RavenBlog - Archive December 2001 - DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL

Archive December 2001

Sunday 30 December 2001

Near our new house is a childcare centre, by the name of "Redeemers". I can't think of anything that would sound more like a scary cult. Even "The Cult Childcare Centre" would sound more innocent - perhaps suggesting that they encourage appreciation of TV shows such as The Prisoner or Red Dwarf. Redeemers is either a cult or a superhero trio. [16:45] [10 comments]

I recommend cleaning the inside top of your microwave. If it's anything like ours, it'll be a humbling experience. To be almost defeated by scum - scum which closely resembles shit, once removed from its wide spread and compressed into a scoury-thing, with one major difference - it's sticky as all hell. Really really nasty. Really. Nasty. [16:42] [5 comments]

The moving house has now approximately reached the critical point - internet connectivity is attempting to move today, which means I may or may not be around for the next few days (internal line quality at the new place is currently not up to DSL standard - a bit of rewiring may or may not fix that. Failing that, we may or may not be able to run with dial-up in the interim. Failing that, temporary silence shall ensue. Bad for the blog, but good, I suppose, for G-Men (the novel and the people)). When I return, I fully expect to be one hundred percent insane. Hooray! [15:37] [0 comments]

It's a reprise of my old friend the Entertaining To Misunderstand Road Signs. I'm not sure whether I mentioned my particular favourite "Speed Limit Enforced By Aircraft", but today's amusement stems from another feature of roadsigns - their lack of punctuation. This leaves a lot of scope for misunderstanding by inserting punctuation where you see fit, the particular examples that I spotted recently being "Emergency! Pull Off 1400 Feet." and "Notice No Right Shoulder". Endless hours of fun for easily amused passengers. [00:32] [7 comments]

Saturday 29 December 2001

I threw the proofed version of my November novel vaguely publisherwards, the other day. In a few weeks, apparently, I will hear back with yay or nay. Personally, I am expectant of a 'nay'. Partially for that reason, I am inclined to play another International Novel Writing Month in January - there are, I think, an Australian and a Canadian showing interest in writing at that time. This time I aim to write publisher-flavoured material, rather than literati-flavoured. This one's plot is designed to be easy - easy to write, easy to pad, easy to read, easy to understand. In light of yesterday's blog entry, the working title may be "G-Men". If anyone else fancies a nice easy 31-day 50000-word novel writing month, let me know. [13:13] [0 comments]

Friday 28 December 2001

Oh goody. This bodes well for the contents of my blog a couple of months ago, then. Stormtroopers invading art galleries that have 'un-American' exhibits. In the same story, booksellers have to give up information such as what books customers have bought, so no doubt you'll soon get into trouble for reading such materials as Catch 22. You should probably stop reading my blog this very instant, actually, and clear your browser cache, or the G-Men will come round and eat your face off. And heaven forbid you want something without a flag on it. Of course, I find it a pleasure and a joy to find that my fresh fruit wholeheartedly and ripely supports an aggressive bombing strategy. [20:21] [0 comments]

Thursday 27 December 2001

It annoys me that a random person can win $10M. The only thing you can do with $10M is be frivolous. I mean, if I suddenly had $5M, I could buy a ridiculously nice house ($1M), a ridiculously powerful small network of computers ($20K), and have essentially $4M left with which to either be frivolous, or to get $80K per year in interest. And that's if I were to put it all in an instant-access sort of account. I expect that could easily be more like $300K, which would cover food, bills, and taxes forevermore. Even $1M would easily make me sorted and happy for several years. Giving away $10M, feh. Unless it's to me. [13:19] [6 comments]

Wednesday 26 December 2001

It's ad-grumbling time again. Pepto Bismol; "It would take a whole boxful of other medicines to deal with these symptoms". So, er, when you have only indigestion, you're taking medicine for three other problems that you don't have, too? That can't be good for you. [21:06] [4 comments]

Fine impractical practical joke idea for the day; go along the entire length of your nearest major road, replacing all the signs with versions of the same sign in German. "Achtung! Höchstgeschwindigkeit erzwungen durch Luftwaffe." [09:50] [3 comments]

Tuesday 25 December 2001

And here's what I really wanted for Christmas, but didn't get - The Hat Of The Future. [19:05] [2 comments]

Merry screaming angry families day, and to all a bah humbug. No screaming families for me, because I didn't see any family other than my wife, hoorah. Best Christmas ever. [18:51] [3 comments]

Monday 24 December 2001

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If anyone needs an expensive jewelry gift for posh relatives or themselves, or silly paganish statuettes of some sort as a gift for the wacky pagans in your life, why not purchase the junk I'm selling on ebay? You know you want to. It's such wonderful stuff. *cough* [12:53] [0 comments]

Due to moving house, and being annoyed with the lady carting eight boxes of stuff with us which have resided in a closet for a full year, without even being opened, she agreed to go through the second half of the boxes and throw out anything that didn't need to come with us. Many pictures and things emerged; I suggested we scan them, put them all on a single CD, and thus reduce the load by approximately one full box. Hence I've spent the last couple of hours scanning some hilarious high-school pictures, including some lovely prom-night ones. My scanner software has a feature wherein it automatically takes a guess at where you're likely to want to crop things; supposed to be able to pick out separate photos. It does one step better. For example, there are pictures with big hair; the scanner wisely decides that I would want to crop the picture at the top of the face. Who would want to record hair like that, after all? Well, I would, because I can make fun of it. And I do. Also entertaining was a small album of family pictures, which I went through pointing at family members and judging them; evil, gay, boring, etc. And I was right on every count, amusingly. Apparently being totally transparent is a genetic trait. [00:24] [4 comments]

Sunday 23 December 2001

I want a human-body 3D model that I can load into 3D Studio. Ideally one that has a high polygon count, and a skeleton. Ideally, even, several; endomorphic, ectomorphic, male, female, etc. Failing that, something less than ideal will do. A low-polygon single-piece thing would do, so long as I could add a skeleton to it myself. What I can't do is make a human form from scratch. Does anyone know of such a thing? Tell me.

On a related note, here's a rather fantastic idea - so good that I doubt it will ever come to anything. Good ideas never seem to. Tailoring based on a 3D scan of your body. [01:56] [3 comments]

Saturday 22 December 2001

Suddenly I understand why "The Anti-drug" ads, and the TV anti-smoking campaigns, talk such utter bollocks. For the anti-smoking ones, it's explained by the fact that Phillip Morris are the people responsible for the ads. They are forced to make anti-smoking ads. What better way to increase sales of your product than by instructing parents to repeatedly tell their kids not to? What better way is there to ensure that teenagers will do something? Perhaps demanding it at gunpoint, or somehow causing peer pressure, but easier by far to fool stupid parents.

As for the anti-drug... It's surely conspiracy theory time! Bla bla, the drug trade supports the government, bla bla, thus making really awful anti-drug ads to encourage drug-taking will favour the government who are, of course, the people responsible for making those ads. Marvellous. Alternatively, if you'd rather avoid insane conspiracies, perhaps the governmental folk modelled their ads on the anti-smoking campaigns that are around at the time. After all, if a big commercial company advertises that way, it must be a good way, right? [22:59] [0 comments]

Friday 21 December 2001

Hoorah, a humorous auto-social-engineering virus; the Christmas-themed Maldal.C virus. Merry Christmas, your computer is fux0red! [02:10] [0 comments]

A briefly entertaining Tetris-like Flash game; requires a recent Shockwave player. Christmas Lights. [01:56] [0 comments]

A game that I suspect might interest some of my readers more than it does me; Mystick, being a bit like Magic: The Moneytaking, but without the 'collectible' facet, thus removing my main objection to the genre. [01:52] [0 comments]

Wednesday 19 December 2001

What Video Game Character Are You? I am Kung Fu Master.

I am Kung Fu Master.

I like to be in control of myself. I dislike crowds, especially crowds containing people trying to kill me. Even though I always win, I prefer to avoid fights if possible. What Video Game Character Are You? [22:36] [8 comments]

A somewhat amusing insanity test, via Skye. [20:39] [2 comments]

Another Exquisite Corpse for the collection; The Lonely Gardener Towers Over The Landscape Of Burning Paper. Lovely. [18:28] [0 comments]

Just saw Lord of the Rings. It wasn't the disappointment I was expecting; rather it was pretty good. A fantastic job has been done with making even the annoying characters from the book (such as Sam) not annoying. I suspect it's a facet of the casting, more than anything. The voices and accents capture certain essences; make bumbling a virtue, and arrogance a right.

Many things are true to the book - too many things. The length, extended through drawn out scenes that seemingly served no purpose other than to allow pieces of music to finish, and lengthy near-static shots of expressions in case the audience are too slow to read a face. The stupidity of every bad-guy; five times, the baddies needed only to not stop and they would have won; true to the book, but more obviously stupid in movie form - scenes could have done with a little editing for sense.

I had heard that it was supposed to have little in the way of extraneous special effects; it's not so. People who were looking forward to a few-special-effects thing will be disappointed. For me, it was good. I like extraneous special effects. Bits of mist, things exploding, and blurry wavy things are good, even if they are obviously merely the Photoshop smudge tool applied randomly to every frame using two layers.

Hm, many of the minor characters weren't very good - Legolas, Galadriel and Arwen were the only elves that looked and acted elven. Elrond aged between flashback and present, thus ruining the immortality deal. The dwarf was a little too stereotyped. The uruk-hai looked like a live-roleplaying monster; a human with paint and some crummy fangs. In that instance they held true to the limited special effects idea, I suppose.

Collapsing bridges, as seen in the trailer, look like somewhat clumsy CGI. Of course, I dwell on the bad things - I always dwell on the bad things. The scenery was nice, the acting was good, the story was... well, if you like the book, you'll like the story. Unfortunately, it's not possible to skim-read the tedious bits with the movie, and the director didn't do it for you.

Probably worth seeing on a big screen anyway - an unusual acclamation from me. [04:25] [9 comments]

Tuesday 18 December 2001

Some people point at Amazon wish-lists, or request specific gifts; here is an equivalent that I didn't even have to write. Superb. [13:43] [1 comment]

Monday 17 December 2001

Grarh, apartment complex sending a misleading letter:

If you are interested in extending your lease, please have all leaseholders sign, date, and return this Renewal Lease Addendum before December 29, 2001. If we do not receive your renewal lease by that date, a month to month tenancy will automatically be created, when your lease expires and all conditions of this addendum will be in effect, including the month to month rate of $1199.

What we didn't realise until it was too late was that this two-days-before-lease-expiry date of December 29 2001 only applies if we do want to renew, which we don't. So now we're stuck paying half a month's ridiculously extortionate rent after we've already moved out. On the other hand, maybe we can rent it out for loud obnoxious parties during those fifteen days. We can consider it the revenge period. Heavy-bass music non-stop for 15 days. Maybe leave some leaf-blowers on in the apartment.

To make the misleading letter even more annoying, I went to talk to the apartment complex accountant person, who was a Rowena - even my own attempt at acting like an angry Rowena succumbed to her genuine version. Eight stupid useless repetitions is enough for me. [19:10] [0 comments]

Saturday 15 December 2001

An interesting-looking completely insane game; Rithmomachia. Would like to play. Doubt opponents. (via Tyrethali) [21:50] [0 comments]

More amusing thing - last night's "The Invisible Man" included three of the main characters getting food poisoning from a fast food place, and all three rushing off to violently vomit immediately before a break. At the beginning of the break, it announced "This episode brought to you by KFC." Quality advertising. [16:00] [0 comments]

Vaguely amusing thing - all the overpass bridges around here have flags on their sides, or USA written in little clip-on disks or something, except one had what I assume was a rearranged USA, "ASS". Probably not funny unless you've been seeing "God Bless America" every two minutes. [15:55] [1 comment]

Another new Exquisite Corpse - this one is particularly exquisite. You Wake Up, Open The Door And Escape To The Sea. [00:57] [2 comments]

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Friday 14 December 2001

I went to a silly gathering thing. It was a "come as you aren't" dinner. My original intent was to go as a crazy lunatic pagan, so as to have much opportunity for mocking the real characters of others present. My second intent was not to go because I realised I would get thoroughly sick of that character, and of the other people, and I wouldn't be able to leave due to being driven by the lady. She insisted I go. My next idea was to go as someone happy to go, because that would be "as I aren't". But then I realised that for that, I would have to smile, which would be far too difficult to keep up. Finally, I opted for a person who speaks only lies - that way I could say "Happy to be here!" to make it quite clear that I wasn't. But it still sucked. [23:00] [6 comments]

Hoorah, splendid nasty dreaming, in which, in the middle of lots of people piling into a car, all my teeth fell out. Except six, which were at least in two opposed sets of three, so I could still bite. But the crunching sound of a tooth randomly deciding to come out, followed by much the same crunching sound twenty-something more times was a thoroughly lovely experience. If only it would happen in reality too. Mmm, handful of teeth. Helps the medicine go down. [09:43] [4 comments]

Thursday 13 December 2001

The Crab of Ineffable Wisdom has produced some excellent things. All Flash, of course. [12:07] [2 comments]

Just say no to gingerbread drugs. [02:39] [1 comment]

Wednesday 12 December 2001

Mm, I made Gingerbread Corpses. This is what happens when you improvise both recipe and cutter. They're a little bland for my taste, but apparently just how the lady likes them. So that's lucky. [23:23] [4 comments]

[23:20] [2 comments]

More banana-labelling madness; this time a label on a banana suggested I should "Eat 5 a day!" Does crude advertising like that actually work? If my novel should be published, should I put a label on it; "Buy one every day"? Perhaps "Buy one for each of your friends"? It seems to work for ICQ spamming. Can't hurt to try it, I suppose. [16:31] [2 comments]

Tuesday 11 December 2001

A terrible comedy idea that came to me while I was playing a game. Popular songs rephrased and sung in the idiosyncratic styles of recognisable characters. The example I thought of that made the idea sound entertaining was to reconstruct the song "War" out of quotes from Giles from Buffy. "War? Hm. My goodness, everyone! What is its purpose? Nothing, as far as I can see." Timed to match up with the original music, of course. Perhaps played on a kazoo. Speaking of which, the kazoo-and-Hawking version of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" from that site I mentioned yesterday is fantastic, in a grotesque sort of way. [23:06] [0 comments]

I just got my favourite spam again:
If you are a time traveler or alien disguised as human and or have the technology to travel physically through time I need your help!
My life has been severely tampered with and cursed!!
I have suffered tremendously and am now dying!
I need to be able to:
Travel back in time.
Rewind my life including my age.
Be able to remember what I know now so that I can prevent my life from being tampered with again after I go back.
I am in very great danger and need this immediately!
I am aware that there are many types of time travel and that humans do not do well through certain types.
I need as close to temporal reversion as possible, as safely as possible.
To be able to rewind the hands of time in such a way that the universe of now will cease to exist.
I know that there are some very powerful people out there with alien or government equipment capable of doing just that.
If you can help me I will pay for your teleport or trip down here, Along with hotel stay, food and all expenses. I will pay top dollar for the equipment. Proof must be provided.
Only if you have this technology and can help me please send me a (SEPARATE) email to:
(email address removed by RavenBlack so as to not support the spam)

Actually, I've been getting quite a bit of spam in this "your feedback form" format - not *my* feedback form, of course. The website(s) whose feedback form it actually is really need to secure it a bit. (This substitute for an open relay is very easy to find, and just as easy to exploit, sadly.) [22:46] [2 comments]

[01:22] [1 comment]

Also via Meander comes the Utterly Surreal Test.
I am Benoit Mandelbrot Holding a Chicken.
I redefine tables of pepper with my jocular slices of casino. Elevated plastic toes infuse my intestinal dichotomies with limp inkwells. My forgotten compass is enscribed by master carrots.
Which prawn requires dough? [01:21] [2 comments]

Meander, again, is the source of all Flash merriment. This time it's the abridged 2001. [00:48] [0 comments]

Monday 10 December 2001

Today's lesson of novel-writing - accost someone from a mailing list, whose writing style you admire, and sneakily mention that you have just finished writing a novel, in some context that will intrigue them. Once they have taken the bait, let them read it on the condition that it is a proof-reading. They will turn out to be the finest proof-reader you could possibly have hoped for, worthy of heaping praise and compliments upon, and writing a praise-singing blog entry about. Praise them until they can take no more, then praise them some more anyway. Identity of my favourite proof-reader has been concealed to protect the innocent. [17:33] [0 comments]

Guns lesson one: changing any seemingly innocuous thing will change the behaviour of every other aspect of the gun. For example, removing the magazine, which I had expected to do nothing more than prevent any ammo being loaded. Instead, it had the additional effects of:

Preventing the slide from locking back, which thus surprised me with its springing back, caught my finger, wouldn't let go, required two hands to release when I only had one hand free, and was thus lots of fun.
Preventing the trigger from affecting the hammer, which is probably good in that it would prevent one from firing a cartridge that's been forgotten in the chamber, but still, confusing when you're merely examining the mechanisms.
Preventing any motion of the hammer at all. Similar to the trigger thing, really, but less weird.

My favourite unexpected behaviour, however, was that dismantling the gun cannot be performed with the safety on. Which seems terribly terribly wrong. I really don't want to fire the gun while it's in pieces, actually. [13:24] [1 comment]

Sunday 9 December 2001

So, Spy Game was seen, and thus the track record of The Brunching Shuttlecocks' Self Made Critic is ruined. It wasn't bad, but it really wasn't anything special. Robert Wossname's character was good. The rest of the movie really wasn't. It lacked even the realism or continuity that might have made it a good movie that I wouldn't like, rather than the mediocre movie that I didn't like that it was. Not that I can remember the three major glitches I spotted. Ending sucked too. But at least it was seen in good company, which redeemed it. Unfortunately, the retard behind us who kept clapping at every scene re-ruined it. Ah well. [20:52] [0 comments]

Saturday 8 December 2001

See? A gun. Bang, it goes, and then people stop breathing, hooray!

[18:52] [0 comments]

Speaking of corpses, we now have a gun. All we need now is 17 children named Cletus, and a big apple pie, and we'll be a true American family. Y'all. [18:40] [5 comments]

A new Exquisite Corpse has been produced, and placed in The New Morgue. This one is entitled Welcome To Our Home of Electric Lake and Its Plumbing. [18:35] [0 comments]

[18:32] [0 comments]

Friday 7 December 2001

Hm, a bit of a dream. Yes, boring blog material I know, getting to be E/N, but perhaps E/N is better than just N. And it's at least a speculative part of a dream, rather than here is me gibbering my entire dream that doesn't even make any sense. Instead I gibber about how I'm not gibbering, thus filling up space, as though I still had a word count to fulfil. I can't get out of the padding habit, now that I've started. Oh the horror, the humanity.
As I was saying, the dream part. Someone was running away up a hill, and I was tired, too tired to chase. So I adopted a strange alternative chasing method, which was to lie down on my side, making sure my leather coat was between me and the ground, and then push along with my feet, as though I were on a whole-body-skateboard of some kind. This would be of less interest to me if I didn't recognise it from previous dreams. Why do I travel this way? It's similar, in a way, to childlike dreams of flight, in that normal physics doesn't seem to apply. [23:09] [6 comments]

I am amused by the box of some mints. "Richardson After Dinner brand Pastel Mints". The word 'brand' is in a very small font, comparatively. As though it's something they have to include, for reasons of legality. But why? Were people suing? "I ate one of those mints, and it wasn't after dinner! I was relying on that mint making it be after dinner, damn you!" [13:34] [1 comment]

Thursday 6 December 2001

Why is it that immediately before going food-shopping, when the fridge and freezer are completely empty and the cupboards aren't much better, it's easy to find stuff to eat, yet when you have both fridge and freezer stuffed full with food, it's not? Partially, it's a matter of selection - very easy to choose a food when you can only find one - but what makes everything unappealing when there are other options? Do we buy only food that isn't good? I don't think so. I like all the food we buy. Then why don't I want to eat any of it now, when I'm hungry? Grarh. [12:02] [5 comments]

Wednesday 5 December 2001

Do you ever become irate while saving images as jpegs, not knowing what quality to choose, and having to faff around a lot to discern which is best? No? Well I did, which is why I just wrote 'Peg It - a bmp-to-jpeg converter with a proper preview of what the output will look like when decompressed again. It can also do interface-less conversion, or jpeg-ise an image from the clipboard, or accept dropped bmp files. I shall be using it regularly, so expect to see terrible grainy images due to my eyes not picking up on such things. [22:21] [1 comment]

If I were a work of art, I would be M.C. Escher's Lizards.
I am a bizarre juxtaposition of the real and the unreal. Based in the realm of mathematics, my two dimensional appearance belies a complex and free-willed behaviour which both delights and confuses people.
At least according to The Art Test. [11:31] [4 comments]

Tuesday 4 December 2001

What do I replace the novel-pacer with now? Perhaps a PeGaProMo pacer? Maybe a PeAnMaMo pacer? Perhaps others would like to join me in animation making month, once I have my equipment? I'll probably declare it for March or so. [02:30] [0 comments]

According to The Harry Potter Personality Test, I am, in order, most similar to Professor Alastor Moody, Professor Severus Snape, Professor Minerva McGonagall, Lord Voldemort, Sirius Black, Draco Malfoy, Hermione Granger, and then all the characters I didn't like. I am the best. [02:14] [2 comments]

Fly or roll? I'll walk, thanks. It's cheaper, and I won't become Baron Harkonnen shaped. [02:09] [1 comment]

Monday 3 December 2001

Tales of the Hair. Today I experimented with the fearful substances of "professional hair dye". Which is essentially the same as what you get in a kit, but not measured out for you. As a special bonus for buying professional hair dye, you get the right to sue if it goes wrong, and the right to feel heroic if it doesn't. I am a Professional. As it turns out, the dye (Framesi Framcolor 2001 Coloring Cream: Blue-black) wasn't as good as I had hoped. Not bad, mind - it's as good as the stuff I usually use and, per use, cheaper. The colour hasn't really come out blue-black though. It's mostly pure-black, and with something of a green undertone. Of course, this is possibly my fault, using a 20-vol developer rather than a lower one - 20-vol being supposed to be for same-darkness-level, and green, I suppose, being what one might end up with after using undarkened blue. Bear in mind the green isn't obvious at all - I doubt it would show up in a picture, or I'd show it. So, that's your lesson in professional hair dyes for the day. This is not to be construed as dye-usage advice - sue your seller, not me. Nor is that last sentence to be construed as legal advice - sue your lawyer, not me. And so on. [20:47] [13 comments]

Agh! The irony! It burns! Is Your Son A Computer Hacker? Came to me in a dream, or via zx64, whichever is the greater. [17:05] [1 comment]

I now arbitrarily blame Word 95 for the spread of strange spelling on the internet. "Alright" is not a word, you must replace it with "all right". At least according to Word and people in chat things. It irks me. Many things irk me. I am eminently irkable. [04:18] [1 comment]

Speaking of corpses, I went to see the Harry Potter movie, whatever its title is, in tremendous violation of my usual movie-watching requirements. And a reasonably good thing too, because it was a passable movie. Part of the reason I went to see it was the opinion of the as yet unflawed Self Made Critic review, which means SMC retains its high reliability rating. At least until some time next week when I see Spy Game. I really don't have anything bad to say about Potter, except what SMC already said. Even the child actors don't suck, mostly. And as I always say, if you don't have anything mean and nasty to say, don't say anything at all. Except that sentence, and the rest of this blog entry. And other things. [02:17] [0 comments]

What's this? Another new Corpse? It is, and a bloody nice one too. [02:00] [1 comment]

[01:59] [1 comment]

Sunday 2 December 2001

Another of those tests, alas. But I don't use their code! I don't use their picture! I simply tell you that I am Wormtongue according to the Lord of the Rings character test, which is indeed the most pleasing option given that there was no Sauron or Ring-wraiths available. Not use the ring to be a super monster beasty? Are you mad? [19:41] [0 comments]

A chap a while back randomly sent me some pictures of some nice raven art. There were more, but these were my favourites. [03:04] [0 comments]

Saturday 1 December 2001

I immediately proceed to prove myself wrong by being Imelda Marcos. [18:04] [2 comments]

I always get the best possible result on these tests. I am Francisco Scaramanga. [18:00] [0 comments]

Via my mother, oddly, comes the rather nicely done happypencil.com. Sadly not (yet) worth visiting without a broadband connection. [13:34] [1 comment]

A question for my readers - be honest - who thought (some time in the last four days), that I was not going to complete the novel? (I won't be offended - I would have thought so myself, if I weren't the one in control. Indeed, that was a part of the motivation, my old favourite, proving people wrong.) [11:58] [3 comments]