Mood:  silly

Jabba the Hutt was a two-ton pile of flab and gas who prattled on in the language of 'Huttese'. My cat is different...

He thinks in English:

I was told that these Ragdoll Cats get 'large', but I didn't know that all the added weight goes straight to the belly (I guess you could say that I'm ignorant of 'ragdoll physics'. Hahahaha!)

...sigh. 

Posted by shanekentknolltrey at 12:01 AM ADT

Updated: Wednesday, 8 August 2007 12:09 AM ADT

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Mood:  cheeky

Here we are: a nonlethal weapon (and a flashlight, no less) that automatically makes one hurl upon exposure to the retinas.

Vomiting, as any gradeschool child knows, is the result of the chemoreceptor trigger zone being stimulated in the lateral medullary reticular formation of the brainstem (I'll avoid the obvious pun about the overall mechanism of action being a real 'pain in the postrema', hehehe)...

(hmmmm... as nerd puns go, that actually wasn't too bad) 

...but it got me to thinking: there must be an easier way to trigger the vomit center of the brain through visual stimulation, right? But what kind of stimulus could we use?

hmmm...what indeed?...

Scientific progress goes stumbling for the nearest toilet.

Posted by shanekentknolltrey at 1:57 AM ADT

Updated: Tuesday, 7 August 2007 2:03 AM ADT

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Mood:  not sure

I've been lending a little informal input into an RPG-development group (they're in a VERY formative stage and aren't ready to advertise at the moment, so I won't be specific about URL's). It's a 'labor of love' project, and profit ain't a possibility.

Also... 

It isn't a very productive project, and will likely fold soon (many people are jumping ship, and I probably won't stay on much longer, either). Part of the problem is the head honcho's scope. I answered their 'ads' to help write a plot for a postapocalyptic sci-fi story.

Oh me, oh, my: if there is one thing I can do, it would be that...

But the head-honchos in the group happen to be 'player's-choice' friendly... the leader is a HUGE admirer of the Fallout RPG series, and that's fine, but he wants to EMULATE the extraordinarly open-ended type of gameplay found in that series.

The problem started when he asked his writers to draft the main game plotline...

I submitted one... I worked kinda hard on it, too...

but I didn't put major BRANCHES in the skeletal plot, itself: I submitted a cut-and-dry story of good guys versus bad-guys in a story that united them all together with sporadic points of scripted events in an otherwise dynamic world...

That ain't what they were lookin' for... 

While I admire a video game that allows the player significant input on the overall plot, there are MAJOR disadvantages to this approach. For one, it's FRIGGIN' HARD TO DO if you've never put a game together before (none of these guys have...) and in such an open-ended world cohesive dialogue and cogent events are given a MAJOR backseat to runnin' and gunnin' (IE: you shouldn't put 'ads' out for WRITERS if your plot is a nebulous black hole...)

I think the group leader and his guys may doubt the possibility that an RPG can still be quite open-ended and enjoyable even if it has a centralized plot line at its core. 

I'd beg to disagree...

Well, however long this project lasts (and it likely won't be long) it has given me something important: a pretty spiffy plot outline for a story. This baby wouldn't be NEARLY as long as my 'Typers' series, just one little book, but the possibilities are appealing:

Spiffy title, huh? The naked lady's wrists are tied with a milk snake, a harmless serpent that's infamous for being routinely mistaken for the deadly coral snake ('red-n-yellow, kill a fellow... red 'n black, friend o' Jack', if you need a refresher... don't feel bad if you can't remember: I just happen to live in their affective range, that's all). That's relevant because the story would be centered on an organization with GROSSLY misguided aims, bound by a determination to eliminate a certain 'threat' that is, in fact, not something that should be targeted for destruction (and yes... there's an obvious religious angle to using a serpent in the artwork).

...and part of the plot involves a woman named Nous (rhymes with 'mouse') who spends most of her time naked, but coated in a sticky film of crude oil (in which she routinely bathes)...

...best not to ask at this point... 

...if I had better graphical skills, I could've coated the body in that picture with the equivalent...

eh, nevermind. 

Posted by shanekentknolltrey at 9:46 PM ADT

Updated: Monday, 6 August 2007 11:07 PM ADT

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Mood:  amorous

I was clearin' out the ol' hardrive the other day and I found a cache of old Scotland photos (the one of me facedown in an Inverness hotel after consuming copious amounts of Grolsch is particularly mind-jogging...) Some of the pics are quite purdy...

That there is the Inchmahome Priory up near Aberfoyle. Poor MQS stayed here for a time back when it was more than ruins (Bein' Catholic I've always had problems jiving with Scottish history, which is DOOOOOMINATED by Protestantism... ah, well...)

This all makes me so 'home-away-from-homesick'. I can't explain how drawn I am to that whole area in and around the Trossachs (I've even incorporated it quite significantly into my writing, and I'm not done exploting it in this vein, either...).

America may be the greatest nation ever to grace the planet, and very like paradise itself. But Scotland? Scotland ain't the greatest nation ever...

Scotland is paradise.

Nemo me impune lacessit, motherf***er...

...Incidentally, that Latin phrase doesn't have anything to do with this little guy... I don't even know why a cartoon character would want to preemptively attack me, anyway (though there are some comics that assault the intellect, I still haven't been bitch-slapped by Andy Capp, yet...)

Posted by shanekentknolltrey at 2:37 AM ADT

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Mood:  lyrical

Lazy Sundays are made for bein' lazy...

At the moment I'm listening to the Missa Solemnis (latin for... uh, big... scary mass...) This is the one everyone tends to get wet over, and its said that The Big 'B' never produced anything finer...

Since I'm neither educated or smart enough to critique such monumental opuses on their worth, I can safely say that I prefer the Mass in C without being ridiculed by those in the know. Ignorance, it turns out, is bliss.

Yeah, the Solenmis might be 'greater', but it's so... so...

solemn.

Mass in C is like Ode to Joy: any idiot can be apprciative of it. If the Missa Solemnis is, say, Moby Dick (follow me on this one...), then the Mass in C is The Wrath of Kahn: it's got the same general themes and thesis, but with a far more accessible presentation and emotional context.

Beethoven wrote the Missa Solemnis with technical finess and reverence. He wrote the Mass in C with emotion (says I, at least...).

Mass in C is also notable for containing the best damn Kyrie ever written...

Posted by shanekentknolltrey at 3:23 PM ADT

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Mood:  irritated

I think it's safe to say that the state of journalism, in general, and especially cable TV, is in a sorry state...

I know that sex and death sell (in that order) and that it may very well be that we all want to be shocked and entertained rather than informed, but honestly, the media could try to at least SLOW their inevitable decline into cartoonish purveyors of sensationalism and 24/7 'misery-TV'.

Trash-TV purveyors masquerading as journalists (two names that come to mind are 'Greta' and 'Nancy'...)  are a dime a dozen, but I'm dismayed by the sheer volume of sensationalism out there.

Don't take that 'Running Man' reference too harshy... most TV personalities do not actually kill their interviewees (and I do say MOST...)

Journalism could indeed be worse, but it's pretty bad all the same... 

Just one example: 

"Muddy river of Death"?

My heart goes out to the victims of this tragedy in Minnesota, especially since they're now the 'cause du sloth' of the journalism community: a story that takes A COUPLE HOURS of genuine air-time (a report on casualties and causes, followed by an investigation into responsibility) will be beaten like a dead horse, nonstop, until someone either goes missing  or some celebrity suffers a 'mishap'.

The media have little respect for the dead: they'd as soon cram a camera into your coffin if they could get the 'final thoughts' on your situation (but emotional TV sells, so you'd need to be very (re)animated to make the air...)

that's just a little gallows humor...

never mind.

Incidentally (and somewhat unrelatedly), another thing the media seems to adore is a good catfight.  I've never been into those, honestly...

well, I've got exceptions:

Posted by shanekentknolltrey at 2:52 AM ADT

Updated: Saturday, 4 August 2007 2:58 AM ADT

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Mood:  bright

Writers of really good sci-fi know what a good spacesuit is...

Not only is this baby hard on the eyes, but it's soooo difficult to accessorize to... 

Enter MIT (who else?) with their fashionable BioSuit. I'm not sure just exactly when the folks over at MIT got an eye for fashion, but it's quite striking. Think of it: a nice, skin-tight spacesuit. How practical is it in the long run? Eh, who knows...

But it does something that other suits just can't do: it can make an astronaut look sexy.

Let's compare:

 A model (not likely an astronaut...) wearing the 'BioSuit' developed by MIT...

And my Tears' Shower Squadron's Liefde-class suits:

Now, to the untrained eye it looks like I just inked some Poser bodies black and scrubbed out the naughty bits and genitalia, but no: these are indeed state-of-the art science fiction space suits (say you believe me or I will hunt you down...), and if you painted 'em white, they'd look an AWFUL lot like that cushy MIT number above...

...seriously, they would... 

Only question I have now is: who do I see about filing a breech-of-copyright lawsuit? I'll bet MIT's got deep pockets...

Anyway, that sleek little BioSuit is just the thing to be sporting while you tie on your third one on your way over to put the beat down on your rival for astronaut love...

Hey, even space explorers need to unwind every now and then. Mine get to have terrible (and sometimes wonderful) hallucination inside their ships. NASA pilots don't get to have any fun...

But I'm sure that these catsuits-- er, 'BioSuits', will reclaim the Space Administration's reputation of dignity and professionalism from its current 'frat-house' image.

At the very least, it'll give those flyboys and girls some impetus to get rid of that beer belly... 

Posted by shanekentknolltrey at 5:01 PM ADT

Updated: Friday, 3 August 2007 5:11 PM ADT

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Mood:  caffeinated

Genetic engineering has brought us glowing tobacco plants and glowing fish.

Researchers didn't stop there: now we've got schizophrenic mice  (I don't think they're luminescent, although they might believe that they're glowing fish or glowing tobacco plants...)

Neat implications. Was a time you could simulate mental illness and psychosis in mice by rattling their cages for three days straight (that's not a joke...) but now, apparently, the researchers say that the genes they screwed-up in their mental mice are good candidates for the analogous schizophrenia-causing genes in humans.

No offense, but that's kinda like spraying a building full of anti-fortification ordinance and then claiming that one of the load-bearing walls was responsible for the place's collapse...

Eh, someday this data should prove quite valueable. Until then, however, we're stuck with a pack of mice like this one:

Scientific progress goes scurrying straight into the nearest wall...

 (Photo taken from National Geographic... and doctored... but the real psycho mice are rumored to harbor similar delusions...)

Posted by shanekentknolltrey at 3:04 AM ADT

Updated: Thursday, 2 August 2007 3:07 AM ADT

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Mood:  incredulous

Guess the Ruskies are a little put-off by that fact that America beat 'em to the moon with the ol' Stars 'n Bars. Now they're trying to up the ante by planting a flag in the 'opposite' direction...

Before commenting on this... uh, interesting venture, I'll share a fantasy related to this kind of mission: 

Putin is a totalitarian wanker at heart, and the fall of Communism never really sat well with him (and he's not had much luck in getting some people to be willing 'pawns' in his authoritarian ambitions).

This whole move reeks of Soviet-era posturing: the puffery of a system past its prime. Sure, Russia wants to CLAIM the territory down there (although the legality of an unseeable, underwater flag is dubious... after all, even the US's quite visible extraterrestrial flag didn't amount to much).

What the CCCP- (sorry, the Putin Administration) won't say is that only foreign companies can actually get to the resources down there because Russia's technological investment front is as dynamic as a collapsed lung.

But make no mistake: Russia desperately needs this cache of resources because the supply of natural resources seems to be the only tool left in the country's 'diplomatic negotiations' with others...

Posted by shanekentknolltrey at 8:32 PM ADT

Updated: Thursday, 2 August 2007 3:08 AM ADT

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Mood:  d'oh

I was just thinkin', maybe there's a way to reeeeeeally discourage porn-surfin' at work...

Think about this guy...

and now imagine management bosses everywhere hooking their unproductive employees up to their own computers: sweaty bods become cattle prods!

Dumb idea? Maybe, but it'd REALLY motivate employees to think about the most unattractive things imaginable to avoid that increased galvanic skin conductance... 

Posted by shanekentknolltrey at 2:53 PM ADT

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