Randomosity: The Line

Klint over at Renegade Futurist or Mutate! or whatever he's calling his blog these days posted a link to Subnormality, which has now fascinated me for hours as I've backtracked through the archives. The site is subtitled, "Comix with too many words" for a reason, but his musings on what makes someone "weird" made for a good read. Every middle school student should be made to read it at least once in their alienated, fraught little lives.

Likewise, The Line ought to be mandatory reading for every high school student. Didn't read it? Do not collect diploma. Do not pass Go. That is all.

The creator is a mad genius. The comic is like some sort of fucked up love-child of Tatsuya Ishida, Grant Morrison, and Warren Ellis, with occasional guest art by R. Crumb.

And now that I've planted that mental seed, it's off to bed. Sweet dreams!

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"Buch der Balladen"

I just found out one of my favorite bands, Faun, has a new CD coming out this month. There's a limited edition version being released ... but only in Germany. Sigh.

I don't get to dust off the German very often, except for singing "Perfekte Welle" in Rock Band. The last time I used it, oddly enough, was also to track down some Faun discs that I couldn't find via US retailers. Luckily, I'm still on that shop's mailing list, and they happen to be the official online vendor for the band, as well.

It is interesting, carrying on a conversation in a foreign language I never really use. I can only imagine the native speakers on the other end are giggling at my screwed-up gender suffixes and whatnot, but just as they were before, they're extremely polite and helpful. Sadly, Ines told me their copies of the LE disc are already sold out, so I either have to settle for the normal version (minus the bonus track and hardcover booklet) or ... order through Amazon.de.

I wasn't aware the various Amazon shops actually share a login database, but apparently, they do. I can sign into the German site with my normal email and password, and it's got all my shipping info, etc. Now I just have to decide whether I really want to fork over the $43 for the CD + shipping or wait and hope that the normal version gets imported via Dancing Ferret at some point.

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New SMT on the horizon

/Squee!



What is that, you say? Why is this cause for glee?

Why, it is a new Shin Megami Tensei game for the DS. It comes out in February 2010. And the writeup compares it to SMT: Nocturne, which is officially The Best Game Ever Made. And really, that's all I needed to know.

It will be mine. Oh yes. I am counting the days already.

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Happy belated calendar Samhain and other news

I had the week off for Samhain, and it was nice ... really, really nice. No work email, no phone calls, no coming in on my days off. Just lots of relaxing with Will, some board games, some Rock Band, catching up on what little TV we watch, that sort of thing. (Will did get totally addicted to the Deathnote anime. Hee.) Oddly, though, we never got around to carving our pumpkins (sorry, "punkins" ... we are in Indiana), and I never did the fall cleaning or the memorial altar. Never made it out the gravesites, either. I think I just desperately needed some decompression time, and even my minor observances felt like too much work this year.

We did finally get to tour the lair of Zombie 0 and her family on Friday evening, which was really neat, though I couldn't stay as long as I would have liked. One of my co-workers showed up just as we were getting ready to leave, which was a pleasant surprise. (Cher Mere, I hope your leg is feeling better!)

The Monica has a great memory-jogging article on Bram Stoker's Dracula posted at Cracked.com. I haven't seen the movie in years, but since it (and several others I can safely call "classics," now) are posted for free on the site, I might have to check out a few. I wish I'd figured that out during my week off. Ah well.

Also, apparently Evn is Wicca's David Hasslehoff. My computer and I are so, so glad I wasn't drinking coffee when I read that.

In game news, we had a makeup Changeling game last week, followed by our usual session of Libri Vidicos, but sadly I wasn't feeling well on Halloween, and so didn't get to sit in on the Wushu game Saturday as I'd hoped (Edige was kind enough to extend the invitation on that). It sounds like a very entertaining group. Ah well. Will has also begun a one-player Mage: The Awakening game for me so we can try out the system and flesh out his setting a bit. We just had the first session last night -- it was a lot of fun, but he refuses to run it for me every night. Clearly I'm doing something wrong, here. ~.~

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