Since not all of us can get on xbox live...

We should try out XLink Kai at some point. Apparently it uses a PC on your network to simulate a system link connection. Could be fun...

This is it, boys + girls

I take a lot of criticism for my love of the Interweb. Maybe most of it is deserved. Who can really say? But today I can rest easy. All that effort has been worth it.

Click this link.

We Should Have a Feast of Meats

Since the Milford trip has now been scrubbed due to various circumstances, I suggeset we convene on monday, fire up the grill, and eat until our colons erupt forth in a glorious display of Freedom(TM). Unfortunately, the one sticker is where can we actually have it? No grills at my apartment, I'm afraid...

This is not fake

This is what them metereologists call SLCs.

You just *know* this video's showing up on the 'net...

"Two people have been left with severe burns after their home-made Star Wars light sabre exploded and showered them in petrol."

From The Force.net

OMGWTFBBQ

Start in Austin and drive 15 or 30 or 70 miles in practically any direction, and you are liable to find yourself at a world-class barbecue shop. (It will probably be advertising "hot guts." Do not be alarmed. This is Texan for sausage.) When I was 19 years old, I drove through this part of Texas with a friend. Knowing nothing about the Barbecue Belt, we stopped at a roadside stand and ordered a few slices of brisket. That meal burned in my memory as the Platonic ideal of barbecue. It is my barbecue Rosebud. It is why I came back.

It's nothing snarky or anything but I've kinda enjoyed reading this series.

"the saddest phrase in the world."

had 'penny arcade' completely turned me off of webcomics, i would've found these things years ago. the internet is awesome, especially when it isn't endlessly self-referential.

yeah, that's right. i just slammed 'p.a.' what are you gonna do about it?

a: post a comment to the tune, 'p.a. is awesome! it is soooo gooood! waaaah!'

extreme measures.

read 'dinosaur comics' because they are awesome, assholes.

It's Tuesday Again

And I'm in a fucking bad mood and need to do something fun tonight to remedy that. You fuckers better come through for me, or there will retribution of the highest order brought down on you.

Oh, the things i'm gonna *DO* for my country...and by "do", i mean "Have sex with", and by "things", i mean women...

So i just finished downloading the pulse-pounding sequel to the seminal work, XXX. The sequel, XXX2: State of the Union, stars Ice Cube, as opposed to its' original actor. I suggest a group viewing, ASAP. Anyone game?


Fun Fact: Vin Diesel and director Rob Cohen signed on for this film two months before the original opened. Both ended up leaving the project.

Oh God we're nerds

I wonder how long we can keep posting about Star Wars?

You bumped into me (Jar Jar) while we were waiting on line. I was surprised to see that you were actually decent looking (a rarity amongst Star Wars fans), and I smiled and said, "Meeza so happy to see you suh!" You looked like you were about to say something back when Anakin stepped in between us and gave me a nasty look. You need to ditch that loser, can't you see that he's mean spirited? He's just going to cheat on you and break your heart.

Holla back and maybe you'll get to see my special light saber. Once you go Gungan, you can't go back.

P.S. You should really stop smoking, think about what you're doing to Luke and Leia.

From craigslist.

strike the empire back.

it has been more than a month since swrpg went on hiatus, and i think i've got a solution. rather than running drawn out, campaign-style adventures, i've pieced together a series of 'one shots' that can be attended by anyone without a great deal of pre-planning. the idea being, were some one to cancel, we would just play without them. this requires a slight shift in our era of play, however. inspired by the military operation of the clone wars in 'episode three,' i'm going to move the campaign forward to the clone wars era, and all of you will be jedi within. you have two options: keep your old character and play with 'aging' rules (these involve minuses to str and dex balanced by pluses to int and wis), or make an entirely new character (with better information about the nature of the game than you had when we started the first time). anyway, i have a few of these mini-adventures mapped out, and i'd like to give them a go. i'm targeting next tuesday (after we return from milford) as the starting point. all games will be run in hampden.

lemme know what'ch'yall think.

gentlemen, start your browsers.

right. i've got a sizeable challenge for our small, rag-tag band of web-users. finding 'the phantom edit.' between feez's strange 'friends,' klemis ability to find information vaguely applicable to a situation and my ability to give blowjobs, we should be able to do it. lucas couldn't have destroyed every copy of the thing...could he have? this is what we need to find out. i have a 'reward' for the person who reels this one in.

Help help

While you guys are I guess living the dream I am browsing the Transchoptankia Gazette, your basic idiot-on-the-Eastern-Shore armed with a blog. The funny part is he is actually a local political appointee about to get fired because of said blog.

Well, okay, it's not really that funny but I'll take what I can get.

scum and villany.

somehow, while google image searchin' 'brazillian girls' (fuck, the results were awesome), i stumbled upon this gem:

10 TRUTHS WHITE AND BLACK PEOPLE KNOW, BUT MEXICAN
PEOPLE WON'T ADMIT:
1. Hickey's are not attractive.
2. Chicken is a food, not a roommate.
3. Jesus is not a name for your son.
4. Your country's flag is not a car decoration.
5. Maria is a name but not for every other daughter.
6. "Jump out and run" is not in any insurance policies.
7. 10 people to a car is considered too many.
8. Buttoning just the top button of your shirt is a bad fashion statement.
9. Mami and Papi can't possibly be the nickname of every person in your family.
10.Letting your children run wildly through the store is not normal.

note the highlighted number four.

awesome.

Just a little bit of history repeating...

As per usual, there are awesome shows coming up soon.

As per usual, I will inform you about them.

As per usual, I will be in attendance by myself.

As per usual, I will have told you so.

Showtimes are as follows:

Friday, May 20th: The Talking Head Club, Baltimore, MD, featuring 'Celebrations', who have recently been signed to 4AD and recorded an excellent record which only Vijay has heard. Also, I work with the drummer, and the singer was featured in the TV on the Radio single 'Staring at the Sun'

Friday, May 27th: Ram's Head Live, Annapolis, MD, featuring 'Brazillian Girls'
I will not be in attendance, as Ram's Head is too far to try to make it after work on Friday night, but you might go.

If you have the testicular fortitude (with respect to the Rock), then you should join me in New York City on Wednesday, June 1st, to see the Brazillian Girls in what is, in fact, their home town, and in a much hipper venue. Of course, I don't expect to see any of you pussies. I do expect to have an enormous grin on my face when they play "Pussy".

Friday, June 3rd: Sonar, Baltimore, MD, featuring "the Futureheads" of Burnout3 fame. You know, the weird one that starts "This is a brand new problem. A problem without any clues." I have the record. It is excellent. I'm sure you'ld never know it if I didn't tell you.

Also, the new (as in 2004) Q and Not U record is awesome. Really, really good.

Get tickets in advance, stupid. We clearly all have the internet, and credit cards.

paging the Nerdcore Guild...

so, does anyone happen to own 'episode ii?' i know fishel has ep. i and the fancy special versions of iv-vi, so methinks it is just ii we're after...

Remember when you guys were all political?

Those were some good times. I found a speech by Bill Moyers that's mostly about public media but also talks about what's going on with the media in general, and it echoes a lot of what I guess we talked about before everything went to shit in 2004.

Mermin also quotes public television’s Jim Lehrer, whom I greatly respect, acknowledging that unless an official says something is so, it isn’t news. Why were journalists not discussing the occupation of Iraq? “Because,” says Jim Lehrer, “the word ‘occupation’ was never mentioned in the run up to the war. Washington talked about the war as a war of liberation, not a war of occupation. So as a consequence, those of us in journalism,” says Lehrer, “never even looked at the issue of occupation.” “In other words,” says Jonathan Mermin, “if the government isn’t talking about it, we don’t report it.”

It blows my mind that Jim Lehrer admits he's a sucker for the party line.

'the listserv'

sure, my e-tenticles don't trawl as deep as klemis', but at least i can guarantee this won't be boring.

Tuesday Madness!

It's Tuesday; what shall we do?

Echo Base to Yavin 4...

Operation "TCW-Acquire" is complete. Please advise.

Here I am blathering some more

While you guys are salivating over the Freudian implications of a man who wields a two-ended lightsaber, I found this really cool thing. You know that Wikipedia thing? This lets you make your own tiny version of it that you can edit and save at will. Also it has spiffy animations. Here's a tutorial.

Yeah, okay, I'm boring.

Also Known As:
Blue Harvest (USA) (fake working title)

BURKE! STATUS!

here's all y'alls' itenerary:

day 1.
thursday, may 19th.

9:30am. gather at yavin 4. coffee and bagels for all.

10:00am: Episode I: The Phantom Menace (runtime: 133 minutes)

12:35pm: short break. pizza order placed at this juncture.

1:00pm: Episode II: Attack of the Clones (runtime: 144 minutes)

3:30pm: The Clone Wars (animated micro-series)

6:00pm: disperse with the intention of reconvening near 'the senator' to appraise situation on the ground. first cocktails of the day consumed.

10:00pm: Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (runtime: 140 minutes)

12:40pm: leave 'the senator' for yavin 4.

1:30am: Episode IV: A New Hope (runtime: 125 minutes)

3:35am: DAY 1 CONCLUDES. yavin 4, a fully equipped outpost, can accomodate anyone man enough to continue the adventure.

day 2.
friday, may 20th.

c. 12:00pm: Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (runtime: 129 minutes)

c. 3:00pm: Episode VI: Return of the Jedi (runtime: 135 minutes)

c. 6:00pm: the saga concludes...?

c. 12:45am: our minds a delirious collision of lightsabers and fist-weilded energy swords, we collapse into one anothers' arms and explore the homoerotic fantasies we've always concealed under layers of science-fiction warfare.

This one's for us county boys

... all two of us. But maybe the rest of you would find a realtime Google traffic map of the city useful anyway.

Poker To-Nite

8:00, my place.

A poor showing, indeed...

I can't describe my disappointment upon visiting the Jerk Store, and finding that today's specials include:

1. A mention of a video game which obviously would have existed somewhere.

2. An invitation which clearly should have gone out under e-vites, and not the blog.

3. Some boring shit that Klimas posted, for some reason.

So the rest of you don't loose faith in the Blog all together, here is my offering for the day. I'm sure you will find, as I did, that this is a far more interesting subject.

Please excuse my not mailing this — but I don't know your new address

I was blinded by a terrific silver-white flash — I had to look away. Wherever I looked an enormous purple splotch appeared: it was just as bright when I closed my eyes. "That," said my scientific brain to my befuddled one, "is an after-image caused by looking at a bright light — it is not the bomb you are looking at." So I turned back to look at the bomb.

Excerpts from Richard Feynman's letters.

Now there's a MMO for everything!

All of you should get online and play Shot Online. It's by korean developers, it's a golf MMORPG, and it's chock full of engrish. What could be better?

guns and chicks: a formula for one week success.

all:

i must dine with my mom and sister this evening, as this is my sister's last night in town. this will most likely make me late for the 'creative' 'festivities,' scheduled to commence at 8.00. i trust i have given you a solid starting point, and expect a fully 'fleshed' out script when i get home. h'oh, man. that's good.

Because uncompressed video and sound is freakin' big...

You should buy a bigger harddrive. And now's a great time. Outpost.com has a Seagate 300 Gigabyte UATA Hard Drive for $115 after a 40 dollar rebate. That's a crazy deal. Me, i'm buying 2. Gonna bring the media PC up to a terabyte of space.

These stats be off the chain, yo...

Whatever the vernacular is now, it's rare that i see a console that has a potential to do everything right right out of the gate. XBOX 360 might do just that.

presumably, this does not mean a naked gwenyth paltrow...

holy shit:

Christensen also confirmed recently that Lucas got a helping hand with the script for Revenge of the Sith. In an interview with Playboy, he said the rumours about playwright Tom Stoppard working on the dialogue for the film are true.

Stoppard, known for stage works like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, gave the Lucas-penned screenplay a more "human" dimension, Christensen said.

Me and Bobby and Jackie...

In a further blurring of the line between guilty pleasure and actual pleasure, the Futureheads, of Crash and Smash virtual fame, will be playing an actual show at an actual (almost) venue in the somewhat surreal city of Baltimore, MD in the romanticized month of June.

I, for one, would love to settle the score between who's the bigger geek: the gamer or the hipster. Since some of you dance dorks will likely be at this particular sorta-kinda venue anyway, you might be more willing to cough up the lousy fifteen bucks for admission. Or just cry for hours that you can't pay too much for drinks, dance to the same boring shit, and hang out with ecstasy-crazed tween models till 4:oo in the morning. Not that the show wouldn't be like that anyway. You just have to pay to get in, you cheap bastards.

Why they couldn't have played anywhere but Sonar is fucking beyond me. Must be an industry thing. Their next show on the tour is at the 9:30 club.

Baltimore 48-Hour

Is indeed happening. Are we going to take the other teams to school, or just tell the whole thing to shove itself somewhere unpleasant?

Check it.

Important Safety Information

A lightsaber is not a toy! Keep it out of reach of children at all times. Lightsaber locks are required in most states.

There are two ends to any lightsaber -- one end has the belt ring, while the other end houses the blade arc tip and blade emitter. NEVER point the blade emitter of a lightsaber toward your own body. NEVER look down the "barrel" of a lightsaber, even if you are "sure" it is in safe mode. If you accidentally activate the lightsaber, serious injury could result.

"Put a tiger in your MAC", or something stupid like that.

Yo all, we just got a copy of the new Mac OSX 10.4 (Codename: Tigerpants) at the office. Anyone want a copy of it?

Plans and how to plan them...

I wanted to review a few general impressions regarding the date of the 19th of May, more commonly referred to as "The day our dreams were dashed forever".

I seem to recall a mention of assemblage around the morning hours, in order to view the first and second episodes of the Star Wars saga, to be followed by a theatrical viewing of the third episode. The question is:

What time shall we assemble, and what time will we go to see the movie at the 2nd location?

Fiveish? Sevenish? Laterish?

'but i confess i am as yet unfamiliar with the duck hunt genre'

there is something endlessly hilarious about awkward syntax and canned comics.

see also.

from now on, you'll all be in (the frame of) my heart.

because no matter how far apart you stand, the canon 3x zoom xl 3.4-10.2mm lens will reduce all of your faults to a smooth 24 frames per second.

video games haven't killed you...yet.

cnt time again.

who the fuck is in charge here?

whoever maintained control of the blog after the great calamity: eeen would like to join us. his user name is 'triskadelphia.' his email is ian@jesandian.com. some one make it happen.

It's Tuesday!

What manner of cock-measurey should we engage in this week?

mozilla firefox is awesome while you unfortunates are not.

in the chris harring tradition of resisting popular transitional technology (see: 'mac daddy: how the macintosh computer won chris harring's heart') before suddenly embracing it then lecturing everyone he knows about said technology's, and therefore his own, superiority, i bring you FIREFOX! i will now make graphic insinuations about your sexual tendencies.

good day.

(or is that the matt fishel tradition? i always get the two confused.)

Even bus drivers get to play video games

There's the bark of air brakes, then the unmistakable sound of breaking glass.

An instructor at the right elbow of a Metrobus driver sighs and says, "Man, you keep laying that pedestrian out over there."