Insert something snappy and witty here

Sesame Street may be 40, but Elmo is still only 3

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 09:24:58 GMT

Top 5 Seseme Street characters:

1) Cookie Monster
2) Mr Snuffleupagus
3) Oscar the Grouch
4) The honkers
5) Grover

And if you don't agree with that...you're wrong. WRONG.

The BBC interviews Cookie Monster, Elmo, Big Bird, Grover and Oscar the Grouch

Wed, 05 Aug 2009 07:37:57 GMT

Did anyone else see the Writer's Block coment yesterday? Go back and look if you didn't, I swear, this is basically what it said.

"You're a vampire that owns a baseball team. The Cullen's are strong so you want to embrace a MLB star. Who do you get?"

This might be the question that finally drives me off LJ. It's stupid, annoying and sums up the pathetic nature of emo that festers in this hellhole of delusion.

1) I'm not a vampire. Vampires are probably the most dull, pretentious and fucking annoying monstrous creation out there. And I'm including creatures made up by teenage emo kids in this.
2) I have no idea, nor care, what a Cullen is.
3) I don't like baseball. It's rounders for twonks. The games take too long.

How do you answer that? That you'll consult your moon monkey and go for Barry Bonds? That your Elf ultimate frisbee team will give you some advice? That, being a lord of the dead and able to reanimate the flesh of the dearly departed, you'll create a zombie dream team of Babe Ruth, Shoeless Joe Jackson and Roger Maris?

The whole thing just makes my skin crawl. Not because some emo kid thought that it was a good question to ask (hey emo kid, enjoy your warped sense of reality - I know I do). It's more that someone thought that was a good question to ask several million people.

God, do I hate vampires. And whatever the hell a Cullen is. And baseball.

Sat, 11 Jul 2009 17:57:11 GMT

Some would argue that spending an entire afternoon memorising the Axe Gang Dance is a waste of time.

If you are one of those people, this LJ is not for you!

Thought for the day

Fri, 31 Oct 2008 02:43:31 GMT

Nathan Fillon is the poor man's Brendan Fraser.

[Dash] Sixth Way (first draft)

Sun, 26 Oct 2008 09:13:40 GMT

I. Every individual is unique. We should not define humans with broad strokes and pigeon-hole ourselves into make-fit categories. We should look at an individual's unique skill set and fulfillment of potential, consider their strengths and weaknesses, and refuse to handicap ourselves by assigning them naught more than a specific role. A soldier can be a diplomat (Einsenhower?), just as a diplomat can be a soldier (Cromwell?).

II. We should not look to violence as the first solution to any problem. Rather we should recognise that, although violence is sometimes the most preferable option, all other alternatives should be explored. Violence should never be used as a tool to promote ideology. Although deontological arguments do not always apply in the real world, we should live as though they do.

III. We should recognise that we all have a birthright and potential to fulfill. We should look to continually help others to realise their potential, so that they in turn can help us to realise our own.

IV. We should not look upon the world with a monochrome lens: there is evil in good, just as there is good in evil. We must remain vigilant lest we lose ourselves to darkness. We should consider motives and ideology before condemning a person rather than their action and recognise that, in the intricate webs and labyrinths weaved throughout the world, it is easy to become lost and misguided. We should see our duty as to act as noble and forthright companions and guides, rather than as crusading champions of our beliefs - regardless of how noble those beliefs are.

V. The world is fraught with danger and unimaginable perils. While we should honour those who have dedicated their life to our defence, we should condemn any exclusions they set based on lack of experience. We all have a right, and a need, to know how to defend ourselves. We have a right to serve our fellow man should we desire. It is important that anyone willing is allowed to participate and gain experience in any sphere of society. However, it is vital that young and impressionable minds are not sculpted to a singular purpose by the more experienced, and that the rights of youth are exerted to allow potential to be fully nurtured.

VI. Realisation of potential comes with the caveat of responsibility. Every hubristic action and casual demonstration of ability detaches us further from the human soul. We are human, nothing more, and should recognise and honour this with humility. We live in a world of sensitive dependence on initial conditions; every action sends shockwaves and has an equal and opposite reaction. It is our responsibility to ensure that all of humanity can realise its potential and aspire to break free of its bonds and realise its dreams. We cannot risk this noble endeavour by our own arrogance.

Insult Sword Fighting

Fri, 19 Sep 2008 09:02:11 GMT

In honour of Talk Like A Pirate Day, Monkey Island Insult Swordfighting shall commence.

'You're about as repulsive as a monkey in a negligee.'

THE RULES:

You respond with a quip that matches the insult. There are set lists if you know where to look. And then you post your insult, the next person answering in a suitable quip. Ultimately if your quips parry the insult, and your insults aren't parried, you win.

Feel free to join in. And let's not have 'How appropriate, you fight like a cow' please?

[Dash] Character backstory, part III

Wed, 17 Sep 2008 22:34:10 GMT

Dash was drinking oil at the unicorn’s command. Every time he took a sip he could feel it slither down his throat and cause him to gag before the taste subsided to a golden, rich sweetness. It was mead crossed with cider, a warm drink of bathed, viscous honey that still held a luminous silkiness to it. Somewhere in the myriad mirage of thoughts that navigated through his cloudy mind he recognised it as nectar. He felt it trickle down with sublime majesty and tease his tongue with unearthly sensation before he cast the proffered horn aside, satisfied with the refreshment.

He was somewhere near a vision of St.Paul’s. He could see the dome, piercing the clear night sky lit by argentine glow, but London had long since faded behind; the City was a faded photo of a memory, a ghostly shell overlain by his surrounds. He was striding along a silver path through a glorious meadow of hyacinth and honeysuckle, his nostrils flaring at the hint of the fruits of ambrosia on the breeze. One hand reached out to ride a ticklish palm over the long wayside grass.

He, the solitary Arcadian shepherd, was not alone in the meadow. Every few moments he caught a furtive, fleeting glimpse of some fabled creature in his periphery, peering strutting in the darkness of the tree line, or heard the shrill gregarious laughter of the Fey as they danced in the pervasive moonlight of this undiscovered realm of soft and gentle pleasure. And, all around, rising up to guide his way, the fluid paint motion of figures he had drawn, from idle unicorns to artfully created mosaics of human life, offered direction.

He’d lost count of how long the journey had taken, or the distance he had traversed. Time seemed to have lost relevance, somehow. He had always known that time was subjective, as easy to manipulate as any artificial construct, but the path seemed to set its own rules and illusions, quickening or slowing, stretching and bending like taffy in a machine. Chance, too, commanded each stride toward his destination, and he knew that if he kept walking along the path, at the pace that felt right, he wouldn’t succumb to harm, either in this realm or in his faint ethereal presence on the streets of London, as he made his way to the rising column of iridescent splendour in the distance.

The tower was growing closer with every stride. It was a gleaming silver spire cast up from the pastures, a shining beacon of luminosity cast by an almighty will. For some immeasurable distance it rose up vertically, its sides smooth and caught in the grip of unnatural climbers and creepers. Then, shedding these sentinels of mythological flora, it broke out into an architectural triumph of intricate, bladed design. Dash’s eyes traced the outline, crowned by two colossal flourishes. It was a thistle, though to him it felt like the Lighthouse of legend, guiding a trireme battered and bathed by stormy elements into the safe seclusion of Alexandria.

Beneath his feet he felt the ground change, and cast his eyes down. He was striding across a bridge of glass, a walkway of total transparency marred only by a thick overgrowth of thistles that twisted around the struts and supports. Under his feet flowed a spectral Thames of forever-shimmering mercury that darkened with the shadow of his crossing. And then, in an instant stride, time had shifted once more and he was at the base of the spire.

The tower was covered with names. He couldn’t understand the script but he knew the meaning. It was though he always had. Every one was a mark of an intrinsic, inherent bond. These were the marks of other souls that had strode through the wilderness beyond time and space, past through the pastures of Arcadia or Avalon or Albion and had committed themselves with an almighty expression of will.

He knew instinctively that he was supposed to right his name, that this tower was a birthright stolen without a whisper of denial. Feeling the palpable urgency of the previously quiet realm, he seized his moment. Without thinking he withdrew a spray can from his back, firing colloidal colour onto the tower with a determination hitherto unrealised. Marking his name proudly. Signing his tag for all to see.

He watched with satisfaction as the mark glowed and faded, branding it for perpetuity. And then he felt the burning heat in his body once again, met with a frosty chill that stung like acid. His eyes bulged as a thousand thoughts rifled through his synapses and seared his mind, branding him with the words. He felt as though he were on a bungee, and that the elastic reality had finally caught and was now catapulting him back into the fallen realms with vengeful action. Spiked flashes of discharging thought penetrated his vision as the tower and its strange realm faded to oblivion. He felt as though his body would be disintegrate into a thousand tiny, potent fragments, but then the fear diminished and gave way to his will. Somehow he knew that could control his reality, and that the sparkling fragments were just symbols of his realised potential. He felt as though he was ready to see the true world for the first time.

He blinked and the tower was gone. His name was still there, drawn with artistic flourish onto a wall of modern red brick. He took a step back and looked at it, glancing around. The tag was sitting on the Tate Modern. Beneath his feet was the gravel expanse around the gallery, housed in an old power station on the south bank of the river. Around him he could hear the click and wind of cameras from the tourists who had stopped to watch him. He gave a nervous laugh and an easy smile. Best to leave quickly.

His arms turned to gooseflesh and he became aware of his spidersense. Trouble. But this time it was more than that. Before it had just been a sensation; now he could see lines drawn everywhere, glowing and faded like an invisible web. His first instinct was to run, but the lines dominated his senses and commanded attention. They weren’t aspects of his imagination, but nor were they real or etched on the world. His eyes twitched and turned, following the weave as the pulsing routes traced out and around, superimposed onto his knowledge of the world, not just his vision. He watched with fascination as a man walked along the path of his line toward a vendor and purchased the very can of cola that he was connected to and lines between lovers burned with their unspoken affection. It was like something out of Donnie Darko. What the hell was happening to…

He never finished the thought. Firm hands suddenly grappled him, pinning him down and driving him to the floor. He felt his cheek crunch against the pavement as his hands spasmed, releasing the spray can from his grasp. A line was emanating from his body, leading upward. He followed it, twisting his head and then his body around as the line traced over some well-polished shoes, up a trouser leg and past a pair of handcuffs on a belt. Dash sighed as the officer’s partner held him on the floor with an iron grip.

“You’re nicked,” a voice said with unjust satisfaction.

“I thought they only said that in really bad TV shows,” Dash quipped, his body pushed against the ground in response. “Ain’t you got anything better in your repertoire? This is a modern art gallery; a little originality is the least you could have done.”

He smiled. It wasn't a great retort, but it was a start. And at that moment, with the world filling up from a spring of endless possibility, a start was all that he needed.

OOC: I reckon that just about covers it. I hope that gives you an insight into the background behind some of the things I've been RPing for nearly two years now.

[Dash] Character backstory, part II

Tue, 16 Sep 2008 21:42:41 GMT

The fence had bought time, nothing more. Around the corner, neglected in the dark coffee stain hive of alleys that bordered the Mile, he knew of an abandoned building that he could hole up in and while away an hour. It would afford a chance to catch his breath while the two officers searched Spitalfields for signs of his passing, no doubt scouring with the usual police mix of blind luck and Brownian motion. He could do with an hour to collect his thoughts. Eat it, bitch. What did that even mean? He flicked through the indexed thoughts of his memory, looking for juicy retorts to dance from his tongue at their next encounter.

The hulking warehouse, a monstrous shell bonded together with the stale beige daub of grime-stained concrete and capped with broken skylights and rusting corrugated iron, was easy enough to find. He reached into his wallet, appraising the Yale lock with little more than distain, and retrieved his student card. For a moment he stared at his own expression from behind the frozen ice of the laminate, before he flexed the card to his purpose and deftly picked the lock. It didn’t matter if the card broke; he wasn’t going to need it anymore.

Slamming the door shut, he unsaddled his rucksack and surrendered to introspection. He seethed at his own misjudgment. He could hear the usual voices in his head, pounding a symphony of oppressive, claustrophobic demands in the attainment of perfection. His father always led the voices. That never failed to surprise him. He didn’t know what his father even sounded like.

It was the usual deluge of prickled barbs, a tirade that penetrated every action, bringing up questions and accusations and endless demands. It was a circle of raised voices, rising up to soaring cacophony until the challenges that he no good, no use to anybody and, worst of all, had no talent pressurised his ears and made him want to scream. Then he felt the prick of the shards. He had crushed the student card in his palm as he banished the thoughts from his mind.

He could take almost any insult with a grin. He had done, had suffered for it, and had kept coming back with a larger grin and a better remark. It was the Newham way; you were caught in the vice of endless deprivation. The pressure mounted and the heat soared. You either imploded in on yourself, gave up and gave in, surrendered and joined the downtrodden who spent their lives scraping by and pretending they were satisfied, or you fought back. Dash fought. He fought with every synaptic cackle of inspiration that fuelled his Art, every scraped knuckle that drew blood and every stencil he used to adorn the walls of the East End with curling calligraphic commentary.

Nothing could impugn his Art. It was his link to the sublime and subtle, to the creative and the exploratory, and he knew it. It was never the hobby his social worker had dismissed it as; it was his passion. Each colour resonated with his soul. Every stroke felt natural, as though something higher was seizing his hand, guiding him, freeing his imagination and expressing beauty with a graphite line. Each delicate stroke to fulfil a concept was a soft kiss that heightened his infatuation. He’d tried to explain that to the judges: that his Art wasn’t some idle vandalism but a mirror to society. No, not just a mirror; it was a mirror of liquid inspiration that rippled with every percussive trace made by mortal existence. He was just enhancing the ripple, beating out with concentric passion to resonate with something deeper and truer, so that his ripple could affect others, until the frequencies could align and the mirror could shatter. Art wasn’t just emotive expression. It was the way to break free.

He’d worked constantly. At twelve, while everyone else in his neighbourhood was busy experimenting with alcoholic highs and nicotinic lows, he explored his imagination with spray cans, airbrushes and acrylic. By sixteen he’d mastered them all and had garnered a reputation. It hadn’t taken him long to realise that graffiti meant far more than the personal satisfaction it gave him. It gave him respect. It gave him protection. It gave him purpose.

His mother had supported him. She was the reason he’d finished his GCSEs and even tried college before he found it too stifling and mundane. She’d arranged for pirate cable so that he could sit in his room for hours, watching History and Discovery and Biography, soaking up all the dross so often dismissed that had served him so well. She’d bought him books on classical mythology and Wicca, so that he could memorise the symbols and meanings of the visual feast he wished to create and assign the different gods, heroes and demons their places at the banquet. She had given him the tools to follow in the brush strokes of Raphael, Caravaggio, Michelangelo and Poussin. And she’d comforted him through the trials, formal questions and ASBOs. She was supportive of him, despite the counts of affray, breaking and entering and antisocial behaviour. And he knew one day he would pay her back a hundred fold.

His father hadn’t been so supportive. Even from Australia, he still occasionally tried to dictate the life of Anthony Callahan. He sent the occasional message, first by letter and then my email, full of stale and steely thoughts about how he should ‘be a man’ and ‘think about the forces’. The scolding bloodlust burned off every page. Each message was carefully constructed to drive martial desire into his brain. Dash had stopped reading them long ago. He didn’t appreciate the mind games.

The worst part was that he was sure the games had succeeded on some dark, unspoken level. He had grown up fighting, recognising everything as a battle, constantly resisting the flowing torrent that demanded violence. He could feel his father’s pen stroke leaving deep grooves in his psyche, drawing scars of class war, age war, any war. When his social worker had signed him up for parkour lessons, the concentration it had demanded had channelled his aggression elsewhere. But the frustration still it lingered. Sometimes it was impossible to control.

“Nice run, traceur,” a voice stated from somewhere, breaking the troubled storm of thoughts. Dash cast furtive glances into the gloom of the warehouse, at once on his feet. The room was empty. He knew it was. He’d been in there five times already, practising his graffiti styles in peace. Nobody ever came in. The building was derelict.

“Hello?” he called out, stepping forward to look around. There was nothing but the thin layer of dust on the floor and the kaleidoscopic pools of oil and water arising from a crack somewhere high above him.

“Behind you.”

Dash spun around, confronted only by a wall displaying one of his weaker pieces. A pastiche of Becky Satchell, a one-time girlfriend now immortalised in a hellish concoction of furore and spite after an acrimonious break up.

“You’re not still out of breath are you? I thought you were into that running crap?”

Dash stared in amazement. The glaring, malevolent anime creation was addressing him. He gawped at it with fascination, watching as the colours blended on the wall in ungainly, disjointed cartoon motion. The wall shifted like molten plastic as the portrait drew breath, tilted its head back, and eyed him with bellicose animosity. “What?” it asked, crossing its arms. “Why are you giving me evils?”

“You’re a flippin’ painting, that’s why!” Dash’s voice was raised to a thin squeak. He was staggering backwards, grasping out with his hands to cling on to some vestige of reality. His body, flushed with running only moments before, was now stone cold in fear and confused terror. His mind was searching for some understanding, clawing desperately for some frame of understanding. There was none outside the realms of fantasy and endlessly repeated Disney spectacles. What do you say to a painting?

Inside, deep inside, he could feel something happening. It hurt, sharp like static, as though a well of briars wanted to explode forth from his being. Sparkling, incandescent thoughts and feelings pumped like a second heart, driving his thoughts on through a turbulent millrace of emotion. He watched with wide eyes as the portrait stared at him. He half expected it to step out of the wall.

“Anthony Dashiell Callahan,” the image said, quite coldly, its contorted smile a mockery of human nature. “Don’t you always say you want your art to be interactive?”

“Not like this!” He searched his mind, wondering if he’d touched something in the alleyway that had gone through his skin. Diffusion… that’s right. It had to be some kind of LSD trip. It was the only explanation.

The Art smiled. Then the prickles inside focused and became a geyser that gushed up and shook him, soaking him through as the world was ripped asunder, losing its fundamental laws and constraints, casting aside the illusions of the mundane and blazing into the palette of a master artist, becoming living paint. The walls were a matt grey, saturated with hints of white as the delicate light from a cracked skylight above played down. His clothes had taken on a glossy, wet look, and he could feel the close tackiness and smell the primer. He glanced at his hand, smearing the greasy oils and fleshy hues with his fingers. And then the world flashed again, more violently, as the geyser became a volcano of thoughts and ideas and expressions and fears and concepts and unrestrained and undenied possibility that thrust his being and pushed upwards, upwards, out of his body and beyond.

And then he was somewhere further and higher that transcended thought and understanding. He felt a convulsive tremble as the radiance burst from every pore, exploding out of his soul in a showering myriad of colour and brilliant light. The world was racing far behind, trying to catch up as his mind careened past the infinite at a blistering, unfathomable velocity. The sound of his own screams filled his ears and overwhelmed his consciousness.

In the silent room, Anthony Callahan's eyes rolled upwards and his body began to walk.

[Dash] Character backstory, part I

Mon, 15 Sep 2008 20:08:16 GMT

The youth in the hooded top sprinted down Brick Lane with two of the Metropolis’ finest behind him. His lungs were burning like alembics of white fire, a sensation that gave him visceral satisfaction as he felt his muscles respond to the desire for more speed. On his back, clanging like a leper’s bell, a rucksack full of spray cans jostled in the air. He knew that was all the evidence needed to add another ASBO to his record.

He afforded a backward glance at his pursuit, revealing a glimpse of a face caught in the twilight between youth and manhood before it was once more enveloped by the hooded sheath of his jacket. He muttered a curse and drove on, hurdling over a crate strewn in his path with vital energy. One of the constables was a lard-burdened, sweaty mess playing out his time until his pension. Already he was drifting back, his run degrading into a strange mix of waddling and staggering as he fumbled for his radio between sucking, gulping pants. He was spent; it was the other, a special according to his stab jacket, that gave the youth cause for concern. Where he was trying to force a path through the crowd, ploughing through gaps and forcing his route, the special could follow in his wake. The officer was gaining ground with each unimpeded stride.

The boy paid no heed, focusing his concentration on an imaginary tunnel he visualised in front of him. The harder he concentrated, the tighter he squeezed his jaw and furrowed his brow, the more focused the tunnel became. Narrowing his eyes, the arcus glowed silvers and flash-fire vermilions as everything in the periphery became a blur and the universe drifted to rapturous void. Sound faded to a heartbeat thud. Smells vanished in the thick East End air. The world broke down to its component calculations until only obstacles, distances, heights and widths remained, with lines launching out to trace the quickest routes over, under and around them. In the silence every move was a slow-step freeze-frame subconscious reaction as his body contorted on instinct to the needed shape. First his finely toned muscles moved so that he mimicked the shape of a hurdler, then asprinter, then an acrobat as he twisted and contorted effortlessly to launch forth and drive through gaps in the bustling throng of the street that could scarcely be imagined. In this state they were easy, smooth, natural metamorphoses to make.

Then he felt his hood snag on something as he slipped between two slowly meandering tourists. The rip shot through his ears, tearing him from his reverie with the jarring shock of a momentary stumble. The pause was all the special needed. He was now only ten metres behind.

With aggravated insult on his breath the youth kicked against a lamp post and veered off Brick Lane, turning into the old Truman Brewery. The red brick buildings were in various states of disrepair, sured up only where required so that new, youthful brand name companies could take up residence in the heart of the Shoreditch Triangle. He ignored them all, intent on gaining one of the dark and foreboding alleyways. It was the passage of the desperate: a route that left the more salubrious areas of the maw of Hades and descended into true squalor; a mire of filth and detritus and walls stained with Dickensian slime that had probably been dripping down since Jack the Ripper’s heyday.

Without a second thought he made for the nearest alleyway, leaving only a string of expletives for the hound-like pursuers to trail. He was angry with himself. The police usually couldn’t catch him if they tried. He didn’t understand it, but something always told him that there was trouble about. He’d felt it only a few minutes earlier, as he had finished his latest tag on the back of the closed Shoreditch Station. Every hair had pricked up in a shiver of crawling flesh. He should have broken and run, but he’d been so close to finishing. It had only needed one last line here, and there, and a contrasting tone there, and... the temptation to display his full capacity had been irresistible. And now he was running for his freedom. Inwardly, he cursed his stupid pride.

The alley turned after five metres, crunching to a sharp bend lorded over by some tramp with an Irish ditty on his breath and an Irish whiskey in his gullet. The youth shot past, barely registering a glance. Instead his eyes focused on a heaven-sent hope of salvation. Shooting straight up from the grey of the pavement to the grey of the overcast London sky was a ten foot chain-link fence. For a second he paused to muse his ascent; then the footfall from behind drove him on. In a blur of motion he had leapt sideways, paddling his right foot against the wall to move across and upward and grappling with his left arm to vault on the top of the rim as he launched himself over the fence. His right hand hooked out for balance, correcting his trajectory as he glided down in the stunning riposte of gravity, his knees bent to absorb the impact of the landing.

He turned. On the other side of the fence the special and the tramp stood, slack-jawed in amazement at the staggering display of alacrity. He bowed, grinned affably and waved.

“Eat it, bitch!” he offered, waiting to see what would happen. The policeman snarled and made for the fence, struggling to get a foothold on the chain. Behind him the fat oaf of a regular trotted into view, still staggering from lack of breath, still hurling officious demands.

Dash shook his head and jogged away.

OOC: I apologise that this will be long. However, it's 1XP to have a backstory that everyone can read. And you'll get a whole backstory. It's just going to be long and like this.

University Challenge: Scumbag College Vs Footlights College, Oxbridge

Fri, 12 Sep 2008 18:45:28 GMT

[Dash] Straw poll

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 09:59:42 GMT

New threads. New hat.

Should I change shadow name too?

'Cause the times, they are, a-changing

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 06:59:46 GMT

I woke up about half five this morning, so I did a few things and then polished up the new wiki.

It's available from my home...what? You can't be arsed to click there? Fine. Here's a direct link, then.

[Dash]

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 20:28:12 GMT

Worryingly, this closely tallies with personal experience.

Ah well

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 15:35:35 GMT

The BBC website has a great headline:

PENGUIN TARGETS LONELY BOOKWORMS

I immediately clicked on the link, hoping for some flipper-based savagry or maybe a crackpot Batman villain assaulting innocent librarians. But no. It just turns out the publisher, Penguin, is launching a dating agency. Yawn.

By the way, this week I've been devouring books: I finished Day of the Triffids and imagine I'll finish 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea before the week is out. Both are great, and so much better than that Mohicans crap.

Pop culture references

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 12:16:09 GMT

Today something came up about someone being the last person standing.

And I said '...so they're just going round and round like James Caan at the end of Rollerball.'

I got no response other than totally blank looks. Is that really an obscure reference? I thought most people would have seen Rollerball.

I got a similar reaction when I caught something suddenly and threw it back, quipping 'It's all in the reflexes'. They thought I was just being weird. But then, I wasn't lobbing a stuffed toy around.

Braaaaaaaains

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 18:39:07 GMT

Typing of the Dead. I love Typing of the Dead.

[Dash] I love you, Guardians of the Veil!

Mon, 04 Aug 2008 19:57:22 GMT

Yeah. I know it's got caps in odd places. And I know it's kack. But right now, without Hero, for some reason I'm back to my uber-creative self. It's like, I was spending all my time thinking about her, and now I'm thinking for myself. So I don't care if it's crap; I'm not going to remake the damn thing.

Still miss her, even with my regained creativity. I feel like such a git.

[Dash] Important mage information

Sun, 03 Aug 2008 14:12:03 GMT

And the retro continues...

Sat, 12 Jul 2008 21:48:04 GMT

Were the Gummi Bears drug runners?

Sun, 29 Jun 2008 10:24:59 GMT

Back to the drawing board as the previous project ended up a load of turgid shit.

Bah

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 18:45:08 GMT

And yes, I am still at my desk.

Gaaaah

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 13:25:37 GMT

Why couldn't I just keep my mouth shut? I had an IC (honestly, purely IC) whinge on the FC lists about being the only FC member present at the National...which was probably in hindsight very stupid. I know people have very good OOC reasons for not being there, and I hadn't intended to make anyone feel bad. Honestly.

I just don't know what I should have done. If I said nothing, it would have been silly...and every other PC present would eventually bring it up anyway. If I said something, it's still going to sound bad. So I just went for the IC approach. And that was stupid.

I am a dumb bastard sometimes.

Timewaster

Sun, 11 May 2008 14:37:29 GMT

If anyone ever had any doubt that I know how to waste time, check this out. This is one of several items that Dash will be flogging at the National. Be afraid.

That's right. It's a full monopoly set of Awakened London. The thing is...you ain't seen nothing yet, buh-buh-buh-baby, you just ain't seen nothing yet.

A light year from a bar of chocolate

Thu, 08 May 2008 22:52:19 GMT

Here's an experiment. New Scientist started me off on this, and I've added my own fun.

Measure the speed of light. How, you ask? You need:

A bar of chocolate
A microwave
A tape measure
A calculator.

OK, here goes. Remove the spinny plate from the microwave and melt the bar of chocolate for 30 seconds. Remove the chocolate bar. There should be melted chocolately dollops. Now, here's the basic rule:

speed = wavelength x frequency

You know the frequency of your microwave (it's 2.45Ghz in case you care). The dollops will be melted exactly half a wavelength apart (between the peaks and troughs bit). So measure the distance between the dollops...let's say they are 6cm apart. Double it. That's your wavelength, 12cm.

12 x 2.45Ghz, or 12 x 2,450,000,000 = 2.94 x10 to the 10 cm/s. That's not far off the actual speed of light.

So that's, what, 294,000,000 m/s. Or 18,3750 miles per second. Nippy little bugger, that light.

It gets better, though! How fast can I send smutty excerpts of porn to Hannah in Florida? Florida is 4,300 miles away. Now, if I had a fibre optic cable, I could send my smut to her in 0.04 seconds. Because of how fibre optics works, the light travels double the distance (8,600 miles).

Speed = distance/ time

We have speed. We have distance. So time = distance / speed... or: 8600/183750 = 0.04 seconds. Now that's what I call service.

More? You want more? OK, how about a light year.

speed = distance/time

speed = 183750 miles per second. Time = 60 x 60 x 24 x 365.25 (for leap years) = 31,557,600 seconds.

Screw that. Let's times 183750 by 3600 to get miles per hour. That's 661500000 and 8766 hours in a year.

So 5,800,000,000,000 miles is a light year, I guess. And the best thing? It's actually 5,880,000,000,000 miles. So thank you, wonderful bar of chocolate, for teaching me the workings of the universe.

[Dash] The life of mages

Sun, 13 Apr 2008 22:28:27 GMT

A new DVD is available to anyone with Level 2 access (or higher) to the Rococo Space Ninja Lounge. The tape begins with the logo of the Rococo Space Ninjas, burning itself onto the screen before vanishing smartly and revealing the true feature. The film rivals Cloverfield for slightly shaky camera style and grainy picture quality but it's semi-professional despite the ambient sounds.

The cameraman is on a boat on what looks like a frozen patch of the Thames. In the boat are two people eagerly preparing explosive charges with barely constrained glee (OOC: Demolitions and a character I can't remember), and in the background two figures, a younger boy and a man (OOC: Stigmata and DC) are on the bankside, chanting for some reason. The camera spins around to reveal a grinning young man, dressed like he's the bass player from Razorlight (OOC: Dash), leaning forward toward the camera. An older man is behind him, concentrating on the water and uninterested by the camera (OOC: Doc Spartan). All the while the boat does not move, as though it's being held perfectly still by some unnatural force. The young man begins to speak, imitating Sir David Attenborough in delivery style and mannerism.

'And here, under the calm, majestic waters of the Thames, the very lifeblood of the capital, we find her. At this very moment, prowling the environment where she is queen, the fearsome man-eater takes respite from its forays on land. In these calm waters, disturbed only by the occasional rower or serial killer making a body dump, reigns the most fearsome of subaquatic creatures: the kappa.'

The camera pans over the side. The boat is stuck on the surface of the Thames, surrounded by some strange, transparent, crystallised substance that has coalesced on the surface. Below a sight of pure horror can be glimpsed, serenely sliding through the murky depths of the Thames, trapped by some invisible box. The creature is a vile monstrosity; its vicious, eel-like head and cold, dark eyes glare sideways in the deep, powered by the strange, shuffling limbs of a deformed man so alien in that environment. Occasionally sunlight breaks through the overcast skies, and, penetrating the water, catches it, glimmering on its scales and silvery teeth.

'The Kappa's diet consists primarily of bottom-feeders and plankton. However, it must supplement its meagre food supply with human flesh. This abomination surfaces only to catch larger prey - women and children - and bury them alive in the nearby woodlands. She will then return, several days later, to devour the decomposed and tenderised flesh. Yet, here, in London, she has finally met her match. This magnificent example of why man and fish shouldn't mate must be put down for the safety of the local community. Now, before we receive complaints and are contacted by Alec Baldwin and the rest of PETA, rest assured that this creature will be put down in a peaceful, humane way.'

The young man drops back into an East London accent.

'OK, Demolitions, pipe bomb this fucker back to Atlantis!'

Through a small hole in the surface, the two in the back of the boat begin to eagerly lob depth charges toward the monster. Hitting the water, they begin to slowly descent to the bottom, before a violent swell of white torrent engulfs the picture, firing out and rapidly compacting again as the charge implodes. Water fires up into the sky through the hole, the whole force of the two explosions dissipating in a skyward spurt. For a few seconds the waters are disturbed and it's impossible to make anything out, but as the silt settles down the creature, limbs torn asunder and bleeding clouds of crimson, is still alive, writhing in agony. At once, the woman in the back of the boat pulls a sword and starts jabbing through the hole, and the young commentator is shoved out the way as the man at the prow pushes forward and starts driving a long staff into the monster's open wounds. At last it floats toward the surface, hitting the solid barrier with a faint thud.

As the others bark orders at each other to dispose of the strange remains, the commentator turns back to the camera.

'For now, the threat has passed. This kappa will haunt the banks of the Thames no more; countless families have been spared the misery of their loved ones vanishing, never to return.

He gives a cheeky wink to the camera.

'Stay safe, and please don't have nightmares. Oh shit, that's Nick Ross, innit? Jack, can I do that one again?'

The picture cuts to static.