Toren Atkinson

There’s a tiny piece of toilet paper, about an inch square, that’s been stuck to the underside of our toilet lid for about a week now. The only time I notice it is when I’m standing there with my…well you can imagine. Every time I see it I think to myself “hey, look at that, it’s still there” – so much so that it has become like an old friend, familiar…reassuring. And sure, if I wanted to, I could pick it off and flush it, but then I would be robbing myself of one of life’s greatest pleasures…wondering if Stewie also notices Old Scrappy, as I’ve come to call it, and if he shares the same fond endearments for our tenacious little mascot.

Also, my hands aren’t free.

But where did Scrappy come from? I mean, whose is he? He’s like a poor orphaned son of a husband’s mistress – an illegitimate urchin left unwanted and unloved; literally clinging to the only world he knows. I don’t know who’s responsible for him, and quite frankly I don’t want to. The fact that Scrappy has lingered for so long in porcelain limbo, unacknowledged, remains an unspoken testament that neither of us are ready to claim responsibility. We pass in the hall, avoiding eye contact and muttering hollow pleasantries. And who can blame us? It’s a big responsibility. The ramifications are terrifying. No, best to promise no false illusions. Life is cold and dark, and Scrappy must learn the hard way that out there there will be no coddling…no hands held. We must have faith that one fateful day, Scrappy will blossom into adulthood and go out into the world under his own power.

These have been my thoughts over the past few days. They have brought me no small amount of mirth and jubilance, as I stand under the hard bathroom light joined only by the occasional stifled murmuring through the vent and my own reflection in the mirror, several times a day. And I’m sure I don’t have to tell my gentlemen readers how important it is to keep your laughter somewhat restrained while you’re wringing your sock out.

I wonder if there is something in the mail for me today? Soon I will know. I am hopeful. Hopeful that it is something good. Yesterday I got paid for the art I did for Monte Cook’s Chaositech, which I think will be a very interesting book, and I also got the copy of Dark Crystal I won on ebay last week. Right now I’m working on a full page drawing of adventurers in a boat being attacked by “lake people.” I took photos of James and Norm for this drawing (mostly James in different poses as different characters), and I cobbled together the basic composition in photoshop. It’s funny to see the mockup with a bunch of Jameses fighting eachother. Well hell maybe I’ll post a jpeg.

I toddled down to the bank yesterday because the US dollar was up more than it’s been in a long time, so I transferred money from my US to my Canadian account. I got the sexy, older Russian/Slavic woman. She told me I needed to change my RSP, and who am I to argue, so I spent a few minutes in another nice lady’s office trying to wrap my mind around boring human finances. Hot damn what an invigorating entry this has turned out to be!

Your newsy bits for the week:

President Bush traveled to Britain, along with 650 companions, including 5 personal chefs, but was unable to move freely in the country because of massive protests. The Pentagon was planning to launch a 24-hour satellite television channel based in Baghdad to make it easier to circumvent the news media “filter” that US officials believe is misleading the public by emphasizing bad news about the occupation of Iraq. Richard Perle, a Pentagon adviser and one of the architects of the conquest of Iraq, admitted to an audience in London that the invasion was illegal: “I think in this case international law stood in the way of doing the right thing.” The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that homosexuals have the right to get married. Michael Jackson was arrested and booked for being a child molester; he then made bail and went to Las Vegas. The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace released a study concluding that Nafta has failed to create jobs for Mexico and has hurt thousands of rural Mexican farmers. The report also said that the net effect on U.S. jobs had been “minuscule.” Conrad Black, the right-wing Canadian press mogul and British lord, was caught receiving large “unauthorized payments” from his company and announced that he was resigning as CEO and that he will sell his company, Hollinger International, which owns the Chicago Sun-Times, the Daily Telegraph, the Jerusalem Post, and other media properties. Krist Novoselic, the former bassist for Nirvana, was thinking about running for lieutenant governor of Washington. A German cannibal named Armin Meiwes said he was sorry for killing and eating another man, who supposedly agreed to be eaten and shared a meal of his own penis with his killer. Prosecutors have charged Meiwes with “murder for sexual satisfaction,” because cannibalism in not a crime in Germany. Israeli researchers successfully used DNA to create a functional self-assembling electronic nano-device.

Wanted: D&D Nerd.

We (Slater, Jon, Kathryn, Norm and myself) are playing the first adventure in the Legacy of the Green Regent D&D scenario this Saturday, but we need a rogue to join the party. Anyone interested?

Last night I played Conquest Beyond with 7 people at Lisa’s birthday get-together. It went along pretty well, and everybody had a lot of fun, so that was encouraging. I also got some valuable feedback so the game will be that much closer to perfection. I can’t wait to try it out with a few new rules.

I just thought of another good band name: As Per Normal

Yest-o-day I helped Shawn, Mariko & Loki move from Main street to Burnaby. That was all well and good, but afterwards my left leg and right arm hurt a bit. Unfortunately I couldn’t stay for a free Chinese food dinner, as I had to go home to prepare for visitors. Marlo, Eng, Rob, Chirs, Lin, Adrian, Anghold and of course Mr. Chris and I watched the extended edition of Two Towers and ate many different flavours of potato chips, pop, cookies, bridge mix, crackers & cheese, and oranges. Fun for the whole family.

I am designing a new campaign for Marlo, Anghold, Michelle & friends. Hopefully things will work out to everyone’s satisfaction, as I know Michelle & co are still under a campaign run by Kathryn, who is a busy beaver (and often an out-of-town beaver). I have some grand schemes, and this campaign will take some of my best ideas from the past 10 years of running D&D. Running a campaign is really difficult these days, because it’s hard to get a regular group together on a weekly basis. This is why for our current group, I mainly run short adventures that last 1-4 sessions so that I don’t have to rely on 1 “set” group of characters to be on hand constantly and consistently.

Ultimately, for this new campaign, however, if I can get 2 or 3 people as the main core players, all the rest can drop in and out as their schedule permits, and we can still have a coherent, long-term storyline play out. That is my goal. Anghold has expressed interest in being a cleric, and Marlo an non-spellcasting elf. This will be my first time diverging from published scenarios in third edition D&D. Hopefully I don’t kill everyone off needlessly.

Such a Party Pauper

Last night I went to a party. Rob, a friend of Stewie (who I will now refer to as Mr. Chris), works at an advertising agency called Rethink. They did the PlayLand ads, you may recall. When Mr. Chris asked me along I was unsure, but in line with my relatively recent philosophy of “getting out more” I acceded. When we arrived there was a strange rigamarole with different colour nametags and “upgrading” from grey to other colours, and “Schmooze ‘n Win” contests and whatnot – none of which I was the least bit interested in. The issue was clouded even more since I couldn’t understand what the host was trying to say through his tremendous accent/speech impediment (I don’t mean to be cruel but I actually couldn’t tell which he had, if not both). After being told once, and asking for clarification twice, I gave up and just followed Mr. Chris’ lead. As it turns out, upgrading to different colour name tags allowed you access to special shooters, and the prize for the schmooze contest – whereby you had to find out a bunch of stuff from people at the party to fill out the form – was a night at the Opus Hotel. Once I knew what the payoffs were for the rigamarole I was suddenly still not interested. It was one of those parties where the music is so loud you can’t hear what the people you’re trying to chat with are saying. They even turned it up halfway through the party when they caught on that too many people were having interesting conversations and actually getting to know one another. But at times I did get to chat with Rob and Edna and Chirs and Linn and some guy who apparently knew me as a coworker from Duthies. The free food was amazing, and, being a starving artist, was really the selling point of the party for me, having been eating ramen and tomato soup for the past week. I wanted to pull a Dan Aykroyd in the Santa Suit from Trading Places, it was so good. I wish I was there right now.

Doubleyoo tee eff

Lately, children have been named after big brands as diverse as beauty company L’Oreal, car firm Chevrolet and designer clothes company Armani. There are even two little boys, one in Michigan and one in Texas, called ESPN after the sports channel. Car models are a popular source of inspiration; 22 girls are registered as having the name Infiniti while 55 boys answer to Chevy and five girls to Celica. …more

Who else is annoyed that the TV listings channel (channel 2) goes up to channel 157? Who has that cable package? I would think that the people who get channel 157 would have their OWN tv listings channel. Is there some kind of system where I can subscribe only to certain channels? Because all I want is Teletoon, YTV, the Knowledge Network, UPN, Fox, Spike (sheesh), TLC, Discovery, Space, and maybe Showcase, Bravo and The Comedy Network. What’s the special deal for only a dozen channels?

I’m going to do everyone a big favour. Possibly one I’ve done before…but if this doesn’t brighten up your day, I don’t know what will: http://www.angelfire.com/nm/altor/sesame/

Ah…Lowercase n. How I wish to cover you, along with Capital I.

Titbits:

The Bush Administration, worried about the political cost of the Iraq war and increasingly plagued by comparisons with Vietnam, decided to speed up its “Iraqification” plan by transferring sovereignty to a provisional native government
by June 30. President Bush said that he believes the Iraqis “have the capacity to run their own country.” Four soldiers just back from Iraq were charged with stabbing another soldier to death, setting his body on fire, and leaving it in the woods. General John Abizaid, the commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, said that it was “beyond my imagination” that Saddam Hussein had planned for a guerrilla war prior to the fall of Baghdad. It was noticed that more U.S. soldiers have died so far in Iraq than in the first three years of the Vietnam War. Thailand said that it will give amnesty to more than one million illegal foreign workers who perform dirty, dangerous jobs that Thais would rather not do. American Roman Catholic bishops embarked on a new campaign against contraception. “The Church teaches us a lot of things we don’t practice,” said Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver. “But it’s the constant of the Roman Catholic Church that contraception is wrong, sinful, and contrary to the meaning of married life.” The Food and Drug Administration approved a new chewable contraceptive for women. Newly declassified files from MI5, the British intelligence agency, revealed that in 1940 German saboteurs had planned to attack Buckingham Palace with exploding cans of French peas. American scientists at the Institute for Biological Energy Alternatives created an artificial bacteria-eating virus in 14 days using synthetic genes. parts of Los Angeles were covered in a foot of hail. Biologists were trying to exterminate nonnative frogs that have invaded the Galapagos Islands.

My week:

Tuesday – catching up on artwork and writing
Wednesday – Playing D&D and catching up on writing
Thursday – catching up on writing and artwork and playing Call of Cthulhu
Friday – unknown at this time. Probably writing and art.
Saturday – help Shawn move!

No swimming this week. I cry.

On ebay I won a copy of Dark Crystal on VHS. Paid about a dollar more than I would like. It’s okay, because I sold a copy of Necronomicon Files on ebay this week too. So I’m ahead by 7 bucks.

One of these days I’ll write up my VHS vs DVD tally. Maybe I’ll start right now.

Myths

DVDs have a better picture quality than VHS. – Not always true. A lot of the time when I am watching Buffy or some other film, you’ll get what I believe is called ‘artefacting’ and it’s kind of annoying.

DVDs Last Forever. They say that with each viewing, VHS tape deteriorates, while DVD will last for generations. This, again, is not necessarily so. I have VHS tapes that I’ve had for years and they still play fine, whereas DVDs can get scratched and often that’s that: one scratch and your movie is hooped.

PRO DVD/CON VHS
1. Some DVDs have audio commentaries & other bonus features you wouldn’t find on a VHS tape.
2. Chapter Links. I put this as a pro, but for some DVDs, it’s actually a con.
3. Zoom functions. This is pretty neat.
4. DVDs take up less space.
5. DVDs are instantly rewound.

PRO VHS/CON DVD
1. If you don’t like what’s on a VHS, you can tape over it.
2. VHS is much cheaper than DVD, especially on ebay.
3. There is no standardization issues with VHS like there are with DVDs. Sometimes DVDs simply won’t work in our DVD players (take for example Terminator 2). The more fancy the functions they program into DVDs, the more likely it will crap out while you’re watching.
4. Some DVDs won’t let you fast forward through the trailers and the FBI warnings.
5. If a VHS breaks, you can fix it yourself. If a DVD stops working, there’s not much you can do.
6. Many DVDs have menus that are confusing, take forever to get to, and are generally annoying.

And on a personal note: I don’t like Easter Eggs. I didn’t pay for a DVD to have to spend my valuable time hunting for all of the features. I would like an easy, simple to use menu, preferably with all the options on 1 menu page.