Atomic Number 18...for ACTION!

It would appear that I have escaped from the monolithic nightmare of Midterms Week unscathed, although perhaps I, like Agent Cooper, am still trapped in that hellish dimension, and what now walks the earth of men is a sinister doppelganger. In any case, here I am writing a blog very late at night, so if I am a doppelganger, I can't be THAT different.

It should be obvious by now that I enjoy fantasy, and given that I am devoting my free time to creating humor for you to read, you may surmise that I am somewhat of a writer. (Writers tend to do actual writing before their deadlines, but that's beside the point.) That is why I took a special interest in the Howardian epic tale of barbarian adventure that is Jim Theis' "The Eye of Argon." Theis published the original (which is accorded Shroud-of-Turin-like reverence among the faithful) in 1970 at the age of 16. Tragically, it seems that the author died in 2001, before he had the chance to give the world the gift of a sequel.

When I say "Howardian," what I mean is "resembling what you would get if you ate every Robert E. Howard story ever printed and then shat them onto a typewriter." It is a work of unparalleled genius in its sheer ineptitude. It is staggering in the quality and density of its flaws. It has no need whatsoever for MSTing, indeed, anything else one could say to mock it would be utterly meaningless in the face of the mockery inherent in its own text. In short, it is the Plan 9 of literature, and I for one am glad to have it. Every time I read a sentence, actual Robert E. Howard stories get that much better.

Here, I'll pick a random sentence from the opening chapter, as Gringr the barbarian dispatches some inept guards:

"A gasping gurgle from the soldier's writhing mouth as he tumbled to the golden sand at his feet, and wormed agonizingly in his death bed." I couldn't help but add emphasis, because I am simply compelled to highlight how GLORIOUSLY INSANE this is.

"[Gringr's] scandalous activities throughout the Simarian city had unleashed throngs of havoc and uproar among it's refined patricians, leading them to tack a heavy reward over his head." I daresay, if I had a heavy object looming over my head, I'd probably be just as tense and murderous as this poor fellow.

And one more, because I could do this all night:

"From where do you come barbarian, and by what are you called?" Gasped the complying wench, as Grignr smothered her lips with the blazing touch of his flaming mouth.

The engrossed titan ignored the queries of the inquisitive female, pulling her towards him and crushing her sagging nipples to his yearning chest. Without struggle she gave in, winding her soft arms around the harshly bronzedhide of Grignr corded shoulder blades, as his calloused hands caressed her firm protruding busts.

Gringr: Smoooooove like Butter.

And believe me, these are nowhere NEAR the best ones.

The Eye of Argon: Making The Results of All Other Human Endeavor Look Better Since 1970.

No Can Post

Cannot post now.

In midterm hell.

Papers to write.

Instead, enjoy these two GIFs of Zenedine Zidane's headbutt in the World Cup, photoshopped with King of Fighters characters.


Working working working working working...

Thy Dungeoncrawl '08: THE PUNCHING OF THE GODS!

It can wait no longer! Insomnia conquers laziness! Verbosity conquers recalcitrance! The thesaurus conquers all! The greatest epic of our time (noon to 6pm Saturdays) must be told! Tonight on this giant-size edition of Dave's Euro-Blog!

To discover the small but dedicated group of heroes who dare to brave my cyclopean labyrinth of misery, hie thee hither!

Our three amigos begin their journey in the small, quiet frontier town of New Varela, an outpost of life in the bleak tundra of the Northlands. Cold winds are ever at one's back. Great snow-capped mountains loom in the north, and their shadows are long. It is a ramshackle town, and rough, but the three are cold and hungry.

Teresa recalls the words of the oracle of Pelor: "A great evil wells up in the north, time runs short..." She knows not what she faces, but she faces it with the courage her lord has granted her.

Dust, the wanderer, the tale-spinner---for her to be wandering into a strange town with naught but the clothes on her back and the stories in her mind is nothing new. But now her wanderings are tinged with sadness, for what she has left behind. She once wrote words that she had hoped would topple a government, but exile was her only reward.

Saif saunters into town knowing that he could own it, that he could destroy it with a few minutes work (or so he is confident). Monster-hunter, mercenary without peer, master of the blade---he goes where it is most difficult for him, so that he can prove that he can: where dangers are most dire, so that he can overcome them. To live fully for a time, to win death or glory.

The company meets by the hearth of the local inn, where the coins they had plundered from men and monsters bought bountiful ale and warm food.

In the corner, two halflings speak quietly to each other in their native tongue. They then depart, leaving behind a parchment nailed to the wall. Intrigued, the party investigates:

WARRIORS NEEDED Monstrous bear threatens hunters and travelers. Forming a band to slay it. Reward provided. Skip and Holly Daggerdare, Hunters.

This, then, would be their first trial. After all, as my man Chris Sims says, bearfightin' is pretty much the standard by which all acts of badassery are measured. Hence, this scores approximately 2.3 kilobearfights.

So they meet with the halfings at dawn and trek out into the frozen wastes in search of this mysterious killer bear. All that they've been able to determine is that the bear is enormous and territorial, and that it...

HOLY CRAP THERE IT IS!

Not just any bear, but the biggest friggin' bear known to man, the dire bear. "Dire," in this case, meaning "Ungodly Fecking Huge." And trust me, it came out of nowhere. Or rather, it came out of a suspiciously bear-shaped snowbank. In any case, it was on.

The party reacts swiftly: Teresa summons forth her celestial steed and runs the beast through with her lance. Alas, only a glancing blow was dealt, and the furry monstrosity howled its rage as the mounted warrior galloped past, out of its reach and beyond its range.

Closer at hand was Saif, who, with a superhuman flying leap, rushed in to smite the creature's shaggy head with his unfeasibly large greatsword. His hopes for decapitation were dashed, however, by the bear's judicious application of one of the best monster feats of all time: "Large and In Charge." From the dumbest of names grow the sweetest of fruits. Without going into nerdful detail, I can tell you that this ability allows a large monster to swat anything that gets within its reach...with such force as to send them sprawling backward, well away from the monster itself. Thus, it's highly difficult to charge such an adversary, as Saif learned the hard way as he was batted aside like a child's toy.

It was at this point that Teresa the paladin noticed, with her divine gift of Detect Evil, that Saif was beginning to radiate evil. His eyes glittered sinisterly and something inside him seemed to be struggling to get out.

And then it got awesome.

Large monsters such as the dire bear are generally very good at grappling. In the case of the dire bear, "grappling" is not quite as give-and-take as the word implies. For the dire bear, grappling means shredding you with foot-long claws and eating you. Which is precisely what it proceeded to do to Saif, pinning him to the frozen ground like a collector's butterfly as it strove to crack the hard shell this morsel seemed to be packed in.

Saif, unable to swing his greatsword, and highly distressed from being, you know, devoured, did what any sensible adventurer who was by that point possessed by unquenchable rage would do:

He started punching the bear in the face with his spiked gauntlets.

The damage he ended up inflicting with his bearpunchin' was minimal, but the image will live forever. But a giant bear was not the coolest thing that he punched that evening. Consider yourselves FORESHADOWED.

Meanwhile, Dust was doing what she does best: offering highly encouraging advice while staying comfortably far away from the monsters. A bard can be very effective against human foes, charming, dominating, or confusing them. A savage, primeval bear, however, proved a bit too difficult to charm or manipulate. Nonetheless, she helped out with her morale-boosting running commentary on the battle ("And then, the big stupid smelly bear, who TOTALLY had no idea who he was messing with, kept chewing on Saif's torso, like it matters or something..."), which inspired her allies to strike with deadlier precision.

The rest of the fight was a struggle to keep Saif from being eaten alive, as the bear was stubbornly refusing to discontinue his meal, even in the face of arrows, charging paladins, and the occasional lightning bolt from Holly the halfling. Eventually, the bear, who by now was wounded in a dozen places, decided that the crunchy morsel was more trouble than it was worth, and turned to easier prey. Holly was caught within range of the bear's deadly claws, and it almost casually slashed her belly open, leaving her to bleed out her life in the snow. Shocked, the party redoubled its efforts as her brother Skip came dashing to her side. Even a near-fatal blow from the paw of the great beast did not deter his desperate rush to save his sister.

The mounted paladin ran the monster through with her lance, and it roared in agony, its thick blood splashing across the snow. And then, Saif, chewed nearly to death, made a flying leap and landed atop the monster's back, and plunged his massive blade betwixt the beast's shoulder blades. With a shuddering cry, the great bear fell to the earth, to rise no more.

And that's how Saif acquired his giant bearskin cloak.

But while the local tannery was hard at work, the party had other business to attend to. Hearing rumors of an abandoned, supposedly haunted, tower in the evergreen forest to the south, the party decided to investigate once the scars of battle had healed. Dust, feeling inadequate because she could not safely wound the beast during the fight, decided to equip herself with a bow. Told to visit an eccentric old gnome shaman, she found the shaman's humble hut, as well as her pet sabertooth cat. The wizened old lady told Dust that she could carve her a fine bow if she were to retrieve some wood from a particular grove in the evergreen forest. She was told to look for a spot where no snow fell. And with that, the group trekked back to the forest and entered.

The trio wandered for a while, looking for the fabled grove, when suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, Saif noticed something odd. It looked like the outline of a white, antlered stag, moving across the snow like a shadow. The stag bolted at his glance, and he pursued, calling to the girls to come.

But strangely, it was then that a second white, ephemeral stag appeared, speaking to Dust in a language that was unknown to Teresa, but which brought tears to her eyes at its sheer beauty. Dust told her that the stag wanted the two to follow it, but warned not to follow their companion, who had taken off through the woods.

Meanwhile, Saif was running through the woods after the white snow-stag, which always seemed to be just beyond his reach. At that point, I rolled for him a Will save. For the non-DnD-savvy, Will saves are basically tests of how strong your mind is--whether or not you succumb to madness or mind control or the like. Hearing your DM say "Make a Will save" during a seemingly innocuous encounter is a sure sign that you're in for a bad day. And Samy's luck didn't turn any better as he rolled an abysmal result.

"So," I said, "you get this stifling tunnel vision. All you can see, all you care about, is that fricking white stag. So you run after it. You run and run and run. It occurs to you, in the back of your mind, that you seem to be running at about sixty miles per hour. But you don't even think twice. You just keep running. And when the white stag leaps into the air, it doesn't occur to you that you shouldn't be able to run after it. But you do. You just up and run into the sky, chasing that goddamn white stag as fast as you can. And then, later, you can't really tell how later, you come down from the clouds and suddenly...you make a Will save."

So he did, and he did much better than the first time. And he woke up from his delirium and found himself lying in the snow in an unfamiliar location.

He tries to stand, but he finds that his feet are covered in third degree burns, to the point where the bones are visible under the charred flesh, and the soles of his shoes are gone. He can't walk so good. Samy at this point gives a heartfelt and profane response, and I switch back to the ladies.

They are led by the spectral ice stag to the fabled snowless grove. There, the white hart leaps into the center of the grove, and instantly a multitude of similar apparitions leap from all sides of the clearing and merge into the center of the grove. The cloud of frosty dust coalesces into a giant winged stag, floating off the ground, whose feet dissolve into a cloud of ice. FREAKING OUT NOW.

The winged stag speaks to Dust for a while in the beautiful, lilting language, then gives her a log. Seriously. The winged stag disperses in a gust of icy wind, and snow begins to fall over the once-green glen.

Dust, holding a log, stumbles back towards civilization. She says little of what the creature told her, save that it says that she is a child of destiny, and great and terrible things were on the horizon. But then they realize Saif's gone.

Unfortunately, the two of them aren't exactly prepared to search for him, because they are cold and tired and have absolutely no survival skills between them. So they return to town, in search of anyone who could help them find their friend.

They find the old gnome, whose name is Tella Timbereye, and a strange, smiling elf male who has taken up residence in the inn. He says he serves the Laughing God, Olidammara, and generally creeps everyone out with his constant mirth. Nonetheless, he's actually a semi-competent cleric, so he's recruited to look for Saif.

Tella takes the group to the edge of town and, revealing exactly what kind of shaman she is, turns into a giant raven. Yep, she's a druid, who are renowned for controlling animals and plants and shapeshifting. So Dust and the laughing elf rode the giant raven off towards the woods to look for Saif, while Teresa and her full plate armor were too heavy and stayed behind.

Meanwhile, Saif, in typical Saif fashion, has been crawling along the ground for a while in the direction he thinks New Varela is. Pretty soon, his incinerated feet go completely numb from the snow, so, great! Now he can walk on them. Or, well, stagger. But hey. So he sets off on his unfeeling, mutilated stumps, and after about an hour is beginning to freeze to death. Well, a normal person would be freezing to death. As a PC, Saif is really only mildly inconvenienced by the sharp tendrils of icy death, in spite of him wearing a highly thermally-conductive suit of metal armor.

He lopes along, but as he goes he gets an increasingly unsettling sense that there's something lurking just at the edge of his vision, but every time he looks, there's nothing. Then it's gone for a minute, but comes back.

This goes on for about five more hours, and with each passing hour, he starts going progressively more insane. Really. He seems to be drawing near the edge of the forest, so New Varela is presumably somewhere nearby, but by that point he is convinced that there is a barely-visible creature lurking in his peripheral vision that's whispering things to him. As the hours drag by, the whispers get more and more clear, although they are very incoherent and rambling. But the gist of what the thing is trying to say is that Saif ought to let whatever it is rip his chest open, eat his heart, and replace it with a heart of ice, and then Saif can be its friend and eat human flesh with it. And Saif, whose Wisdom score has by now dropped from 12 (above-average) to 5 (psychotic), is beginning to think this sounds like a good idea.

So Saif finally collapses at the edge of the forest, and the thing that has been stalking and maddening him finally reveals itself:

Yes: a demonic floating yeti-creature with jagged fangs, glowing eyes, and charred stumps for feet with the tibia sticking out. In other words, a wendigo.

The wendigo (or windigo, or wiitigo) is one of the few (that I know of) monsters native to North America. And they are awesome. Read up on their mythology, and suddenly, Saif's predicament makes a lot more sense. They prey on men who have evil hearts (usually cannibals and murderers, but also, maybe, people who have demons living in their body), they lure them away into the wilderness, the victim runs after so fast their feet burn away, and then they become one. Saif, by making his Will save at the crucial time, escaped the wendigo madness just in time to keep his feet from completely disintegrating. But the wendigo wasn't done.

It appears, hovering in front of Saif, whispering insane promises to him. And Saif is about to listen to the wendigo, and let it infect him with its curse, because he's fairly crazy at that point. But then, Saif uses one of his secret techniques from his Warblade training.

It is a technique that allows him to use a skill called Concentration in place of the Will save he now has to make. Since he's mostly insane by now, his Will save is subsequently not so hot. But his Concentration skill is just as good as it always was. In essence, he overpowers the forces of madness by saying, "Hey, wait...I'm not supposed to listen to people, I'm supposed to be hitting them!" Yes: Even in the throes of insanity, his basic, involuntary reaction to the world around him is to murder monsters.

So the wendigo hovers up next to him and tries to bite him, to infect him with the wendigo curse. And Saif?

Saif punches the wendigo in the face.

And when this happened, all I could think of was another misunderstood anti-hero who went around punching supernatural horrors so hard they died:


The wendigo floated away, peeved that its face just got bashed in. Unfortunately, its unnatural metabolism allowed it to heal completely within moments. So now the wendigo is out of punching range, and Saif's legs don't quite work. So, what to do...I dunno...how about...

Throw your greatsword at it.

Unfortunately it doesn't go that well, and by that, I mean he tosses the sword an misses by a good twenty feet, and then the wendigo goes and steals his sword. It then turns back into a white stag and flies off, but this time Saif is in no mood to chase it.

So...you know, this post is long enough already, so I'll cut to the chase. Saif gets found by the rescue party, and proceeds to punch everyone who gets anywhere near him. So the sane members of the group have to figure out how to knock him unconscious, which, given that he was mauled by a bear and survived, would prove to be rather difficult. But in the end, he was subdued, hogtied, and brought to Tella Timbereye's hut for healing. He's out for a couple days, and he wakes up violent and crazy, but Tella and the laughing elf cast curing magic and restore his sanity, although even with their healing magic, his feet are badly mangled and he has difficulty walking.

The party is back, safe and more or less sound! But what could possibly top this tale of madness and punching? How about A CLASH OF FIENDISH TITANS ON THE BLOODY FIELDS OF SLAUGHTER? Be there!

"And They Shall Know No Cheer..."

In a crazed, desperate bid to get mentioned by comic-book-blogging-madman Chris Sims, Esq., I now leap wholeheartedly into day 4 of his unstoppable, untoppable Bring it On Week.

If you haven't yet had the pleasure, 2000's Bring it On is indeed the pinnacle of cheerleader-based cinema. Sims himself has expounded on what might be termed the cheernre of cheer-related cheernimatography, and BiO stands tall atop the miniskirted corpses of its competitors, metaphorically speaking. Naysayers, I say only this: you know what else had THREE SEQUELS made to it, and is awesome? Die Hard. The parallels are staggering indeed.

There are many things to love about this film. Its message of perseverance, teamwork, and cooperation. Its amazingly realistic portrayal of "teen-agers" and their "life-style." The truly stupefying amount of midriff. And, of course, actresses in bikinis washing cars.

But today I'm going to talk about the title.

Not much at first, is it? "Bring it On." Bring. It. On. In these three simple words, we find a message that transcends cheesy teenage catchphrases, something that speaks to the very core of our humanity.

Bring. The title asks, nay, demands that we take action. We are not here to be passively entertained, like cattle chewing their cud. We have come to be engaged, to rise from our stupor into the light of reason. This is a film that asks, before the first flickers of its light reach one's eyes, "WHO? WHO AMONG YOU HAS THE COURAGE, THE WILL, TO BRING IT ON???" And when we see the glitter of soapy water splashing upon pert breasts, the flash of bright pom-poms exploding into our consciousness, we rise, trembling with the revelation, and cry to the heavens themselves, "I WILL ANSWER YOUR CALL!"

It. The indefinite. The formless mystery, forever without an identity, meaning all things and none. What shall we bring on? we ask ourselves, fearing, doubting. Why do you not instruct us, your loyal and faithful servants? But then, when we receive no answer, we realize. We see that what must be brought on is not any one thing. It is whatever we strive for. It is our hopes, our fears, all that makes us human---we must bring it on, and stride confidently towards our dreams, that no matter where we roam we will know we follow the true path.

On. Not off. On. Alive. Alert. Active. Thrumming with power, with potential, stirring from the primordial muck into dynamic vigor. To cheer is to live---to seize life and crush it to your lips, to drink deeply of the joys and woes of mortality, to be forever on...always ready, always alert, prepared to take on rival cheer squads and existential despair in equal measure. If it is not on, like unto Donkey Kong, then such a life is scarce worth living.

This, the Cheerma Sutra, the Cheerfold Path, the New Cheerstament: may it guide you to peace...and wisdom.

Is it for cheer to wet a widow's eye
That thou consumest thyself in single life?
---William Shakescheer

The Greatest Story Ever Mole'd

Every Sunday in the kitchen of one of the residence halls here, people get together and make burritos. Sweet, delicious burritos, always perfect for a pre-DnD snack. Unfortunately, poor Samy actually didn't know what a burrito was. Needless to say, the DnD Krew sprang to enlighten him, directing him to that endless font of Internet knowledge, Wikipedia. But just one Wiki page devoted to the intricacies of the burrito was not enough. No, they needed to create what may well be the most awesome page on the entire internet:

THE TIMELINE OF THE BURRITO.

And it is sheer poetry. I ask you: have you not lain awake many a sleepless night, tossing and turning in existential doubt, pleading with some unhearing God, "If only there was a chronologically-arranged list of interesting milestones in the history of the burrito! Is there no balm in Gilead?" And I say to you: YOUR DAY HAS COME!

This paramount of modern literature, comparable to the sonnets of Shakespeare, gives us the whole picture: From its roots in ancient Aztec cooking, to its birth in 1840, up to the present day, as new and exciting burrito-related events continue to captivate our attention. I'll hit the highlights here, but trust me: it must be seen to be believed.

→ The quintessential love-song to the mighty burrito, published in 1993 by John Roemer and titled, I swear, "Cylindrical God."

→ The world's largest burrito, which weighs 4500 pounds.

→ "1998: Washington Post sends Peter Fox to search for origins of burrito," which sounds to me like a dandy plot for Indiana Jones 4.

→ A small schoolboy's tinfoil-wrapped burrito is mistaken for a weapon, and the school goes on lockdown while armed police officers take the burrito by force.

→ "Rubio's Lobster Burrito Lawsuit." HOLY CRAP! "Have YOU been wronged by a burrito? Simon, Harlan & Horowitz can get you the MONEY YOU DESERVE."

→ A sinister conspiracy known only as "The Burrito Project."

→ ONLINE BURRITO ORDERING SYSTEM.

→ "October 30th, 2006: After hearing expert testimony, Massachusetts judge rules that a burrito is not a sandwich." That is the SECOND piece of burrito-based litigation in as many years, BTW.

It is your duty as a citizen to read the glorious history of the greatest of all Mexican-American culinary achievements. Because, at last, the secret history of the burrito is no longer...

UNDER WRAPS!

Thy Dungeoncrawl '08: Heroes of our Time!

You have waited for real content...LONG ENOUGH! I cast off the shackles of Spongebob-vs.-Nazis and deadly, deadly ungulates and dive headfirst into the tropical lagoon of relevant and interesting blogging, not to mention heavily mixed metaphor!

And with what will I whet your want of my withering wit?

Dungeons and Dragons! Yep, 'fraid so.

Yes, for two terrible weeks my exploits as the cruel, heartless Master of various and sundry Dungeons has gone un-chronicled! Except by the party chronicler, but I’ll get to her in a second. Now, I know that my unhealthy levels of geekdom are not suited to any everyone, so I will spare you all of the nuts-and-bolts-and-dice details of the games we’ve been playing. I will strive to present you with a thrilling interactive fantasy epic, with minimal amounts of incomprehensible nerd-babble (he said, actually believing it).

And so, I give you our dramatis personae:

(An excruciatingly unnecessary aside: My photos always turn out terrible because people are never sitting still in them. This is because I am a terribly shy photographer. I am always the only one in the room with a big, dorky tourist camera, and I always end up just surreptitiously pulling it out, snapping a pic while whistling nonchalantly, and then putting the camera away without even looking at the result, and then fleeing the building. Thus, the idea of asking those being photographed to hold still and pose is usually beyond me. It doesn't help that my camera seems to require a daguerreotype-like exposure period, and holding it still for that long is often difficult, especially when I've been drinking.)

Now, to introduce my mewling playthings. Right to left---that's right, MANGA STYLE, BITCHES!---we have:

Ashley, seen above moving with blinding speed, is playing DnD for the first time under my masterful tutelage. She gravitated toward the noble calling of Paladin, holy knights who bring honor and decency to the savage corners of the world by hacking things to death. Thus, she plays Teresa the human paladin, sent by the church of Pelor the sun god to investigate the oracle's prophecy of doom that stalks in the northlands. Although adept at stabbing things with a variety of sharp implements, she has proved thus far to be a much-needed voice of sanity and non-muderousness. This role is especially important, considering her company, such as the character played by

Tina, who you may remember as my partner in debauchery from a while back. She had from the start a clear vision of her character, and it was to be a bard. Now, Bards in DnD are most known for using the power of music, dance, or other performance art to perform magical abilities. Yes, if you mess with a bard. he will use the Power of Rock to put you in a coma. I know a lot of people complain about bards, but I find that to be completely BAD ASS. However, her character is perhaps even more radical than the standard-model bard. Her bard is a writer. (And here's where our characters start to get completely crazy.) She creates magic by writing what's going to happen to you in her book. And her book has a hidden, spring-loaded bayonet in it. It's not often that you will get to write an autobiography that includes the phrase "I stabbed him to death with my book," and you can take that to the BANK. And what could such a dashing magical auteur be named? Brace yourselves: Dust Ofevsky. And she wields a rapier named Robespierre. So, you may ask, what does she look like? What mental image shall we attach to this awesomely bad appellation? I'll tell you. She is a seven-foot tall woman with silver hair, who is the great-great-great-great granddaughter of an angel from Elysium. And according to her, she weighs one hundred and twenty pounds. So we basically have an sexy female Jack Skellington with a stabby-book, and THAT is the sensational character find of 2008. Even awesomer, she's functioning as the party's record-keeper, with her laptop (standing in for Dust's knife-book) a'blazing. And then there's

Samy, a grizzled DnD veteran who knows what he wants out of his characters: massive amounts of blood-spattered dismemberment. And he was not left wanting. He carefully crafted the most stompariffic character possible, using spreadsheets I think, designed to deal the most ludicrous amounts of damage possible. His class of choice is the Warblade, a mystical sect of fighters who are so good at killing things that their moves become like unto things of magic. Warblades strive for the perfection of the art of combat and become adept at using techniques from any of nine different ancient fighting styles. Sometimes this means a warblade can run on water or do a twenty-foot standing high jump. Sometimes, as in this case, the warblade is able to hit things extremely hard. The warblade doing the hitting here is named Saif, which is Arabic for "sword," and that's pretty cool (Samy is from the United Arab Emirates). But wait, there's more. In essence, Samy, the player, sold his character's soul to the Devil in return for more power. The Devil being, of course, me, who okayed his deal. Samy is what we call a powergamer. He wants maximum power. He's willing to sacrifice things to get it. And oh, I was willing to give him power...but at what price? You see, here is Saif's story. He was kidnapped as a baby and raised by a mysterious cult that was seeking to return an Ancient God of Darkness™ to the mortal world. To do this, they needed a living vessel to contain the god's power, and since the possessed victim would retain his physical strength but lose his mind to the god's power, it made sense to have the mightiest vessel possible. So Saif was trained in war from infancy and grew to be a mighty warrior. However, when the day of the god's rebirth came and the ritual was completed, something went Terribly Wrong™, and the cult was obliterated---except for him, who wound up with a demonic presence inhabiting his body. He was granted great strength and skill, but has to fight constantly against being consumed by evil. This was Samy's proposal to me. His character would be more powerful than most...but I would get to do whatever I wanted with his demonic housemate. And I tell you, I am going to have some fun.

Now you know their stories...but a new chapter of their lives is being forged! Be here next time to read of their adventures in the world of fantasy and violence!

A BEAR GETS PUNCHED IN THE FACE!

DARE YOU MISS IT?

Alpacalypse Now!

THEY HUNGER!

BEWARE, THEY LIVE!

RUN, COWARD!

And an image that requires no further embellishment from me:

AN ALPACA ADMINISTERING A SUSTAINED AND BRUTAL BEATING ON A SMALL CHILD.

Notice how the alpaca isn't looking at the boy he's in the process of trampling to death. No...he's looking...at us.

Looking...watching...waiting.

Tonight's post has been brought to you by Google Image Search = "angry+alpaca," with special guest, Sinistar. And yes, tragically, this will probably not be the last post I make solely based off a pun in the title.

Spongebob's Offer You Can't Refuse!

My friend Doug mailed me this. I am posting it for you.

The Greatest Films Of Our Time As Done By Characters From Spongebob Squarepants.

YOUR MIND HAS NOW BEEN BLOWN.

Further lucubration is unnecessary.

Radness, Thy Name Is...Unreasonably Long

When I arrived at Franklin, a penniless waif with no one to turn to, I checked out all the clubs and events that I could in the hopes of finding and bonding with like-minded nincompoops such as myself, and that is how I ended up attending the Anime Club. As it turns out, that club has been a fertile pool of fellow geeks who I have recruited for Dungeons and Dragons, but the anime facet has been a lot of fun as well.

I don't consider myself a hardcore anime fan. I will watch shows that seem interesting, but in the same way I'd watch any other show that looked cool. However, I know that for a lot of people, anime means either violent adolescent fantasy and/or Titmonster Tentacle Rape. But I assure you that there are gems of sheer awesomeness to be found.

I swore that I would not gush about incredibly nerdy things on this blog. That I would not subject you, the innocent public, to the unlighted and unfathomable depths of my soul.

That said, Tengen Toppa Gurren-Lagann kicks SO MUCH ASS.


Go ahead. Read the title out loud. I'll go make a sandwich.

...

Okay, so, did y...oh. You're still reading it. Well, I guess I could make some lemonade or something...

Okay, so, unwieldy moniker or no, this show is pretty much everything that is great about Japanese animation, multiplied by a factor of awesome.

I won't get into the plot, because it barely matters. This is a show that features giant robots, a chick in a bikini shooting an electric rail gun AT giant robots, giant robots fighting OTHER giant robots, a post-apocalyptic society of subterranean humans, a stampede of giant moles, and katana battles. AND THAT'S JUST THE FIRST EPISODE.

Did I mention the giant robots are literally powered by manliness?

"Go beyond the possible! Kick reason to the curb!"

Carnevale: Epilogue

Well, the Internet situation in my room is still screwy. It seems like ONE of the two outlets works. Unfortunately, it's the one that my roommate traditionally uses. So I kind of have to fight him over it and steal it when he's not around. And, of course, the IT people can't POSSIBLY come on the weekend. So...

Anyway, in my grand tradition of bringing you up-to-the-minute news two or three days after it happens, I'll show you how my life as a jet-setting, raconteur has progressed. Only a few days after playing escort to all the lovely ladies, I was out puttin' on the Ritz at the Franklin College Jazz Night!

(Have I mentioned how many freakin' girls there are here?)

Yes, I went out to mix where Rockefellers walk with sticks and umberellers in their midst...oooooorrrrr where a bunch of coeds wearing pretty dresses got to stand and chit-chat over music for three hours.

So yeah, it wasn't the most thrilling event, but I got to dress up in a suit and tie (the attire was advertised as "Semi-Formal," which is just about all I can manage), and they served free hors d'oeuvre and wine, so in the end it was worth it. And I didn't even need to take a train to get there!

So I had a good time, out with all the molls with the great gams and hep young daddy-o's, although we had to 86 the hooch when the bulls came and and busted up the joint. It was keen, all right, real on the level, see? Now you're on the trolley!

Carnevale '08: Countdown to Carnevalemageddon!

So, that whole thing where I told you, my trusting readers, that the Internet was fixed and everything was back to normal? Yeah, not so much. It died immediately after that post, and now it's still gone. I asked the IT department to come fix it and they said they would this morning. It's 6 PM now. Hmm.

But that won't stop me from bringing you the sexotic phantasmagoria of this year's Carnevale festivale, held in beautiful Bellinzona, Switzerland, and attended by yours truly, and also me.

Carnevale, for those not "in the know," or even anywhere near the know, is basically the non-union equivalent of Mardi Gras. Mardi Gras (from the French words for "drunk flashers") is the celebration of Shrove Tuesday, which is the day before Ash Wednesday, five days after Flange Thursday, and 200 years away from any religious significance. The practice, dating back, I dunno, a really long time, is a bacchanalian revel celebrating the last day before Lent. I suppose the idea is that you will wake up at the beginning of Lent so hung over that you swear off something manageable like bright light or loud noises, instead of a more rigorous challenge like avarice or envy.

The Carnevale near Franklin College, in Bellinzona, is a tradition among students here. In actuality, the festivities last for about five days BEFORE the actual day it's meant to celebrate, but who am I to judge? Maybe the scriptures actually say it's supposed to be Shrove Fivesday.

The elements of Carnevale are loud music, costumes, and being phenomenally drunk, not necessarily in that order. I'm proud to say that I at least attempted all of these three elements.

The adventure began at 7 PM, when I met with Christina, the girl who asked me to come with her.


Her costume is, according to her, the character of Death, from the Pardoner's Tale. My guess, "A nerd with a paper plate on her chest," is also a legitimate answer. I opted for the classic Halloween standby of "whatever I can find at the last minute," and went as:


The CEO of UnderpantsOnHeadCo., Inc. Shame? I have none.

Accompanying us was a diverse group of...three more lovely young ladies.

So YEAH. I considered myself a gentleman escort, although in reality if they weren't there to lead me around I'd no doubt have ended up hopelessly lost and freezing to death and vomited upon. Still, I think they appreciated having a male presence, considering that most other males at Carnevale were drunk Italian strangers.

Naturally, the drinking commenced at around 8, about an hour before we actually got to Carnevale. Considering that while inside the gates of Carnevale, 12 Swiss francs buys you approximately a Dixie cup full of beer, it's a must that you pre-party before entering. So really, the whole Carenvale experience boils down to getting drunk, getting on a train, going somewhere, getting MORE drunk, and then trying to find your way back. Needless to say, it's staggeringly popular.

So we departed, already well on the road to inebriation, and made our way to the train station and took off to Bellinzona. It was a half-hour train ride on a train packed with drunk teenagers, each of whom seemed to be taking each breath through a lit cigarette. Can't say I particularly enjoyed it, but the girls and I chatted and passed the time kicking empty wine bottles back and forth.

We got to Bellinzona, passed through the gates:

And got frisked, not to make sure we weren't bringing in bombs, but to make sure we weren't bringing in our own liquor. Right.

And so, we went off and danced. Yes. We danced, because we wanted to. We left our friends behind. 'Cause our friends didn't dance, and because they didn't dance, well, they're no friends of mine.


The blurriness in this photograph is a representation of the vision of most of the partygoers. Or maybe they watched the tape from The Ring. Or maybe one of them is a ghost. Look, I don't know.

Anyway, we had a lovely time dancing, wandering around, eating gyros, and more dancing. Oh, and we met Spock:

So a good time was had by all. I actually ended the evening disappointingly sober. I don't know why. I mean, I literally drank all my liquor and spent all my money on more liquor, but I still wasn't drunk. I'm not sure if this is a good or bad thing, but at least it meant I had the presence of mind to take precious memory photos such as this:

If you look closely, you can identify a couple of humanoid figures as well as what seems to be a giant potato with a nose looming in the right half of the frame.

So in spite of my nontoxication, I had the time of my life. I mean, one man arm-in-arm with four beautiful, young, fairly drunk young women?

That's hard to beat.

The Time of Great Darkness

Just after the Sundering of the Toilet, there was a car accident in the rainy night outside of my dorm building. (Coincidence? Perhaps. Or perhaps the conflux of diabolical energies that conspired to rend asunder the toilet had its sinister tendrils in other earthly affairs.) It was pretty wild, although I didn’t see it, and apparently the careening vehicle knocked over some wires around the building. No one, to my knowledge, was hurt, but there was a casualty far greater than mere human life: the Internet.

Yes, for the past two days there has been no Internet access in my building. Death is scarce more fearful. I dreamed of the grave. Often I would close tightly my eyes for fear of what I would see should I open them. In the darkness I haunted the cold places where once the bright glow of ichc.com filled me with mirth. I conversed with madness itself and found it a friend and companion in the long hours.

I also went to Carnivale. That's probably more interesting.

So, in summary, no posts, but posts soon!

The Fall of the Toilet of Usher

Lo! 'tis a gala night

Within the lonesome latter years!
An angel throng, bewinged, bedight
In veils, and drowned in tears,
Sit in a theatre, to see
A play of hopes and fears,
While the orchestra breathes fitfully
The music of the spheres.

I remember when it happened quite clearly; in fact, I remember it as though it had happened only five or ten minutes ago. It was an early hour of the morning, and I, having imbibed a great quantity of water afore I took to my bed, as is my habit, had awoken with a great and pressing need to expel urine from my sack of pee.

At bidding of vast formless things
That shift the scenery to and fro,
Flapping from out their Condor wings
Invisible Woe!

I approached the toilet with all the reverence and dignity accorded to the situation. Never did it cross my mind that perhaps this toilet would slowly and inexorably fall to the relentless scourge of the eons, that one day as I reached for its pallid plastic lit I would find it turned to dust with the passing of the years, and the bathroom now only a shrine to ghosts and whispers. A wiser man, now, am I, for this encounter at dawn.

Through a circle that ever returneth in
To the self-same spot,
And much of Madness, and more of Sin,
And Horror the soul of the plot.

My hand pulled down the toilet seat, and I felt it pull away from its mother, like a limb of a rotting tree it fell away in my cruel grasp, and in my horror I let it tumble to the floor. Could this be? Could the toilet, ever pristine, have crumbled? The lid had come undone...but surely the seat...

Out- out are the lights- out all!
And, over each quivering form,
The curtain, a funeral pall,
Comes down with the rush of a storm...

While the angels, all pallid and wan,
Uprising, unveiling, affirm
That the play is the tragedy, "Man,"
And its hero the Conqueror Worm.

Note: That's "The Conqueror Worm," not "The Haunted Palace," which is the poem that actually APPEARS in "The Fall of the House of Usher." Yes, I am a nerd.