Words for the wise from the mouth of a fool.
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The weblog of Seth Johnson -------------- INKSLINGER.ORG -------------- OD ARCHIVES -------------- FEEDS Posts:  Shared Items:
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Saturday, December 21, 2002
Enjoy the brilliance of River City Hacky Sack. I'm not very good at it yet--current high score is around 600--but if nothing else it's worth playing just because it's hilarious. (Don't miss the downloadable version.)
Friday, December 20, 2002
One more game post: last Sunday a bunch of us played Carcassonne, and it was a heck of a lot of fun. I'm not saying this just because I pulled a Leitheusser and won my first game, but seems well worth the twenty bucks. Okay, 32 if you get the river expansion, but still worth it.
JP passes along the new character shot from an awesome UT2K3 mod-in-progress. I hope it goes all the way to the finish line--with a group of beta testers like that, how can it not be great?
Yet another sweet use of Google*: GoogObits, where the search engine is used to augment obituaries. (via MSNBC's Weblog Central)
* and, I note, yet another user enamored enough with Google to include the brand name in the metalabel of thier creation--powerful branding, that Google.
As part of his year in review interview at Newsarama, Joe Quesada whipped up a fun little song, "Marvel Comics for Christmas". I would enjoy both with less reluctance if he could just avoid being that slight mix of snarky and egotistical that I'm sure he thinks is "edgy" (and good.)
More comic-industry related reading: Mark Millar's column on comic editors and CBR's story on DC's New Frontier project--mainly so you can see the picture of the Martian Manhunter that's currently my desktop at work.
It's the little things that turn your life upside down.
Once a year I make a trip down to the University Book Store to lay in a new supply of the pens I like. They're not expensive pens, but theyr'e not cheap ballpoints either. They're great for writing, drawing, whatever, and I tend to carry one or two in my pockets at all times.
I went down today and discovered that they were out of my preferred black ink. Not only that, they had a sign next to a bin of the remaining colors that said "Get the last of the Sanford Expressos!"
Thankfully, a quick web search seems to indicate that Sanford still produces the pens, and if the UBS continues to fail me I'll be able to order them online.
Still, when I thought I wouldn't be able to get any more I was a bit surprised at how deeply "Great--now I'm going to have to find a new type of pen" bit into me. Makes me want to pick up enough so that even after the bomb drops I'll still have pens. We'll see.
Thursday, December 19, 2002
Wow. All the way through 46 pages of Google results, pioneer blogger Anil Dash owns his name on the Net. Impressive.
Via Mefi, a Washington Post story on bloggers whose personal blogs have collided with their employer's NDAs. If you're wondering why I don't talk about work much on OD, well, there you go.
Cross-posting my comment from the MeFi comment thread (with the typo--sigh--corrected):
Though I'm passionate enough about work-related topics that I commonly discuss them on my page, I rarely talk about work itself. I've signed NDAs on several fronts, both day-job and freelance related, and I don't understand people who don't take them seriously. There's always the option of not signing them, and in some cases they're even negotiable (I've tweaked NDAs in the past from "can't talk about this until the end of the universe" to "X years after end of project"; what lawyers want and what employers will agree to are often different things.)
If you're offhandedly signing an NDA you don't intend to follow (or worse, haven't read) simply to get or keep a job, then the fault isn't in the document. The paycheck you're also signing is in part purchasing your silence as part of the terms of your employment. That's the deal.
I was wondering what the deal was between Aaron Sorkin and the West Wing section of TWOP; now, via the recap of this episode, I see. Further info in the TWOP forum for the episode, halfway down this page.
I've been having an encounter with synchronicity in the wee hours, spending my night watching reruns of programs where characters are talking about how they're stressed out and can't sleep.
So what have I been doing in the meantime? I've been Googling for an hour and can't find the answer to a simple question: what is the source of the phrase "far from the things of man"? I can find Biblical references to "the things of man", and the addition of "far from" sounds vaguely Shakespearean, but the only place I know for certain it was used is the movie "Joe vs. the Volcano". And I have a hard time believing that's the original source.
So: anyone?
Wednesday, December 18, 2002
" "Three things make me laugh," Dolly announces Thursday. "Jokes, cartoons, and tickles." Note: "jokes" and "cartoons" are two separate categories. This, Funny Paper suspects, is a crucial insight into the work of Bil Keane."
Fact-checking a comment I was going to make on Karla's page, I found Mark's Very Large National Lampoon Site, proving once again that there's a reasonably well-produced cetntral resource on the Web for information on everything.
Mike passes along a hilarious ongoing series of pieces on the 20 most embarrassing game companies. At least it'll be excellent so long as we don't end up on there somehow.
Also hilarious and game-related is a story from this week's Onion: "Ghost of Christmas Future Taunts Children with Visions of Playstation 5".
Huzzah! The FTC has announced a national "Do Not Call" registry! You can read the AP story on the registry as well.
It's about freakin' time. Now we need to figure out how to deal with spam.
Via Gawker, the story of 38 boxes labelled "FEAR" placed around NYC's Union Station last Wednesday, closing the station (and snarling the city's transit system) for five hours. I stand with those who are baffled how somebody might get away with placing 38 boxes around the station before anyone noticed.
Two TV-related links: via boingboing, Matt Frewer is talking about reviving Max Headroom, and (via Mefi) Cathy Rogers, host of Junkyard Wars and Full Metal Challenege, talks to Slashdot (although she really needs to start using capital letters; it's a small investment that makes you sound--at a minimum--twice as eloquent.)
Wow! Chad and Jill have helped launch the Minnesota Geocaching Association. Nice work on the site, guys. Keep me posted for that spring event.
Tuesday, December 17, 2002
A little bit of poking around on Atomz, and I think I have OD's search functionality working again. Feel free to poke at it a bit and let me know.
Apparently I've been completely dense to the fact that the Norwalk virus has hit Madison (and the Twin Cities, if blogs from up in the area are any judge.) I kinda wish I hadn't clued in until after I went to pack myself into a theater for three hours.
Hey, all you people hitting my page searching for "ELO", "Mr. Blue Sky", and/or "VW Commercial"--exactly what do you want to know? Use the comments link.
My creative writing degree is apparently worth half of what it was when I earned it. Luckily, I got a B.S., which means I took enough college-level math to understand that half of zero is zero. Ha! Take that, depreciation!
Following up on yesterday's post, here's an excellent Flash movie explaining the basics of Creative Commons.
UPDATE: CC License added to left sidebar.
Folks need to turn their graphic design skills to making spiffier versions of these signs (though I think the plaintext versions are useful as well.)
In case you're looking for something to read while you wait for the late-night showings of The Two Towers, here's David Brin's essay on LOTR.
It's strange; a lot of the old SA crowd that I followed into blogging appear have gone static. I wonder what they've moved on to? (I know most of you are still around, and some of you read OD, so I'm not asking whether you're alive or anything. I just wonder if I missed the "all aboard" for the next Cool Train or something...)
A phototour of the NYC office of Tor Books, including pictures of the steadfast Jim Minz, Esq. It should come as no surprise that he's sleeping on the job. Again. (Just kidding, Minz!)
The Happy Fun Pundit has some good advice for celebrities taking fact-finding missions to Iraq. (via Instapundit)
A mealy-mouthed press release in the service of art, and to be honest, I think the end product looks kinda goofy. Elsewhere in the same industry, I wish I had a higher pulpit from which to defend my people from the New York Times, who apparently feels that the meaning of your hometown's name and regional pronunciation can bring down a multinational corporation. Thank goodness there's always the option to improve yourself by marrying someone from Switzerland.
Listening to a radio program on board games on the way to work today led me to the website of a New York Historical Society game exhibit, where I discovered a Tycoon game just waiting for a modern-day console port: The Game of District Messenger Boy. I see it on the XBox.
Monday, December 16, 2002
Doing a quick and casual Google on Lileks' mysterious "cebu" clue in today's Bleat turned up these pictures of a cockfight in Cebu, Phillipines. Somehow I don't think that's what he's talking about.
I can't figure out if andyrichtersucks.com honestly means what it says, or is the most brilliant piece of reverse psychology promotion I've ever seen. Of course, just for the record, I like Andy Richter.
Creative Commons has launched, and bears serious investigation by creative professionals on the web.
I don't even know where to begin in my reactions to "Pentagon Debates Propaganda Push in Allied Nations". I'm certain it will be discussed to death on Instapundit and other more politically-charged pages than OD, but a couple things before I leave it to them:
First, I'll acknowledge that the word propaganda doesn't, by definition, have a negative connotation. But in colloquial usage...it does. And when you frame it between secret and against allies you do nothing but confirm that popular belief.
Second, and I don't know whether to blame anyone beyond the Times reporters for this, if the government actually claims to be fighting "a global campaign against terrorism and militancy"--and reports bear out that they might actually be doing just that--I hope that they at least acknowledge the slight hypocrisy of the second half of that mandate.
Finally, I can't believe that I'm agreeing so wholeheartedly with something said by Henry Hyde: "America's effort to engage the peoples of the world must assume a more prominent place in the planning and execution of our foreign policy." Yes. Of course, whatever Pentagon yahoos are behind the propaganda plan should note that Hyde said this in support of additional funding for the State Department's public diplomacy efforts.
I now step back into the cheap seats to observe the discourse of the more politically adroit, and pray that the whole ridiculous macho carnival that is American foreign policy bottoms out soon so that we can start behaving like a civilized nation sometime in the near future.
(Of course, I remain thankful to live in a country where "secret" agendas are announced in front-page news and are allowed to be discussed on a global medium by its citizens.)
Liana points out that the secrets of the next Harry Potter book have been sold for 45K. Apparently the purchaser has not yet decided whether to reveal to the general public any of the 93 words on the card, but as part of the auction process Sotherby's did say that "Ron ... broom ... sacked ... house-elf ... new ... teacher ... dies ... sorry" were on the card. I'm pleased to say that none of those words were among my predictions. I leave it to the intrepid corps of OD readers to decide if I a) am in possession of Secret Knowledge, b) have uncovered an alternate Harry Potter plot, or c) happen to be full of it.
Sure, sure, now robot wisdom and boingboing are catching on to ToughPigs. So of course, since I only visit once a month or so, they caught the Tough Pigs review of "Muppet Week" on Family Feud before I did. Damnit.
Sunday, December 15, 2002
Via boingboing, an interview with writer Jeffrey Scott, where he reveals that his scripts for shows such as Dungeons & Dragons, Muppet Babies, and Super Friends were influenced by his beliefs--in Scientology. He has some good things to say on writing (especially with concern to the premise of the D&D cartoon), but CoS...my childhood has just taken on a darker tone.
I know, I know--it's comparative within the group. Yet I have never been more tempted to vote "none of the above".
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