Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog

Neil Patrick Harris in a musical? Impossible!

Back to the Future: Alternate Ending

That's amusing.

2 other items of interest

Top Gear remains awesome... even when they are trying to orbit a small car.

Good on them for tackling a great, monumental, project.

And "The Adventures of Dr.McNinja" has to be the best comic... ever? The pacing is great, the art values high, and the writing is sharp enough. It's certainly better than 90% of the shoveled out net comics out there.
It reminds me of the good episodes of "The Tick".

Always fun to watch

Map! - Braemar (Unfinished)

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It's unfinished. It would have made a great fantasy map, (and I did save it off at a point for that conversion) but as it is, I've been bitten by the BattleTech bug and would rather develop it further as a map for that setting. I just have to place cities, roads, and stuff.

Egypt! Part 2

A comment by my American Contemporary Literature teacher mentioned feeling uneasy with other people on air planes ever since 9/11. Though I think the chances of being hijacked are pretty remote there is one moment on our trip to Egypt that I can bear to echo.


During the leg between Amsterdam and Cairo we had to take the airline "Egypt Air". The flight team came across as a bunch of professional yahoos - military types. The pilots in particular exuded this calm sense of skill that seems to only come from that sort of background. They joked and held themselves in slack but alert during the boarding process. It was somewhat contradictory to their carefully attended dress uniforms and in comparison to every other flight team whom would smile and beam at the passengers that boarded.
I was somewhat relieved by this actually. As I knew roughly what to expect. They at least seemed to like what they did and military training, by and large, will separate the wheat from the chaff in terms of ability.

As we sat down in our assigned seats, Jessica and I in the aisle and middle seats respectively, we were joined by a strange sort of fellow. He was alien, at least to me, and ascribed to everything I thought a terrorist should look. His skin was incredibly dark and sun stricken. His pock marked face bore the years and hardships he might have faced poorly. (Was he wrestling wildlife with his bare hands?) He couldn't have been older than 40, but it was hard to tell. His clothes weren't familiar to me, being of a strictly functional sort.

He didn't speak a lick of English either.
It was akward. He appeared nervous. Though that might have been telling since I was nervous. Planes were hijacked around Africa all the time. On the ground the fantasy of being a hero "Passenger 57" style seemed idyllic. The reality, with my mind playing out various scenarios, was far more terrifying. The plane took off with a violent shove and threw into a hard turn unbecoming of an airliner, the flight attendants still standing - grasping onto anything nearby.
I imagined the pilots were high fiving each other.

I didn't want to offend him either should he not be a terrorist. I was keenly aware that my imagination was likely playing tricks with me. Though that knowledge did nothing to abate me. Just as well I did not want to come across as another loud ignorant American tourist.
We watched videos of South Park and American Dad on Jessica's Ipod. There were gestures and phrases that, in the presence of a man I could not talk to or know much of, suddenly became offensive and embarrassing.
Our only communication was through crude gestures by this point. At one point he had to go to the bathroom. He did not speak his request, but that was one phrase I try to learn in any language when I travel.

This was shoved from my mind soon as we were given dinner. Beef is what I and him chose, though I wouldn't have known it when he ordered in his native tongue. Jessica ordered the fish.

The meal was good, it was some stringy beef and rice, and he appeared to enjoy it as well. I gestured to him about the food and smiled. He returned the gesture.

Included within the meal was a square tray of a white pudding with presumably cinnamon sprinkled on top. Probing it revealed it had the consistency of Elmer's glue. Lending the recently earned good reputation the beef earned to the strange paste substance, I tried it. Dipping the edge of my fork into the pudding, I immediately shoved it in my mouth and savored the flavor.

And I reflexively recoiled in horror at the awful thing that was raping my tongue. It's harsh spoiled taste mixed with a bitter flavor that would not leave my mouth. It was in me and would not leave my senses. My tongue agape and tasting the air, anything, I grabbed my small beverage and washed it down, following shortly with the meager remains of a bread roll.

Jessica laughed, my stranger that sat next to me laughed. He apparently did the same thing when sampling the substance.

At once, this moment of communication and common ground, scattered my imaginary fears as though they never were. He was no longer the strange arabian guy next to me, we were the guys that hated the pudding.

Overgunned

I built a new PC a few months ago... 3.4 Ghz Dual Core P4... 4 gigs of DDR3 Ram... a graphics card so impressive it needs its own power source... It has 512Mb or Ram by itself... and a HD widescreen monitor polishes out the affair... and what do I do with this machine?

I play a game a 11 year old machine would handle without a sweat.

Though, "Apocalypse" is alot better than I recall initially giving it credit. After playing the first 2 XCOM games again, I have to admit I like this one more now. In part however, I think this is because my tastes have changed.
I believe the XCOM experience is simply better heeled and polished in Apocalypse as opposed to the previous titles. The nuanced details really shine in the title making every little decision an important one. The rest of it holds up real well being both tactically flexible and strategically full of character.

All in all, it aged well despite its prerendered 3d sprites. Of which, the previous XCOM titles seemed to weather the tolls of age much better.

Brace For Epic

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The above was lifted from an unrelated conversation from the picture site 4CHAN. It shows some real talent. I hope the artist does more.

Nostalgia: X-COM

Sometimes there are great things. Then there are awesome things. Worse still are the things that can only be revisited in memory. Though its better to recall these things rather than never knowing them, these artifacts of personality are something that I tend to dwell on during idle moments. I would imagine anyone does.

X-COM is the subject of some of those such memories. It occupied a great deal of my youth for a time before my attention wandered elsewhere.

This game holds a place with my memory as accompanying me during the first time I stayed up late... real late... around 1am in the morning or so. I was babysitting my siblings then while my parents were out. I was barely 13. I was home. Alone. Late in the bleak midnight hours fighting aliens in the dark.

I was scared for many reasons out side the game. The ephemeral quality of being awake during what would seem a forbidden time of night alone would be enchanting with a terrible quality. But being alone to face the terrors lurking in the shadows made it that much worse.
So I ordered my brave little soldiers, many of which I was attached to somewhat -going so far as to name one of my more potent soldiers "Ripley"- to explore the depthless unknown. It was almost certainly ordering them to their death. It often was. And in turn it further changed the darkness around me into a perceptively real threat.
The unknown presented a real danger to Ripley and them, and thus for me, for death laid just outside of their line of sight.

I didn't want them to die. But they did. The weak willed, those bastards, even ran from their duties. But the bravery of the few of my little heroes that stood against the turning of the inevitable night always stuck with me. In this dark hour, Ripley and her squad did not waver.

And so I didn't.

Haruhi... Pirate?

How nice. Though I don't recall her ever being in a pirate costume, I don't think it's out of character for her to be in one. This figure is promoting a game on the Wii being released in Japan featuring the titular character.

I can't say I wouldn't be interested in that should they port it over stateside.

You can read about it here.