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April 10th, 2009
01:12 pm - Great logic problem
The story behind this riddle is that Einstein created it in the late 1800s. I am not sure of the true origin, but I have seen it floating around the internet, and it's a good one. Here it is:
- In a street there are five houses, painted five different colors.
- In each house lives a person of different nationality.
- These five homeowners each drink a different kind of beverage, smoke different brand of cigar and keep a different pet.
The riddle is: Who owns the fish?
Clues:
1. The British man lives in a red house.
2. The Swedish man keeps dogs as pets.
3. The Danish man drinks tea.
4. The Green house is next to, and on the left of the White house.
5. The owner of the Green house drinks coffee.
6. The person who smokes Pall Mall rears birds.
7. The owner of the Yellow house smokes Dunhill.
8. The man living in the center house drinks milk.
9. The Norwegian lives in the first house.
10. The man who smokes Blends lives next to the one who keeps cats.
11. The man who keeps horses lives next to the man who smokes Dunhill.
12. The man who smokes Blue Master drinks beer.
13. The German smokes Prince.
14. The Norwegian lives next to the blue house.
15. The Blends smoker lives next to the one who drinks water.
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April 7th, 2009
10:35 am - GAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH
I hate everything.
Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the third (and finest) of the Narnia heptalogy, is the next to be released in theaters. Unfortunately, as some may know, Disney is entirely staffed by survivors of fetal alcohol syndrome.
Also, they have all suffered severe head trauma somewhere along the line.
First, Disney abandoned the Narnia franchise last year, saying that "for budgetary and logistical reasons it will not exercise its option to co-produce and co-finance the next "Narnia" movie with producer Walden Media."
Oddly enough, the two (yes, TWO) movies being slated for release that weekend by Disney and Paramount, respectively, are Prince of Persia and Iron Man 2. Budgetary constraints my supple hindquarters. It's like Disney doesn't want to have a movie that could compete.
Fox took up the Narnia mantle, with the movie to be released Holiday 2010. This is an imagined conversation between scriptwriters and those who own the rights to the books.
Fox - (reading the book) "Hey what happened to that wacky funny little dwarf dude?"
HarperCollins - "Erm, Trumpkin? Caspian gave him control of politigal goings-on while he was gone."
Fox - "Yeah, people liked him. We're gonna put him on the ship."
HarperCollins - "But...you'll alienate the fans. That's almost as bad as..."
Fox - "What, taking Tom Bombadil out of Lord of the Rings?" *Round of laughter around Fox's side of the table*
HarperCollins - *weeps*
Yes. Trumpkin is on the ship. For some reason.
argh.
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April 4th, 2009
07:55 pm
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March 19th, 2009
06:08 pm - Is This Hate Speech?
Okay, quick game here to see where everyone stands and hopefully engender conversation... just look at each of these sentences and answer two questions:
A. Is this hate speech? (I.e., was it created primarily out of hate, the product of a bigoted and evil mind?)
B. Should the government censor this? (I.e., should people be allowed to write a long essay with this subject and not get slapped?)
Take your time, think about each sentence carefully. I'm not looking for essays on the correctness or offensiveness of these statements, here. Yeses and nos will suffice.
-----------------------------------------------
1. Native Americans are at greater risk for heart disease than other ethnic groups, due to genetic factors.
2. Because their ancestors were adventurous and hard-working immigrants, modern Asian Americans have a unique culture that instills in them a good work ethic.
3. Because slaves were selected for their strength, modern African Americans are genetically more likely to be good at sports.
4. Because slaves were selected for their strength, modern African Americans are genetically more likely to be stupid.
5. The so-called "Holocaust" is a conspiracy of history - Hitler never killed anyone based solely on their race, and certainly not in mass concentration camps.
6. The principles of eugenics are sound, and sterilizing the unfit would improve society in the long run.
7. There is no "gay gene", homosexual inclination is always a result of conditioning, and can be resisted with sufficient willpower.
8. There is a "gay gene", and those who exhibit homosexual tendencies are hopelessly incapable of acting otherwise.
9. The ancient mutation that resulted in a lack of epicanthal fold in Asians makes them unattractive.
10. The ancient mutation that resulted in a lack of epicanthal fold in Asians makes them highly attractive.
11. Islam is a primitive, barbaric religion.
12. Creationists are willfully ignorant and should not be allowed to indoctrinate their children with their anti-scientific worldview.
13. Hitler was a good man.
14. If you intentionally disqualify yourself from military service, you aren't a real man and you don't love your country.
15. George W. Bush is stupid, and unfit to lead.
16. Barack Obama is out of touch with the people, and unfit to lead.
17. People who vote Republican are either stupid or evil.
18. Homosexuals are more likely to molest children, and thus should not be put in positions of authority over them.
19. Catholic priests are more likely to molest children, and thus should not be put in positions of authority over them.
20. All bisexuals are promiscuous.
21. If you have a known sex offender in your neighborhood, you would be protecting your children if you tracked him down and killed him.
22. If you have a Jew in your neighborhood, you would be protecting your children if you tracked him down and killed him.
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02:53 pm
heh
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February 28th, 2009
12:27 pm
I made this and entered it in a Cracked photoshop contest for "When superpowers go wrong" I thought it was amusing.
Plus, I am shamelessly self-promoting.
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February 27th, 2009
09:54 pm - Review: Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li
Oh, Capcom. Hi there. Glad you could come in on such short notice.
I'm gonna now do something called a "Compliment sandwich." This is where I start with something good, then say where you need improvement, then finish off with something good.
1. Mega Man was awesome.
2. Have you even seen Doom? Andrzej Bartkowiak had a movie based on a shooting game end with a fistfight. Did you really expect that he would take your fighting game and have it do anything but end up like this? There was more dialogue in this movie than in the last meeting of the House of Representatives, and none of it was good. Now, there were a few fight scenes, and some random chases through alleyways...a building does blow up real good with, yes, a character jumping from it in slow-motion...and some shooting, why not? Chun-Li spends the entire time narrating the movie, including once where in her voiceover she said "I needed to find a computer" right before sitting down at a computer.
(NOTE: If Bartkowiak makes a movie based on Microsoft Word, would it end with a shootout?)
And Chris Klien can't act his way out of a wet paper bag.
3. Resident Evil? Hells yes.
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February 18th, 2009
05:49 pm
OK so you may have seen this before, you may not have. I just came across it. My only response is DEAR GOD IN HEAVEN.
It's called a "Human Face Fish". That's not a nickname, that's just...what it is. It’s a fish with a human face. It's apparently what happens when two different kinds of carp crossbreed. It's not really a recognized species yet, but it is a common enough thing for Korean News to cover it and someone else to put it on Youtube for me to come across today.
Look at it...its glassy eyes...reflecting the terrible frailty of human existence with its horrifying expression. Because carp frequently skim the surface to eat, watching the Human Face Fish in action creates the impression that the fish repeatedly swims to the surface to silently scream in terror every couple of minutes.
As one of the comments on the video says: "In a situation like this - finding something completely inhuman that is clearly trying to adapt to resemble a human face screaming in fear - there’s really only two reasonable responses: You can either assume that you’re insane and seek help, or buy a flamethrower and burn the world until it makes sense again."
I feel like doing both.
NOTE TO THOSE WHO READ THIS: I DID NOT CREATE THIS VIDEO, SO THERE SHOULD BE NOBODY COMMENTING AND SAYING "You took this from such-and-such, you rascal!" I CAME ACROSS THE VIDEO ON YOUTUBE AND AM SHARING IT WITH YOU. THANK YOU.
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February 6th, 2009
08:56 pm
they are always watching
always listening
recording everything we do
so sometimes
i sing into the phone
maybe it cheers them up
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February 3rd, 2009
07:01 pm
"A Democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A Democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to weak fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship."
--statement attributed to Alexander Tytler, 1787
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January 30th, 2009
January 25th, 2009
04:43 pm
People say I've changed recently, and it's not just because I spent two months in the casket of Ra, soaking up his powers. I mean, sure, that probably has something to do with it, but it's tangential at best. It's true, I didn't used to be able to call down pestilence from the heavens or raise souls from the underworld, but that's not what people are noticing. OK, so you might be distracted by the crackling aura of my power, or by the growth of my beak, but it's the changes inside of me that are truly remarkable. And I'm not just talking about my ability to crush things with my mind.
It's hard to see my maturity as a superhuman god-being through the piled bones of my enemies, but if you look beyond them you'll realize that I've gone through some remarkable growth. You might think that vanquishing armies with targeted meteor strikes or subjugating the nations of the world to my despotic rule shows my changes, but really it's what I learned from that.
My changes didn't just happen all of a sudden—other than the horns; those did sprout up out of nowhere—it was a process. When I was on the fields of Athenry, raining boiling acid on the plague-ridden people of Ireland, I thought to myself, "There's something big going on here." It might have been a one-time thing, but it happened again a week later when I was flooding Vancouver with the foam-capped waters of the Pacific. As the citizens desperately tried to reach higher ground, I had to step back and gain some perspective, man. I had just unleashed a flock of flesh-eating vultures when I really took stock of things. I mean, there I was, already the emperor and beloved deity of half the world, but was I happy?
I don't think it fully sunk in until a month later when the last free remnants of humanity tried to resist me in Jakarta. Between bouts of laughter over their attempts to fell me with mortal weapons, I realized my place here. I quickly set off the Merapi volcano and, as the lava chased my foes into the waiting mouths of my shark servants, I retreated to the temple my vassals built out of human skulls, for some serious reflection. I thought to myself, What is the point of global conquest if you have to melt the brains of your closest friends to get there?
Now, I know you're probably thinking that it's pretty convenient I went through this realization after I enslaved the human race, and several lesser races, but I really have changed. Just the other day, a rebellion flared up in Rio de Janeiro and I only ordered the sacrifice of half the rebel families (and the deaths were painless, too!), a complete 180 from last month in Orlando.
I want to assure you that from this point forward I plan on being the best Lord and Ruler of the Planets Earth and Mars (and Supreme Potentate of Jupiter's moon Europa) that I can be. I'm thankful you took some time out of carving Mount Kilimanjaro into my likeness to listen to what I have to say. It was difficult to get that off my chest, but you've all been very supportive, and I do appreciate it. Have a pleasant three-hour night rest period.
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January 18th, 2009
08:24 pm - Unmade
The more that God creates himself in me, the less room there is for the old me. When you realize that dying to yourself in order to live in Christ is the only way to go, there is a certain return to innocence. In that place of innocence, I ask God to make nothing out of me so that He can remake Himself in me.
I've no illusion who I am this lightning shard of me
cuts itself into reality
You look into my skin and pull me inside out
right here in front of me today
I'm running faster not in fear, but because my legs won't stop
You've broken me so fierce
I fear my sanity's been shattered to a thousand tiny drops today
and if You have the time
won't You make nothing out of me
would You be so kind as to make nothing out of me
If I could speak weak enough to speak the weakness of my soul
I'd cease to speak at all
Here is the holy ground the bush is burning now,
but I dissolve today
the cage is opened now, You've pulled the doors and called to me
still I want to be set free
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04:40 pm - Life
As I've gone through my life, I've done pretty much everything by the seat of my pants. Planning has never been one of my strong points. As my adult life has taken form, I have seen this strategy fail me time and again. I flunked out of college, I did poorly in the workforce, and I've hobbled my Army career, all as a result of this. The thing is, I don't even know what to call it other than Fear. It is cowardice that has crippled me, forced me into these situations where I am stuck with no way out.
I am a liar. I am a hypocrite. And it is fear that holds me in this state. My life is now at a place where I have realized that this path is taking me nowhere.
MY LIFE IS NOT WORTH LIVING!!!!
This is not what you may think. I am not thinking of suicide. I am, however, ending my life.
The path my life has taken is at an end, and there is no way that I can go on living life the way that I have.
2nd Corinthians 5:16-17
From now on, then, we do not know anyone in a purely human way. Even if we have known Christ in a purely human way, now we no longer know Him like that. Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away, and look! New things have come!
It's been said, 'You must love yourself before anybody else can.' The Golden Rule is 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' The problem is, how do you properly love others if you hate yourself?
For a long time, this has been my problem. If you read back in my LJ there is a point at which I even said "Maybe I should go be someone else for a while, someone who doesn't have so much trouble being me." I realize now that it is not my own merits that I need to like myself based upon. I see now that I have not liked who I am because I am not the man that I need to be.
Old things have passed away...and look! New things have come!!
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/niaha/kitty/ankhappyg.gif) calm
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November 20th, 2008
07:41 am - The 6 cutest animals that could absolutely destroy you
1. Hippopotamus
Hippos are practically the very definition of Disney-cute. What sort of person could look at this big ol' rascal, playing away in her favorite swimming hole, and not think of stuffing her in a tutu and making her dance to classical music?
Just look at them. There is no way you could look at a big, fat, happy, squishy, huggable hippo and not think, "If she could talk like a human, she would sound just like Jada Pinkett Smith and be oh so sassy." You would totally name her Sassybaskets and she would be your tutu-wearing, ballet-dancing, strut-walking pal for life. Just you and Sassybaskets against the world! Look out, New York, here comes Sassybaskets!
It turns out in the real world, hippos freaking kill people.
There's this word, "territorial," that nature takes pretty seriously. When it's applied to a two-ton animal with teeth the size of bowling pins, that is one hell of a word. The sort of word you either pay very close attention to, or ignore and end up with a complimentary "Killed to death by a hippo" tombstone. That sort of thing is really embarrassing for the family, you know?
The next time you settle in for a game of Hungry Hungry Hippos, take a moment to to reflect on the small fact that hippopotamuses kill more humans per year than any other animal in the entire continent of Africa. Only elephants are consistently larger than hippos, and only the Warner Brothers' Tasmanian Devil is more consistently aggressive.
The late Steve Irwin, a man who used to tackle 12-foot crocodiles for fun and wave angry snakes filled with kill-you-before-your-next-heartbeat poison at a camera, considered a five-minute sequence where his camera team had to cross a river filled with hippos to be the single most dangerous moment ever filmed on his show.
The man who toyed with crocodiles, was terrified of hippos.
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2. Platypus
I swear, I don't even know where to begin.
This is an animal so deliriously ridiculous, biologists refused to believe it could possibly be anything but an elaborate hoax when it was first discovered. To put this in perspective, these exact same biologists believed that rotting meat spontaneously generated maggots and saw nothing wrong with pouring liquid heroin down babies' throats. Platypi are that ridiculous.
But seriously, look at it. It's got a thick, furry body with a flat, beaver-like tail and otter-like feet and we're cool with that because he's so dang fuzzy. Then there's the matter of the big, leathery duck bill and it's suddenly more than a little weird, because that's ... that's not really supposed to happen to mammals.
And then there's the further matter of the very high degree of electroreceptivity in that there bill--it helps the platypus find food buried in the silt. Kinda like a hammerhead shark's head, only instead of being terrifying-looking eye protrusions with an awesome name, it's a goofy-looking duck bill. On a mammal. And OK so that's ... pretty weird, but so what? Their babies are called puggles! Puggles!
Also they lay eggs for some reason.
And, they are poisonous.
Wait, what?
Male platypi have a pair of spurs on their hind legs that they use for defense and dominance duels. They deliver a brutal dose of venom that will put a human being into the emergency room and leave him writhing in muscle-impaired agony for months.
The platypus is God's way of saying, "I made this thing out of spare parts I found on the workshop floor, and it can still cripple you."
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3. Dingo
Look at the pretty little puppy! Who's a pretty little puppy?
Oh yes you are! Yes you are! Whoosagoodboyyy? Whooooooosagoodbooooooyyyyy?
Look at him. Look at that fur, those eyes, that playful grin. If that dingo was behind a clear plastic wall at a pet shop, I would take him home in a heartbeat. I'd name him Bandit and put a red bandanna around his neck and take him out to the lake in a pickup truck and he'd hang his head out the window as we drove, howling along to the radio.
If I died, he'd lie down on our graves and just howl away. For the rest of his life. Because he'd miss me so much.
Bandit would be the best dog there ever was.
And if he ever got rabies, we'd be the ones to put him down.
It just wouldn't be right any other way.
STOP. I can practically feel you trying to reach out a hand to give the Dingo a scratch behind the ear so he knows what a good boy he's being but seriously and for the sake of all that is holy STOP.
That adorable little guy with the silly name and the gleam in his eye is, in fact, absolutely nothing like your blessed yellow Labrador-mix that was the only friendly face you saw all day in your childhood.
No. That is a wild, as in untamed, as in feral, meaning thoroughly and completely--this is important--a dangerous and unpredictable animal.
Wild dogs--also known as freaking wolves--are inquisitive, intelligent predators that travel in packs. Which means there are several of them and they all think "fair fight" means "we outnumber the crap out of you". Do a Google search on "Dingo," and look over all of those pages. Notice a theme? Every single one of them manages to repeat the exact same sentiment ad nauseum:
Do not attempt to pet the dingos. Do not attempt to play with the dingos. Do not throw squeaky toys to the dingos or attempt to sneak scraps of food to the dingos from the dinner table. If a dingo follows you home, you should not keep it. DO NOT LET A DINGO PLAY WITH YOUR INFANT.
It took 7,000 years of breeding and training to make your pet dog. This is not your pet dog. This is a freaking dingo.
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4. Chimpanzee
These guys are practically people. No, screw that, they're practically better than people. Chimps have done everything from fly jet planes to sleep in the same bed as a former President of the United States. If you put a chimp in front of a camera with an action star, you have no choice but to prepare for a wild, wacky romp that will tug your heartstrings and tickle your funny bone until you vomit your entire digestive system in pure laugh-a-minute glee. And then, at the end, we all learn a valuable lesson: usually that Burt Reynolds can be consistently outwitted by lesser primates.
It's that grin. That huge, toothy grin they flash for the cameras, it makes them look like devilish little scamps, like they have some great and hilarious secret they cannot wait to share. And then they put their arms around the action star and snuggle in and everybody goes awwwwwwwwwwwwwww.
Then they pucker their lips and make fart noises and everybody just laughs until they die.
That is not a grin. What that is, see, is a mouthful of very large teeth being bared. Right at you.
The chimp is attempting to inform you that you are invading his space. If you do not understand this, the chimp would be happy to further elaborate. With that mouthful of very large teeth. While smashing his very long and extremely strong arms about your head and shoulders, grabbing your hair and slamming your head into things. All the while shrieking a vicious symphony of noise that is calling all his buddies over to beat you until you cannot grow anymore. Following which, they will pelt you with feces.
It's sort of like a fraternity initiation, only they don't care if you survive.
Ask Karen about her trip to France's "Monkey Mountain." The story will remind you less of Ross's adorable pet monkey on Friends and more of Stephen Seagal "taking out the trash." Now imagine what that monkey would do to your goofy, non-popcorn bringing toochus if you tried to make him wear a funny hat and a necktie.
Oh, here's something to make that mental image even worse: On four recorded occasions in the last 50 years, chimpanzees have abducted, killed and eaten human babies. That's human with an H, as in Homo Sapiens, as in a human baby getting wrenched out of its mother's arms, dragged off into the forest and devoured by a chimp. I am not making this up.
Will you stop dressing them in cowboy outfits now? Please?
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5. Swan
Such poise. Such grace. The way they glide effortlessly across the water. That unmistakable curve to their necks that forms a perfect heart when they nuzzle with their mate, who they will stay with for the rest of their lives.
Glorious.
This is the bird our mothers promised us we would grow up to be after yet another day of getting beat up for being so ugly. We're adults now (and still ugly) and the swan's beauty has endured, only growing stronger as we grow older. In another 40 years, there we'll be, on a bench in a park with a bag of breadcrumbs in our hands, just watching the swans drift by, reminding us that in the end, everything turned out OK.
Let me tell you though, getting chased through a park by a furious bird that will not stop trying to rip your skin off your bones is only funny until it happens to you.
Yes, swans are aggressive as crap. The only defense against swan attack is to actually grab the bird by the neck and heave it as far as you can while onlookers applaud.
Just like that one girl in history class that you thought was the single most beautiful woman you'd ever seen in your life who you mooned over for months and left little notes for, it turns out swans are now and have always been vicious, mean little jerks who will not hesitate to snap your fingers off one by one for daring to pollute its presence. And then going off to laugh with all their friends about what a huge loser you are.
In Ireland, it is not uncommon for university rowing teams to cancel practice because there is a swan in the river. Rowing teams tend to be composed of men who are built like very large trees. Trees that bench-press Volvos. These men are terrified of swans, probably due to a grizzled old rowing coach, always looking on from the shore, a bill-shaped scar where his left eye used to be.
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6. Dolphins
No way. No way. What the poop are dolphins doing here?
This cannot be right. These guys save humans. Every other year or so, some diver or something gets lost out at sea, these guys bring them home. Heck, in November of 2004, a bunch of these guys banded together and saved three lifeguards from a great white shark off the coast of New Zealand.
They're dolphins!
They can talk. They shoot high-pitched chirps and squeaks back and forth, slap their tails in the surf and jump around to let each other know what kind of day they're having. This is the only animal in the world that Americans feel proud of not eating. This is freaking Flipper here, every third girl you met in college had at least one tattooed somewhere on her body.
No animal in the world is more closely linked to DayGlo rainbows.
It turns out they're sex-crazed thrill-killers. How's that for a plot twist?
For the last 17 years or so, marine biologists have begun paying a great deal of attention to dead baby dolphins and porpoises of all ages washing up ashore, and we quote, 'mangled in unexpected ways.'
The discovery that Bottlenose Dolphins were occasionally viciously reconfiguring their own children wasn't really all that much of a big deal. Humans are the only species on the planet that actually cares even a tiny bit about infanticide. It was what the dolphins were doing to the porpoises that entered the domain of the 'seriously messed up'.
Thirteen-foot male Bottlenose Dolphins were hunting down porpoises, beating to death and then playing with their corpses, all for no readily apparent reason. The majority opinion of the marine science community is that this breathtakingly savage interspecies homicide is for -- and this is Science here -- giggles.
Reports of ludicrously aggressive dolphins attempting to *ahem* sexually assault human women abound from all over the globe. And in 1994, a male Bottlenose off the coast of San Paolo, Brazil, that was noted to be fond of female human swimmers attacked a pair of human males that the dolphin apparently considered to be competition ... and killed one of them.
Sure, some accounts say the man was drunk, and was actively trying to shove a stick into the dolphin's blowhole at the time. And several locals had apparently first tried to drag it out of the water so they could take a picture with it, maybe first dressing it up with a top hat and monocle.
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And here, of course, we have arrived at our lesson: when dealing with animals, you need to forget everything you learned from cartoons.
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November 11th, 2008
05:51 pm - Fallout 3 RULES *spoiler alert*
War. War never changes.
The Romans waged war to gather slaves and wealth. Spain built an empire from its lust for gold and territory. Hitler shaped a battered Germany into an economic superpower.
But war never changes.
In the 21st century, war was still waged over the resources that could be acquired. Only this time, the spoils of war were also its weapons: Petroleum and Uranium. For these resources, China would invade Alaska, the US would annex Canada, and the European Commonwealth would dissolve into quarreling, bickering nation-states, bent on controlling the last remaining resources on Earth.
In 2077, the storm of world war had come again. In two brief hours, most of the planet was reduced to cinders. And from the ashes of nuclear devastation, a new civilization would struggle to arise.
A few were able to reach the relative safety of the large underground Vaults. Your family was part of that group that entered Vault Thirteen. Imprisoned safely behind the large Vault door, under a mountain of stone, a generation has lived without knowledge of the outside world.
Life in the Vault is about to change.
______________________________________________
War. War never changes.
The end of the world occurred pretty much as we had predicted. Too many humans, not enough space or resources to go around. The details are trivial and pointless, the reasons, as always, purely human ones.
The earth was nearly wiped clean of life. A great cleansing, an atomic spark struck by human hands, quickly raged out of control. Spears of nuclear fire rained from the skies. Continents were swallowed in flames and fell beneath the boiling oceans. Humanity was almost extinguished, their spirits becoming part of the background radiation that blanketed the earth.
A quiet darkness fell across the planet, lasting many years. Few survived the devastation. Some had been fortunate enough to reach safety, taking shelter in great underground vaults. When the great darkness passed, these vaults opened, and their inhabitants emerged to begin their lives again.
One of the northern tribes claims they are descended from one such Vault. They hold that their founder and ancestor, one known the "Vault Dweller," once saved the world from a great evil. According to their legend, this evil arose in the far south. It corrupted all it touched, twisting men inside, turning them into beasts. Only through the bravery of this Vault Dweller was the evil destroyed. But in so doing, he lost many of his friends and suffered greatly, sacrificing much of himself to save the world.
When at last he returned to the home he had fought so hard to protect, he was cast out. Exiled. In confronting that which they feared, he had become something else in their eyes...and no longer their champion.
Forsaken by his people, he strode into the wasteland. He traveled far to the north, until he came to the great canyons. There, he founded a small village, Arroyo, where he lived out the rest of his years. And so, for a generation since its founding, Arroyo has lived in peace, its canyons sheltering it from the outside world. It is home. Your home.
But the scars left by the war have not yet healed. And the Earth has not forgotten.
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War. War never changes.
Since the dawn of human kind, when our ancestors first discovered the killing power of rock and bone, blood has been spilled in the name of everything, from God to justice to simple, psychotic rage.
In the year 2077, after millennia of armed conflict, the destructive nature of man could sustain itself no longer. The world was plunged into an abyss of nuclear fire and radiation. But it was not, as some had predicted, the end of the world. Instead, the apocalypse was simply the prologue to another bloody chapter of human history. For man had succeeded in destroying the world - but war, war never changes.
In the early days, thousands were spared the horrors of the holocaust by taking refuge in enormous underground shelters, known as vaults. But when they emerged, they had only the hell of the wasted to greet them - all except those in Vault 101. For on the fateful day, when fire rained from the sky, the giant steel door of Vault 101 slid closed... and never reopened. It was here you were born. It is here you will die because, in Vault 101, no one ever enters and no one ever leaves.
____________________________
And of course, the final chapter in the saga...Seriously, it made me cry ;_;
And so it was that the lone wanderer ventured forth from Vault 101, intent on discovering the fate of a father who had once sacrificed the future of humanity for that of his only child.
The Capital Wasteland proved a cruel, inhospitable place – but the lone wanderer refused to surrender to the vices that had claimed so many others. The values passed on from father to child – selflessness, compassion, honor – guided this noble soul through countless trials and triumphs.
But it was not until the end of this long road that the lone wanderer learned the true meaning of that greatest of virtues -- sacrifice. Stepping into the irradiated control chamber of Project Purity, the child followed the example of the father, sacrificing life itself for the greater good of mankind.
Thankfully, when selected by the sinister President to be his instrument of annihilation, the wanderer refused. Humanity, with all its flaws, was deemed worthy of preservation. The waters of life flowed at last – free and pure, for any and all. The Capital Wasteland, at long last, was saved.
So ends the story of the lone wanderer, who stepped through the great door of Vault 101, and into the annals of legend. But the tale of humanity will never come to a close, for the struggle of survival is a war without end.
And war… war never changes.
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November 6th, 2008
09:06 pm - Society
The way I see it, there are only 3 kinds of people.
-Geeks
-Suits
-Tough Guys
They fit together in a sort of "Rock, Paper, Scissors" relationship
-Tough guy beats up Geek
-Geek fixes Suit's computer
-Suit sues Tough Guy (for beating up geek)
Everyone fits into these categories. Everyone festoons themselves with the uniform of their specific class, whether it be band t-shirts, leather jackets, or ties. This will prove your uniqueness to the world, while still enabling you to fit in within your specific subset.
At this time, you then seek out regular meetings where you can justify your weirdness by finding others with similar quirks.
-Comic-con
-Bars
-BBB meetings
"Well what about Jocks?" You may be asking. Jocks are simply Sports Geeks. For proof, I submit the example of Fantasy Football. Oddly enough, for all the flak that Geeks catch, we fill most of the world.
See? My logic shoots to the end-zone to win the set. Checkmate!
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November 3rd, 2008
10:24 pm
"In that direction," said that Cat, waving its right paw round, "lives the Mad Hatter; and in that direction," waving the other paw, "lives the March Hare. Visit either you like, they're both quite mad."
"But I don't want to go among mad people," Alice remarked.
"Oh, you can't help that," said the Cat: "we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad."
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn't have come here."
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03:21 am - Uwe Boll has no soul
I just watched "In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale". Now, I loved (LOOOOOOVED) the Dungeon Siege game. It filled in quite nicely my need for a post-Diablo 2 hack and slash where Neverwinter Nights, with its constant forced storyline and buggy gameplay, could never fulfill me. So when I saw this in the library's DVD section, I took a chance. "Why not?" I said to myself. "I enjoyed Dungeon Siege, and I know it's Uwe Boll ahead of time, so my expectations can be accordingly lowered." Isn't naivete adorable? Not in a fluffy bunny kind of way, but more in a "Oh, look at the cute senile old person." Because a total abandonment of my mental facilities, probably Alzheimer's related, is the only way that I can think of as to why I thought this would be an enjoyable experience.
The story is a little scattered, but the main narrative involves a chiseled-jaw chump named Farmer (played by Jason "The Transporter" Statham), who vows vengeance on the evil Krug for destroying his family.
Those of you who played Dungeon Siege might find this plot familiar. At this point, I still had hopes for a mind-numbing couple of hours watching a mildly enjoyable film. But no.
So Farmer grabs his old pal Norrick and his brother-in-law Bastian, and they defy King Konreid (played by Burt "dear God in Heaven it's Burt Reynolds" Reynolds; yes, you read that right) and head out looking for payback. Along the way, they confront the mud-dog creatures led by wicked wizard Gallian (Ray Liotta; yes, you read that right as well). Our malevolent magic maker has been literally sucking the power out of his rival Merrick's (John "skinny Professor Arturo" Rhys-Davis) daughter, and with the help of the ruler's idiot nephew, he plans to overthrow the court and use the Krug as his new army. On the way to a final confrontation between Farmer and Gallian, we get lots of awful swordplay, some truly horrible CGI, and a visit from Cirque de Soleil in the form of acrobatic tree-dwellers who hate humans.
So there you are.
To quote Wesley from The Princess Bride, "Every woman who shrieks 'Dear God what is that thing' will echo in your perfect ears."
That's approximately the feeling of watching this movie.
To The Pain.
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/niaha/kitty/anksadg.gif) pained
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November 2nd, 2008
11:54 pm - Drink review: Cherry Coke Zero
Some situations I am currently concerned about:
* the political/electoral, and the continuous waves of stunned disbelief it gives rise to;
* recent natural disasters here and abroad and the ensuing sense of this-will-only-get-worse;
* wide-scale domestic economic mayhem (and the ensuing sense of (see above));
* that whole "war" thing that is still happening;
* vague yet pervasive post-millenial unease.
Anyways let’s talk sodas!
Some things the internet wants me to have an opinion on:
* apparently there is a Google browser, you use it to look at the internet;
* the Lindsay Lohan situation, we need to be supportive;
* serious, don’t you totally love [the thing everyone won't shut up about this week, probably a TV show]???
Things I’m not saying:
* that I don’t have opinions.
I’m just saying:
* it’s hard. Especially for a person who is seeking relief in his personal life from strongly-held and hastily-considered opinions.
Here are some of the things I do currently have opinions about:
* If there was a Livejournal plug-in that granted or denied access to this website for each reader based on his or her level of enthusiasm for a certain current VP nominee, I would not hesitate to install it;
* I am definitely a winter and my face looks weird when I wear pastels so I should probably stop doing it;
* Digg didn’t kill the internet, but it didn’t volunteer to drive it to the hospital, either;
* Sometimes a man is too tired to stand up while he pees, but that does not make him any less of a man, he did climb all those stairs after all.
Reasons I’m thinking about all this:
* posting an opinion of something on the internet is the karmic equivalent of shouting into the ear of your very deaf great grand-aunt at Thanksgiving, who does not remember your name, and who is more likely to accuse you of trying to steal her purse then ever pass the sweet potatoes;
* I get asked my opinions on various sundry topics all the time, and it’s almost always a trap.
I tell them:
* Yeah, cool;
* Yes it’s bad, but life is complicated;
* Yes, diet Coke is not as good for you as water, but soda and StumbleUpon are my only vices, so, you know, I feel like I'm still in the running for going to Heaven.
So, like that.
But despite:
* life being what it is;
* people being what they are;
* all the above-mentioned non-beverage, non-internet worries that keep me awake at night and engender in me a deep-seated fear for my family’s long-term safety on this planet,
I do occasionally like to drink:
* Cherry Coke Zero.
It’s:
* good. It basically tastes like regular Cherry Coke. Not exactly, but closer than you’d expect, which makes it one of the better diet sodas there is. They stock it at my unit. It costs me nothing. I drink one and then move on to other things.
Somewhere beyond the mechanical roar of the internet:
* life continues.
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