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August 02, 2005

How BBeck Spent Her Weekend

This looks like something I've linked before, but it seems a little different. It's re-edited, and there are special effects in it, including, yes, a LIGHTNING BOLT! and what looks to be some sort of "curing spell."

And a beholder.

And crunchy heavy-metal music.

It's one thing to do this with your free time, but is really wise to keep videotaped evidence of these scandals?

Thanks to See Dubya.

And, since I'm relinking old stuff on the D&D tip that I think I linked a while ago, here's Patton Oswald in an episode of Reno 9-11 explaining why he shot his friend with an actual crossbow bolt while playing Dungeons & Dragons.

Okay, he says the arrow was "enchanted with a Magic Missile spell," which is a mistake, because Magic Missile just shoots a little blob of energy; you don't cast it on an arrow. I point this out not to say "Hah, hah, you got it wrong," but rather to suggest they knew this but deliberately got it wrong so they could pretend they don't know the game that well.

See, I sometimes do that too.

Thanks to Gregory for that.

One More Great Old One: A Jack Chick parody about Lord Cthulhu-- "Who Will Be Eatan First? (Zip file.)

Great Old One. Cthulhu. Come on, give it up. I'm a geek Oscar Wilde.

Thanks to Evan.

posted by Ace at 05:16 PM

Comments

That's almost as freaky as clown sex. I suppose bbeck is into that as well.

Posted by: compos mentis on August 2, 2005 05:38 PM

Slipping a few real edged weapons into the mix would result in:

An instant increase in the quality of the gene pool
A particularly amusing episode of CSI
Dorkburger
All of the above

Posted by: apotheosis on August 2, 2005 05:53 PM

I'm at a complete loss for words...

Posted by: tony on August 2, 2005 05:59 PM

Ace, you're making me all sweaty.

Work in Nyarlthotep, and I might just have to do you like a Viking.

Cheers,
Dave at Garfield Ridge

Posted by: Dave at Garfield Ridge on August 2, 2005 06:18 PM

I actually had a LARP manual when it was in its infancy, back in my high-school days. It had the odor of a good idea, but it didn't take long to figure out it's just that--a distinctive smell.

It combines the worst parts of SCA--really crappy costumes and weapons--with the worst parts of D&D--keeping track of spells and hitpoints and talking in bad English accents with people you wouldn't share a locker with.

There's little surprise that it never caught on except among the unbreedables.

Posted by: rho on August 2, 2005 06:19 PM

Ace..with all the reposts you might as well add the Beatallica ode ("The Thing That Would Not Let It Be") to Cthulhu as well.

Rock on.

Posted by: Jack M. on August 2, 2005 06:22 PM

Ace? Hello Ace?

You can stop confusing me and the SCA with LARPers ANY...F***ING...TIME...NOW.

We've had this discussion before.

Later,
bbeck

Posted by: bbeck on August 2, 2005 07:35 PM

Awesome.

That pegged the needle on the unintended comedy-ometer.

The best moment of irony was the end, after the fight with the Kool-aid mascot/beholder, while standing under someone's mom's Christmas lights, panning over to some guy the Chess Club used to pants. One of the actors says (in all seriousness):

"COOL!"

Posted by: Ayes of Death David on August 2, 2005 08:52 PM

I love that BBeck is so insistent on the distinction between LARPing and SCAing.

Meet the old dork, same as the new dork.

Posted by: ace on August 2, 2005 09:24 PM

I love that BBeck is so insistent on the distinction between LARPing and SCAing.

Priceless. Almost like the Trekkies who get really annoyed when you call them "Trekkies," insisting that you instead refer to them as "Trekkers."

Posted by: Alex on August 2, 2005 09:27 PM

What's that scritching sound I hear in the walls?

Posted by: Dave in Tejas on August 2, 2005 10:19 PM

Unbelievably geeky, but ya know what? I betcha they had a blast doing it.

Posted by: Enas Yorl on August 2, 2005 10:27 PM

I love that BBeck is so insistent on the distinction between LARPing and SCAing.

Ace, I just expect you to have a little more veracity than that. Not MUCH, mind you, but a little. Or do you really not GET the differences?

Meet the old dork, same as the new dork.

Shoot, Ace, if you're going to start blurring lines this badly, count yourself in, fellow dork, because you've played DnD, the Lazy Man's LARPing. Meet the old dork, same as new dork, indeed!

Almost like the Trekkies who get really annoyed when you call them "Trekkies," insisting that you instead refer to them as "Trekkers."

Heh, Alex, Trekkies and Trekkers ARE the same. And they're fun to taunt.

Later,
bbeck

Posted by: bbeck on August 3, 2005 01:06 AM

I do see a difference... but it's about the same difference between D&D and GURPs.

Okay, SCA is, um, a competition of some sort. But it's still... come on, it's dorky.

You've got a little dork in you.

Would you like a little more?

Sorry, old joke, had to use it.

Posted by: ace on August 3, 2005 01:39 AM

"I'm tiny! I'll go in!"

What? Just quoting the video, folks.

Posted by: See-Dub on August 3, 2005 01:43 AM

LOL@Ace.

...but it's about the same difference between D&D and GURPs.

Er, no. It's the difference between playing in a fantasy world and duplicating history. That's more than just a difference between gaming systems.

Okay, SCA is, um, a competition of some sort.

Gee whiz, Ace, I REALLY need to take you to an event. It's a LOT more than that.

But it's still... come on, it's dorky.

Oh no doubt! I embrace my Inner Dork (have you seen what "normal" people are like?), just call me one for the right reasons. That's all I ask. :)

Later,
bbeck

Posted by: bbeck on August 3, 2005 01:49 AM

I embrace my Inner Dork
Kegels are the best.

Posted by: apotheosis on August 3, 2005 10:15 AM

Holy...(falls off chair laughing).
Thanks! I thought I was a dork, but that just opened up whole levels of dorkitude I never imagined existed!

Posted by: Mikey on August 3, 2005 12:49 PM

Kegels are the best.

Now that's just DIRTY. :)

Later,
bbeck

Posted by: bbeck on August 3, 2005 02:32 PM

ACE - When you ran from the cops, you should've said: I'm wearing boots of escape impervious to 9mm and .40 cal bullets.

Posted by: 72 cartridges in a pear tree on August 3, 2005 03:30 PM

I can't believe these nerds got a couple girls to be in that trainwreck.

Seems like Deep Woods Off for girls to me.

Posted by: fugazi on August 3, 2005 04:05 PM

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Podcast: CBD and Sefton talk birthright citizenship, the 14th Amendment and SCOTUS, no boots in Iran, Artemis II and refocusing NASA, the NBA's hatred of everything non-woke, and more!

In more marketing for Project Hail Mary, scientists say they've found the biosigns indicating life growing on an alien planet. It's not proof, just signatures of chemicals that are produced by biological metabolism, and it could be nothing, but scientists think it's a strong sign that this planet is inhabited by something.

In a paper published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, a team of scientists announced the detection of dimethyl sulfide (along with a similar detection of dimethyl disulfide) in the atmosphere of an exoplanet called K2-18b. This is actually the second detection of dimethyl sulfide made on this planet, following a tentative detection in 2023.
Tons of chemicals are detected in the atmospheres of celestial objects every day. But dimethyl sulfide is different, because on Earth, it's only produced by living organisms.
"It is a shock to the system," Nikku Madhusudhan, first author on the paper, told the New York Times. "We spent an enormous amount of time just trying to get rid of the signal."

He means they tried to prove the signal was caused by things other than dimethyl sulfide but they could not.

Artemis moon shot a go, scheduled for 6:24 Eastern time tonight
Great marketing arranged by Amazon to promote Project Hail Mary. Okay not really but it does work out that way.

TJM talks John Boorman, director of Excalibur

Good rickroll

What? Skeleton of the most famous Musketeer, D'Artagnan, possibly discovered in Dutch church closet.
Dumas picked four names of real musketeers out of a history book, D'Artagnan, Athos, Aramis, and Porthos. So there was an actual D'Artagnan, though he made most of the story up. (Or, you know, all of it.)*

Charles de Batz de Castelmore, known as d'Artagnan, the famous musketeer of Kings Louis XIII and Louis XIV, spent his life in the service of the French crown.
The Gascon nobleman inspired Alexandre Dumas's hero in "The Three Musketeers" in the 19th century, a character now known worldwide thanks to the novel and numerous film adaptations.
D'Artagnan was killed during the siege of Maastricht in 1673, and there is a statue honoring the musketeer in the city. His final resting place has remained a mystery ever since.

A lot of Dumas's stories are based on bits of real history. The plot of the >Three Musketeers, about trying to recover lost diamonds from the queen's necklace, was cribbed from the then-almost-contemporaneous Affair of the Queen's Necklace. And the Man in the Iron Mask is based on real accounts of a prisoner forced to wear a mask (though I think it was a velvet mask).
* Oh, I should mention, Dumas says all this, about finding the names in an old book, in the prologue to his novel. But authors lie a lot. They frequently present fictions as based on historic fact. The twist is, he was actually telling the truth here. At least about these four musketeers having actually existed and served under Louis XIV.
Fun fact: You know the beginning of A Fistful of Dollars where the local gunslingers make fun of Clint Eastwood's donkey and Eastwood demands they apologize to the donkey? That's lifted from The Three Musketeers. Rochefort mocks D'Artagnan's old, brokedown farm horse and D'Artagnan is incensed.

A commenter asked which should be read first, The Hobbit of LOTR?
Easy, no question -- read The Hobbit first. It's actually the start of the story and comes first chronologically. It sets up some major characters and major pieces in play in LOTR.
Also, the Hobbit is Beginner-Friendly, which LOTR isn't. The Hobbit really is a delightful book, and a fast read. It's chatty, it's casual, it's exciting, and it's funny. In that dry cheeky British humor way. I love that the narrator is constantly making little asides and commentary, like he's just sitting next to you telling you this story as it occurs to him.
LOTR is a very long story. Fifteen hundred pages or so. The Hobbit is relatively short and very punchy and easy to read. If you don't like The Hobbit, you can skip out on LOTR. If you do like it, you'll be primed to read LOTR.
Oh, I should say: The Hobbit is written as if it's for children, but one of those smart children's stories that are also for adults. Don't worry, there's also real fighting and violence and horror in it, too.
LOTR is written for adults. (It's said that Tolkien wrote both for his children, but LOTR was written 17 years later, when his children were adults.) Some might not like The Hobbit due to its sometimes frivolous tone. Me, I love it. I find it constantly amusing. Both are really good but there is a starkly different tone to both. LOTR is epic, grand, and serious, about a world war, The Hobbit is light and breezy, and about a heist. Though a heist that culminates in a war for the spoils.

The Hobbit Challenge: Read two more chapters. I didn't have much time. Bilbo got the ring.
I noticed a continuity problem. Maybe. Now, as of the time of The Hobbit, it was unknown that this magic ring was in fact a Ring of Power, and it was doubly unknown that it was the Ring of Power, the Master Ring that controlled the others.
But the narrator -- who we will learn in LOTR was none of than Bilbo himself, who wrote the book as "There and Back Again" -- says this about Gollum's ring:
"But who knows how Gollum had come by that present [the Ring], ages ago in the old days when such rings were still at large in the world? Perhaps even the Master who ruled them could not have said."
In another passage, the ring is identified as a "ring of power."
I don't know, I always thought there was a distinction between mere magic rings and the Rings of Power created by Sauron. But this suggests that Bilbo knew this was a ring of power created by Sauron.
Now I don't remember when Bilbo wrote the Hobbit. In the movie, he shows Frodo the book in Rivendell, and I guess he wrote it after he left the Shire. I guess he might have added in the part about the ring being a ring of power created by "the Master" after Gandalf appraised him of his research into the ring.
I never noticed this before. I know Tolkien re-wrote this chapter while he was writing LOTR to make the ring important from the start. And also to make Gollum more sinister and evil, and also to remove the part where Gollum actually offers Bilbo the ring as a "present" -- Bilbo had already found it on his own, but Gollum was wiling to give it away, which obviously is not something the rewritten Gollum would ever do.
But I had no memory of the ring being suggested to be The Ring so early in the tale.

Finish the job, Mr. President!
Melanie Phillips lays out the case for the total destruction of the Iranian government and armed forces. [CBD]

TJM acts like he knows anything about John Wick and screenwriting. It's embarrassing, really.

Podcast: Sefton and CBD talk about how would a peace treaty with Iran work, Democrats defending murderers and rapists, The GOP vs. Dem bench for 2028, composting bodies? And more!

Oh, I forgot to mention this quote from Pete Hegseth, reported by Roger Kimball: "We are sharing the ocean with the Iranian Navy. We're giving them the bottom half."

Batman fires The Batman
Batman is disgusted by the Joachim Phoenix version of Joker
Batman tries to fire Superman
Batman is still workshopping his Bat-Voice

Forgotten 80s Mystery Click: Red Leather Suit and Sweatband Edition
And I was here to please
I'm even on knees
Makin' love to whoever I please
I gotta do it my way
Or no way at all

Tomorrow is March 25th, "Tolkien Reading Day," because March 25th is the day when the Ring is destroyed in the book. I think I'm going to start the Hobbit tomorrow and read all four books this time.
The only bad part of the trilogy are the Frodo/Sam chapters in The Two Towers. They're repetitive, slow, and mostly about the weather and terrain. But most everything else is good. Weirdly, the Frodo-Sam chapters in Return of the King are exciting and action-packed and among the best in the trilogy. (Though the chapters with everyone else in Return of the King get pretty slow again. Mostly people talking about marching towards war, and then marching towards war.)

Sec. Army recognizes ODU Army ROTC cadets for their bravery and sacrifice in private ceremony
[Hat Tip: Diogenes] [CBD]

TJM gives you a brief tour of his movie collection.

Forgotten 80s Mystery Click
One day I'm gonna write a poem in a letter
One day I'm gonna get that faculty together
Remember that everybody has to wait in line
Oh, [Song Title], look out world, oh, you know I've got mine

US decimation of Iran's ICBM forces is due to Space Force's instant detection of launches -- and the launchers' hiding places -- and rapid counter-attack via missiles
AI is doing a lot of the work in analyzing images to find the exact hiding place of the launchers. Counter-strikes are now coming in four hours after a launch, whereas previously it might have taken days for humans to go over the imagery and data.