Voltaire

Thought for the Day: Country music is either about whiskey, women or how screwed up the world is. Or a combo. Go on, prove me wrong.

So, I like Voltaire. Not the philosopher/writer, the musician. Don't get me wrong, the original Voltaire is funny, but he's a bit too acerbic for my taste; yes, alright, your contemporaries tend to be optimists and you're a pessimist, WE GET IT ALREADY.

No, I mean the lovable goth musician. I have for a looong time. And really, who wouldn't? He's amazing. He's a geek; he's such a geek, he's done an entire (raunchy) album of Star Trek songs called Banned on Vulcan. He's the guy what did the song "Brains" for The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy. His songs, as a whole, are hilarious, heartwarming, hilariously heartwarming, or just plain great.

"The locals tell me not to fear
It happens at least once a year
When hell is full the dead will walk the Earth and apparently they come up here
For the beer!"  - lyrics to Day of the Dead, from the album Ooky Spooky.

In 2010 he did a country album. Because, hey, if Bob Dylan can do it, why not Voltaire? The name is "Hate Lives In A Small Town"; the album art's to the side.

Having listened to it...Oh yeah. It's Voltaire alright. And Lord, let Johnny Cash hear it; he can finally stop spinning in his grave. The titular song's really worth a listen. Have a look:

Somewhere on Youtube there's also his opening to the song; but I can't find a video of both it AND the song. The Song Remains, so I put it here first and foremost. The rest is up to you.




So why a post about Voltaire? Because he came out with a new album in September.

You're welcome.

Short post

Thought for the day: "Things Just Happen, What The Hell. - Didactylos, Ephebian Philosopher" - Terry Pratchett.

Some days I have nothing in particular to talk about. This is just such a day. Nothing extraordinary on TV. I've finished Baccano! but I've talked it to death already. New Netflix isn't in. Nothing in particular to say.

So, adieu.

Concerning Hobbits

Thought for the Day: “Where there's life there's hope, and need of vittles.” - J. R. R. Tolkien.


So, we all know I'm discussing the Hobbit trailer this post, yes? Well, just because I'm cruel like that, I'm going to talk about other things first! Buahahahahaha!

Let's talk about The Castle of Cagliostro, which I finished today. The pronunciation of the titular family line(represented both by the villainous regent, Count Cagliostro, and the Damsel In Distress, Princess Clarisse Cagliostro, and the tiny country they rule) is Co-lee-oh-stro, by the by.

Before we get too far into this I should explain something. This is a very good movie. After viewing it you may wish to see the anime. Lupin III is a very good franchise. But, and it's a small, important but: CoC should not be taken as an example of what the character Lupin is like on the whole. Usually, Lupin is something of a jerkass. Hell, forget something of, he's a Jerkass. Yes, there's a heart of gold in there, but still plenty of jerkass.

The problem, in as much as it IS a problem, is that this is a Miyazaki flick. Miyazaki movies fall FIRMLY on the Idealistic side of the Cynicism v. Idealism question. But the Lupin franchise as a whole is...well, frankly it's hard to pin down at the best of times, but it's cynical slightly more often. They play off this in the movie, actually, fairly early on. There's a note from Jigen, Lupin's longtime partner, that Lupin is being better behaved than usual. It's justified, though, because Lupin's still grateful for Clarisse saving his life some ten years prior; further, the scene explaining this implies that the entirety of the rest of the franchise is itself set before this movie, which leaves the option open for Lupin having undergone character development.

All that aside, it's a very good film. I can see why it's so highly regarded by critics. And I certainly appreciated the villain's end, which happened just as the clock struck twelve.

Alright, alright. We all know why we're really here.

BILBO BAGGINS. That's why. The new trailer for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, due out in December 2012, came out this month. As follows:

HO JESUS. I want to make this absolutely clear. "Far Over the Misty Mountains" is one of my favorite pieces of literature. And the depiction here, the hauntingness of it, is MAGNIFICENT. In the book, of course, they sing it with instruments, whereas here it is a capella. I'm going to allow this, because it has been proven that a capella can be METAL.

One thing that worries me, or perhaps irks would be a better word, is that they seem to be pitching it as an action movie. I suspect that, at least, is the price of a movie made in this day and age; Roger Ebert made a similar note on LotR. Still, I like that they seem to intend to pitch the movie as being told as a narrative, from Bilbo to Frodo. I knew they were going to expand the events, looking at what Gandalf and Co. were doing off forcing the Necromancer to abandon Dol Goldur once and for all, and this seems the best way of handling that. Of COURSE Bilbo knows what happened even though he wasn't there - after the fact, you see.

All told I'm well more than cautiously optimistic. I'm rousingly, devotedly, exultingly optimistic!
SAY IT WITH ME NOW:
SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
*collapse*

Happy Christmas, War Is Over

Thought For The Day: Asking a friend to come up with a 'thought for the day' in the midst of their livestream is free entertainment of the highest order.

Obviously I did not post for the past two days. I plead Christmas. And you never got your musings on Hogfather; I plead Christmas there, also, for I spent the wee hours of Christmas Eve and Christmas Morning having a bonding moment with my little brother instead. I'm less worried about the twerp's capacity to survive high school, now.

Tonight I thought I'd yammer a bit about this lovely thing Blogger gives me, which tracks the various stats of my blog.

So far my blog-a-majig has received 427 page views. Geographically, 400 of those come from the United States.
Eleven of those views come from Russia. ПРИВЕТ РУССКОЙ ЧИТАТЕЛИ!
Five of those views come from Germany. HALLO DEUTSCHEN LESER!
Four of those views come from the United Kingdom. HELLO BRITISH READERS!
And one of those views come from France. BONJOUR SIMPLE LECTEUR FRANÇAIS!

And I'm aware that these persons are not likely to check in again, but hey, you never know. And those Russian views are fairly consistent(and probably fake; read on). And the stats probably aren't that accurate, yet. They group the readership by Operating system, as well, and even if all the Linux/Ubuntu views are me, that's still only 15 views for the entire month. I've done more than that this week, looking at comments. All told the Stat system could probably be more intuitive; maybe a tutorial for young blogs?


Speaking of young blogs and stats: remember I mentioned those Russian views probably being fake? On the off chance they aren't, Russian Reader, you can accept my apology immediately. However, at least 8 of those 11 views come from domar.ru. NO, do not go to domar.ru. It's something called Referrer Spam. They come to my site, trying to trick the webmaster(that would be Me) to come to theirs. They're fairly ubiquitous, and mostly harmless, just annoying.


I've also gotten a lot of traffic from Google Reader, from Caitlin's Wordpress account(Thanks, Caitlin!), and Facebook. That's referral URL's, though; if you just logged straight here from the address bar, I'd never know.

Xeph's work

Anyway, the moral of that particular story is: link me to other people, and I'll say thank you! [/shameless_plug]


Tonight's thought-for-the-day stems from the fact that I was having a Skype conversation with a friend when he was livestreaming. I couldn't think of a thought-for-the-day, so I asked him. He fumbled around with various platitudes, and the whole thing was so amusing I came up with this thought. If you're interested, here's the link to his livestream: Xepharon's Livestream.


I'm still watching Baccano!, as well. It's holding up very well, and I quite fancy it. The semi-casual handling of the supernatural is very nice. I say SEMI-casual, because when 'normal' people encounter the supernatural, or when something truly powerful, it's treated with a realistic amount of reverence and awe. But, not to put TOO fine a point upon it, much of the cast is immortal. You're not exactly going to look at every strange happening with shock when you bleed backwards after getting cut.


One of the things that complicates the series a bit is the anachronic order. Scenes can happen as early as 1751 and as late as 1933, with 99 out of every 100 being from 1930 through 1933. On top of which, it's an Ensemble Cast. There really isn't a main character; even the character that practically has I AM A PROTAGONIST tattooed on his soul is only one of a number of entry points to the events presented. There's a quote by Rousseau that the whole thing reminds me of: "There are four sides to every story. Your side, their side, The Truth and what really happened." Given that logic, Baccano! probably has about 25 sides during a slow episode. If you can handle these quirks (apparently Japanese audiences couldn't; despite doing wonderful here in the West, Baccano bombed at home) then it's a great anime. I actually like it more because of that; it gives my brain a nice workout, without breaking immersion. 



From Netflix, I've gotten Castle of Cagliostro, the Lupin III movie. It's Miyazaki's first (this was a long time before Studio Ghibli, mind) and apparently Spielberg's a huge fan of it. It's apparently as magnificent a work as you can expect from a combination of a great director and a great franchise. I've had the chance to watch the opening bits, including the famed car chase. Remember I mentioned Spielberg was a fan? Apparently he concludes the car chase in this one is the best car chase ever set to film. I have to agree. It's funny and terrifying in all the right places. I'll finish this tomorrow, give you a full look tomorrow night.








Have you guys noticed my newly minted blog is, for the most part, an anime review blog? It wasn't exactly intended, but it's turning out that way. Would you guys like to see more of this? Lemme know.


Want to know what else I watched? I watched the new Doctor Who Christmas Special. I watched "The Doctor, The Widow and the Wardrobe." My response?


Moffat, You Magnificent Bastard, I READ YOUR NAUGHTY AND NICE LIST! Seriously, Moffat's done it again. Spoilers ahead: You're so certain, so certain you know who's going to be the bad guy, and you're wrong. You're wrong because there isn't a bad guy! The Tree People are scary at first, but, shock and awe for Doctor Who aliens, they're WILLING TO COOPERATE! Good Guys Win! Christmas is Saved! MOTHER CHRISTMAS! Say it with me now.
SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!




That's all for now. Laters,
Bill.

My God How The Money Rolls In

Thought for the day: Miracle: (n) That which happens in spite of astronomical odds.

Today I'm mostly going to be expounding on the Thought; not a lot else to say tonight, but the Thought got me thinking. I'm still watching Baccano! by the by, and it's holding up magnificently. It's in the same 'verse, I learn, as Durarara!, which is another favorite of mine. At this rate I'll have to read the light novels, since both series posses only a single season in their anime formats. Baccano!, I learn, whilst having stunning reviews here in the West, did abysmally at home. Which just goes to show, I suppose. WHAT it goes to show I have no idea, but show it does.

Where was I? Oh, right, the thought.

I mention the thought because the Powerball Jackpot is currently astoundingly high, and I intend to buy a ticket tomorrow when I go to play DnD(it having been rescheduled to account for Christmas Sunday).

Yes, most of the people who buy a lottery ticket are going to loose, but SOMEONE won't. It won't be you, probably, but then again, it might. Yes, I'm aware of the unbelievably long odds, and that it's probably a dollar down the drain, but I've got a few extra dollars this year.

On top of which, the odds that I was born at all are immensely astronomical. Here's a page that calculates the odds of you being conceived, in an extremely conservative manner, ie. only counting the odds of your production on your father's side; counting your mothers side would, as the site notes, make you EVEN MORE unlikely. And here's a different calculation, which not only includes your maternal lineage, but the possibility that your father and mother even met, let alone had kids.

My point, long belabored though it is, is essentially Solo's Theory of Success.

Thought for the day: I really need a car. What? I never promised they'd all be profundities on the human condition.

Today, of course, is the Winter Solstice, and I've put off writing this thing until about 2:30. In fact, this is all I'm writing. I hope you all had a wonderful day. Will write more, and earlier, tomorrow night.

Christmas Carol Musing.

Thought for the day: Does "the thought" really count if I had no idea what I was thinking when I bought it?

Finished the Eden of the East movies...technically today. More like last night, but after I posted, so, blah.

They were, of course, very well done. Mr. Outside's true identity will not surprise anyone who was paying very close attention to certain scenes from the series. Also, Takizawa's mother is a bitch. Just saying. Also, a couple of days ago I switched my Firefox persona to an Eden of the East theme. Today I downloaded adblocker.
There is a text message on the adblocker bar, which read: "I Pray For Your Continuing Service As A Savior."
God I love fandom sometimes.

So, moving on, I attempted to find another series to watch. I started Axis Powers Hetalia.

No.

Just...no. Which is weird, because the feel I got from the fandom at-large was that I would love this. But there aren't really episodes, not full-fledged ones, anyway. They're something like ten minutes long. No, thank you, I'd like more plot than that. But I GET more plot from fanworks. This is just one of those weird times when I enjoy the fandom more than the material. Probably the only time, actually.

Anyway, I've also started Baccano! which looks good so far. Immortality, Roaring 20s, general weirdness...Yes, this should do nicely.

Also, musing on A Christmas Carol versions. Personal favorites are Muppets, and the one that shows up on TNT every year with Patrick Stewart as Scrooge. From the Muppets, I've got a number of the songs stuck in my head.
"We're Marley and Marley, our hearts were painted black! We should have known our evil deeds would put us both in shackles!"

Meanwhile, the TNT version has the fullness of the Ghost of Christmas Present; it's a rather grim scene in the end, but that would have been out of place for the Muppets.

Mr. Ebenezer Scrooge: Is there no chance that boy will be spared?
The Ghost of Christmas Present: Not if the future remains unaltered. But so what if he dies? If he's going to do it he'd better do it quick and decrease the surplus population. If you be a man in your heart forbear that wicked cant until you've discovered what the surplus really is and where it is. Will you decided what men shall live, what men shall die? It may be that in the sight of Heaven you are more worthless and less fit to live than millions, like this poor man's child. Oh God, to hear the insect on the leaf pronouncing there is too much life among his hungry brothers in the dust! 

As I said, hardly appropriate for the Muppets "No, I am a LARGE Absent Minded Spirit! Ahohohohohoho!"

Another version I'm rather fond of is a musical version with Kelsey Grammer in lead. In fact most of the good ones, barring Sir Stewart's work above, are musicals. Perhaps that's a tendency in us, for this story. Indeed, for most stories, this time of year. Last year's Doctor Who Christmas Special was a pastiche of A Christmas Carol, in that magnificent way only Steven Moffat can pull off. SPOILERS: Ultimately, the "Ghost of Christmas Future" bit is NOT the Doctor taking the Scrooge character to see his own death - it's bringing his younger self to see what a bitter old man he's become. Very well done, Mr. Moffat, very well done.

This years is apparently a Narnia pastiche: "The Doctor, The Widow and the Wardrobe". Is it wrong that, given the title formula, I'm assuming the Widow will be at least a little villainous? Or the Doctor will have to save her from herself? Probably Moffat will take the premise and make it do little dances. That's his style. And make it terrifying without killing anything, because that's ALSO his style, the scary, brilliant bastard.

But I've gone rather far afield from my intent; I brought up last year's special because of this description of the winter holiday season:

On every world, wherever people are, in the deepest part of the winter, at the exact midpoint, everybody stops, and turns, and hugs, as if to say "Well done. Well done, everyone! We're halfway out of the dark." Back on Earth, we called this Christmas, or the Winter Solstice.

I love that line. And it's mostly true. Nearly every culture has some sort of something that occurs around this time of year, or did at one time. And, do you know, it's almost always called The Feast of Lights? Or something similar? Hannukkah also falls this week this year, and Christmas is on a Sunday. It's one of those years, I think; at the close, everything begins to line up. Or maybe we just really, really need to have something to celebrate.

I re-read The Hogfather by Terry Pratchett this week. I'll muse some more on that book later, probably either tomorrow night or Christmas Eve. Yes, Christmas Eve sounds perfect for it. Look for it then.

By the time I expect most of you to read this, it will be December 22, the Winter Solstice. Thus I leave you with this happy thought.

Well done, everyone. We're halfway out of the dark.

Rain, rain, go away

Thought for the day: Were I granted one wish, I would not ask to rule the world; that would spoil the thrill of the hunt. I want the power to lay a belief on men, to make them dream as I dream.

Short post. Wherefore? Not much done today. It rained constantly, so no Christmas shopping. So, again, Mornings Are Things Which Happen To Other People.

I've spent most of the day, at least the parts I was awake for, watching East of Eden: The King of Eden and East of Eden: Paradise Lost. No big review tonight; that's what last night was for.

Other than that, I've been helping Lauren with a prompt about Norse mythology. Given as said prompt is supposed to be my Christmas present, and was at my request, I suppose giving access to my encyclopedic knowledge is only fair. Also, I rather like being a Professional Muse; I do it rather often for Lauren, and its very fulfilling.

I don't write much myself(this not withstanding) because I have authorial ADD. I have a thousand and one ideas at any given time. I'm better at oral delivery of stories; but the age of the Bards has passed, so I just help others along.

That's about it for the evening. Later,
Bill.

Monday's Child Is Fair of Face

Thought for the day: "I hate Mondays." - A very famous cat.

I, like so many of us, have little love for the first day of the week, especially Monday mornings. This is spite of the fact that I was, in fact, born at 8:23 a.m. on a Monday. Or, perhaps, because of the fact. After all, there's the old belief that babies cry out at birth because they hate to come into such a terrible world as this; mayhap Monday mornings shall always bear negative connotations for me.

Far more likely, of course, is that I Am Not A Morning Person, and Monday means back to the grind.

But that's not nearly as much fun.

In all seriousness, today I was SUPPOSED to go Christmas shopping, but opted to declare that Mornings Are Things That Happen To Other People instead. Later this week, then, possibly tomorrow if the weather holds.

Instead I've been watching Eden of the East on Funimation.com. I also decided to become a Funimation subscriber, because I'm thinking of dropping Netflix for a while. The reason for this is pretty simple: Netflix costs me $8.59 a month, after sales tax. Funimation will only cost me $7.95, and I mostly used Netflix to watch Funimation stuff anyway. Normally I'd just keep Netflix and watch the occasional movie. But I recently switched to Ubuntu, a Linux OS.

Fun fact: Netflix Instant cannot run on Linux. Why, you ask? It's not actually Netflix's fault, this time.  Netflix Instant uses a software called Microsoft Silverlight to prevent piracy. There is, of course, a Linux equivalent software called Moonlight. But there's one tiny catch: Moonlight has no DRM, digital rights management, the entire reason Netflix uses Silverlight. It will probably be quite some time before it does, because Linux is built on the idea of Open Source, which is very much not into DRM. But that also means that, legally, Netflix can't touch it with a ten-foot pole. The minute Netflix enables a software WITHOUT DRM, the companies that own the movies will rip their material off at the speed of Lawsuits.

So, I'll probably drop Netflix until I have something new I want to see, and come back for a while then. Maybe. It depends on how this two-week free trial of Funimation Membership goes.

But I've severely digressed. I was talking about Eden of the East. I actually rather like this one.  Which, in fairness, I like an awful lot of anime, and I'm hardly a critic, but still. I like the themes of Power, and the proper use thereof. The arc words "Noblesse Oblige" are also something of a personal credo of mine. There's not as much Romance in the series-proper as the cover art would have you believe; that, I understand, mostly comes from the movies, which I will get into after I finish typing this up and tomorrow. Which, now that I glance at the clock, is Today. I really shouldn't keep going to TV Tropes for all my links...

I digress again. The main character is Akira Takizawa(sort of). We meet him naked and in front of the White House, holding a revolver and the Noblesse Phone that the plot of the series turns around - Oh, did I mention he has no memory of who he is, much less how he got there?

I rather like Akira. He's my kind of hero - sneaky, snarky, cheerful, a little goofy, gets by on his brain and sense of Style. As Lauren will attest, I am a firm and devout believer in the power of Style.

His distaff counterpart and eventual love interest (Maybe. Possibly. Ross and Rachel got nothing here, is what I'm saying) is a nice young college grad named Saki Morimi, who was in Washington for her graduation trip.

Thus far I do have to say I have one problem with Saki. She's the Quiet Type, not something I'm interested in from a heroine. I know, I know, it's my personal preference because I like girls as deeply egotistical as I am, but still. She's mostly reactionary as a character, and while it certainly works for the series, I prefer a proactive character like Akira. On the other hand, maybe one of the reasons Akira works so well is that he has Saki there to balance him out.

There first meeting goes...pretty well, actually, given the circumstances. They become fast friends and get in a bit of flirting, too, before they end up back in Japan, and the plot begins in earnest. Because Akira has the phone, labeling him IX, and on the other end is a girl named Juiz, who claims to be his concierge. And he has a little less than $130 million dollars to spend in order to be the victorious Seleção and save Japan.
Which makes aforementioned amnesia rather inconvenient.

But seriously, folks. EoE is great, and I highly recommend. You can watch it for free, with commercials, on Funimation and Hulu(really one-and-the-same for freebies) or subscribe and watch in HD, along with all three movies.

That's all for tonight, folks. Later!
Bill

To prove their mousey worth, they'll overthrow the Earth!

Thought for the day: Evil is massively outnumbered by Good, but both are tiny in comparison to Stupid. Thus, Evil prospers.

Today was D&D. Well, Pathfinder/D&D hybrid. So, tonight is a quick post. I'm playing a Bard this time around; playing him like the stereotypical rockstar, too. He's Norse, which helps, and he spends all his time thinking about music, booze or sex, not necessarily in that order. Often using one to get the others, too. He gets along rather well with our cleric, him being a priest of Odin(which I didn't actually know when I rolled him up, but it worked out quite nicely.) Today we killed a lich (save-or-die spells cut both ways, bone-bag!), some random mooks (where we got extra XP for having very good team tactics), and five sand-dragons(which we killed by turning into fish.) Then we went back, caroused, and my bard woke up on the floor of his room, covered in a blanket and three girls. One of whom turned out to be a local aristocrat/wizard. Fortunately this paid off quite nicely with haggling over how much they were willing to pay for the loot from said dragons, mooks and lich.

And then we skipped town, off on another adventure. Somewhere along the line, Pinky and the Brain was mentioned, so the song is still in my head (and the title), and I somehow got from that to today's thought. *shrug* It happens.

Later, folks.

Why are there so many songs about rainbows?

Thought for the day: "My childhood nightmares would have been quite featureless without the imaginings of Walt Disney..." Sir Terry Pratchett.

The title arises from the fact that, while writing this, I'm watching A Muppet Christmas Carol on The Hub. For those who don't know: The Hub used to be Discovery Kids; however, Discovery Communications Inc. found that the smart kids who watched DK were more ready to watch Discovery Channel proper, and so they rebranded the network. Now it has things like Transformers Prime and My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.


Also today I rewatched The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. It's by Terry Gilliam, I highly recommend. Then again, I have a soft spot for all of Gilliam's work. The supremacy of stories and storytelling is usually a plot-point. The Imaginarium is no exception. Also, Tom Waits as The Devil is a gambling addict. Hey, if it works. Actually, he plays the role very well, and bounces off Christopher Plummer's Dr. Parnassus very well. Caveat, if you watch this: The Imaginarium is a morality tale in the Medieval style, so the Devil, though the Antagonist, *is* a man of Wealth and Taste, complete with, if not morals, then certainly Standards. Don't come in expecting Horns and Brimstone and CGI Pandemonium and you should be fine. Parnassus, also, is far from perfect. The bastion of moral rectitude is probably Percy, played by Verne Troyer. My favorite line from the movie:
Parnassus: Percy, what would I do without you?
Percy: Get a midget.

But I digress. Also tonight, I got to go see my little brother in a live nativity scene. He's the innkeeper this year; he spends all night bundled up in a giant pink robe, holding a rope attached to a donkey. Eh, it's a living. Also, he can't wear his glasses, which means the munchkin's blind as a bat. I guess I shouldn't call him munchkin anymore, he's as tall as our mother and grandmother. But, confound it, he's still shorter than me! He will remain a munchkin until this changes! And then he will be a GIANT MUNCHKIN!

Today I've also made some progress on the backlog of a blog which I read once, but forgot about and have since rediscovered. It's called Playing D&D With Pornstars.
No, it has nothing to do with porn.
Well. Almost nothing.
I should explain. The writer, Zak, is an old-school Dungeon Master, and the blog is basically his concentrated wisdom on the subject, after many years of playing and DMing, as well as anecdotes from his gaming group. But...well. You tend to play games with your friends. After a certain point, many of your friends are your coworkers.
Zak is a porn actor.
So, the members of his gaming group, they're all involved in the porn industry. It happens.
Other than the identities of the persons involved, there's nothing really *about* porn. There's, I think, one article that claims to be about porn, but it's really more about how the girls feel about how women tend to be depicted in the art for fantasy games. And apparently Maxim did an article on them. So, yeah, in good conscience I can't say it has *nothing* to do with porn aside from the name, but ALMOST nothing, certainly.

But seriously, folks. If you've got any interest in gaming, look through it. It's worth it, if you're interested.

Speaking of worth springing from interest: I've been reading up on this thing called The Whuffie Bank, which in spite of the slightly silly name is actually a rather complex little idea of a Social Currency, springing from Social Networks.

Whuffie, the word itself, was minted by Cory Doctorow for some of his stories, and meant a currency based on Reputation. It's since been picked up as a word for Social Capital; and it's beginning to be defictionalized. There's this project called The Whuffie Bank, which I'm researching now. I'll have more on that as I learn more.

Stay tuned, folks. G'night.
Bill

Restful.

Thought for the day: Sleep is wonderful, and it's a shame I'm never awake to enjoy it.

One of the things I always try to do the day after I get home for the winter is to get a lot of sleep. If I get up before noon, someone made me.

Unfortunately, it's been raining for two or three days here. Since that's unlikely to be helpful in and of itself: my grandmother's home, the place I grew up and come home to every break from school, is at the bottom of a hill 1/8th of a mile from the highway. The two are connected by a dirt road. And I do mean dirt, not gravel. There have been sporadic attempts at introducing gravel, but the hill is so steep that these attempts inevitably fail. So, when it rains, the whole road becomes one long river of mud. That is, in the places where it doesn't simply wash out into gullies you could hide a five-year-old in.

Such a road is not only difficult to navigate, it could seriously damage any vehicle attempting it. We're talking axle-breakage here. So, my grandmother's solution has always been to park on top of the hill in these circumstances.

Today she intended to set off to get her hair done, get a new pair of glasses, and spend the weekend with her beau; perfectly normal, she does it all the time and it gives me the place to myself for a while. All that's required of me is to help carry her sparse luggage up the road and into the car. On the other hand, since she had an actual appointment time with the optometrist, that meant that I couldn't sleep in today.

Actually, I'm not complaining all that hard. Once I'm up, I'm up, as it were, so I went about my business for the day, which mostly meant catching up on DVR recordings and watching the Netflix movie that arrived before I did.

Said movie was Summer Wars, btw. This was the third or fourth time watching it; it's probably one of my favorites. I know it's on my Wish List, wink wink nudge nudge amirite. Incidentally, since it arrived well before I did, my mother and her husband took the opportunity to watch it. The idea of those two, aforementioned husband especially, watching an anime, of all things, is hilarious and just a little disturbing. They liked it though, which I attribute to the fact that quality will always shine through, regardless of genre.

So I watched that again, and some new episodes of Top Gear that I missed. And I mean the PROPER Top Gear, from Britain, with Jeremy Clarkson and James May and Richard Hammond. The American one is such a cheap knock-off it's ridiculous.

Anywho. That's about it for the night. See you lot tomorrow.

Finished Final Final Finally.

Alliteration amuses almost anyone, actually. - Thought for the day.

But yes, I am FINISHED with finals. Now I pack and head for Home. It's a five hour drive, so if I don't post this now I won't at all tonight.

So: Happy Trails, folks.

Once more with feeling.

Thought for the day: Procrastination is the mother of nothing, but she makes a damn good auntie.

I had a blog in the past; never did much of nothing with it. But, I was bored. And, I should really be finishing up that paper for my 8a.m. Persuasion Theory Final; God knows it's only two pages long.

Buuuuuut...I do so love to procrastinate. So, I thought I'd try blogging again. Since I got my fancy new smart phone I certainly tweet more, and get regular Twitter updates; which is certainly an improvement on my earlier methods of social networking: "Oy, I haven't checked Twitter in a month and I've nothing to do for five minutes, so I'll do that now!" So, if Twitter, why not blogger?

Of course this could be just as catastrophically poorly planned as my last attempts. I could forget all about it and not post for months at a time. I'm going to try not to, though, by posting a link to each blog update on Twitter. So, if I don't write for a while, maybe people will hound me to get back to it.

And now that I've said THAT, my one faithful follower from previous blogs will probably feel insulted; but ultimately that was part of the problem. It was only ONE person reading the blog regularly. That's just not enough to make me want to write it. Callous sounding as that is.

Anywho. Enough of my whining for now; we'll save that for later posts. What I'll try to do is post once a day, with at least a Thought-For-The-Day. I might, or might not, also have more things, like talking about books I read, shows I watch, things I did that day, etc. Hey, people follow my Twitter, so I must be at least a LITTLE interesting.

Wish me luck, folks.
-Bill.