Finally, something actually worth posting about

I am happy to inform the world that I have been chosen to be News Editor of The Quill for the upcoming year. I was able to bullshit my way to the top, I guess.

I know this position will be a lot of work. I know I will need to bone up on my fact checking and interview skills, as well as learn how to fill space and meet deadlines. It will be another job, pretty much. But I must be willing to weather the difficulties to get to the delicious, caramel-covered benefits and fun. I mean, at the very least, my name and visage will appear biweekly for slack-jawed gawkers to ogle and berate.

It's going to be an interesting year.

MOOOOOOOOW

I saw Rush yesterday. In concert. It was good. I would be more enthusiastic, but I'm only a guy who likes Rush, not a real fan. I like them enough to go to a concert with friends. But, even so, it was good. Lots of random video imagery to go with the well-performed music and rotisserie chicken on the stage. The drummer is also awesome, and gets highlighted during the show.

Plus, Geddy Lee talks like that all the time. I find that amusing.

Before the show, the music that was played included King Crimson and The Mars Volta. From outside the arena, I heard the opening of '21st Century Schizoid Man', and I immediately recognized it. It was pretty awesome.

Oooooooooh bee

After deciding last week to try that MAME thing again, I then also revived my interest in messing around in MUGEN, because it had been stored on my other 2 Gig flash drive when the laptop went on vacation. Now I have a good controller I bought at not-Radioshack for 15 bucks to use on both, and I've been wasting much time just adjusting things (both things turned out to be a lot harder to play than I thought :[). I need to get back to my idea-makin' thing. Poor Chamber of Dread is starving for an update.

I went to Winnipeg on Sunday. It was supposed to be a vacation, but it was a tad time strapped. I went to a pancake house, waited, and then had some mediocre bacon with good eggs, toast, and hashbrowns (no, I didn't want pancakes). We went to a few stores, some that are here, some that are not. I bought a new wastebasket that is 1000 times superior to my small, shoddy waste of plastic old one. We then went to the St. Vital Centre, where I marveled at the stores that aren't really all that impressive, but they are compared to everything here. That place has an HMV and Chapters that showed me that my home is void where cultural products are rare and have little variety amongst them. Someone also had a gosling there in the food court, exploiting the poor thing for the amusement of a gathered crowd of slack-jawed gawkers. Okay, it wasn't exploiting at all. But I doubt a baby goose has any need to be in the mall food court, unless it had a real hankering for frozen yogurt.

While at HMV, I easily found CDs thought mythic to my miniature-city-conditioned psyche. I bought Beck's Sea Change and Grandaddy's Sumday. I need to listen through both a few more times to get a real opinion of them. Both seem good so far, but how do they rank among the other albums by the same artists? The future holds such answers.

Scantastic Voyage

A while back, I found a flyer for a wholesaler/importer that I found humorous. I have been kicking myself for months because I didn't pick it up. Now, I have found another flyer for the same store, with more or less the same things I liked before in it, and even more. So, comedy ahoy (click to see the picture in detail):



So let's see: Tickets for Liquor, an ear-shattering alarm, a fake camera, and the finglonger. Off to a great start.



No explanation needed.



Of course, replica swords can be pretty lame, but there's one that stood out...



Be the laughingstock of even the LARP community!



Even more replica stupidity! However, I would love a fancy walking cane.



This was mainly for random pictures on the bottom, although Religious Clocks are good.


>

I want a Kosher dog.

Or a talking sword.

Or meat cleavers beside my children's toys.


BONUS:



These shoes are so good, they cost you YOUR VERY SOUL.

Midnight Terror

What they hey, I haven't had a dream post for a while. Not since my Starship Troopers adventure with that jerk Dr. Doom. These ones aren't nearly as entertaining, but at least the second one is bizarre enough to warrant mention.

A few weeks ago:

I'm in another city, probably Winnipeg, but it could be any big city. I think I'm with a class or something, and we visited some sort of studio/boring building. Afterwards, we all left. I remember being in a car, looking at buildings, including some video stores and car dealerships at night. However, when I reach the bus station/airport, I learn that I've been left behind. I phone my parents to let them know, and I guess I was going to try to get home the next day. Thankfully, my hotel room is connected right to the bus station/airport, and looks suspiciously like my parents bedroom with another room attached. It was also right beside a flashy-looking restaurant/club.
That's about it. Not very exciting, but I felt somewhat dejected when I woke up from it. Psycholomogists, figure it out!

Last Night:

I'm in the parking lot of my work, and I meet a little girl through bizarre circumstances (I can't remember what they were, though). She decides to give me a ride home in her little car. It was really a little car...I mean, like an actual car, but go-cart shaped. I couldn't actually fit in the car, so I held onto the back. Yep, hugging a little car, with my ass dangerously close to the pavement. After making it to the exit out of the lot, I decide not to go for a number of reasons (not wanting to be a bother as well as possible ass damage). So, I hop off, and meet my brother at a nearby bus stop.
Then things shift. We are now in the mall, and I appear to be nowhere in cite. Instead a group of monsters (I think they were all werewolves) were battling in the store that sells biker apparel, with scientists looking onward. One of them had been tranquilized, with the other two fighting in some sort of boss battle. I think I saw their energy bars, like in Final Fight. There was even a boss battle-esque song being played. When I woke up and remembered the song, it sounded familiar. Then I remember where it came from (saw this video yesterday. My dream only played the first few notes of the level song). One beats the other one, and then it gets blow dart'd by the scientist. They all turn back into humans.
We then go back to my workplace, where the head scientist is giving a lecture about how he shouldn't have created those monsters, and I'm watching. Right beside the candy stand, no less. Meanwhile, in the actual candy stand, there seems to be post-credits enemy roll call, like the ones that appear in some games (where they just appear with their numbers underneath. And this was in real life, happening to my left). I remember there being a hat monster, a clock monster, and Frankenstein's monster, and it was like I knew where they from, level-wise, in my fictional game.
I don't want to have this one analyzed.

Always Watching

Listening to old music. Picking up stuff I should have listened to already. I'm still catching up, okay? But I do like them. Hunky Dory is great. Pet Sounds is great. I need some more time with Kid A. See, told you I was slow.



I signed up for the games at Prairiecon. In order: Toon, Wrasslin', Munchkin, Illuminati, and the old mainstay, Heroclix. So, if any of you locals want to nerd it up in the heat the first weekend of June, you know where to find me. Speaking of my latter entrant, I need to stock up on new figures. Last year I was absolutely destroyed, and I'm blaming it mainly on outdated figures not able to deal with all the newfangled designs! I hope to get some good stuff before the games begin...

As for the other games, it's a mix of old and new. I played Toon two years ago, and it once again remains my only real role-playing experience. It's a setting thing. Most of the tabletop RPGs just don't have settings that interest me. If something like Rifts was there, though, I'd play that. Rifts is the type of lunacy I'm all for. Don't know a whole lot of others, but considering this is a 30+-year old hobby, I'm sure they're there.

I played Wrasslin' before, as well, about four years ago. I think, the year before they skipped a year and then moved from the slightly more comfortable university to a slightly-weird-but-perfectly-okay church setting. Wrasslin' is an old-timey card/board game, and it's perfectly okay. However, the first time I played it, it was meant to replace the greatness of Super Giant Monster Showdown, which it could not. I'm still bummed that game is sold out, I'd love to buy a copy now that I can.

Munchkin and Illuminati are new. They are fairly well-known games, but I haven't tried them once yet. Actually, I was going to play Munchkin last year, but it was cancelled because the person running the game was unable to make it to the convention on time. So, this year I am finally able to join the comedy. It should be good, as I've yet to find a non-collectible game there that I haven't liked.

I'm anticipating Illuminati. It just sounds like my type of thing. I've read the instructions online, and while some things are daunting (nothing a little scorecard can solve, however), it has both an ingenious design and a level of silliness I can admire. The only problem? It is run at night - and the schedule says that particular slot runs to 1:30. Am I ready for that level of commitment? I guess we'll see.



On a bizarre note, I've been finding many of my high school teachers in local media. First, my electronics teacher who was obsessed with Underdog was on TV almost a month ago because he built a police robot. Then today, I look in the newspaper and see my librarian in a photo. Apparently, he's an actor. Good. He called me by a wrong name for almost a year. Isn't that a funny anecdote?



Well, I'm not doing anything important these days. This is a problem. I need to find something important to do. Or else people stare at meeeeee.