17Jan03 (Monthenor): Here's my latest attempt to top Google for "Bezos eye bleeding". Oh, right, and it's also the first appearance of The Big Payoff, Tw'Aolzon. Tw'Aolzon is the Dark Elder God of Information, styled after the H.P. Lovecraft Cthulhu mythos. But -- all due credit to Lovecraft -- I don't think anything could be scarier than a real-life TW/AOL/Amazon merger.

So what else have I been doing lately? Well, after crushing Tony Hawk 4 last week, I've been screwing around with freeware/abandonware PC games. See, it all started on the UJ forums...somebody mentioned a new fighting game called Melty Blood. The demo was pretty r@wk, so I tried to find it's predescessors Party's Breaker, Queen of Heart '99, and Queen of Heart '98. My warez skillz deserted me...these games are damn hard to find for an English-speaker, even legitimately.

But in my quest for Queen of Heart '98 I stumbled upon The Home of the Underdogs. I'd heard of this site in passing before, but I had no idea of the sheer joy that awaited me. It's like finding HappyPuppy's LordSoth page all over again. So now there are acres of free games waiting for me to play them, and if I want to get any homework done this weekend I'd better start now.

That'll leave a mark.
01.17.03 (Morgion)

What other web comic is edgy enough to give you cute, fuzzy gerbils bleeding from the eyes?! Other than Purple Pussy, maybe. That's right, nobody. Not be be confused with "no body". Did I mention I love Google?

I would so love to be in an earthquake. Not an earthquake in a city… that's just crazy. Maybe on a hill above a city during an earthquake… yeah, that'd be cool. I'd wear a hard hat just to be safe—and, if I'm anywhere on the West coast… some scuba gear. Just in case.

VH1 is showing The 100 Greatest Moments that Rocked TV. Number 95: Buffy the Vampire Slayer's musical episode, Once More, With Feeling. One of the celebrity comments—intoned with scoffing disbelief—was that Joss Whedon (god among men that he is) not only meticulously crafted the story, lyrics, and music, he also helped produce a soundtrack of the episode… "and people bought it!" Well, yeah. You do have your copy, right? *brow furrow* Right? Good. We can cancel the ninjas.

Cartoon Network, in their infinite wisdom, has moved their Adult Swim block (which I couldn't find mentioned anywhere on their website, kid-friendly fascists that they are) to late-night Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday… and maybe Sunday. I don't know anymore. Why? Because now I'm staying up every day past midnight, and so every day is blending into the next. That, and the fact that it's December in North Dakota and it's dark for like 36 hours of the day (actually, 15 hours, 1 minute [I know we had 8 hours, 59 minutes of daylight today, thanks to Meteorologist 1.2 for OS X]).

Sometimes I just want to go somewhere far north where it's literally dark all day. Take that, you flimsy-ass curtains!

Required Viewing: Military Procedures, The Outer Limits, Star Trek, Crowd Control Methodology.
01.18.03 (Morgion)

So Monthenor and I are watching Stargate-SG1. Toy of the week: some glowy thing made by the Ancients that they don't know anything enough. What do they do after they realize they don't have any clue what it is or what it does? Bring it back to Earth! This is a critically flawed plan, as anyone well-versed in various forms of science fiction could tell you.

On at least two occasions up through Season 3 of SG1, unknown alien artifacts or plagues were brought back through the gate and threatened the entire planet. That's not counting the time a bomb capable of blowing up most of North America was planted in a little girl, or the time they inadvertently opened the gate to a binary star system that recently formed a black hole. Time dilation is fun. :-) It's risky enough defending against the things you know about, let alone the random, bits you think are shiny and want to bring home to show your CO. Therefore… don't bring them home.

In the Stargate universe, most of the planets in our galaxy are boring. No sentient life, no real reason for anyone to visit—unless, of course, your race recently ventured out of your little sandbox out into the Sahara. Monthenor called them "scratch" planets… I called them "ass" planets. Either way, if they get vaporized or plagued to death, no one cares. So, they should be called "research facilities". Let the kids with the big brains and no immediate families play with the funny toys somewhere else.