Fossil Soup

Warning: Rapidly flashing images may cause brain cancer. One of my former bosses once said that about listening to me talk...

Well, actually, it might be the sub-par show from which this video was drawn.

But nonetheless, I'm sure some people out there think that I hate their guts, or that I'm an asshole to them for no reason at all. Well? Be consoled in the fact that there's one person I love and hate more than anyone else in this world, and this very video is for him.

If you can, try and coordinate the lyrics with the ac-- never mind. Enjoy.

It's not often I skirt the surface of YouTube for the stuff I post here, but it was so tempting to provide a blah commentary on the crappy weather that's dominated the area for the past few days with some repetitive video by Temple of the Dog that I talked myself out of it at the last minute and found something a little more uplifting to bring to the table today.

And it just so happens I was rambling about this over drinks last night. As I usually do when alcohol's involved.

This kind of nonsense has been found on message boards which I've frequented before, and it's just really a gauge to see exactly how much of a geek I am. Nerd, dork, whatever. I know a little bit about rpg's, computer gaming, console gaming, and random other stuff that guys with a gut and pimples on their face manage to know even well into adulthood.

So I urge you! Feel free to message me via myspace or hit my inbox here with your answers. Some of you, God bless, will find this test to be quite a breeze. I thought to divide it up into sections, but I figured it'd be a little more of a challenge if you got a toss-up from question to question. Without further ado...

Goat Ramblings Geek Test Vol. I

1) Name the five Ages in the original Myst. (5 points)

2) Name the six basic character attributes in Dungeons and Dragons. (6 points)

3) Explain the notation "3d8." (3 points)

4) In the Limited edition of Magic: the Gathering, name the card that gives a player an extra turn. (3 points)

5) Name the central character of the Half-Life series. (2 points)

6) What is the cost of any given dragon legend from the "Legends" and/or "Chronicles" series? (5 points)

7) Name the five dragon legends from said series. (10 points)

8) What are the three names for the races featured in "Starcraft"? (3 points)

9) Name five set releases before the 5th Edition of Magic: the Gathering that are not basic sets (ala 1st (limited), 2nd (unlimited), 3rd (revised) etc). (10 points)

10) In the past few years, what game engine is most widely used for first person gaming? (3 points)

So there 50 possible points for phase 1. I'll tell you how you did!

Weird how this one fell on the 13th installment (aside from the Friday the 13th where I featured three videos and some extra commentary and what not.)

The other day I happened upon a video that featured a song I hadn't heard... It's two years old now and usually I can keep up with stuff that's fairly fresh even though I prefer to dig deeper for the older music.

I guess I can say it certainly has an appeal to me, else I wouldn't have posted. I wouldn't go so far as to say this is a good song, by any stretch of the word. It's kinda like KISS, I guess. Love 'em, hate 'em, they got your attention. For reference, it's not KISS.





Also, as a bonus, there's another video that features this song that I felt was worth a look as well. Cut from quite possibly one of the greatest movies of this generation... haha

Nom-BRAY!!!

Eh, it's 200. For a variety of reasons.

That was the approximate amount of time, in minutes, it took for me to finish my little 13.1-mile walk I did on Saturday morning. I've always had a healthy (or unhealthy, as you see it) ego about being able to do things that not many people would do. Why was finishing the damn thing meaningful to me, and despite coming in next-to-last, why do I believe it's such a feat?

Some factors:

- I worked the night before til 10 pm, and I did not get to bed until midnight.
- I had to be awake by 5 a.m. in order to be there in time to register and prepare myself in any way I could. This process included packing, brushing, getting gasoline, and making the 90-100 mile trip to get to the race site.
- I missed breakfast just getting there.
- I had little to no physical preparation for this endeavour. None. No serious preparatory running of any kind in the months leading up to this. This is what makes me feel so good about it. Imagine how I would've done with even a little preparation.

So yeah, I came in next-to-last. And the guy who came in last now believes I'm Australian.

One more thing: 200 is also the weight I'm aiming for when I start exercising regularly.

As promised, if you're of the myspace persuasion... A video clip featuring some of the most "powerful" moments in modern film.

Sure, the acting may not be on par with the rest of the film from which this clip is derived. It hits home, though. If you've ever found yourself amidst something that became bigger than that which you could control... it hits home. It may not be heroin- it may be something as simply complex as the bottle, or the box of cigs... Anything that can be substituted for the pivot word in Marilyn Manson's idea of "I don't love the drugs, but the drugs love me."

I've been throwing a few ideas around in my head trying to figure out what to do next, with no luck. Part of me wants to write the second installment of "Things That Never Happened" about my abstaining from drinking for a month or so, with an ironic twist about the drive home from a Christmas party where I left as the only person 100% sober. Might have been too ironic, but the ending I had in mind was a little too creepy for me to risk putting into word because I fear that it just might have happened if I'd written it down. How stupid is that?

Anyway, with this newfound interest in actually opening books and reading what's inside, I am pulling a rather entertaining excerpt from A.R. Burn's Penguin History of Greece. It really demonstrates how the dialectics that were innovated by Socrates are all but extinct, and it's a shame, because it seems that we're still finding new ways to get on people's nerves that seem to pale in comparison to such classics as this (a conversation between Alcibiades and Pericles):

"A: Could you explain to me what Law is?
P: Certainly.
A: Then please do; because when I hear people praised for being law-abiding, I think that one could never deserve that praise if one does not know what Law is.
P: Well, that is not very difficult. All enactments are laws which the People in parliament has approved and published, laying down what shall be done or not done.
A: - resolving that we should do good things? Or bad things?
P: Good gracious, boy! Good, of course, not bad.
A: But then, if it is not the People, but, as happens where there is an oligarchy, a minority assembles and publishes its enactment, what is that?
P: Everything that the government of the city, after deliberation, publishes, as to what is to be done, is called law.
A: But then if a tyrant, in control of a city, publishes enactments as to what the citizens are to do, is that law?
P: Even what a tyrant publicly enacts, as he is the government, is called law.
A: But, Pericles, what is lawlessness and arbitrary power? Isn't it when the stronger compels the weaker, by force and without consent, to do what he pleases?
P: I agree.
A: Well, then, what a tyrant compels the citizens to do by his enactments, without their consent, is a negation of the law?
P: Yes, I agrree; I withdraw my statement that what a tyrant enacts, without the people's consent, is law.
A: Then what about an oligarchy's enactments, if it legislates for the people without their consent, by compulsion?
P: Everything which forces another to do without his consent, whether by public enactment or otherwise, seems to be arbitrary, rather than law.
A: Well, then, when the people, being stronger than the rich, legislates for them without their consent, is that arbitrary, or is that law?
P: Oh, Alkibiades*, I was good at that sort of thing when I was your age. We used to debate and quibble over just that sort of thing.
A: I wish I could have talked to you when you were at your best, Pericles!" (Burn 254-55)

* - This is an alternate spelling used by Burns, despite my own learning experience of spelling it with a "c". It is not determined after further research which is correct, as I'm sure both are accepted in most circles.

Source:

Burn, A.R. The Penguin History of Greece. London: Penguin Group, 1990.

Some of this stuff is OLD! Older than dirt, I say! Nah, not really. It's from my old "myspace" shit that I tend to draw on when I feel I have to clarify some things or clean it up a bit. I posted this with the links all fucked up, so maybe this time around, I'll get it right.

I bring this to you, entitled "Your Band Doesn't Suck," because I laughed my way out of the computer lab in my free time after I finished my paper this afternoon.

WARNING: THERE IS A LOT MORE READING INVOLVED IN THE LINKS PROVIDED THAN IS JUST IN THE STORY. IT IS ESSENTIAL TO AT LEAST SAMPLE THESE LINKS TO BE ABLE TO FOLLOW MY CRITIQUE. NOT RECOMMENDED FOR ANYONE WITH LITTLE FREE TIME.

--

I may be drawing a foregone conclusion based on the fact that I'm not really sure who 'your' band in particular is. But this was where I was heading with my previous entry about being pretentious, which in itself became something of a rant about how a certain website has shaped my personality here on the web.

Has it affected others similarly? Of course it has. People who not only feel but now (thanks to the internet) know they have the power to express themselves as unbridled as they possibly can in an untamed environment take full advantage of this and are indirectly responsible for the rise in average blood pressure here in the U.S. The first person who anonymously posts "I hate Jews, blacks, and black Jews alike" gets a flood of email once a few hundred or thousand hits are made on the entry and finds himself with a handful of "fuck you"s and "your a fag" (I know it's actually 'you're,' but mind you, I'm trying to emulate the average internet trolling imbecile.) messages that do nothing more than amuse him.

And why does this amuse him? Because he knows what he has intended to happen HAS happened, and it's what he was looking for all along: to get a rise out of somebody. My particular knowledge of the universe here known as the internet is rather small, namely porn from the old days or random games here and there, but a couple of my favorites are particularly a douchebag who has become known as merely "Maddox" and another douchebag who brands himself as "Dr. David Thorpe." With the amount of attention these guys receive due to what they write, it was only a matter of time before one of them became a published bestseller. Guess which one without looking it up.

A few examples of the articles written by this pair are as follows: a social commentary on women, blue collar america gets a wake-up call, a zing marathon on any and all types of music, and an objective view of various musical personalities. There's a little criticism for everybody, and there are several reasons why I read these articles avidly. For starters, I'm a grammar nazi, which for the layman reads the idea that I'm an admirer of anyone who takes the time to make anything they know will be read by more than 3 people presentable as a thesis. Secondly, they at least make you THINK they know what they're talking about, and thirdly, I'm a fan of the shock jock strategy... which means that I'm fully aware that there's no possible way anyone could be THAT moronic and suspend my disbelief long enough to see, you guessed it, how people respond.

A few more links: fans of Coheed and Cambria, reader mail, people don't like Maddox, and more mail.

We've already gone over why they don't let the hate-mail bother them. But the aforementioned are not only testaments to their getting the job done, but also are solid evidence that some people are as ignorant as these guys assume we all are, and their responses do not help the case for us that "get it." Notice how sophomoric the responses are and the suspicious absence of anything that remotely resembles a lucid thought. There's a reason for that as well, and I'll let you figure that out.

But it's great entertainment, at least for me. It's akin to watching lions at a zoo, in all their glory, caged, of course... With the zookeepers specifically telling the children not to put their hands through the cage, at which the children scoff, completely disregard, and proceed to get their fingers bitten off by agitated lion cubs. Yes, I'd laugh at that.