Nerdiness – Page 33 – Toren Atkinson

December 2, 2006

Combs Grass in the City

Slackademics: Comicology 101 went over bright and beautiful tonight. Martin gave a bit of a talk on the social origins and development of American comics which sparked some intriguing discussion. There was lots of food (including some kickass salad with cranberries and some kind of delicious cheese and fresh baked cookies) and probably about 15 people all together…many comics were traded and I now am the proud owner of many The Tick comics which I never thought I’d have the opportunity to own. The hightlight for me is absolutely this page out of a MIGHTY SAMSON comic (I can’t even begin to describe this comic), which I absolutely will be putting on a t-shirt come Thursday. Anybody else want one? I mean LOOK AT THIS PAGE! How can you not fall in love with it? Resplendent.

(updated with link to Mighty Samson toonpedia entry)

November 19, 2006

Slackademics*: Comicology 101 – History & Appreciation of Comics

Slackademics*: Comicology 101 – History & Appreciation of Comics
will occur
Friday Dec 1 at 7pm
at
Chez Toren: 1015 13th Ave West (corner of Oak) – apartment 302
604-737-4283 (cat on premises)

It will also be a comic book swap meet!
By all means bring foodstuffs if you are able.
Superhero t-shirts encouraged.

*What is Slackademics? See below.

RSVP

SLACKADEMICS FAQ:

Yeah, school is okay, but there is another way to learn things. People I know have lots of skills. They are willing to share them, and they want to learn new ones, and nobody has to spend any silly school fees – just a little time. Regardez le Slackademics Vancouver. Whenever somebody wants to teach a class, we determine demand and set it up. People bring food and, where applicable, required supplies.

WHAT? Communal learning.

HOW? If somebody offers to teach a subject, they can contact me, Toren Atkinson at thickets@uniserve.com or post a comment at http://www.myspace.com/slackademicsvancouver. Then we wait for the news to spread, interest to grow, and people to raise their hands and say “I want to come.”

WHERE? This is mostly up to the teacher. Quite often a teacher will want to work in a familiar environment, possibly his or her home.

WHEN? When we have a teacher and enough students for a specific subject and a place to have the given class, we will organize it subject to the majority’s availability. Usually weeknights or weekends.

WHY? Because I want to learn guitar and you want to learn how to draw.

HOW MUCH: A potluck donation.

Yes, Slackademics is FREE.

BUT! It is an institution created in the spirit of cooperation and awesomeness. You will be expected to be courteous and respect your host and teacher and the environment. You should bring food to the classes/workshops for your teacher and fellow students. You should not say you’re going to come and then cancel at the last minute. If you have any skills that you can teach, we hope that you will volunteer to teach a class.

PRIVACY: I have had my email address and my snail mail address on the internet pretty much since 1993. I have never had any problems as a result of that, but then again I am not a woman. This whole concept involves potential strangers coming into your home, or that of your buddy’s. So please be aware of that, and let me say that it is your right as an instructor or a slackademics host to refuse anyone–on any grounds without any kind of explanation–of your services or personal space. Please feel free to screen your students before you give out your home address or any other personal information.

I won’t be sending out bulletins willy nilly. I doubt we’ll have more than one class a month, but there will be announcements made when there’s a new class offered and similar news.

November 17, 2006

Some Future Art from My Past

It’s time I dug up more old art. These are from Spaceship Zero: The Roleplaying Game, which you can buy at your favourite local gaming store.

Join SpaceCorp! Impress your nephew!

Here we see the seamy innards of Spaceship Zero herself. Note the stowaway.

Your typical SpaceCorp utility robot.

The evil hydronauts – deep ones from space!

Space pirates live in the asteroid belt, waiting to prey on hydronauts and humans alike.

This is how you use a rocket belt.

What terrible secrets lie inside the astro-automaton?

Everybody’s favourite.

November 12, 2006

Gaming & Drawing

Strange things are afoot in gaming and art. After not having a regular gaming campaign for a while, I find myself with four different gaming projects on the go.

1. Call of Cthulhu – which I’ve been involved with for a few months now. Caleb is running.

2. Drexoll D&D Campaign – a little once a month “perpetual” campaign which I started today (yesterday) and which went reasonably well. DM: me. Next episode in January.
3. “Girls Campaign” redux – the old group with Kelly, Michelle & Paul with some changes are getting back together for a short 5 episode December-long jaunt into swords and sorcery. I’m DMing for a few sessions then Paul will take over.

4. D&D refugees – new campaign starting up with the CampyCon group. Geoff is running. I told them I couldn’t really commit until January but they’re not letting that stop them.

I’ve got to make sure all this gaming doesn’t cut into my productive time. Especially since:

a. The kids book is getting back on track.

b. I’ve accepted two quick-turnaround gaming illustration jobs after a drought for months and months.

c. Outnumbered (as described in the previous post).

d. The album, of course.

November 7, 2006

Cthulhu Limericks

The High Priest was queerly perplexed
When the cultists spilled blood on the text
He was heard (to his shame)
When the Outer Gods came
Chanting “sexed” when it should have been “hexed”

Though the cultists were dressed to the nines
The Grand Rite was of unsound design
For Cthulhu to stir
With his buddy Hastur
They should wait for the stars to align

A fiendish fakir fond of floggin’
Was found with a bug in his noggin
As we drilled in his head
He was heard to have said
“Cthulhu Wagn’nagl Fhtagn”

With my roleplaying buddies I planned
A Lovecraftian rock n roll band
When the media tires me
And asks what inspires me
I just show them my pineal gland

November 5, 2006

$50 Fantasy

On the Vancouver Gaming Guild messageboards some feller posted that he was moving out of town (to Victoria) and was getting rid of a bunch of warhammer & D&D miniatures. I conned Joyce into driving me out to Richmond so that I could look at what he had. I told him I had $40 to spend. He originally quoted a buck a miniature. I walked away with probably 300 miniatures, a battlemat, a bunch of primers, paints etc, and about 15 books and magazines for $50. Joyce, not being privy to the nerdiness that you all are, just stood there and looked at me like I was Jack the Knife, which was very amusing to me. But she warmed up to me after that when we went to the Aberdeen Mall and I bought her some thai curry chicken and we took in the spectacle that is Daiso (I got some striped toe socks for myself).

We then came home and watched Requiem For A Dream which had great acting, great music, and great cinematography, but as anyone who has seen it knows, is a bit much. Joyce agreed to watch it thinking it was Memento. HAHAHAHA!

After she left, I spent 2-3 hours picking out the minis and books that I wanted to keep. Then I packed the rest up to give to Paul and to take to the Drexoll Games First Annual Game Auction, which was tons of fun (and free donuts). I sold 54 rare Eldar minis for $7, probably about 75 orcs for $1, and probably about 50-100 assorted D&D miniatures (some painted, some not, some plastic, some pewter, some lead) including 2 dragons and a big ass minotaur for $10. And with the $17 I made from the battlemat (thanks Geisel) I already made back $34 of the $50 I spent the night before. The assorted magazines, books, crazy D&D collectible cards, and rest of the stuff in a two foot stack that nobody bid on I gave to a 10 year old keener who was the only person that was interested in them. His dad wouldn’t let me sell it to him for 50 cents, so I took a fin. The kid was super-stoked and that made me feel good. Truly, the children are our nerdy future.

October 25, 2006

Assorted Bits

Here’s some hot news I discovered while trying to find something to eat at the Greyhound depot:

McDonald’s jr chicken burger = 390 calories
Mars Bar = 234 calories

So my character in Call of Cthulhu was horribly horribly killed last Sunday. My history of CoC characters going out in cool ways is pretty good. He didn’t just fall off a cliff or get shot in the chest or something. This guy, and Indian manservant, was stabbed and beaten by cultists, and then flung into a pit with a hideous, wailing abomination against nature which proceeded to take hundreds of tiny bites out of him while simultaneously crushing him. All the while protecting his unconscious master (and saving him from the same gruesome fate). My character from a previous campaign also more or less sacrificed himself to save the world, by forcing his compatriot to shoot him in the head. Yay!

Yesterday we (the Thickets) recorded via a more or less proper computerized electronical recording system a bunch of the new songs so that we can review them before we actually go into the studio in December. We also decided that one of the songs will be left entirely a capella – by me. It wasn’t my decision, I was against it, but they talked me into it and since time is a factor it may actually be a boon to the rest of the songs. Hopefully it won’t stick out like a sore thumb. If it sticks out like a massaged and energized thumb then that’s okay.

photo by Amanda Seminoff

October 22, 2006

Went to a Spelling Bee This Morning

Words I got right: demesne, kilojoule, rusticate, flexuous, juvenescence, infusible, subtlety, lackadaisical, keister, judder, colloquy, gherkin, funambulist
Words I got wrong: flibbertygibbet, fricassee, lachrymose, cheechako, kennebecasis (I mean come on).

October 5, 2006

Art at V-Con

So tomorrow is V-Con and I’m trying to figure out what to bring for the art show. I had some grand schemes of getting things framed but my heart just wasn’t in it. Frames! Frames are for suckers. So anyway I’m this very moment going through my files of original art that has been sitting in my file folder stagnating. I really have no idea what to charge for these things. I guess if nothing sells it means either I’m charging too much or it just plain sucks. At the very least people will see my stuff and I’ll have a whack of business cards. Oh yeah, self-promo, I forgot about you! AGAIN!

Here’s a really old one (’99 as you can see) that I dug up out of the files. Feng Shui the RPG is weird, I’m sure you’ll agree!

October 2, 2006

Slightly Dull Weekend Wrap-up

This weekend was full of frisky frolics. I went into Chilliwack on Friday to hang out with Mr Woods and to practice with the band one last time before the show. I’ll put up some photos courtesy Amanda soon enough.

We played some Destroy All Humans for the XBox. It was a lot of fun, destroying tanks in a flying saucer and whatnot. Reminded me a little of the Invader Zim cartoon. And I totally pigged out on the worst kind of junk food, it was liberating (dark chocolate almond bark, peanut M&Ms, Black Pepper Jack Doritos, and licorice allsorts). We hit the Value Village and waited in a long line. We had lunch at the Airport Cafe and the waitress was surly AND screwed up my order. She tried to invoke the “no substitutions” clause on the Daily Special stand-up (I’m sure there’s a name for those plastic things, but I have no idea what to call it) but they forgot to put it on. At least the pie was delicious, as usual.

The rock show at The Vault went well, despite 3/4 of the band being sick with cold (including me). We played six new songs and they went over pretty well I think. I had to use cheat sheets for some of the lyrics. Merrick stuck me at the door taking people’s money, which was a pain, asking for $5 from disinterested old farts and people who didn’t have to pay because “we are friends with the owner” but at least we sold a goodly amount of merchandise. Clearly I should have brought more Big Robot Dinosaur and Sendak Cthulhu pins as they were all the rage.

Regardless, lots of fun in goat legs.

I got home in the wee hours of Sunday morning thanks to Peet and Amanda, listening to Zombina & the Skeletones (“Nobody Likes You When You’re Dead” is a good one) on the trip.

On Sunday it was a bit of Call of Cthulhu with Caleb & the Gang and then hanging out with Joyce getting a good workout trying to explain how roleplaying games work. Also watched the comedic wuxia film White Dragon which was weird but pretty fun.