Here are two things you should know:
1) My roommate and I got to reminiscing about The X-Files a couple weeks ago. It was a very nostalgic geek talk, until we started talking about particular episodes and remembered just how much that series scared the holy hell out of us. We had trouble going to our separate rooms and turning off the lights that night.
2) I am totally seeing this movie.
[13:59] Becky: i am so bored
[14:02] Becky: entertain me
[14:03] Matt: SEX FAERIES AND FLYING HINDU GODS ARE BOMBARDING THE SKY
[14:04] Becky: what
[14:04] Becky: the
[14:04] Becky: fuck
[14:04] Matt: you were entertained no?
For those of you who have not had the misfortune of being around me first thing, I am not a morning person. At all. In fact, I tend to think I’m an anti-morning person. I simply cannot wake up before 8 AM. I don’t wake up quickly or easily, and when I do, I’m grumped about it for a good while after.
This has led me to certain habits, like setting my alarm an hour before I need to wake up, and doing so on a clock radio, which I find much easier to wake up to than the cacophonous hell-scream of most electronic alarms. I usually leave the music on after I get out of bed, to catch snippets of news, and also because music manages to break through my perpetual waking gloom. I like morning radio. The announcer on KFOG has a soothing voice, and morning music tends to be upbeat but mellow. It’s good for a cranky-pants like me.
So there I am. I’ve showered, and I’ve got my breakfast. Little bit of Jack Johnson on the radio, little bit of Sara Bareilles. Overall, a decent way to start the day. Inevitably, it cut to a commercial break, and a woman with deceptively lulling tones asks me the following:
“Do you have or do you know any one who has non-healing wounds?”
WHAT. THE. FUCK. No, I don’t know anyone with non-healing wounds. The hell kind of question is that to ask somebody first thing in the morning? Do I really want to be pondering non-healing wounds at 8:30 in the morning with a bowl of vanilla almond granola and a towel on my head? Christ, I don’t want to be pondering them at all, ever. Thanks, Stanford Medical, for turning my first meal of the day into one of sputtering indignation.
I keep running into the same retarded argument regarding taking steps to make your internet travels anonymous and private. See, some people don’t see why they should bother blocking sketchy Javascript or trying to stop their ISP from building a profile on them for advertisers, or things of that ilk. They come out sounding something like this:
“Well, I am not a hacker or a terrorist or a pedophile, or a combination of the above, so I have nothing to hide. I don’t see why I should bother.”
See, the thing is, I look fairly good naked. I do not mean this in an arrogant manner, and I certainly have my various flaws that I frown regularly at. But I am not covered in separating sores, or charred flesh. I do not have a third hand sticking out from somewhere innocuous. I am not a species other than Homo sapiens, and I do not have any tattoos declaring me to be in favor of genocide, gang warfare, or country music.
In short, I have nothing to hide.
I just received my weekly email telling me what’s coming in at the comic shop. Memorial Day has pushed this week’s shipment back to Thursday.
This means that Marvel is making me wait just One More Day (god, what a crappy storyline that was) for Giant-Sized Astonishing X-Men.
Thank goodness I remembered that it’s Giant-Sized. The list is alphabetical, and I was ready to pitch a fit since it didn’t show up under “A” for “Astonishing” or “X” for “X-Men”.
Honestly, this comic is going to come out right after Duke Nukem Forever.
Clothe thyself in sackcloth, and blur thy visage with ashes. The End is truly nigh. Wizards of the Coast have taken Dungeons and Dragons, “updating” it to the steaming pile that will be 4th Edition, and they are releasing this abomination next week.
Now, I know that I am heavily biased on this issue. I spent hundreds of dollars on 3E and 3.5E books and adventures, and I spent hundreds of hours bent over said books, learning the intricacies of the d20 rule system (which has an open license, by the way). I simply don’t want to learn a completely new set of rules, when I’m intimately familiar with the old.
NASA just landed another probe on Mars, my fellows.
This little ‘bot will spend the next 3 months digging through permafrost, searching for signs of life and habitability (water, amino acid chains, etc.).
I, for one, am still excited at the prospect of colonizing another planet.
Meet Jing Jing and Cha Cha. Aren’t they cute? Even their names are a play on the Mandarin word for police! Mwah! Yep, this adorable little animated duo is all over the place in China, and as you can probably tell from the big eyes and the chubby little police vehicles, they fill me with pure Orwellian horror.
See, as we know, the intertubes in China are censored as hell, but I naively never thought of it past the fact that a huge mess of websites are blocked. But no. Let’s say you’re commenting on something such as the monster earthquake earlier this month, and you’re not terribly happy about the way the feds handled it. Well, as soon as whatever you’re typing gets a lil bit too close to what the government would rather not have you saying, they pop up on your screen to remind you, with their cherubic faces, that you are living in a communist nightmare.
“Don’t accept vulgar content!” the cheery little speech bubble says. “Advance harmony!”
Ggggh.
Keep your hands off my internet, suckas.
I’ve been scarce for the last week, and I’d like to apologize.
Work’s winding down, over at the High Schools, and I’ll have something informative and entertaining whipped up for y’all soon.
Until then, I’ll just promise a Comix review sometime this weekend and leave you with this picture.
