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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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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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2 Apr
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Posted by Musashi
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I was discussing SLC Punk with friends last night and subsequently have spent a good part of the morning reminiscing about the music of my youth. I was born at just the right time to enjoy the big second wave of punk rock, namely the hardcore punk scene, which was a great refuge for a pissed-off teenager mired in the midst of southwestern Ohio. Saint Ronnie may have declared that it was morning again in America, but I was too busy detonating PVC pipe bombs in the back yard and going to punk shows to give a fuck.
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17 Mar
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Posted by Musashi
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Goddamn it – I just found out that Alex Chilton died. It’s probably more appropriate to post a video of Chilton’s own work, but for some reason it seems proper to send the guy out courtesy of The Replacements. Our younger readers will probably only be familiar with Chilton from the song ‘Through The Street’ which was the theme song for That 70′s Show (although the tune was performed by Cheap Trick in every season but the first).
We’ll miss you, man…
Here’s an NPR story on Chilton and Big Star.
| Category: News | Tag: alex chilton, obituary, off-topic, rock, sad, the replacements |
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24 Feb
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Posted by Musashi
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Last week I took advantage of Target’s price-drop on Left4Dead 2 – in case you’re one of the few who haven’t picked it up, I heartily recommend it. One of the unexpected benefits of this purchase, aside from lots of awesome zombie-slayage, is that it has subsequently led to some really awesome father/son videogame bonding.
Now – I’ll readily admit that, at six, my son is well below the game’s maturity threshold. I can’t really candy-coat that. But we do allow him to play videogames occasionally, and the game’s splitscreen gaming option allows the both of us to wade through L4D2‘s cooperative mode together. Yes – the game’s pretty violent, but I think Mini-Musashi’s got a pretty decent grasp of what flies in real-life as opposed to a videogame.
For instance – in real-life dead people stay dead. And when they don’t, the need to be shot in the head. As I said to my wife, ‘Don’t blame me if the zombie apocalypse happens and our children don’t know what to do!’
Okay, so bad-parenting aside – L4D2 is some of the best gaming I’ve shared with my son. The biggie here is that the game is cooperative. Now, granted – there are a lot of cooperative games aimed at my son’s age group. But there’s something innately awesome about being swarmed by the living dead and having your son come to your rescue, yelling ‘Don’t worry, dad – I’ll save you!’ Or the time my son fell off a hotel ledge and I pulled him up. Or when I stop to patch him up after a rough encoutner with a Tank.
The other thing is – he’s really good at this game. I tried to get my wife to play it and she spent 30 minutes running around looking at the sky. Mini-Musashi, on the other hand, is impressively deft at dispatching zombies, healing up, grabbing ammo, etc. He sometimes gets a little eager, running ahead of the group in a zombie-killing spree – but by and large he knows what he’s doing.
The most amusing thing about playing L4D2 with Mini-Musashi, however, are the nutty things he says during our matches. Last night I heard: ‘Hey Dad, I think I killed a clown!‘ and the priceless ‘Does that zombie have pants?‘, the latter after we killed a Charger (which does, for the record, have pants).
Letting my kid play L4D2 is admittedly questionable, but there’s no denying that I’ve never had this much fun playing a game with him.
| Category: Video Games | Tag: mini-musashi, off-topic, parental advice, video games, xbox 360, zombies |
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14 Jul
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Posted by Musashi
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Ye gods, I am a sucker for limited edition swag. Seriously. If ebola came in a limited edition, I’d get it. So do I want the new Modern Warfare 2 Prestige Edition – which comes with a set of fucking night vision goggles? Does the Pope shit in the woods?
Seriously, here – check out this unboxing video.
| Category: off-topic | Tag: modern warfare, off-topic, swag, the pope, video games |
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7 Jul
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Posted by Musashi
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I was overjoyed tonight to learn that the shared-world fantasy anthology series Bordertown will return with a new volume at some indeterminate point in the future. Bordertown was one of my favorite series to have emerged from the ‘shared-world’ fad back in the 80′s (the other being Robert Asprin’s Thieves’ World), mainly because it sewed together the two main cultural influences of my youth – fantasy literature and punk rock. Sounds wierd, but it worked. Ten years ago I even ran a very short-lived Bordertown GURPS campaign – try and out-geek THAT.
Here’s what Wikipedia has to say about the Bordertown series:
Borderland is the name of the shared universe created by Terri Windling, and to a fictional place within that universe. The premise of the Borderland books is that at some point in the near future, the “Elflands”, the realm of magic populated by post-Tolkien elves, “returns” to the world, and is placed in juxtaposition with “The World.”
The region of this juxtaposition (which seems at times to be New York and at other times to be geographically underspecified) is called the “Borderland” or “Borderlands.” The dystopian metropolis that lies along the Border, which combines urban fantasy of various forms with a vaguely post-apocalyptic atmosphere, is “Bordertown” or “B-Town.” In the liminal environment of Bordertown and its environs, neither magic nor technology functions “normally,” and unpredictable combinations of the two may emerge.
The Borderlands series, created for teenage readers, focuses primarily but not exclusively on the disenfranchised youth culture of Bordertown, as manifest in gang violence, race relations and miscegenation, impromptu forms of social organization, class conflict, generation gaps, and literary criticism. The music of the 1980s is a significant influence.
Bordertown, Borderland – same difference.
Sadly, most of the previous Bordertown volumes are out of print at this point – although I own yellowed, dog-eared copies of each one, including a few hardbacks of the later installments. I hope the new anthology spurs enough interest to generate re-issues of the previous work…but that’s wishful thinking, I’m afraid.
The lineup for the new book looks promising – a lot of returning Bordertown alumni as well as a handful of new authors, including Kelly Link and Boing Boing‘s own Cory Doctorow (whom we interviewed waaaay back when the site first started). In fact, Cory Doctorow mentions at Boing Boing that Neil Gaiman himself may be considering penning a story – which would be just about the coolest thing I’ve heard all year.
Now if someone could be convinced to bring Tick-Tick back to life…
| Category: News, off-topic | Tag: 80's, books, bordertown, cory doctorow, fantasy, literature, neil gaiman, off-topic, punk rock |
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20 May
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Posted by Musashi
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Because I lurve Throbbing Gristle. And because it’s been that kind of day 
Then
Now (my, how Genesis’ tits have grown!)
| Category: Video | Tag: coachella, industrial, music, off-topic, throbbing gristle |
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20 May
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Posted by Musashi
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Just a friendly reminder for the gaming geeks among us: this Saturday, May 23rd is the second Worldwide D&D Game Day of 2009. This weekend’s event celebrates the release of WotC’s Dungeons and Dragons Monster Manual 2, which re-introduces the Rust Monster. I’ll be running two back-to-back sessions at my local game store from about 11am to 8 or 9 pm. It’ll be a mini GenCon! Check with your local game store to see if they are participating.
From WotC’s event page:
Bring your friends and join in the fun as we celebrate the release of the Monster Manual 2, packed with new options for your Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition game.
Come and face down enemies (both brand new and some old returning favorites) jumping right off the pages of the next big monster expansion for the game. While you’re at it, beat those vile beasts down with characters using options from upcoming releases. No matter if you’re new to the game or a 4th Edition veteran, we’ll have everything you need to embark on an all-new adventure!
Just for participating you’ll take home the pregenerated character sheet and a miniature of the character you played. If you DM the game, you’ll take home the adventure itself, a poster map of the encounter areas, and a pack of monster miniatures used in the adventure.
To satisfy your curiosity, here’s a quick description of the adventure as well as PDFs of the characters:
- Journey Through the Silver Caves – A kobold wyrmpriest has stolen an ancient book of prophecy from the people of Albura, a fortress on the borderlands. The kobold has a dark plan for the book – and only you can stop him in time! An adventure for 5 pregenerated 5th-level characters.
| Category: Events | Tag: dungeons and dragons, gaming, gencon, off-topic, rpg, wizards of the coast |
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30 Apr
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Posted by Musashi
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I used to wonder what it would be like to don the spandex and beat the snot out of wrongdoers in real-life – then I turned 12.
Did I mention I live in Cincinnati? I am sad.
I give it a week before one of these poor saps walks down the wrong alley and gets capped. You’ve gotta give them credit though, it takes balls of fucking brass to walk around in that getup.
| Category: Video | Tag: comic books, crime, off-topic, sad, superheros |
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17 Apr
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Posted by Musashi
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What I want to know is – how could MSNBC report this incident without a single mention of Caddyshack? I mean really – are they above it or something? (UPDATE: Never mind – they seem to have updated it, including a Caddyshack reference…clearly the crack MSNBC editorial staff knows an oversight when they see one.)
“I wasn’t sure I was in bounds or not,” Murray said. “And I saw this NBC golf cart coming at me and he said, ‘I hate to be the one to tell you this but you hit a lady. She’s down on the ground.’ That is, you know, sobering.”
Murray said DiMaggio was taken to a local hospital.
“She was overjoyed when she saw me because she said she had come out to see me and her husband had just said, ‘I hope he hits it over here,’ ” said Murray, who did not finish his round.
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10 Apr
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Posted by Musashi
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Who directed this? Wes Craven? No matter – it’s awesome…!
(via Boing Boing)
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5 Mar
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Posted by Musashi
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Holy fuck…just learned that French techno duo Daft Punk have been drafted to score the Tron sequel. I think I need to change my underpants now that they’re all wet and sticky-like…
I was wondering if Journey might return, now that they’ve got a badass new lead singer (Filipino Arnel Pineda, in case you were wondering) – and who knows what Walter/Wendy Carlos is up to nowadays…but OMIGOD – Daft Punk is a most excellent choice. In case you’re not familiar with them, you might want to check out an animated film from Leiji Matsumoto called Interstella 555 which is basically a really long Daft Punk video.
Man, the more I hear about Tron 2, the more excited I get…
