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1 Mar
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Posted by AnaKhouri
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Nicholas Courtney, best known as the brusque, lovable Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart has passed away.
In affectionate tribute, here is my favorite extra from the Doctor Who DVDs:
| Category: off-topic | Tag: brigadier lethbridge-stewart, doctor who, nicholas courtney, obituary |
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1 Jan
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Posted by Musashi
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Holidays always fuck up my ability to get anything done, especially post at the site – various demands constantly pull me in all directions and unfortunately something’s always gotta give. Frankly I was going to stay away until after the weekend, but I just have to post this. It won’t stay bottled up two more days.
My good friend Shone Davis is dead.
Shone was more than a friend, really – if one can be said to have a brother in spirit, that was Shone Davis. My mom always said that most people will offer you kind words when life throws you a curveball, but true friends are there to put up with your shit.
That was Shone Davis.
Shone was the guy that would have your back even when you were wrong, who loved having a good time and being there when you weren’t. When I look back at my youth, it seems that most of my recollections somehow involve Shone.
Rampaging around a slamdance pit at a Circle Jerks show at Bogart’s.
Attending a Nether Eye show in some seedy basement, watching Shone dance his ass off wearing a Chuck-E-Cheese mascot head in 100-degree heat.
Driving to Cleveland for the first Lollapalooza tour in 1991.
Watching Mark Waid take a piss in the bathroom at the 1996 Chicago Comicon.
Punk shows, sitting around the basement playing Nintendo, watching John Woo flicks in his brother’s apartment in San Francisco, hanging out with my family in Los Angeles in ’97.
It’s the absolute fucking zenith of geek cliche, but I can’t help but quote Roy Batty from the end of Blade Runner: “All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in the rain.”
I have a black Captain Harlock shirt in my closet, you know the one – the skull and crossbones. Shone gave that to me on my birthday fifteen years ago. It’s a little ratty now; the screenprint ink is cracked and and like my hair it’s starting to look a bit more light gray than black. It’s probably more than a little stretched out, too – time has a funny way of doing that to you.
I haven’t corresponded with Shone as much as I’d have liked the last few years. He relocated to the U.K. a while back, and though we chatted now and then via e-mail and Facebook time and distance took it’s inevitable toll.
I miss you, man. God damn, I miss you.
| Category: off-topic | Tag: obituary, sad, shone davis |
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15 Dec
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Posted by AnaKhouri
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So, yeah. I have a new story published in the e-zine Moon-Drenched Fables. It doesn’t have anything to do with Asian culture; this time it’s Greek mythology.
If you click on the “Best of Issue” button you can vote for it as the best story of the issue; only if you really read and like it, though! I don’t accept charity. ^_^
| Category: off-topic, Uncategorized | Tag: fantasy, fiction, moon-drenched fables, short stories |
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6 Dec
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Posted by AnaKhouri
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Oh, my God.
I have found the best comic EVER.
Comics used to be really fun. Now, I am all for dark comics- I am the world’s biggest Punisher fan, after all- but sometimes you grow weary of all the psychological baggage and heartache and rape and stuff. Sometimes you just want a cop with an ax, and a dinosaur partner.
And that’s what Ax Cop gives you. A wild, bizarre ride through the mind of its author. Who is currently 6 years old (but the illustrator is his award-winning artist brother).
It’s a valuable insight for the mother of a little boy. “Seriously, is THIS what he’s thinking about? THAT’S SO COOL!”
Dark Horse, the fount of offbeat (and publisher of all the best manga) is realeasing a print volume in 2011, so keep your eyes open.
Or Ax Cop will chop your head off.
| Category: off-topic, Uncategorized | Tag: ax cop, dark horse, webcomic |
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2 Dec
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Posted by AnaKhouri
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YM readers, I want to solicit some off-topic help, on the assumption that all of you are huge geeks.
In March we’ll be attending Millenicon, a literary SF-based con in Cincinnati (but they’ve realized a literary con will have about 6 attendees, so they also have panels on movies, TV shows, gaming, anime etc.).
I want a new costume. Since my proposed Kzin costume will be too much work (plus Shapiro Keats says if I wear a Kzin costume, that will brand me forever as a furry), I am looking for something comfy.
I thought Jedi, but Jedi are as common as dirt, almost as common as Stormtroopers. So now I am thinking of a literary heroine. Unfortunately, not too many novel characters have distinctive clothes.
So far, my available choices seem to be Honor Harrington or a Starship Troopers soldier.
Anyone have any other ideas?
| Category: off-topic | Tag: cincinnati, costuming, millenicon, off-topic, ohio, sf conventions |
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1 Sep
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Posted by AnaKhouri
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My friend showed me a Youtube video where a guy took a music video and changed the lyrics of the song to tell you what was happening in the video. That doesn’t sound very funny, but it is and I have wasted way too much time watching and laughing my ass off at these videos.
So I am sharing the time wastage.
There’s a Handsome Guy in This Comic
I Just Bitch-Slapped Mickey Rourke
(boy, that just sounds like the worst idea ever, doesn’t it?)
And the funniest for last:
Arthur Fonzarelli’s Got an Army of Clones
This guy has a whole Youtube channel so there are more than this that are also hilarious, but these three are my favorites.
| Category: off-topic | Tag: literal, music videos, off-topic, YouTube |
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26 Jul
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Posted by Musashi
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One of the things I hate about kids television programming is that kid’s shows rarely deal with how kids’ minds actually work. Typically, kid’s programming is designed to teach kids oversimplifed moral lessons or how to be a fully functional member of society (‘share your stuff’, ‘disabled people aren’t monsters’, ‘Queso is Spanish for Cheese‘) – rare is the show which simply addresses kids on their own level. So much of the programming designed for their consumption does nothing but turn their minds into soft cream-cheese. Rather than encourage creativity, they are force-fed lessons in civility and rudimentary educational skills.
Kids are chaotic, energetic, flippant, humorous, hedonistic, and surreal. In many ways they’re like borderline schizophrenics with a wicked sense of humor and nothing better to do than engage in dangerous, suicidal activities…and I love them for it.
Enter Adventure Time. Created by animator Pendleton Ward, Adventure Time follows the exploits of Finn the Human and Jake the Dog as they engage in a series of utterly surreal hijinks which are simultaneously bizarre and hilarious. Relating the plot of an episode reads like the rantings an LSD user after being subjected to the Ludovico Technique. It really is something else – my six-year-old son unfailingly giggles at every poop joke and low-brow scatalogical reference, and half the fun for me is watching him react to it. There are plenty of things here that adults will probably find amusing (a side-character called ‘Lumpy Space Princess’, dubbed ‘LSP’ by the main characters – my, we’ve come a long way from Mighty Mouse sniffing crushed flowers…) – but it’s not a show designed with loads of adult in-jokes. It truly is one of the first shows I’ve seen that perfectly captures the chaos and bewilderment of childhood.
Here’s the original Adventure Time short that aired on Nickolodeon’s Random! Cartoons. The animation is a little more crude than what you see on Cartoon Network, but it’s a very good representation of what you get with the regular series.
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21 Jun
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Posted by Musashi
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One of the things I’ve been working on in my spare time is a roleplaying game designed for children. I’m not prepared to make any announcements or anything, but I’ve been working up to playtesting it with my kids – last night I sat down with my son and daughter for our first play session and I was amazed at just how much fun it was.
Not so much because of the play mechanics (although I am fairly proud of how well it works), but because children are natural roleplayers. Anyone who has spent any amount of time around kids will tell you that they are idea machines. Without any of the logical constraints that hold back more ‘mature’ roleplayers, kids feel free to do or say just about anything – and more often than not, it’s either creative, hilarious, or both.
Last night my kids journeyed to Hidden Dinosaur Island. Accompanied by Mom, Dad, and Sea Captain Carl, they traveled via submarine to a mysterious island-under-an-island (turn a glass upside down in a pool of water, trap an air pocket under there, and then float another island up inside of that glass, and you’re getting the idea) and encountered a tribe of savage three-armed-monkeys.
My son, who was playing a character I’d been telling him stories about since he was a year old, immediately grasped what he was supposed to do. He spoke in character, reacted to NPC’s with a bewildering array of crazy banter, and decided that he was an inventor with a gun, an invisible gun, a gun that shoots down helicopters, an army of robots that fits in his backpack, two swords (one magic, one not so magic), and an Iron Man suit. Naturally he was carrying all this stuff with him. Even my daughter – at three – got in on the action, engaging the vicious three-armed-monkeys in close combat before my son stepped in to mediate. The three-armed-monkeys were a staple of those earlier stories, and he routinely visited them in their village – so despite the initial diplomatic faux pas (my daughter couldn’t resist fighting them), my son stepped into the fray and calmed everyone down. That was a moment of fatherly pride, let me tell you.
So – tonight my kids are off to the other side of the volcano – their quest: to recover the sacred BuBu Nut which was stolen from the King of the Three-Armed Monkeys by the Bad Vikings, a group of Nordic axe-wielding thugs who have been at war with the Three-Armed Monkeys for twenty years.
We’ll see where that goes…
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24 May
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Posted by Musashi
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Are you fucking kidding me? This is what passes for ‘news’ in Cincinnati these days.
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17 Apr
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Posted by Musashi
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I’ll probably never bother with this again, but I’m amused to be posting this on my iPod from the IHOP in Kenwood, Ohio.
Frankly, typing on this thing is a bit of a pain but you do get used to it. Makes me think about picking up an iPad…
And now that I’ve used my Off-Topic Karma for the day, I’ll have to post something more relevant this afternoon.
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5 Mar
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Posted by Mazinga
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Already engaged in a struggle to emerge from bankruptcy, Japan Air Lines is now engaged in a fight of a different sort: Keeping the stylish outfits of laid-off flight attendants off the black market and out of the hands of uniform fetishists.
A jacket alone can fetch several hundred pounds, while one site is presently advertising a full set for more than £2,000. JAL’s domestic rival, All Nippon Airways, has a similar problem and an ANA stewardesses’ uniform is also on sale on-line for £3,745. Items that have been worn command higher prices.
“We have very strict rules on our uniforms and when people leave the company they are required to return them,” a spokeswoman for JAL told The Daily Telegraph.
“It’s a question of security, as anyone wearing a JAL uniform at an airport could quite easily access restricted areas, but we also do not want people misrepresenting the company or damaging our image in any way,” she added.
Actually, the bit about items that have been worn commanding higher prices was a bit too much information.
(via MetaFilter)
Update: USA Today reports that the problem is worse than initially thought. The uniforms might go not only to individuals but to the sex industry.
Scott Mayerowitz of ABC News reports that “in Japan plenty of people are willing to pay top dollar for an experience with a club entertainer clad in an authentic Japan Airlines flight attendant uniform.”
Of course, you can have an experience with someone clad in an authentic Japan Airlines flight attendant uniform for the price of a coach ticket, but she’ll only bring you a ginger ale.
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11 Feb
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Posted by Mazinga
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Check out this sweet gallery of vinyage posters from Japanese industrial expositions from the 1920s-1940s.
(via BoingBoing)
| Category: Cool Links, off-topic | Tag: art, graphic design, japan |
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10 Nov
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Posted by Mazinga
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| Category: Cool Links, off-topic | Tag: Anime, lego |
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11 Oct
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Posted by Mazinga
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So there I was, playing Dance Dance Revolution X, and I find myself grooving on this great New Wave song called “Synthesized” by some band called The Epoxies. And I wonder, how the heck did I miss this band back in the ’80s?
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7 Oct
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Posted by Musashi
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Over the last few Gen Con game conventions, Assistant Ed Mazinga and myself have had a handful of opportunities to chat with the fine folk at CCP / White Wolf Games and they’re a pretty righteous bunch. At this year’s con Mazinga interviewed CCP’s Ned Coker, and their infamous Club Succubus parties are always worth attending.
So what does CCP do when they’re not running awesome MMO’s or getting nerds drunk? They make awesomely awesome promo videos! I think the aforementioned Mr. Coker is even visible at some point.
| Category: off-topic, Video | Tag: awesome, CCP, eve online, gaming, music, white wolf |
