Relish this post

It's going to be the last for quite awhile. I'm headed to NYC this week and won't be back till Friday. I'm taking part of my youth group, 8 to be exact, to the Bronx to run a summer Vacation Bible School for the children in the area.

I'll post the outcome when I return. Unless someone pops a cap in my craker dome.

The Da Vinci Code

Started reading yesterday, finished today. Real difficult read. Nothing like blowing through 495 pages of text in about 4 sittings.

Remember when this was all over the place? Bookstores, the Today Show, the Vatican refuses to comment and makes a bigger deal than it already was.

The book was a bit of a let down. All that hoopla and little payoff.

Plus the author states some outrageous things with horrendously poor factual support. yes, yes, it's a novel. But still, fiction or not it should be believeable. Any person with the slightest bit of biblical knowledge and knowledge of the early church could refute 99.8% of this books claims with their hands tied behind their back.

I was just shaking my head at some of the authors comments. Like how the Dead Sea Scrolls proved that the Bible was tampered with because the texts were not similar. WHAT?! Please! the entire book of Isaiah is word for word identical. Text after text showing zero deviation from our present Bible.

Then he says Constatine reconstructed the Bible. Come again? When did that happen? at Nicea? 325 AD? Try again. The concepts of Christ were well established before the Roman Emperor tried to stop those nasty Arians from takeing the god out of the God/Man. Dan Brown states that early Christians believed Christ was only a man and it was Constatine who deified him. What a crock of Whole Crap.

But the book was pretty enagaging, up until I learned the Grail was the body of Mary Magdalene and a bunch of moldy scrolls.

Indiana Jones would kick Robert Langdon's butt.

I give it 6 out of 10 slaps about the face.

Enjoyable reading but annoying about how much he screwed up. Heck he could have made the basis more believable by sticking a little closer to the truth. Templar Knights as tree hugging Druid dudes. Sad. And the Priory of Sion which is this really important clandestine group in the story from like the time of Christ to now, was actually formed in 1950 by 4 Frenchmen. Lame.

Whole Crap

Kind of a side note and not really worth blogging about, but then what the heck is?

Over at Matt's blog there was a bit of censorship and jazz and I got all fired up, cause that's what you do when you're semi-anyonmous and online. And instead of saying Holy Crap! I typed Whole Crap.

For example, a man could be windsurfing and catch some mighty wave and fly into the air only to be bitten in half by a Great White Shark that leapt after him ala Samuel L., his bloody torso then splattering against a ocean liner leaving a great red smear. A tourist on board could exclaim...

Whole crap man that was brutal, did you see that?

I kind of like that better. It's more visual. I have yet to see a piece of crap with some sort of heavenly nimbus. But a solidly formed complete piece of crap I have seen on many an occasion. It could be said that such a piece of fecal matter would be greater than fragmented feces and such would be worthier of higher esteem and thusly would make a great exclamation. So from this day forward I will say Whole Crap.

I'm not asking you to understand.

But for the sake of conversation, mostly about what I'm interested in, I'll divulge some information.

I've been playing a game lately. It's free and web-based. It's entitled...

Kingdom of Loathing

OOOO! Sounds kind of dark and sinister! Well about as dark and sinister as a game in which the main currency is meat and my particular player class is a Pastamancer. A particularly strong one at that. I defeated my Nemesis some time ago and claimed the legendary Colander of Em'Eril. Big stat boost to my magicality. (It's a real stat) With my Kentucky Fried Meat Staff I'm quite the tour de force. I hvae no idea what that means. A star wars bike race?

I'm looking mighty beefy


My bro is a Turtle Tamer. Has some elder turtle on his head and does headbutting damage. I just trained the powerful spell of "Cone of Whatever" Can't wait to see what hellish storm of food products I can rain upon my enemies.

So anyway, I posted a link to it cause it's that awesome.

You want fries with that?

In an effort to recreate my high school years and make a small about of dough on the side, the emphasis on small. I have taken a job at..dum dum duuhhh!!!

Burger King

Yup, flipping dem burgers. Well no flipping actually they cook on a moving chain-link belt through the grill from Gehenna. With me and the wife at home I thought a little extra money would be nice, little is the key...oh did that joke already? I haven't worked there in 10+ years. Stepped right up in the middle of the lunch rush and boom..I was in the zone. You know, the Burger Time zone.

10+ years and it was like rolling off a log. Makes you wonder why people have such a hard time in positions like that. Managers screaming "WHERE'S MY WHOPPER WITH CHEESE NO ONION!?!?!" and fry cooks spazzing out as they run to and fro trying to keep up with the 4 orders they have. I'm there just putzing about making these brand new burgers that I don't have a clue to make. Double bacon cheddar cheese tendercrisp WTF? Pardon my acronym.

Not to change the subject but it looks like my sis is Escaping L.A. in the Nick Castle of time. She is leaving CA tonight at midnight to head to Denver. Let's hope it's high enough. Why?

Only a raging tower of water with destruction and a thorough colonic cleansing of the city in mind.

RUN SIS RUN IT'S GAINING!!!

Brand spanking new anime and the credits score doesn't fail to impress

...upon me that anime credit music sucks.

Just finished watching Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence.



Pretty? yes.

Explosions? yes.

Naked yet neuter robotic dolls chopping guards heads off with a single swipe? yes.

Gigantic amoeba-like blob at the end of the movie? surprisingly no.

Cool robots and neat ships. Brutal gun fight but man was the story a drag.

The genre is highly over rated. The coolest concept took a 2 minute scene to develop and complete. Then...as Lemon Jelly puts it....nothing. But the computer techie guys within the Solcus Locus ship were neat, their speak especially. Sounded like a barbaric derivative of an Imperial probe droid.

Oh yeah you get the occasional neat vehicle, but nah the writers decide to make everything retro. Who cares? We've already seen that! Use some vision! Imagine the future, make it somthing unlike what we've had!

Speaking of vision...

You could see the ending a mile away. Plus the two main characters keep hitting each other over the head with lame and out of place quotes from the Bible and Milton and a million other sources that the writers figured were esoteric enough to be interesting. yawn. I mean if the quotes actually pushed the movie towards any type of enjoyable payoff yeah sure. Bludgeon us with your heavy handed writing style. But since the movie was as bland as a Japanese cookie, all that fluff was even worse.

However, during the beginning and towards the end of the movie there is this Japanese chorus of women or girls. Simply put...amazing. Really great sound and good placement within the films' context too.

So that makes the ridiculous ending credits song even worse. It's like their trying to support the bad musicians and singers of Japan by giving them the end credit portions to make a living on. Well, hey wellfare is wellfare I guess.

Followers

It seems like everyone has to post a blog nowadays. Back in the day it was just us pioneering few. The pale and geeky who forged ahead posting raving nonsense about things no one cared about. I mean, I've been blogging since April and now these snot nosed cyber brats think they know everything.

Now for something completely different...a man with three buttocks.

When Internet2 shows up I'll be streaming HDTV to my 3 teraflop harddrive.

A man with three noses...(he's not here yet.)...two noses?

It didn't take long. After a close game of Puerto Rico on some night this past week my brother and I began making plans to soup up the game. To be specific combine elements from Pirates of the Spanish Main.

The two seem to combine quite seamlessly...but we'll see in a little while. More than likley we will accomplish nothing. Like all of my games. sob.

THE BLOUDY TENENT OF PERSECUTION FOR CAUSE OF CONSCIENCE

That esteemed Rhode Islanda. The name sake of an intimate and compact zoo nestled in the outskirts of Providence.

Roger William

You better click on that link and read...it's worth the trouble. Man what a guy.

But few know of what a great debt our nation owes this man. Our democracy and freedoms are owed to him. The Providence Platations charter in 1643 allowed for a Republican government that had no control over religion or issues of faith. The first civil society in the history of the world to do so. No other colony charter shares these now "American" values. Our entire cultural/political outlook has been completely shaped by the smallest state in the Union.

The form of government established by the Rhode-Islanders was, as to civil affairs, much like those of the other colonies, but in the important article of religion, they differed from them all. Liberty of conscience was, in the first social compact at Providence, established by law, and no one was allowed to vote among them, who opposed it. [Backus, vol. i. p. 96.] This darling principle was planted in the soil of Rhode-Island, before the red men left it, or ever the lofty forests were laid waste, and has been transmitted from father to son with the most studious care; it was interwoven in every part of the State Constitution, has extended its influence to all transactions, whether civil or sacred, and in no part of the world has it been more inviolably maintained for the space of upwards of a hundred and seventy years. It is the glory and boast of Rhode-Island, that no one within her bounds was ever legally molested on account of his religious opinions, and that none of her annals are stained with acts to regulate those important concerns, which he wholly between man and his Maker. Hence it was early said of this colony, "They are much like their neighbors, only they have one vice less, and one virtue more than they; for they never persecuted any, but have ever maintained a perfect liberty of conscience" [Edwards’ MS. History of Rhode Island, p. 10]

Twice Rhode Island was nearly annexed by both Massachusetts and Connecticut. Both times thwarted by that God blessed man Roger William. The man who single handedly stopped the alliance of the Pequots, Mohegans and Narragansett tribes to unite and slaughter every New Englander. A plot that would have been a bloody success had he not stepped into harms way for that northern Bay Colony that had sought his expulsion to the Motherland.

I couldn't be more proud of the founder of my great state.

The man needs more than a tiny zoo he needs his own national holiday!

War of the Ring

Ah yes last night we partook..is that the correct past tense usage of partake? Anyway, we played a mightily long game of War of the Ring. If you have no knowledge of this wonderous 3+ hour long wargame then I suggest you click here.

The game was an epic one as always. The Free Peoples frantically striving to keep the hordes of Sauron and Saruman at bay. The forces of Shadow got off to a rather slow start. Baby hordes of orcs burst from the obsidion cliffs of Mordor, it should have been an Ancient Enraged Intelligent horde. But well you get the dice you get. It wasn't long until the women and children of Dol Amroth were so much Mumakil fodder for the Southrons and Easterlings.




Yet Gondor beefed up it's defenses so quickly it was a bit worrisome and Osgiliath was not attacked until late in the game. Although when it was attacked the strong force there was unable to defend against 4 hits in one roll slaughtering the defenders.

At this point the Fellowship is devoid of all but one hobbit, Merry. They have just passed Lorien without taking a rest. All of the Fellowship is dead but Strider has been crowned Aragorn and Gandalf is the White, both roaming the countrysides lending their 2 dice. Argh!

Aragron shot into Minas Tirith and fled in the next move after his crowning inauguration. Coward! Well better that then have the Witch-King make a soup bowl out of his royal skull.

But the witch king did have a nice collection of ladles made out of the royalty of Minas Tirith's femurs after the city collapsed in ruin in 3 turns.


A maurading band of Mumakil and Easterlings marched up towards Dol Guldur and then quickly doubled back right through Rohan taking Helm's Deep in a swift surgical strike.


The Wolves of Isengard made puppy chow out of the Elven defenders of the Gray Havens, Cirdan and his shipfolk putting up little resistence to having their bones snapped and gnawed. The dwarven defenders of Erud Luin watched on, thankful it wasn't them. At this point the forces of Shadow had 8 of the 10 points needed for victory. The Fellowship is now in Mordor, and suffering mightily under the power of the Ring.


Lorien is besieged by the Mouth of Sauron, Erebor is besieged by a small band of of Easterlings, the Woodland Realm is beseiged by another medium size force out of Mount Gundabad.

It looks to be that there will be no 'dawn for the world of men."

When the pitiful little trio, deep within the pits and ash of the Gorgoroth plain, ascend that awful precipice to destroy once and for all the Ring that binds the Dark Lord to this land.


And so the Free People's snatched victory from a certain grim defeat.

A little less conservative playing on the Shadows side should have clinched that game. Although a caveat is that the Fellowship was stopped quite often and reveal multiple times on their trip to Mordor and so the Free People's did not have any easy time of it. It was a fairly Even match. After counting the tiles in the hunt bag it was found that victory or defeat at the brink of Mount Doom was an even 50/50.

I love that game..can't wait till the expansion in September/October.