer, and at none of these times has it been warm enough to not make my teeth start chattering and my lips turn blue within half an hour. Enjoy the beaches and such, if you go there, but for God's sake don't try to swim, I want you with all your toes.

Next item: During aforesaid week in Maine (during which there were no internets nor video games, eek) and the following week or so during which I have been cut off from those same activities, I ripped through a godawful amount of reading, most of it the first seven of the eight books in something called the Dresden Files, by Jim Butcher. I've since read the eighth. It's kind of hardboiled Sam Spade detective-y, only the detective in question is Chicago's only professional wizard. Really good stuff, intensely badass, although the series is supporting a lot of weight by the end of this book. During that one, Harry Dresden acquires a vendetta with an immensely powerful creature from the Nevernever (meaning the magical otherworld) and the reader essentially goes "what else is new," since he already has two after him at this point, from two other adventures. Dresden has (begin spoilers) recently picked up a roommate who is actually a sex-vampire character introduced several books ago, who it turns out is actually his long-lost half-brother, who it turns out his mother (who it turns out was not the angelic person he always imagined, but was in fact a wayward black magician who it turns out had at one time been tutored by the mage who taught Harry, who it turns out actually ignores the magical laws he instilled in Harry, and who is a hitman for the wizard government) had when she got it on with the king of one of four Vampire Courts, three of whom Harry has separately under different circumstances in three different books given cause to want him dead, in between which he killed one of the Faerie Queens (there are six) and then, after that, got a copy of a fallen angel stuck in his head. (End spoilers.) When you start needing a flowchart to understand the overarching plot, there's something wrong, and ordinarily this would kill a series outright, but somehow Butcher stops you from noticing it practically at all and everything is tight and page-turner-y. Definitely pick it up, it's awesome. Butcher also has a much more traditional tolkien-y series out, which I intend to pick up soon.

As a final note, I'm going to ape PA (because hey, if you're going to steal, steal from the best) and start leaving cryptic little lyrics snatches in italics at the ends of my posts. I don't know how to make them do that tooltip thing, though, so it'll be a little game of Guess That Tune for the reader.

i can’t hear you ’cause we’re breakin’ up

2006-07-01T00:17:00.000-04:00

Alright, Eon8 was awesome. For the last week or so, it's just been a big timer and a lot of really cryptic stuff. The link flooded virally, everyone told their friends. There was an investigative ytmnd which may well have been made by the same people who started the site. Most were sure it'd be a marketing ploy or whatever, some actually thought it was dangerous (there was a map of "deployment points" with red dots all over the world) and most other just thought it might be cool. So zillions flooded the site at midnight EDT today (July 1) to see what would happen...and after the timer ran out, now the page displays:

"As of July 1st, 2006, the E8 Project has completed. The purpose of this project was to determine the reactions of the internet public to lack of information."

Now that's just cool.

2006-06-22T16:10:00.000-04:00

My lead guitarist recently had the inspiration for this image. I refuse to take the blame. I'm only posting it here because he has a shpoon and i'm afraid he'll make me use it.

2006-06-21T20:59:00.000-04:00

Okay, you know Bruce Lee right? Well now know Tony Jaa (rhymes with "lie," i'm told.) The only thing that stops this from being the ultimate in badassery is that scarf. I mean, really, what's up with that scarf. You'll think the subtitles are a joke, but it turns out he really is looking for his elephant.

2006-06-20T22:18:00.000-04:00

Alright, so the entire manga-reading public has been going crazy about Fullmetal Alchemist for the past year or so, and just today I picked up the first few tankubon to see if it lived up to the hype. And it does. It'd really good stuff--the alchemy is nifty and almost Duanian, and the plot is nice. I like the characters too. Check it out if you're into that sort of thing.

2006-06-18T16:17:00.000-04:00

Someone I know online is attempting to start a meme, and thus and therefore I am passing it along. Do the same--who knows, it could be the next O Rly owl.

2006-06-17T23:05:00.000-04:00

Alright, if you live in the US and your local PBS system is showing it (which hopefully it is) you HAVE to watch the reairs of a British sitcom called "Coupling." You may remember it as an American remake that attempted to fill the power vacuum after the end of Friends, and which quickly tanked. I don't know if it was crap or not, since I didn't watch it, but the british original is freaking HILARIOUS. It's very friends-y, put something about it is just indescribably incredibly hilarious. I have both lolled, and rofled.

"I'm not sure your girlfriend exists."
"Oh yes! She exists! She's got tons of existence!"
*pause*
"Well, not too much existence. She's somewhere in between "completely imaginary" and "a truck.""
But with a British accent which, as we know, makes everything funnier. Just watch the show. On the Boston station it's on at 10:30 on Saturdays, just after the british The Office. I don't know if it's the same time anywhere else.

it's videos time

2006-06-11T15:09:00.000-04:00

that might need a jingle or something, I dunno. anyway:

* Slightly NSFW due to swearing and mentioned multiple genitalia, Washington is very trippy but completely awesome.
* This is completely SFW and utterly badass. Seriously. It's awesome. I dunno if it a real show or not, though I'd guess it is, but it's basically a Zombie Survival Guide, with the guy who played Ed in Shaun of the dead.
* Presumably you've heard the story about how dropping Mentos into Diet Coke makes it explode, and it may surprise you but this is, in fact, true. However, I know of no one but these people who've tried it with more than a hundred bottles of Coke simultaneously.

2006-06-11T00:08:00.000-04:00

Well this is pretty nifty.

2006-06-09T21:22:00.000-04:00

This is so indescribably cute it's not even funny. Just look at it. Though I'm amazed this guy just stood by filming and risked this cat wrecking his computer.

2006-06-05T22:34:00.000-04:00

50 Cent (or fitty, as I understand today's straight-up gangsta terms him) seems much more entertaining when he raps to the tune of Thomas the Tank Engine.

2006-06-01T18:26:00.000-04:00

okay, all this can't be true. It's just too silly.

2006-05-29T22:57:00.000-04:00

The fact that this show was never made is one of the greatest losses humanity has ever known. My heart weeps. In an emo kind of way.

2006-05-23T20:06:00.000-04:00

Written just before falling asleep, while I was stranded at my grandmother's without internet. It's about anything except what you think it is.

There's a place. I don't know where it is. The colors there are birght, and vivid, and contrasting, Things are different there. Not from here, meaning my personal circumstances. Different from anywhere. Everything is sharp. Everything is crucial. Everything has meaning, although you may never learn it.

There are no stories. They haven't happened yet.

The people are cardboard. The people are more alive than we are. The reasons dont' matter. The actions matter more than worlds.

The sunrises are important. There's conflict, but not yet. There's peace. There's unexpected happiness, and no expectations. There's unimportant beginnings. There's searching. There are lots of people, and all of them are completely different. There's no goal. There's anticipation.

I can't go there.

I will go there.

There's a place where there's more.

2006-05-14T19:38:00.000-04:00

These are just a few of the images we've collected...and you can see...it's not what we thought...

Yeah, flooding here in New England is getting pretty intense, especialy when you live across from a pond. And by "intense," I mean "if this doesn't stop soon we're all going to be living intense." We're actually going to put everything on top of something waterproof and stay at my grandmothers' for a few days. Wish me luck...

2006-05-11T15:21:00.000-04:00

Okay, this is just beyond awesome. These people need to have a Boston branch I can join.

2006-05-09T15:04:00.000-04:00

In soviet russia, butter can't believe it's not you.

Pernicious thievery!

2006-05-08T14:14:00.000-04:00

OMGWTFBBQ! Click.

2006-05-07T21:27:00.000-04:00

OK, someone needs to make an FLCL music video to OK Go's "Invincible." The lyrics look like they're made for it. They also suck as lyrics, but that can be gotten around.

"When they finally come to destroy the earth they’ll have to go through you first, and I bet they won't be expecting that/When they finally come to destroy the earth they’ll have to deal with you first /And my money says they won’t know about the 1000 Fahrenheit hot metal lights behind your eyes"

"When they finally come what will you do to them? Gonna decimate like you did to me? Will you leave them stunned and stuttering/When they finally come out will you handle them, will you devastate them deliberately/Cause I'm gonna guess they won't be prepared for the 1000 Fahrenheit hot metal lights behind your eyes/Invincible oh oh oh/So please use your powers for good. Please use your powers for good."

It's Haruko's Theme, sung from Amarao's point of view! Well, no, it isn't actually her theme, since we've already got one of those, by the Pillows. But this one works too.

2006-05-03T14:57:00.000-04:00

Okay, just how easy is it to shoot fish in a barrel? For one thing, how big is the barrel? Even if it's fairly small, fish seen from the top are edge-on. They're not very big targets, and they swim around a lot. If it's a normal-sized barrel they've got maybe a foot, foot-and-a-half radius to move in. Plus the surface of the water would make them look like they're a few inches away from where they actually are. And every shot would leave these great big ripples that would take ages to die downso you could aim again. What's more, once you started firing there would very soon be great big holes in the barrel, and then all the water would get out. It'd probably take the fish with it. Really, it'd probably be pretty hard to shoot a fish in a barrel.

Well, unless there wasn't any water and it was just full of dead fish. But then why would you be shooting them?

In other news--raise your hands. How many of you know the word "lynchpin" and what it means? Good. Now how many of you actually know why the heck it's called a lynchpin?

...That's what I thought. I not only had no idea, I never even thought to wonder about it.

Zombie Awareness Day Headquarters '06

2006-04-29T18:11:00.000-04:00

Ah, Zombie Awareness Day. The day when we remind each other that the zombie apocalypse is coming, and that we should all be prepared. But when is it? Well...if you look at this and this (which are the only official-looking sites around, and this being as vague as it is they can be trusted as much as anyone) you'll see that Zombie Awareness Day's date is apparently changeable, and a quick trip to Google confirms that there is no site for Zombie Awareness Day 2006. Therefore I am taking advantage of the gap and declaring LST to be that site, at least until someone starts hosting a real one. ZAD 2006 shall be June 5th. Start making your papier-mache shotguns now.

Train-jumping for fun and profit

2006-04-28T19:13:00.000-04:00

OMGWTFBBQ!!!!!!!!1111ELEVENTYTWELVE!1! NINTENDO REVOLUTION IS NOW CALLED THE WII! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

...It's funny because it sounds like urine.

2006-04-27T23:21:00.000-04:00

Okay, Level = teh pwn. Seriously. This stuff is incredible.

2006-04-27T21:45:00.000-04:00

When a clown car crashes, apparently balloon animals pop out of the steering wheel.

In other news,

Could you survive in a horror movie?

YOU'RE A SURVIVOR!!You're also very, very boring. You see, horror movies are full of idiot teenagers for a reason. That's the only way they can make slow-lurching zombies, flesh-eating inbred country bumpkins and giant sentient blobs seem frightening. Go back and trip over a few branches or fumble your shotgun shells at a crucial moment or something.
Take this quiz!

Jedi Breakfast

2006-04-27T21:34:00.000-04:00

Jedi Breakfast. NSFW.

2006-04-23T11:44:00.000-04:00

Alright, Kenan went on to be on SNL, great for him. Does anyone know what happened to Kel?

2006-04-11T18:38:00.000-04:00

Posted by proxy again--my band, Bar Sinister, has just established a blog. I wrote up and introduction--check it like Beckett.

2006-04-02T13:41:00.000-04:00

So, my school drama club just finished putting on The Sound of Music. (...Shut up. The play version is much more badass than the movie. The nazis are more important and there's a song about how great it is to be selfish.) I had a bit part-- a waltzer at the Von Trapps' party--but it was fun anyway. Friday night, Saturday matinee and Saturday night performances, then we went home and showered before we rushed off to one of the leads' house for an all-night party and a trip to Denny's in the morning. Our director is a positively Hollywood type, a cranky but lovable tiny old lady who's run the music department at my high school for over 30 years. She's extremely good at what she does--the show is, according to all the parents and the judges from the state highschool drama competition, excellent. This was her last production--there was a lot of emotion at the cast party, giving of gifts and so on. She's going to become a world traveler in retirement, or so is her plan. I had a blast doing the show--I've got a sawed-off piece of PVC pipe from a fence prop for a souvenir, plus some signatures in a notebook and a zillion pictures--and even if it was a hell of a lot of work, I'm definitely going to do this some more.

On an unrelated note, does anyone know who or what "blue lang" might be? I quote, from the chorus of "Ninja Gang" by the Frontalittle Squad:

Danger, it's the Ninja Gang
Run or hide if you can't hang
If you're not tough like blue lang
They'll go through you like it's no thang.

And if you think those lyrics are bad you should hear the second stanza.

2006-03-30T18:50:00.000-05:00

I haven't posted for a while, being unable to reach the Internet for assorted reasons, but this was so shiny I got it posted by proxy. I invented it with a friend of mine at chess club the other day--we both play DnD, and I had a brainwave, which after some tinkering and experimentation ended up as:

D20 CHESS.

Movement and winning are as normal, but when you attack another piece instead of automatically capturing it there's a short battle. The attacking player rolls 1d20 and adds the attack bonus of the attacking piece. If the result is higher than the defending piece's AC, the defender dies. If it isn't, the defending player rolls 1d20 and adds the defending piece's attack bonus; if its result is higher than the attacking piece's AC, the attacker dies. If it isn't higher either, neither piece dies and the attacker goes back to where it started from. We only played one game but it seemed to work pretty well. The numbers we're using (for now) are:

Piece AC Attack Bonus
Pawn 8 +1
Knight 10 +2
Bishop 14 +2
Rook 12 +3
Queen 15 +3
King 0 +20

As you see, the king functions like he does in normal chess-he can kill, and be killed by, any piece without any rolling. That's so that you still have to always keep him out of check or else lose the game next turn, like real chess. It was really pretty fun. I'm thinking of emailing this idea to Kevan to see what he thinks of it, since he's a game designer guy and I've actually chatted with him a few times...

2006-03-09T21:28:00.000-05:00

My sister just got Joan of Arcadia Season One on DVD for her birthday. It's still awesome, and Grace is still even awesomer. Oh, woe, woe, three times woe at its cancellation!

...What? I read a lot of fantasy.

2006-03-08T17:06:00.000-05:00

Mirrormask is a seriously trippy movie, but a good watch--especially since Valentine = Hoggle in a big way; the movie is essentially Labyrinth with the Gaiman touch, and minus David Bowie in tights. Good stuff.

2006-03-07T14:55:00.000-05:00

I just finished an excellent freeware game called Seiklus (it's estonian for "adventure"). You can download it here. Check it out if you have a spare hour or two.

2006-03-07T14:54:00.000-05:00

What kind of pirate am I? You decide!
You can also view a breakdown of results or put one of these on your own page!
Brought to you by Rum and Monkey

Have you ever noticed

2006-03-04T12:02:00.000-05:00

Antonio Banderas is always "Antonio Banderas?" That's all you can call him. He's never "Tony Banderas."

2006-02-28T22:13:00.000-05:00

Darnit, I need to post more. I'm under no illusions about LST's possible popularity--really popular blogs come from interesting situations, and no one want to hear about another dorky teenager with bad social skills. But darnit, I can be interesting enough to carry a modest readership with purely things I see or hear or think about, without needing anything interesting to happen to me. I just need to stop being so lazy about posting here. I haven't posted in more than a month, so god knows why I'm getting 2 hits a day--probably 2 relatives with RSS readers that autocheck every day. So. Interesting stuff. Well, I think I want to have Brian K. Vaughan's babies--first Y, then Ex Machina, and now I've just finished the first Runaways anthology, which blew my mind. Seriously. It's blown. Away. Like a flock of seagulls. Caaaaaw.

2006-01-24T16:23:00.000-05:00

Best. Old lady. Ever.

2006-01-23T19:43:00.000-05:00

Alright, just go read this. All of it, now. But especially #3. I tried to say essentially the same thing in this post, but he says it better. The only thing missing is the Miles books.

2006-01-19T23:22:00.000-05:00

*quiet sobbing*

2006-01-13T15:38:00.000-05:00

Shirts leaving! Going out of stock! Must have my talking machine!

2005-12-28T13:51:00.000-05:00

Yes, I'm still alive. Was grounded. A quiz:

the Wit

(52% dark, 38% spontaneous, 26% vulgar)

your humor style:
CLEAN COMPLEX DARK

You like things edgy, subtle, and smart. I guess that means you're
probably an intellectual, but don't take that to mean pretentious. You
realize 'dumb' can be witty--after all isn't that the Simpsons'
philosophy?--but rudeness for its own sake, 'gross-out' humor and most
other things found in a fraternity leave you totally flat.

I guess you just have a more cerebral approach than most. You have the perfect mindset for a joke writer or staff writer.

Your sense of humor takes the most thought to appreciate, but it's also the best, in my opinion.

You probably loved the Office. If you don't know what I'm
talking about, check it out here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/theoffice/.

PEOPLE LIKE YOU: Jon Stewart - Woody Allen - Ricky Gervais

The 3-Variable Funny Test!

- it rules -

If you're interested, try my latest:
The Terrorism Test

My test tracked 3 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:

You scored higher than 51% on darkness
You scored higher than 29% on spontaneity
You scored higher than 23% on vulgarity

Link: The 3 Variable Funny Test written by jason_bateman on Ok Cupid, home of the 32-Type Dating Test

2005-12-11T10:22:00.000-05:00

According to my referrals listing, my site is the highest-rated Yahoo result for "tango lockstep" w/o the quotes. All that really means is that I picked a really bizarre combination of words for the name of my blog, but still.

2005-12-10T21:48:00.000-05:00

Want.

2005-12-04T07:28:00.000-05:00

This is a completely accurate depiction of events. Really.

2005-12-03T21:30:00.000-05:00

Wanna pimp a crazy-cool band I found. The Frontalittle Squad have some free mp3s on their site--go check 'em out!

2005-12-03T20:45:00.000-05:00

Okay, I think eveyone knows what side of the video game censorship debate I stand on, but this is just stupid.

2005-11-27T04:42:00.000-05:00

My cousin "whatever alias she likes this week" (blog) made a really good quiz over at Quizilla. Apparently, out of 108 people who'd taken the quiz I was the only one to get this result:

You are a elemental. Your personality and goals
vary with your element but no matter what you
tend to speak in riddles and you love to
confuse your enemies.

Weapon:A spear of some sort
Animal companion: You are friends with all animals
Personality: as I said, it varys with your element,
but most elementals tend to be random
Magic powers: You control elements and can talk to
animals

What Fantasy Class are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

2005-11-27T04:14:00.000-05:00

I just found a nifty site known as "Userbars," which makes little bars to put in one's signatures in forums to tell people things about onesself. Surprising how much they can tell about you...

And therefore:

And one more I made myself, without the nifty sheen or the right effect on the text since I only have Fireworks not Photoshop and don't really know how to use Fireworks:

2005-11-09T22:53:00.000-05:00

"Follow your weird, ladies and gentlemen. Forget trying to pass for normal. Follow your geekdom. Embrace your nerditude. In the immortal words of Lafcadio Hearn, a geek of incredible obscurity whose work is still in print after a hundred years, "woo the muse of the odd."

You may be a geek, you may have geek written all over you; you should aim to be one geek they'll never forget. Don't aim to be civilized. Don't hope that straight people will keep you on as some kind of pet. To hell with them; they put you here. You should fully realize what society has made of you and take a terrible revenge. Get weird. Get way weird. Get dangerously weird. Get sophisticatedly, thoroughly weird and don't do it halfway, put every ounce of horsepower you have behind it..."

From this. It was a speech on video game design, but why let that limit it? I'm just annoyed it stated what would become half my philosophy of life, and it did it before I'd even thought the stuff up.

2005-11-09T20:10:00.000-05:00

I've just realized something--I like high school. There are fewer, longer classes in a day, which makes the day seem to go quicker, I get band every day, chorus is a whole class, I can carry my backpack around instead of going back to my locker constantly, I only get any given class every other day so I have two days for all homework...it's weird. Everything told me highschool would be harder, not easier.

2005-11-01T21:38:00.000-05:00

I want all of these shirts. But especially the "secret scary friend" one.

2005-10-23T15:07:00.000-04:00

Weirdness. Two days after I have a mammoth argument with my dad about Jack Thompson and video games, I see an article called "five reasons why jack thompson is right (and five reasons he's not)" that contains everything I wish I had thought to say in said argument.