The Book of Carrots

So, I've been playing with WikiWrit, the "Holy Book Anyone Can Edit". And it's much fun. I must admit, however, that I am most pleased with the Book of Carrots (yep, I wrote it...), and so I shall now share it with you.

The Book of Carrots

The day was Saturday, a bit after lunch, when God looked upon his Garden, Eden, and saw that, truly, the weeds had sprung up again, even though he'd weeded it just last week.

And so God took up His Almighty Trowel, and put on His Almighty Gardening Gloves, and went into His Garden to dig up all the weeds and make sure He'd gotten all the roots this time.

And lo, whilst kneeled among the Plants of his garden, God noticed a rather largish root that He was Absolutely Certain He hadn't planted there, and was about to dig it up when He became enthralled with its strange orangish color. And so, He dug it up anyway, but instead of throwing it away in the trash with all the other weeds of the Garden, He took it into the house and washed it.

Admiring its color again, he proceeded to take a bite, and found that it was delicious. And, because it was crunchy, He named it the Carrot, which was mighty convenient since Man (who had been doing some rather unorthodox experiments involving long-term genetic engineering) had also named it Carrot.

And so the Carrot became God's chosen vegetable, and was given a nice plot in the Garden to grow in, and venerated by Man, for God then commanded, "Thou Shalt Eat All thy Vegetables, Especially thy Carrots, or Thou Shalt Surely be made to Sit at the Table Until thou hast."

And God spoke to His prophet, Betty Crocker, and told her the number of ways to cook a Carrot, which is Five, and she gave Him some good recipes for lasagna, which much pleased the Lord.

(Scholar's Note: it is from this tale that we learn to embrace the unexpected, for it may be Entirely Worth It, and why pious children must always finish their vegetables. Addtionally, we learn of a hitherto-unmentioned prophet.)

The Top 5 Ways to Make Friends and Influence People (on the web)

5. Pop-up ads

4. (unjustified) DMCA take-down notices sent to their ISP.

3. Death Threats

2. Large, introductory flash animations with no 'skip intro' option

1. Embedded, automatically-playing, no-controls visible audio or video files. (MySpace, I'm looking at you).

Cribbage-- ("Cribbage Minus Minus")

This Cribbage variant was developed by Steve Mathias and Geoffrey Lehr for use with a five-suited deck, like the Stardeck, that makes it easy to distinguish the fifth suit from the others, although it could be played with other decks.

Play is as normal, except that stars (or whatever the fifth suit is) have negative values during the play of the hand, and when counting fifteens after the hand. "Negative fifteen" (eg Q✫, 5✫) still counts as 2 points. Combinations that are identical to another combination except for cards which sum to zero are illegal. (eg, 9♠ 10♠ 4✫ is worth 2 points, but Q✫ 10♠ 10♦ 5♦ is not a valid combination). Stars count as normal for pairs, runs, nobs, etc.

Once the count reaches 31 during play, it is reset to zero, even if a player holds a star and could still play.

Night at the Museum (2006)

1492 Pictures, 21 Laps Entertainment
Director: Shawn Levy

Start with a museum, add one unsuspecting but well-meaning loser and the fact that everything in the museum comes to life at night, and hilarity ought to ensue. Unfortunately, this is a Ben Stiller movie, which means we're treated to a series of poorly-executed bits of physical comedy combined with thinly-disguised penis jokes (the cowboy, Jed).

Despite the promising premise, Night at the Museum fails to deliver. Although the development of the premise is alright (once you get past Stiller's attempts at comedy), it seems that about halfway through the script, the writers suddenly realized that they had no plot, and had to tack on one about the previous night guards!

The rest of the movie suffered from inconsistancy. The wax Teddy Roosevelt remembers his making, but no one else does, meanwhile Sacagawea has memories from her historical counterpart? The Egpytian mummy has been restored to full flesh-and-bone, and was apparently aware enough to learn English while in the British Museum, but the replicas of Genghis Khan and the other Huns didn't? (Ok, so they weren't in the British Museum, but come on). Oh, and the Pharoah can also speak Hun, despite being born centuries (millenia?) before the Huns existed (maybe he learned that at the British Museum, too). And Octavius speaks English, too. (At least the kid—of course there's a kid—questions why the mummy can speak English, even if the answer is ridiculous).

Sadly, Robin Williams, while giving a decent performance as Roosevelt, can't save the movie. Nor can Dick van Dyke or Mickey Rooney, although getting to see a crazed van Dyke was fun.

All in all, don't bother with this movie. It should have been much more, much better, much funnier than it was. It doesn't have to be a political commentary or insight into the human condition, but it should at least be funny.

Pinball!

Yesterday, Steve's dad took us up to Lyons to play pinball at one of the few remaining pinball arcades, Lyons Classic Pinball. Their selection is amazing! 36 machines (according to their website, I didn't count), ranging from classic Gottlieb, Bally and Williams machines to modern Stern machines, including a Pirates of the Caribbean one, can be found there. I don't think I've ever seen so many machines in one place, much less ones that are all functional. The arcade even has a pinball league! I don't know how a pinball league works, but it kinda sounds fun.

Of particular note is the "Hercules" machine, the largest production pinball machine in the world, which uses a billiard ball (or maybe a rubber billards-sized ball)! The cabinet is at least 3.5 feet across, maybe larger. Unfortunately, the game isn't very exciting; the size of the ball probably makes it hard to have much tilt, and the flippers were already weak. Also, there was a two-player machine, called "Joust", that pitted the players directly against each other, which was different but fun!

I definitely enjoyed myself, and it's been a while since I played much pinball. I may have to take another trip up there sometime soon, just for fun.

Blizzard Adventure!

Well, today was an interesting day. It started out about normal, Steve went to work, and I did some work here. Then, along about 13:30 we headed out to the bank and then to Dave & Buster's to spend some time with Steve's dad and sister, Michelle. We left from there for the airport about 17:00, to pick up Matt and his friend Truong. The roads weren't horrible, but they weren't great, either.

We started back from the airport about 19:00, and then the blizzard was really starting to pick up. Things were pretty good until we got into Wheat Ridge. By then the snow was already 4-5" high, there were few plows out, and conditions worsened on highway 58 into Golden. We almost got stuck at the top of a hill because someone else had either stopped or got stuck up there, and getting moving again in this snow when you're stopped is nearly impossible.

We made it to Golden, and stopped at the gas station so Matt could get some milk and other provisions, then we took him home and began the long trek up 93 to Boulder. The roads themselves weren't too bad, but the near-whiteout conditions made it a dangerous drive. I had to pass several people because they just weren't going fast enough. The Golf performed admirably. I never lost control and never got stuck, at least on 93.

We stopped and got a bunch of provisions at the grocery before heading home. Everything was going well, until I came to the corner right by our apartment building, when we got stuck in the middle of a turn! We called Brendan, and some other folks stopped to help as well, but it was to no avail; although we got it out of the middle of the street, it's definitely stuck where it is for a few days. Sigh... we almost made it!

Anyway, then we got the groceries in and I went out to take a couple pictures. While I was doing that, I came across someone else whose car was stuck, and so I (and another guy, who coincidently works at Silvermine [Brendan is apparently working there now]) helped push him into a parking lot.

Now, I'm just glad to be home, and planning to not leave for several days. It's a good thing I can work from home!

Twelve things you notice when you have Pentapedes

The pentapede is a semi-intelligent, tarantula-sized, five-legged hemovore (blood-eater... I can't find any real references online for this word, so...) with a spider-like carapace. They also like to dance. And bite.

Mostly they bite.

Steve and I have come up with a holiday song comemerating the pentapede, entitled, "Twelve Things You Notice when You Have Pentapedes," sung to the tune of "The Twelve Days of Christmas."

The verse goes:

The first thing you notice, when you have pentapedes,
is the body on top of their legs.

And the things you notice are:

• Twelve puncture wounds


• Eleven beady eyes


• Ten legs... wait a minute...


• Nine hours recovery


• Eight-minute poison


• Seven foot-high jumping


• Six daily feedings


• Five Hairy Legs!


• Four crying kids


• Three dead pets


• Two slavering fangs


• And a body on top of the legs!

Merry Pentamas!

A pinch of foolishness

I've been reading over my old blog posts, and I decided that I need to write more bad poetry here. I know, I know, if you wanted something that wasn't funny, you could read R'thoria, but I'm doing it anyway. Enjoy!

The snow falls in the quiet eve
For some time yet, I shall not leave
'Til the ice is gone and clouds are spent
I daren't drive with the roads this bad

The night has come again
The howling can't begin
The wolves and coyotes buried deep
The snow makes them want to sleep

Green snake, sugar cane,
Rapping on my window pane
'Kay, this poem's awfully lame
I think that I'm done with this game.

Go Free Software Foundation!

Wow, those guys over at the Free Software Foundation (http://www.fsf.org/) are real firebrands! They announced yesterday the opening of their newest project, BadVista, "a campaign with a twofold mission of exposing the harms inflicted on computer users by the new Microsoft Windows Vista and promoting free software alternatives that respect users' security and privacy rights." And, on the 13th, they announced a donation of $60,000 (!!!) to the Free Ryzom campaign, a campaign to buy the MMORPG Ryzom from its bankrupt parent company and release it under the GPL.

Go FSF!

Quotes from last night's viewing of Eragon

"I wish my sorcerer were emo, so he would cut himself!"

"Oh, look, a whole theater full of people that will be disappointed."

"And here, behind this tapestry, is where I keep my DRAGON!"

"BTW, George Lucas called. He wants his PLOT back."

"And so did Peter Jackson. He wants his SET back."

R'thoria's Used Plot Elements, Vol. 2, Ep. 001

Welcome back, everyone! I know that you all missed me terribly, but I assure you that that court-ordered sabbatical to the mental hospital has done wonders for my skin, and I'm ready to bring you some new and wonderful Used Plot Elements!

In the time that I've been gone, we've seen quite a few new plots come and go in the mainstream, and we here at RUPE have got some amazing deals for you!

But first off, an oldie but goodie, it's the "boy abandoned by his mother lives with his uncle until the evil Authority (be it empire, marauding invaders or otherwise) kills his uncle and so he must go off adventuring to defeat the evil Authority using strange powers he never knew he had before" plot. Made most famous in modern times by George Lucas' Star Wars Trilogy (ep. 4-6), this classic has been around for as long as there have been Authorities, evil, and uncles (since 1284)! With just one copy left in stock, I'm sure that the low low price of 65536 nuyen will ensure that this one goes to a worthy customer.

Next up on the block, we have something unusual for us here. Normally, we don't carry very many tangible goods—apart from our line of Wookiee products. Don't forget to get our new "Wookiee See Wookiee Doo" card game!—but in a recent shipment, nestled between the classic "Uncle Stilt's Pin" and "The Ever-So-Effeminate-but-Certainly-Not-Gay-(Unless-You're-Cute) Hairstylist of Seville" plots, was the complete set for Helm's Deep, from the epic movie trilogy, The Lord of the Rings! Normally we would, of course, return it immediately to the producers, but, well, we didn't want to pay the shipping.

So! For a mere 394.26 nuyen (plus tax) this incredible set can be yours! We will also giftwrap your purchase for free!

Finally today, we decided to throw a copy of Dragonheart into the blender with McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern, hoping for a fiber-intense smoothie, but instead we got a new plot! I call it the, "Dragons are cool, let's tell a story about them, oh but we need people too so that the audience can relate", sifted through some cheesecloth to get rid of any semblance of dialog, plot, or politics, maybe a fifteen-year-old wrote it plot. We're letting this one go cheap, folks! All I'm asking is a strawberry smoothie, or maybe a banana daiquiri.

Why, hello, Mr. Fangmeier! Yes, sir, I'll wrap these up for you immediately! I hope everything goes well with you for that Eragon movie you're making... You're sure it's not a misspelling for 'dragon'? Okay, then! See you again soon!

Well, folks, just remember, at RUPE, we're proud to be the primary supplier for Hollywood, so, whether you want ACTION, ADVENTURE, or simply the best selection of subatomic particles around, come on down and let our professional harass your cares away!