Ryan North mentioned that the webcomic Minus ended today. I had not heard of Minus before, but went to read it on his recommendation. It’s one of the best comics I’ve ever seen. I read all 120ish strips just now in one sitting.
One of the entertaining things about running this blog is that marketers seem to think it has an audience. Far be it from me to disabuse anyone of such notions, of course, but I thought they’d at least notice the cheap free ads in the sidebar and the bimonthly (if that) updates. It makes me want to wave my hand and say this is not the sales opportunity you are looking for.
A few days ago, “Jessi,” who has “been a fan of [my] blog for a while” (really? I don’t think I’ve seen you around), asked if I would check out a new band on her record label and tell her what I thought. She didn’t directly request that I put up a link — that’s not the kind of relationship that Jessi and I have — but she did suggest that I should “feel free” to do so. (Which is good, because I’d hate to be compelled to promote whatever random crap people email me.) “P.S.,” Jessi concluded, “You are hilarious. :-)” See, I was on the fence, but it’s hard to turn down a pitch from someone who appreciates your sense of humor.
Anyway, enough ragging on the friendly PR people. The group is called Feral Children, and you can download their EP for free here. As for the music itself…well, it’s not really my cup of tea, to be honest. But free is free, right? It’s only four songs; check it out.
A slice of life story from a YouTube commenter:
imbored1996: haha i had onece dreamed that i was playing outside and like fucking sephiroth comes and like fucking is trying to chop my fucking head off it was kewl!:)
EternalSailorKitsune: u had a kewl dream
imbored1996: yup it was one of the best dreams ever cuz i’m like outside and i go in my friends house and he’s outside and i notice it’s empty inside and everyone that lives in his house is outside and his lil brother tells me to get out and right when he tells me that i just see like sephiroth charging at me and i run to the back of one of the cars and he goes to the back and i got in one of the cars and come out throught the other side and he goes around fast enough so catch me on the other side. and then right when i get out he uses his sword on me but luckly i ducked and his sword hit the car and he sends the car flying with one strike and i keep on running really fast to my apartment complexes and i just keep on running and running with this running behind me and he appears in front of me and slices but all of a sudden theres this sword on the ground and it happens to be clouds swords so i quickly grab the sword and use it on him to defend myself and i could do any damage on him so i run around my apartment complexes and enter through the parking lot and i got near the dump lol and he comes flying down from the sky and wat i did is wat happened in advent children where cloud strikes the dude that becomes sephiroth and then sephiroth and his sword appear.so then this shock wave goes and all of the cars blast away and some exploded and we’re fighting in a fiery hell while the music played.before the song ended i did clouds special to kill sephiroth in advent children :)
Klaue77: Dude…you’re weird…
Tufts gives all seniors an interminable (and mandatory) survey to complete online prior to graduation. I’ve been clicking radio buttons and check boxes and drop-down menus for the past hour. Below are some of the nuggets of wisdom I provided for the poor saps who have to read all of these things.
Survey question: Did you do a senior thesis?
Answer: No.
Survey question: Why not?
Answer: Towards the end of my junior year, I visited my advisor and asked him, “Should I do a thesis?” And his response was “Nah.”
Survey question: Is there anything Tufts could have done to make you consider doing one?
Answer: If he hadn’t said “Nah,” I might have considered it.
Survey question: Why did you double major?
Answer: No big reason. I like English, but I also like music.
Survey question: How did the double majoring affect your experience at Tufts?
Answer: Frankly, if I had just majored in English, I don’t know what I would have done with all the free time.
Survey question: Which course best characterized what a truly excellent college course should be?
Answer: Music for Multimedia II.
Survey question: Why?
Answer: When I took this course, there were only four students, and we learned to use state-of-the-art recording software in a fancy computer lab. We went on a class trips to visit a recording studio video game developer. It should be on the cover of every Tufts pamphlet.
Survey question: Any additional comments about your Tufts experience?
Answer: Tufts was pretty great. My high school guidance counselor encouraged me to apply to Harvard — we didn’t have enough Ivy-bound students, I think — but I told him I’d rather be here. I think I made the right choice.
I’ll be in Cambridge, MA at ROFLCon this weekend, and then CBC Saturday night with the MetaFilter folks. If you see a bewildered-looking dude with a mess of black hair, come say hi.
A sobering list of recent accidental shootings from Cynical-C.
Web-savvy users have long known that YouTube has some of the dumbest comments on the internet, but the idiocy is really thrown into sharp relief when you put them side by side with MetaFilter comments. I credit the $5 signup fee.
Ammon Shea, in the Oxford University Press blog, writes about some of the weird stuff he found while reading the Oxford English Dictionary:
I’ll confess that on several occasions I thought that the editors of the OED were having a joke at the reader’s expense. The entry for unpoetic gives no definition, but there is a note that tells the reader to ‘cf. next.’ The reader dutifully looks ahead to the next entry which is unpoetical, the definition of which reads ‘cf. prev.’
Sure has been quiet around these parts, huh? Well, get ready for it to be a whole lot quieter!
Inspired by sites like The Brainy Gamer which explore video games from a more critical, intelligent angle, I’ve started a new blog about video games called Cruise Elroy. So far there’s only one real post, but I think it’s about as long as everything I’ve written here for the past two months put together. Take a look, won’t you?
Gary Gygax, co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons, passed away this morning at his home in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. He was 69.
I was never a D&D player, but I have indirectly felt his influence through video games for years. Alec Meer at Rock, Paper, Shotgun writes:
Would we ever have had PC RPGs without Gygax’s laying down of roleplaying foundations back in 1974? Oh, probably - in some form, anyway. But would we have had Ultima, Fallout, Diablo, World of Warcraft, even Deus Ex? Probably not. Baldur’s Gate, Neverwinter Nights and Planescape Torment? Definitely not.
In short, he was an enormously influential figure in interactive entertainment, and will be missed.
For further reading, the MetaFilter thread eulogizing Gygax has some great stories.
When you send a text message on the Verizon network, you can address your text by choosing a name out of your contact list, or you can address it by typing in a phone number. You can also type in a name. And if you type in L-E-I-L-A, then– bizarrely– your text will come to me.
This is a blog about the texts I have received. All of them are from strangers, intended for other Leilas, but obviously they missed their marks.
I hope she has a good text messaging plan. (via)
The People’s Mario. (Warning: Flash, blood, Russian choir.)
Five things I am excited for:
- ROFLCon
- Super Smash Bros. Brawl
- Béla Fleck and Chick Corea at Symphony Hall
- Ryanhood at Club Passim
- Spring break
One thing I am not excited for:
- Graduation
For Randall Munroe’s LimerickDB:
A young boy set out on his own
To restore Princess Z. to her throne
Ere he took on the horde,
Said a man with a sword,
“It’s dangerous to go alone.”
I could do this all day.
Cheat codes versus public education. So true.
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