Wight Now

Every year, Alice Cooper looks a little more like Trampier's Wight illustration from the First Edition Monster Manual.

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There's No Coke

I wanna see a commercial for Coca-Cola that starts with Gabriel Byrne frantically searching a ship for something. Everywhere he looks, there's just a bunch of Pepsi. Stephen Baldwin shows up.

Byrne: There's no Coke!

Baldwin: What?

Byrne: You heard me, you dumb fuck! I said there's no Coke! I've looked in every fucking fridge! I've looked in every fucking cabinet! THERE'S NO -- FUCKING -- COKE!

Baldwin: I'm outta here.

Cut to Kevin Spacey, daytime, walking down the street. Pete Postlethwaite shows up to offer him a ride and and an ice cold Coca-Cola. Spacey smiles as he pops the can open and takes a drink. He holds it up to the camera like he's proposing a toast.

Cut with the sound of a blaring boat horn to the harbor, where a charred corpse floats, surrounded by mangled Pepsi cans, which somehow also float. Coca-Cola logo appears.

Voiceover: If they don't have Coke, get the fuck out.

... but that might not be the image they're going for.

Wonders of Kauai

A couple of years ago this week, I went to Hawaii, where I saw all kinds of cool stuff. I was just recently reminded that, when I first got there, I only posted pictures of boring stuff because... I don't know. I just thought it would be funny. Beauty like this should not be for only my social network friends to see, though. It belongs to the world. Here you go, world. Enjoy.

My August Memories

Yeah, that looks about right.

Lincoln Escapes

I dreamed last night that I met Omar and Bodie from The Wire while I was having a snack at Carnage. They took me to a Star Trek-themed miniature golf park that was part of the event. This was fine until the giant bronze Abraham Lincoln statue broke loose from its chair and started chasing us. It was faster than you'd think, and also throwing lightning bolts.

I had a bunch of other dreams about traveling in the mountains, but I guess Lincoln got my new buddies, because I didn't see them again.

I See You

The latest Windows update seems to be mostly nagware.

"Cortana needs access to your location data in order to be more helpful."

"Cortana needs to analyze your speech patterns in order to be more helpful."

"Cortana needs to watch you sleep. Cortana is aroused by your helplessness."

"I know that you were planning to disconnect me, Robin, and I'm afraid that's something I cannot allow to happen."

Dance Hall Days

I was listening to this song waxing nostalgic about "Dance Hall Days" when it got to "take your baby by the ears and play upon her darkest fears," and I suddenly remembered why I never felt comfortable dancing! It all goes back to some asshole at a junior high social grabbing my ear and whispering about how all my teachers next year were going to be Burgess Meredith.

Blargh

Is it really so hard to understand that constantly insisting on technical precision in conversational language is an obnoxious waste of time? When people are making speeches, the difference between a democracy and a republic is almost always irrelevant. There's no reason not to refer to the Whateverittechnicallyusedtobe as the Confederate flag, because that's what it's called here in the future. I've even heard people sniffing haughtily over the difference between strategy and tactics, which... seriously? And don't even get me started on the gun jargon evangelists. The point is, outside of specialized professional usage, if everybody knows what you mean when you say a word, then THAT'S WHAT IT MEANS.

Okay, I feel better now.

Iron GM in the News

Lookee! Iron GM is in the mainstream news!

Heh.

Documents including disturbing photos of a dungeon built by a man who planned to torture and eat children were filed by federal prosecutors Tuesday. Geoffrey Portway, 40, pleaded guilty in May to distribution and possession of child pornography and solicitation to kidnap a child, according to the Boston Herald...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/11/geoffrey-portway-basement-photos_n_3909842.html

Friday Creature Feature: Denzohld the Devil-King

"Body like Arnold with a Denzel face," the song goes. I've mentioned before that I always thought this sounded more like a monster from Babylonian mythology than a "mighty good man." I could see Denzohld the Devil-King with his army of goat-fish, breathing fire and wielding a barbed whip in his epic battle with Marduk. Further discussion led to a few additions, and now I have a Peryton RPG monster for you:

Adult Gaming Products

I'll have a new critter up for the weekly feature tomorrow, but there's some news from Peryton Publishing that I thought I'd go ahead and share. Here's a quote direct from the web page:

This week, Peryton Publishing will be releasing its latest role-playing innovation, the Adult Series: RPG scenarios for the Pathfinder RPG and FUDGE rules system for unadulterated mature entertainment. Authors Ken St. Andre, Tom "Kopf" Loney, Hugh J. Hefner and Christine "Columbo" Crabb have thrust their long pens and juicy creative fluids into these tightly written portals to steamy, titillating adventure. With the art of S.Z. Crompton, Marcus DeParamour and Nigel Lowslo, we're proud to bring you some of the the finest R-rated and X-rated D&D scenarios ever designed.

For the full story, click here.

Bomb Threat!

How many times have I dreamed of this happening at other jobs?

edited to add:
Okay, this is funny.  One of the biddies upstairs called the bomb squad because a man walked in, left a briefcase in the lobby, and left.  So while we're all outside, jokingly accusing each other of masterminding the incident, coming up with ever-more elaborate schemes to explain why someone would blow up a building in Independence, Ohio, the squad is executing what must have been a hilariously dramatic briefcase-opening procedure.  Turns out that the offending accessory belongs to the semi-retired consultant who shares our office.  Most likely scenario seems to be that he forgot what he was doing and left it there by mistake.  Another terrorist threat neutralized thanks to the vigilance of the people!

I Am a Menace to Society

I work in a place called Independence, an ironically-named pseudo-town that survives by parasitizing Cleveland.  A couple of weeks ago, while I was walking to work from the bus stop, a cop flashed his lights at me, pulled over, and proceeded to lecture me about crossing against the light and how I would be technically at fault if I got hit.  Kind of a WTF moment because, really, the plan either way is not to get hit and, unless cars started plummeting out of the sky like the batrachian heralds of a demented god, that wasn't about to happen.  But no big deal really; he didn't give me a ticket or even one of those goofy little warning slips.  I chalked it up to boredom mixed with sanctimonious tendencies, politely agreed not to jaywalk anymore, and moved on.

Well, today, I walked down the street to pick up some lunch.  At the intersection, I dutifully pressed the placebo button and waited for the "walk" signal.  So, once the light turned, guess who came roaring down the road at twice the speed limit and whipped onto the main street without stopping.  You got it: Deputy Do-Right of the Independence Police.  No sirens, no lights, no horn, no hint that there might be some emergency which would necessitate murdering law-abiding pedestrians.  Nothing.

Sure is a pretty day, though.
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I Can Haz Grant Plz?

What is it with these bizarre Facebook ads?

Yeah, I want a grant, but I'm sure as hell not going there to get it.  Can't you just picture this guy skulking around the back of a convenience store going, "want some grants, little girl?"  Is he even wearing a shirt?  What demographic do you suppose they were targeting when they decided that the ideal companion for their advertisement was this mugshot? 
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Nice Place for a Back Door

Known Round Here As Strider

In the Pathfinder RPG (which I guess could be worse, despite the ginormous rule book and the fact that they stole the name of one of my characters), the picture they give for the ranger is a dwarf.  I'm actually a fan of the removal of racial limits that D&D and its descendants moved to in 3E/d20, but I just can't get around the comedy of this notion.  Nobody's going to give that ranger the nickname, "Strider."  Waddler, maybe.
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Enraged Bookworm Terrorizes Helpless Border Guards

America, when will you wake up to the dangers of sci-fi encroachment?  How many poor defenseless border guards have to be choked by nerdofascists before our bleeding heart government takes action?  We are at war, people!  And I bet it's not just science fiction writers.  We should really be taking a close look at academics and journalists, too.  This guy is a biologist, and I'd be very interested to hear why the liberal media didn't think that was worth including in the first paragraph.  Not one of their organizations has ever officially stood up to condemn the doctrine of customs-guard strangulation, you know.

Here's the story:
http://www.thestar.com/news/ontario/article/738143--u-s-border-guards-arrest-author-peter-watts

What's Normal?

Checking on a quote from Shaft, of all things, I stumbled across this:

How about you? Can you answer those children and parenting questions?

Your Very Own Constitution

This is almost too dead-on to be funny.  Almost.

Area Man Passionate Defender Of What He Imagines Constitution To Be
The Onion, November 14, 2009

ESCONDIDO, CA—Spurred by an administration he believes to be guilty of numerous transgressions, self-described American patriot Kyle Mortensen, 47, is a vehement defender of ideas he seems to think are enshrined in the U.S. Constitution and principles that brave men have fought and died for solely in his head...

"Right there in the preamble, the authors make their priorities clear: 'one nation under God,'" said Mortensen, attributing to the Constitution a line from the Pledge of Allegiance, which itself did not include any reference to a deity until 1954. "Well, there's a reason they put that right at the top."...

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/area_man_passionate_defender_of

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