Category: Nerdiness

V-Con, where I can put my artwork up on display for all to see and buy, and the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival in Portland, are the same weekend.

Can’t decide! Can’t decide! Brain aneurysm!

“The last full planet to be discovered – in 1930 by US astronomer Clyde Tombaugh – was Pluto. But recently some astronomers have campaigned to have Pluto downgraded to ‘minor planet’ status. It is so small – its diameter is a mere 2,200 kilometres – that it is unworthy of the status of full planet, it was argued. This bid was finally rejected after heated scientific debate.

But now the discovery of Xena, which is only slightly bigger than Pluto, will re-ignite that row. Both Pluto and Xena are components of the Kuiper Belt, which is made up of thousands of small asteroid-like objects, many mere lumps of rock, that sweep the outermost depths of the solar system. As members of the Kuiper Belt, neither Pluto nor Xena should be rated full-fledged planets, it is argued.

The trouble for astronomers is that they do not have an exact definition of a planet. Many say that, if Pluto had been discovered today, it would not have been called a proper planet. “

On Friday I went with Marlo and Stewie to Kidsbooks in Kits for the midnight sale of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. The secret of the half blood prince is that the other half is rum raisin ice cream, not blood. Anyway there were tons of kids there and hippies banging drums and twits on stilts, but also free Happy Planet juice and stick-on tattoos. It was interesting. After that we went to the Naam and I had my first truly satisfying meal there in a while.

On Saturday I went to Kate’s birthday party (which I actually didn’t know was a birthday party – I thought it was just a summer BBQ) and was entertained by stories from various people I had never seen before and old friends who I haven’t seen for a while. Marlo and I learned that there is a karaoke place near her house, and that the horse track is a fun date idea, which I always imagined but never thought I’d find anyone to go with me. Too bad my schedule is all drawing this week or I could see those rapscallions (Ranger, Demers, et al) a couple more times this week.

Speaking (or, writing) of schedules, I didn’t go into work again this week. This is the third week in a row, and I’m worried that one day I’ll go back in and they’ll say “hey, you don’t work here” and then I’ll have to go find a better job.

I have been buying pineapples left and right, which is good, because fresh pineapples make me very happy, but they ferment quickly in my garbage in my hot hot apartment. I’m eating pineapples like goddamn corn on the cob, and it’s awesome.

Marlo and I went to some garage sales on Sunday morning and at the first three I didn’t find anything, but Marlo found a $2 copy of Chinatown (the movie). Marlo usually barely tolerates my garage saling expeditions but this time she was particularly impatient. I stopped to pick blackberries and she kept on walking until she was a block ahead of me. I was so mad at her that I bought her presents at this amazing garage sale that I found just moments after we parted. I long to disclose the glory of it all but it will have to wait because I don’t want to spoil the surprise. Remind me later.

In the meantime, I’d like to say how much I enjoy the cartoon Home Movies. It’s on weeknights at 1am (two episodes in a row) on Teletoon. It took me a bit of warming up to the series (I saw the Hallowe’en episode 3 times by chance before I decided it was good) but now I love it. It’s true that I only really guffaw a few times during the show. It’s not like the old 5th season Simpsons or anything, but then – what is? There really isn’t anything else entertaining on TV these days. My schedule at drawing is this:

noon: People’s Court
1pm: Star Trek original
2pm: People’s Court or ST:TNG
3pm: ST Voyager
4pm: Judge Judy

People’s Court is by far the best reality show on TV. Judge Millian is a fantastic judge. Judge Judy is my second favourite but even for a judge, she’s really judgmental. I mean I appreciate she’s been doing it for something like 50 years but a lot of the time she doesn’t give everyone their fair chance to speak and give their evidence. I can’t watch Judge Joe Brown or Divorce Court – those two are so trashy. They just let the parties bark at each other and it’s like watching Jerry Springer. Quack.

I got distracted from my Home Movies spiel: it’s good. Stewie says I need to watch Dr Katz, from the same creative team. Does anyone remember Science Court? Same deal. It was on Saturday mornings for a very short time and there were only a handful of episodes, but it was fun-tastic.

A very exciting session of D&D tonight! After finally resurrecting an NPC (non-player character) whose stinky corpse they’d been carrying around for four days, the group fought in a battle with a lich who killed two player characters (Michelle’s anthropomorphic bear barbarian and Geisel’s four-armed batrachian monk)! Marlo thought that it might be a TPK (total party kill) but they managed to defeat the bad guy. They resurrected Michelle’s character and went into the next room, which is the climax for this chapter (7) and now one of the other NPC “allies” is turning on them. What will happen next Thursday? Who will sacrifice an ally, take the Crown of Secrets and rule this layer of the abyss? Tune in to this station.

Last night I watched the 50’s version of War of the Worlds. It too has it’s down points – it has very “50’s” moments with the alien hand touching the woman’s shoulder and the woman turning around and screaming – but it is still a far better movie than the Cruisemobile in every respect except CGI.

Also, I picked up the 1960 Edward Gorey illustrated version of the H.G. Wells classic at work for less than $14, and I am happy about it! You can check out what I’m talking about at http://www.nybooks.com/shop/product?usca_p=t&product_id=4556 – there’s pictures and everything. I am going to read it.

I just saw War of the Worlds and I’ll say this: It makes a great trailer.

If you go see it, do it for the right reasons: giant space machines blowing shit up and disintegrating people. Have no illusions about the characters or even the story. I’ve seen the original movie, and read parts of the book. I still want to see the book adapted right: in the century it was set. Not the 50’s, not the 21st century. Now that would be cool. This one is lazy story-telling.

Jack and the Three Blind Archers
Jack and the Scotsman Part 2
Jack and the Ultra Robots
Samurai Versus Ninja
Robo-Samurai vs Mondo Bot

Special mentions:
Jack and the Scotsman
Jack vs Mad Jack
Jack and the Monks and the Ancient Master (especially for Marlo)
Jack and the Zombies (especially for Stewie)
Jack and the Three Gems
The Princess and the Bounty Hunters

Friday I went to the Drexoll Canada Day Game-a-thon and played Carcassonne and LOSER! and Clans with Sheri, Stephane, David Bradley and Ursula. I almost won Carcassonne even though I wasn’t trying. LOSER! was pretty fun and I’d play it again, along with Clans. They were both relatively short games. I’ve been thinking about dragging Conquest Beyond out again, but only thinking.

Other than that, yesterday was spent drawing, watching Samurai Jack & Loonie Tunes & Dr Who (“old school”) and playing Knights of the Old Republic. The part on board the sith ship the Invigilator with Admiral Snackbar was my favourite part of the game so far.

Today I had an excellent bike ride home and I stopped by about 5 garage sales. I picked up a walkman for three bucks (it’s exactly like Marlo’s) so now I can give Stewie back the one he lent me before I break it. Huzzah! Next on my list – ear bud headphones.

Last night I played games at Sheri & Stephane’s with them and with Ursula, Dimitri, and Rebecca. We played Apples to Apples and that wasn’t bad. Then we played Settlers of Catan and I wasn’t really that into it, but it was still fun to hang out and yell things. I brought a fresh pineapple and it was so good I bought two more today.

Tomorrow, by the way, Drexoll is having a free game-a-thon from 11am-11pm and I’m going to be there around 4:30-6:30 if anyone wants to game!

On Sunday I’m going to see War of the Worlds (for free – I don’t want to support Tom Cruise’s bad habits) so I’ll let you know how I like it, or don’t, as the case may be.