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Archive for December 2001 Unraveled has taken to leaping out of the water when I come to feed him. He's done it for a while, but tonight he was so vigorously jumping I had to capture it and prove it to the world! Look, it's true! Think it forgery?! Click the image to download a 850 KB .AVI of one of his jumps! LOOK UPON HIM!! Yes, that's his whole body leaving the water.  You'd flinch, too, if you had 0.5 ounces of raging fish jumping up at your hand. A man is flying in a hot air balloon and realizes he is lost. He drops his altitude and spots a man down below. He lowers the balloon further and shouts: "Excuse me, can you tell me where I am?" The man below says, "yes, you're in a hot air balloon, hovering 30 feet above this field." "You must work in information technology," says the lost balloonist. "I do," replies the man. "How did you know?" "Well," says the balloonist, "everything you just told me is technically correct, but it's useless to me. I've still got this problem." The man below says, "you must work in business." "I do," replies the balloonist, "but how did you know?" "Well," says the man, "you don't know where you are, or where you're going, but you expect me to be able to help. You're in the same position you were before we met, but now it's my fault." http://www.keebler.com/homepage.htm Wow, they haven't updated their site since -- 2001. Oh. It's just cunningly designed with HTML and graphics from 1997, presumably to keep modern web design away from the Russians.  I love the expression on Kim's face -- it demands "hey there, little guy!" There was no other option. The first of hopefully many such alterations to Leonard's photographic account of his Christmas visit to Canoga Park.  Leonard and Sumana drove down from Bakersfield and we all hung out last night, and it was just like old times, except I didn't have any homework. In all the side-scrolling shooter games, like 1944, Gradius, R-Type, and the like, wave after wave of enemies and balls of energy fly like rain at your tiny craft. Every once in a while, a little package on wings appears, flying in a very distinct motion to let you know this is a power-up. Why don't the enemies just make some bombs look like power-ups? They don't deserve to conquer Earth. Spoilers! Brett Schach -> schachbrett (German) -> "chessboard" Neater "wacky" hair, school crest is a little checkerboard-like shield, dreams of his own successful law firm, never prepares Sue Pontillado -> sueño (Spanish) + pontilhado (Portuguese) -> "dream" + "polkadot" No dots, but she's doing more important things so she hardly ever appeared in the strip Steamcoil -> vapor + some kind of "ware" Choked Lyle (duh) Mr. Deddmann -> er... no language pun here, except for the name of the law firm Looks like Dot's manager, always off-frame http://www.azcentral.com/offbeat/articles/1220SCIENCE-SCIENCE-SQUID-DC.html I wonder what else is down there! This is better than the gorgonopsid. Bidding ends in 30 minutes on something I've been looking for for a long time, an Out of the Blue LP with the original inserts inside: a poster, the standard album inserts, and a little make-it-yourself cardboard ELO mobile. If I win it, hell yeah I'm putting that thing together. Oh! Melissa bought me an ELO mouse pad. It's the old, jukebox logo, not the war-blighted apocalyptic modern version. =D http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20011218/pl/mini_nukes.html Knock yourself out, Bush. He really has NO IDEA what he's doing, does he? I own three bettas now, in addition to my two remaining black moor goldfish, who appear to have swim bladder infections as they can only go to the bottom of the tank with great difficulty. I believe they will soon die; I'll keep them alive as long as I can, but I'll not mourn them terribly, as they are fantastically dumb fish. The bettas are a slightly mixed bag, and I'll describe them here.  Unraveled: Unraveled was my first betta, and is doing well. He eats whatever you set in front of him, and has recently taken to jumping out of the water to reach my hand before I drop the food in. He hit my hand once and startled me. He seems the most intelligent of the three, or at least the most predictable.  Phobos: Phobos is on deathwatch; he's another red fish like Unraveled. If he dies, I probably won't replace him. Phobos is very bizarre; he seems frightened of everything, including food. I know he eats some of it when I'm not watching, but he usually is hiding in some corner of his jar, staying very still. I wonder why. I'm trying to give him time to adapt, but he hasn't even tried building a bubble nest yet.  Blueshift: Guess what color. At first he was as scared as Phobos, but he's now made a bubble nest under a leaf. He doesn't eat like Unraveled, who stalks and attacks his food; he almost lets it float into his mouth, rather than approach it. His fins are enormous, and he is a combtail. I hope he sticks around, as he is an impressive-looking fish. Surely I'm not the first one to have thought of it. Ah, evidently, 109 others have. Hives return at night. Still minor, but worse this time. Itch more. I took Benadryl... should put me under but good. Well, I find that I have a number of hives on the sides of my torso. They don't really itch at all, and I really hope to God they stay that way, but I'm not going to take anymore of the doxycycline I've been prescribed for an infection I don't think I have anymore. Stupid antibiotics. Things I'm allergic to: Penicillin Demerol Doxycycline I think this storyline is pretty clever. It's clever enough that I want to mention how clever it is, but not clever enough such that to announce it on the front page would be someone would figure it all out and post it at my forums and make me mad. Anyway, there is a (big) twist, as I try to put one in everything, and it'll probably be completely transparent by Wednesday. So think about it, but no collaborating with your classmates. Well, I came home today and my machine wouldn't boot. I restarted a few times to no avail. It worked in safe mode. I tracked down the problem -- seemed to be my ethernet card. And now DSL doesn't work anymore. I reinstalled everything, and it did no good; it's like my card just stopped working. I'm on dialup... at least I can get on the internet. I want a goddamn cable modem. (Oh, like those are trouble-free.) [Later] A quick, angry trip to Fry's to buy a new ethernet card solves the problem. I have no idea what happened to the old one, but let's hope US Robotics does better than the D-Link DFE-530TX+. http://www.orisinal.com/games/stars.htm This is probably the best Flash game I've ever played. It's simple, but it's so well executed... you see a little girl standing over a pond, and the night sky is reflected in it. You have to jump up and catch the stars. When you jump, the little girl can't jump very high, but her reflection can, and you play the game as a reflection in the lake. Makes me want to be 4 years old -- not that I have memories like this, but for the chance to. I want to write the creator and ask where he got the music. The whole thing has a very "Nights Into Dreams" feel, a game I was also fond of. A game I ordered through eBay and never got. Bastard. I'm training Unraveled to take single bloodworms from my hand. It's working! He was scared at first, but now he comes up pretty readily to take them. I wonder if they have any kind of memory at all. I have some minor concern that by offering Electrologica to the masses, my bandwidth quotient is gonna get reached a lot faster. I don't think I should be that worried, because not too many people are gonna download every song, and I think I have a 20000 MB/month limit. I have a great (read: decent) idea for Checkerboard Nightmare, as another feature on top of the strip! Actually it's not so much a CN feature as it'd be a webcomics-in-general feature. Watch for it! Well, for whatever reason, my Creative webcam software (total crapola) exploded, so it's shareware webcam software for me. Now playing: Unraveled. ===== From Associated Press Not surprisingly, there was much dancing at Britney Spears' 20th birthday party. However, the gyrating hips didn't belong to the virginal pop princess, but to a male stripper, reports People magazine. The performance took place at Solaia, an Italian restaurant in Englewood, N.J., after Britney's concert at Continental Airlines Arena. As stripper Steven Peters did his bumps and grinds, Britney's parents and 10-year-old sister Jamie Lynn looked on. Peters said Spears giggled and blushed her way through his routine, while her mother, Jamie, enjoyed it so much that she reached out and touched the beefcake's biceps and buttocks. "Britney was blushing and had a big smile on her face the whole time," Peters said. "She told me, 'This is the best birthday present I've ever gotten!'" Afterwards, the vowed virgin Spears watched several pornographic videos with her mostly-male entourage. Attendees say she was "blushing and giggling" the night away, often averting her eyes from the 62" big-screen monitor showing the porn to glance at another 62" big-screen monitor also showing porn. Featured films included "Amsterdam **** Girls," "**** Nurses IV: Sponge Bath," and "Sex-Crazed **** *** in **** Land." Spears allegedly turned "beet-red" about 45 minutes into her party's scheduled drunken, writhing orgy of illicit sex and heroin use. This singing cutie just couldn't stop smiling! At about 3:00 AM, Spears topped off her big birthday night with a spirited seal-clubbing. Afterwards, she thanked her guests and returned to her room of mirrors to practice pouting, blushing, giggling, and explaining why she's a good role model for girls under 12. No word on who gave Britney the stripper, or why America still believes in Britney being a blushing, innocent virgin and not a false, micro-engineered, manipulative sex object like all the other modern teen girl pop stars. Experts believe the latter may have something to do with Americans' "fun size" brain pans. ===== Hey kids! See if you can guess the paragraph where this A.P. story degenerates into my wacky satire. Here's the actual article as a hint. Couldn't sleep, will try again in a minute. Unraveled has been leaping out of the water, bonking his head on the jar lid, and I think I figured out why. He's trying to attack my black moor goldfish in the other tank. I read bettas were jumpers, but man. This fish is about 1.5 inches long (body; fins add another inch), but he can leap up and move his plastic lid. They say owners sometimes come home to find their bettas on the carpet, often still alive because they can breathe air like mammals to a degree, unlike most fish. I love him. Please don't die, buddy. I had toyed with the idea of moving all my fish into the big tank, but I'll only do it if I want to give Unraveled the thrill of the hunt. If you're buying a fish, buy bettas, I swear. I like the goldfish, but they're always mindlessly banging into things and sucking on stuff. Bettas see you and react to you -- or at least that's what it looks like. The fact that they're often still and watching makes it seem like they're more intelligent; I doubt they're any smarter than goldfish. http://www.nick15.com/cool/tv/sgl/ http://ww2.netnitco.net/users/panime/yattapv.asf Warning: there may be links to adult content on the first site, but it has information on what I ran across... the second link is to a 7.7 MB .asf file (Windows Media Player), with a video that's easily the best thing I've ever found on the internet. Apparently it's pretty old, but I'm not Mr. Cutting Edge by any means. For the bandwidth-deprived, it's a video for a Japanese "boy band," and a boy band parody. It's insane. Oh, and it's not dirty, just strange. CN's readership last month took a severe plunge in November, down from 12,000 visitors the previous month to just over 5,000. There's no reason for the drop; I think I blame it on my host's stats being down for a while. Then again, it is possible the honeymoon is over and CN's humor isn't inane enough to let it chug along for another couple years. (Oh, be quiet, bitterness.) Anyway. This month I'll try to return the strip to its roots and do an advertising push, and we'll see what happens. Sarah McLachlan -- Adia capo 3 Am F C Adia I do believe I failed you Am F Emsus? Adia I know I've let you down C F C E Am Don't you know I tried so hard to love you in my way Dsus? C G It's easy let it go Am F C Riff A Adia I'm empty since you left me Am F Emsus? Trying to find a way to carry on C F Em G I search myself and everyone to see where we went wrong Dsus? G C F there is no one left to finger there is no one here to blame Dsus? G there is no one left to talk to honey C Bb F and there ain't no one to buy our innocence G C A7 'cause we are born innocent F Dsus? G Em believe me Adia we are still innocent A7 F Em it's easy, we all falter, does it matter Am F C Riff A Adia I thought that we could make it Am F Emsus? I know I can't change the way you feel C F Em G I leave you with your misery a friend who won't betray Dsus? G C F I pull you from your tower I take away the pain Dsus? G C and show you all the beauty you possess Bb F If you'd only let your believe G C A7 That we are born innocent F Dsus? G Em believe me, Adia, we are still innocent A7 F G it's easy we all falter, does it matter G C A7 cause we are born innocent F Dsus? G Em believe me, Adia, we are still innocent A7 F Dsus? G it's easy we all falter, does it matter C A7 F Dsus? you leave me hanging on we are still innocent C A7 cause we are born innocent F Dsus? G Em believe me, Adia, we are still innocent A7 F Dsus? G Em it's easy we all falter, does it matter "You always knew where you stood with George, he was totally honest. I feel blessed to have been so close to him. He was a great friend. He wrote brilliantly original songs, played the greatest slide guitar and had the most amazing sense of humor. He really had the 'inner light' and always will. Some of the happiest days of my life were spent in the studio with George." Jeff Lynne 30 November 2001 |
