Near death experience

Oh, I feel like hell.

So, here's what I did yesterday. I decided to get some of that nylon foam and using my hot knife that kyle gave me, and the skill-hot knife (basically an exacto blade version of a hot knife) and my all powerful dremmel, I set out to construct little carrying cases to hold my miniatures. Carrying cases in the store cost $50 and would allow me to carry and store about a 1/20th of my armies. So, you see the dillemma.

Anyway, it's cold outside so I plugged in my super cool hotknife and began to cut the nylon foam without too much of an afterthought, until I realized that this was in no way good for me, and the nylon foam that was burning away was clearly putting its smoke in my lungs. So, I stopped using my hot knife, but believe me, not before the damage done. It feels like my throat has been rubbed with steel wool and I am out of my head, though I'm kind of thinking that's due to the Tussin that my lovely wife suggested I take. Well, technically it is a sore throat. But whatever it is that's causing my medicine head, be it medicine or brain cells killed from huffing smoke from burning nylon, clearly, I shouldn't have been editing Shock Tea today, but I did--in between naps.

Now, I'm pretty sure I should eat. Lynn's at work, so I'm trying to do as little as possible--what with my brain not working right. Is this what Forrest Gump meant by "stupid is as stupid does." Makes sense.

Yankee Bitch

Amy wrote in to my blog announcing that her new super hero name is Yankee Bitch, and she was wondering whether it was okay if her superhero name included profanity.

Many people ask me about superhero names and so I figured I would chime in on this subject. The truth is that profanity is probably the least offensive part of a super hero's name. Take, for instance Black Vulcan who is clearly named after a vibrator. Do we have a problem with that? No. As long as there's a double meaning. You see, Black Vulcan is also black and electrical like the god of lightening Vulcan. Wait. Alright, but he is black. And with lightening squiggles for ears, he kind of looks like Spock.

The real question you have to ask yourself is what comic book universe you're going to be working in. I'll go with the two biggies. Now look, if you're in Marvel, your name must have something to do with your overall super-concept. You shoot lasers out your eyes, they call you Cyclops. You make ice, you're iceman. Your a big hulking figure, you're the hulk. You are Thor from Scandanavian myth, they call you Thor. The only addendum to this rule is that if you look weird, your name should represent your appearance and not your power. So, for instance, Nightcrawler's name has nothing to do with his having teleporty powers, but rather refers to his being a freak. Now, the marvel-esque universe covers a lot of other comic book styles as well. For instance, The Tick is crazy, so it's like he is a tick and he has nervous ticks. See how that works. Johny the Homicidal Maniac. What's his super hero concept? He's a homicidal maniac. All right, everybody's with me.

The thing about a marvel name is that it gives you all sorts of features to your superhero world. Take, for instance, Spider Man. Okay, he's a spider. He has eight legs. He's kind of creepy. So, who does he fight? Why, other eight legged guys (doctor octupus), and other creepy characters (the Hobgoblin). See how that works. Captain America has to fight some guy with Kremlin in his name. He has to. That's his job.

So, if your name is Yankee Bitch in a marvel-esque universe, then your powers have to revolve around bitching about Yankee problems. Perhaps you lull your enemies into a false confidence by complaining about the price of the turnpike, or maybe you defeat villains by going to their city and complaining about what passes for chowder there. Your name is regional, so your villains are regional as well: Southern Belle, California Girl, The Cheesehead, The Red State. Now this is all true in a marvel universe.

But in a DC universe, your name should have nothing to do with your powers. Superman, Wonderwoman, Batman. These are the epitome of DC naming techniques. Your villains are independent of your concept, except for one villain who will be the exact opposite of you and may be poorly drawn (a Bizzaro version of you, if you will). In a DC universe, the name Yankee Bitch is almost too specific and doesn't include a man or woman or girl. Yankee Bitch Woman might work, but regardless, it will be necessary that your powers have nothing to do with your name. Maybe you could make people's hair attack them. That's a pretty good power. And your arch enemy would make their fingernails attack them (but not their fingers obviously--it would be a very subtle power).

I hope this helps everyone out there.

Hey fatty fat fat fat

Never let it be said that this blog isn't fair.

So, I turned on my news on the internet this morning and they had a report that in Texas (where they grow 'em big), they are trying to pass legislation to include students' weights on their report card. In other words, they are going to get a grade in FAT. That's not an abbreviation, that's fat. No "PH".

Now, since this was the stupidest idea I've ever heard, I assumed that it was a republican bill, but no. NO! Democrat. People, there is no island of intelligence that we can wash up on. You've got your choice. You either vote "Stupid" or "Moron". That's it.

So, why is this the dumbest idea any one has ever come up with. Well, let's look at the reasoning behind it. These kids are evidently overweight. Too bad. There are so many overweight kids that it has become an epidemic. That sucks. Chances are that these kids will not outlive their parents. Dang. These kids will require your tax dollars to take care of their health needs and will probably cite obesity as the reason they cannot work (do I have the Republicans attention?) , taking money away from the social programs that feed the poor unfortunate non-English speakers escaping the hardships of their native land (...and now the democrats are on board).

Realistically, this is a huge problem, like smoking, but if we tax these kids for their pariah status we'd have to tax food, and since we all eat, we'd all have some problems (so can't do that). I mean really, unhealthy kids become unhealthy adults, and that's the long and the short of it. So, how do we solve this problem. Well, why are these kids obese?

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that these kids' problem is that they aren't eating right and they aren't getting enough exercise. So, how do we solve this problem? Oh, I don't know give them healthier food, force them to go exercise...NO DAMN WAY!

You see getting them to eat healthier food would be like, oh I don't know, forcing school lunch programs to make healthy food. Can't do that. Big money in feeding people crap. Feeding them nutritious meals would mean taking vending machines out of the school. Hey, those vending machines are paying for the band uniforms so that the school can compete in the upcoming "Parade Against Heart Disease." The long and the short of it is, in order to get these kids to eat right, we'd have to buy them food. We'd have to dump money into the school to make sure our kids aren't eating cholesterol ridden slop. Now, I know you all like your kids, but really, come on. Let's not forget who makes the money around here. The next thing they'll ask the parents to do is to pay for P.E. Classes. Oh! Hell NO! That's asking a lot from parents who have to be notified by mail of their child's weight.

I still get a crack out of that. "It says here Johnny that you're three hundred pounds over weight. Oh, my God! How did I not see that before?" What the hell are these parents doing that they don't notice their kids getting morbidly obese.

But that's beside the point. The point is that we need a solution to this problem, and not one of those namby-pamby-why-not-spend-money-on-the-kids-crazy-ass solutions, but one that does not require us to invest a cent in this future generation--one that will work.

Oh, I've got it! Let's rely on a ten year old's sense of shame to solve the problem. Forget about providing the kid options or enacting policies for the child's future health, let's just call him fat until he stops eating. Hey, that'll work.

Plus, when the kid finally breaks down and goes hunting his fellow students and teachers, there will be even less fat kids to worry about. It's a real win-win situation.

So, from Monstro D. Whale, I say kudos to you Texas. Finally someone is taking to task those responsible for our nation's problems--grammar school students. It took Texas to finally say that it was high time these kids started pulling their weight (oh, you knew I was gonna go there).

Dirty Politics- a metaphor

I'm really not trying to be political, but nonetheless, I thought of a great metaphor for how I feel about the national political situation right now.

Okay, here goes:

Imagine that you live in an apartment building and it's a nice apartment building with a doorman and such, and one night you wake up and the superintendent (who's job is up for re-evaluation) is taking a big fat dump in your shoe.

Now, you sit up in bed, making your presence known figuring that the laws of common decency will precipitate his no longer taking a big shit in your shoe. He acknowledges you and squeezes off another loaf while farting loudly. Not knowing what to do about this you sort of sit there in a strange awe wondering whether you are still asleep and dreaming all this, until the superintendent pulls his pants back up and makes for the door. You decide to say something like, "what the hell?" To which he responds by telling you that your critique of his behavior is not helping out his image as a superintendent around the city. Worse yet, somehow your voice of protest is hurting his anti-shoe campaign, which will be implemented whether you like it or not.

You tell your friends about the experience that live in other buildings and well...they all agree that it was kind of bad that your superintendent shit in your shoe. They think he's crazy and wonder at his morals. Some are afraid to let you in their buildings for fear that you'll buzz in your superintendent so that he can shit in their shoes, and rightfully so, because you've begun to notice the way he's following you around lurking outside these other buildings. It's all rather Kafka-esque.

You're not exactly sure why the response is the whole shit-in-shoe thing, but thinking back you realize that all this was prompted when another tenant was kicked in the ass by some pugilist stranger while coming into the building. The reason why that tenant was kicked in the ass is unimportant. Nobody cares about that. Nor does anyone seem to care that the person who did the kicking was seen a block away by the doorman of the building, and rather than warning the tenant, "hey, that guys winding up to kick you in the ass," the doorman instead simply nodded to the incident and went upstairs to tell the superintendent, who later that night shit in your shoe.

Now, the whole building is lined up in this affair. Outraged that someone got kicked in the ass, they decide that if you are against getting your shoe shit in, you must be pro-asskicking. They yell things at you like, "Hey! What's your problem with having shit in your shoe!"--which you assume is self-evident, but not so. You really aren't pro-anything, you just don't like wearing sandals. And besides, the guy shit in your shoe. You find a number of people who don't like the superintendent either and so when it comes time to decide whether he should keep his job, you all band together.

It's only then that you find that your new "friends" aren't really concerned with the whole shoe-shitting incident, but rather they're offended that the superintendent didn't wipe afterwards. Like their opposition they too believe that if people wear shoes then someone is likely to get kicked in the ass, and therefore, the only way to prevent the wearing of shoes is for the superintendent to shit in them. The only difference between these two factions seems to rest on some concerns about butt hygiene.

Above the audible sound of shit squishing between toes, the current superintendent makes a speech about the sovereignty of your building's belief in good foot hygiene and announces that people in other buildings do not respect the cleanliness of their feet. Why else would they touch their foot to your ass? Everyone nods in agreement. He misguides the terms of your lease about leaving garbage at the foot of your building, gaining the support of all the tenants who never read their lease, but are really hoping to get their deposit back--especially now that their apartments are covered in shitty foot prints. Everyone nods.

Now you expect the other nominee to get up there and just say that it is ludicrous for someone to shit in your shoe, not to mention downright rude, but he doesn't. He tells you that the only way to stop people with poor notions of foot hygiene from touching their foot to your ass is to keep shitting in shoes. But he does promise to wipe afterwards.

Anyways, the opposition is destroyed on this issue, mainly because not only did they want the superintendent to wipe his ass, but they also wanted gay marriage, which offended that nice lady down the hall with the ruined shoe collection far more than waking up with the superintendent relieving himself in her size 8's. So, the superintendent stays.

His first order of business is to promote the doorman, who let the superintendent into your apartment, to Secretary of Corn. And once in office, he tells the whole building that the time for asking questions about whether or not he wipes his ass is over, which by the way, was never really your question. You never get a straight answer about why the superintendent is getting let into your room or why your shoe is getting shit in. Nobody seems to mind that the tenants of your building are no longer let into other buildings. In the end, you are asked to put on your shit filled shoe to show your solidarity with the superintendent's new campaign for stronger notions of foot hygiene.

Worse yet, you can't go out and buy new shoes because the tenants of your building, incited by the rhetoric of your superintendent, are shitting in the shoes of shoe stores all over town. All except one, of course. Your superintendent owns the shoe store across the street which he named shit-free-shoes a week before the tenant got his ass kicked, but the prices of those shoes keep going up due to the city's clean-shoe-shortage.

luckily, there is an end to all this. In four years, the building's superintendent will retire, and someone else will be voted in to take his place. Unfortunately, your choices for that election are either the doorman, who owns half of a peanut farm and a corn farm, or the person that your so-called friends choose who wants to outlaw the wearing of socks in the building, and who also will want to shit in your shoe. That's your choice. Every vote counts.

Fried Rice

When my father in law was out, we engaged in some lively banter concerning politics, during which I told him that I did not believe that Bush was a Republican. He found that viewpoint to be distressing, if not downright wrong. I was trying to be nice to the other Republicans. Of course, my main problem with Bush is that he talks like Hitler, but hey, that's beside the point.

Seriously, don't shoot me.

Being not in the game, so to speak, I only today realized that Condoleeza Rice was going to be our next Secretary of State. Great!! No seriously. I got to get my book about the end of the world finished before the actual end of the world, which Jason posits as next Tuesday.

So, evidently some of the democrats are having problems with Dr. Rice because well... she out and out lied about 9/11, did nothing about it, and her indolence and incompetence led to the second largest single attack on American soil. "Report? Yeah, I looked at. Look you can't hold me responsible for every FBI memo that comes across my desk with the words Top Priority on it!" Where'd she get her doctorate from, Dipshit U.? It's bad enough that she screwed up, couldn't she have had the decency not to just out and out say that she screwed up? Come up with a damn excuse. Hell, Ollie North did and he didn't have the families of a thousand people to answer to.

Anyways, the Republicans are cautioning the democratic critics that casting a shadow over Dr. Rice will hurt her reputation world wide when she becomes secretary of state. "Our" Secretary of State, Mr. Bush. Not yours. Quit using the royal "We;" this isn't England. You see, Rice WILL be secretary of state. That's going to happen. It doesn't matter if they find a picture of her involved in a virgin sacrifice. Hell, she's responsible for the biggest ball drop in national security history and they're making her SECRETARY OF STATE! She even has a fan club.

So, let's see. Person who knew about 9/11 is getting a post for her patriotism. Alberto R. Gonzales, the attorney General, is getting his post for his sense of justice despite his implication in the torture scandal in Iraq and Cuba. Goebbels, distributor of child pornography, has been put into the post of Secretary of propaganda. Rumsfeld, who can't answer a straight question, is our Secretary of Defense (off the subject but did everyone see him "answering" questions with the soldiers going off to Iraq? Fucking priceless).

Seriously, I know you guys are winning, but is this really the best that the Republicans can do? What, no heroin junkies to lead off the department of Health and Human Services? No pederasts for the department of Education? What, no cabinet position for Charlie Manson? How 'bout head of intelligence for our country. Evidentially all that's required for that job is to ignore documents about threats that DO exist, while making documents outlining war responses to threats that don't. Oh! I know, is there a department responsible for pulling people's heads out of their asses. Just a thought.

Snooze

It is 7:50 in the morning and I am awake, and as per usual, it is snowing.
I have been awake for 35 minutes.
Why?
Because, at 9:05, I have to teach.
Now, this is not unreasonably early. I realize that many people get up this early every day. I also realize that some people get up earlier. But let's be perfectly honest about this.
They generally get up for what might be called a job. They generally get up for six to eight hours of work. I'm getting up for 55 minutes.
The air is sort of blue in color. In California this time of the morning was golden in color. In Massachusetts, it's blue.

how the mighty fell

This is a response to Avram's blog, and more specifically to his fire. Now, for those of you who do not know the grand mucky muck of all that is writ, let this be a lesson to you. That's him gloating. Geez. Talk about modest, it takes him fifteen posts just to tell everyone that he beat the pants off me, and when you're playing harlequins, those pants are more than likely checkerboard. Ugly.

What happenned you say? All that talk about Harlequins and they....they... they... LOST! Yes, in fact, they did lose. Oh, they lost so badly. It wasn't like they kind of stood up and just didn't do very well. They might as well have been armed with body bags to throw at the tyranids yelling, "tell my mother I was a hero." They got beat so badly that the tyranids didn't even bother to tell the mothers of the harlequins that their children died heroes. They just ate them, or absorbed them, or whatever it is that Tyranids do.

What went wrong? Well, it's true that I couldn't roll to save my life, but that wasn't the problem. The problem was that the genestealers just happenned to be better all around at everything that my harlequins do. Let me try this another way. If you've got a good armor save to keep your ass safe, forget it, half of my army can ignore an armor save, but if you've got a high toughness, you stand a fighting chance. Well.... half of the tyranids have high toughnesses. Chances are that a harlequin has a higher initiative than most of the things they fight, but not so with the genestealers. They're equal. Harlequins have to hold against counter-attacks, and harlequins do not have a high toughness, and NO ARMOR SAVE WHATSOEVER IN HTH COMBAT. I cannot stress this enough. Ten genestealers will eat 6 harlequins in a round. Harlequins are lucky to kill 2. I can show you the math if you'd like.

Now Harlequins are great at killing things with Armor values (tanks, dreadnoughts, walkers, etc.), but nothing in the Tyranid army has one of those. They just have high toughnesses and a whole lot of wounds. So many wounds, in fact, that no matter what you hit them with, you're going to have to hit them a whole bunch of times for it to matter, and outside of hand to hand, which is not the harlequin strongpoint. Let's put that another way. I had four brightlances on the board. These were the only effective weapon against his high toughness beasties (carnifax, hive tyrant, tyrant guards, tyranid warriors). It would have taken all four (they would have had to all hit too) to take down the carnifax, and the carnifax would have had to fail every toughness roll. Ridiculous. And that's just the carnifax. Even if I'd manage to bring him down, I still had six tyranid warriors to kill off, not to mention, oh I don't know... a hive tyrant. Those of you who know what I'm talking about understand. I got whooped.

The second battle, as Avram rightly points out, all I had to do was run, and that is what I did. This is what my army killed: 1 squad of hermogaunts (big deal) and one squad of raveners (yeah), leaving 2 carnifaxes, a hive tyrant, a tyrant guard, a squad of raveners, two squads of tyranid warriors, and two pretty full squad of genestealers (I may be forgetting something), and when I won, I had A harlequin warrior and A shadowseer. TWO MINIATURES!!! I would hardly consider that much of a victory.

Bottom line. If you are playing harlequins forget about the Tyranids. If the safety of your craftworld is up to you, forget it man because it's gone. If someone could have played the polychromatic space elves better than I, I'd like to see what that looks like, but I've been playing for a few years, and even if my guys didn't route, I sure as hell wanted to.

As for Eldar and Marines, I just don't know. It's hard to beat the regular old Eldar. Maybe the new rules have covered some of the sore spots, but still. When you have to shoot down twenty guardians just to get a shot at the Avatar, well...what the hell are you going to do. I won that battle sans Falcon and Avatar, but the Eldar are ruthless, what can I say. Mix the Avatar/guardian combo with the Falcon/fire dragon strike team and a Vyper squad and shit, you better have a couple of Land Raiders and even then...

Well, that's my battle report. Avram, they were good games. You deserved your victory, and I'm sure I'll have it even tougher next time. Of course, if you pull those damned Tyranids out again, you may have to face the Local 131 of the Saim Hann phone sanitizers union rather than the community theater cast of My Fair Lady, but hey, one space pansy is as good as the next I suppose, especially if the next one is carrying a star cannon rather than the Harlequin's kiss.

cabin fever

I have a problem, I'm bored. I can't work on my Defiler because the damn thing is front heavy. Whenever I remove whatever's holding it up in the front, it tips forward. I wonder how the rat bastards down at Game's Workshop get theirs to stand up straight, but then...they're bastards. I have a good idea to add some chains to the back, you know...really unholy looking crap, but I don't have a little chain, so my project has been halted.

But that's not really my problem. My problem is that Jason is damn funny. That alone wouldn't be a problem, it's just that whenever he calls me, he taunts me. So, I feel compelled to write on my blog, knowing full well that I have no chance of being nearly as coherent as Jason in this regards. I only have so many of those "funny" posts in me. Dammit, I'm only human, and besides Jason doesn't know his audience. I know mine.

Like, for instance, I was going to write a blog about how the handicap bar in bathrooms is good for everyone and how we wouldn't need so much bran in our diet. I mean I really wanted to create the image of grabbing that bar and shooting crap out my ass like a veritable shit rocket. But then... that's just toilet humor. Besides, I don't know, but I hope that I'm alone on this. Anyway, my wife reads this, and she would probably think I was just being disgusting.

That's also why I'm not writing on why I'm completely confused by the fact that they still make porn. Is there really a need for new porn? Is there someone out there that's exhausted all the porn that already exists? But, again, kind of blue subject so...

Super Bon Bon. Yeah, me neither. I have four versions of Super Bon Bon on my Winamp. I have no idea why. Did I just have to have Soul Coughing one day? What's worse is that no matter how many copies of Super Bon Bon I have, I don't have a single other song by Soul Coughing. I remember a really bad camping trip I went on once where I had to catch a ride home from Hillary Owens and she had a Soul Coughing tape, and I kind of felt bad, because I too liked Soul Coughing, and yet, I didn't want to have anything to do with her.

Ever notice that there are some people who you don't want to talk to because you know that the first thing you'd say would be, "you're so full of shit." Honestly, how do you make conversation after that?

Everybody heard Wheatus? Good. "Teenage Dirt Bag" just came on. That's a great frickin' song.

Anyways, I found out that my father-in-law reads my blog, and he is a good guy, but he's also a Republican. Luckilly, he doesn't focus on that difference, but still... I can't exactly go off on tirades when I know that I'm actually going to offend someone I know. I can't even use sarcasm because he's smart. I think he'd figure that out, which is too bad, because I realized that Republicans are now making a reality out of all the old Democratic dreams. No, it's true. Democrats were always complaining about American arrogance, but I ask you, did they vote for a President that was willing to do something about it? I think not. The Republicans are moving all of our jobs overseas so that we can no longer flaunt our high employment rate to the people of India. Share the damn wealth.

I'm telling you, it's in me...festering. Ed, get a screen name. It's no fun debating alone, and the other Republicans are busy trying to learn how to read. Haha! I'm just kidding.

But the main problem with my current mood is that I know... I KNOW... that I should be working on my novel. I'm now having dreams where the cats are trying to encourage me to write. My father in law is convinced that I should finish my novel, and well...I don't think it's his kind of book. Erik, who is the most arrogant bastard in Scotland, is in Scotland and he's still giving me shit. It's time to put this baby to bed.

I already know what the movie pre-view should look like. Susan Vega going A Capala on that old 80's tune State of Shock while all the best scenes of the book play out one after another without explanation. Is it weird that I already think of Super Bon Bon as the song that should be playing when Slam shows up for the final battle at the end of the movie. Seriously, that is weird.

So, the end result is that Jason is kicking my ass on entertainment value for his blog. But...I'm writing a book, mofo. It's only a matter of time.

Yakkity Yak, what the hell happened to Pitch Black

A long time ago in a galaxy far far away, I suggested that everyone watch the movie Pitch Black. I am unhappy to report that the sequel called The Chronicles of Riddick is no good. That's an understatement.

A more accurate statement might be that I'd rather slide down a banister of razor blades and land in a bucket of iodine than watch that movie. The DVD starts with the director's introduction. I fast forwarded through that in order to get to the experience of the movie. In retrospect, I can only assume that all the director should have said, "I'm sorry," over and over again for five minutes straight. But even that wouldn't have vindicated the movie.

Perhaps if the director then committed ritual suicide it might have renewed my faith in the creation of decent movies, but he did not. If you ARE the director of the sequel to Pitch Black, here's a tip for you--Watch the original. No seriously, take a couple hours out of your day, preferably before you record your "vision", and just kind of get a hold on the movie that you're making a sequel to. Also, plot. I know that it's the new thing to make movies without plot, but the sequel to Pitch Black is not the place to "experiment."

Watching The Chronicles of Riddick was very close to having my eyes chewed out by wild badgers. You think, 'how the hell did these wild badgers get at my eyes. This makes no sense!' Yes, and that's exactly it.

Old Start Trek episodes have better production value. The Thing from the original movie, not the cool one, the one with the carrot monster. Just thinking about it is hurting my brain.

Now, I know that some of you out there had your criticism for Pitch Black, and yes I hear you. The monsters were essentially stolen out of Alien, but at least with that movie, the director had the good sense to steal a cool monster. In this movie, the guys are dressed in material that looks to be made from those Styrofoam drink holders from McDonalds, and they worship this guy who has faces on the side of his helmet so he looks like the symbol for Janus Mutuals.

I've already said too much. This movie doesn't deserve this level of commentary. Stereoscopy of an inflamed colon would have been more entertaining.