Ever notice how it's the little things in life that amuse us so much? More to the point, ever notice how it's the silly little idiocies in life that amuse us more than anything else? Well, this is not as much ''the little blog that could'' as it is ''the blog that enjoys going up the down escalator in your local mall.'' Will it have anything of real importance? No, probably not. But enjoy the ride never the less!

 


On Tuesday's episode of Jeopardy!, one of the categories was "Robots In Film." The question was: two robots and one human spend all their time watching B-grade movies in this series. And best of all, someone answered it with a certainty that can only come from at least one viewing of MST3K. Ha ha!

Hey, it's one of the few times I can triumphantly shout out an answer without being pointed out seconds later how horribly wrong I was. And any time you can feel intellectually superior amidst a game of Jeopardy should be treasured. Unless you want to feel superior all the time, in which case you can just go play "Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader?"

So, I am currently atrophying after a 12-hour solo stint at the store. Remarkably, I held out quite well, all things considering. It was quiet enough for me to relax in the evening, and yet I had enough to keep myself pleasantly occupied all through the morning and afternoon without resorting to killing someone. (And let's face it: any day you don't need an alibi for the bloodied pancake maker is a good day.)

Not that I plan on doing another 12-hour gig anytime in the near, not-too-distant or ridiculously far-flung future. Sure, the money will be happy, and in all likelihood it'll go towards that $120 box set of all 5 seasons of Angel (slimcase, no less! Woot!) we spotted at Best Buy. But still...my brain is starting to go the way of tapioca pudding after being left out in a supernova.

At least next week is turning into a slice of happy, especially with the mall being closed on Good Friday. Ah, statutory holidays, how I have missed you. And best of all, you don't have a friggin' Boxing Day sale the day after!

But what else has transpired amidst this little bit of nowhere in the meanwhile? Um...sleep...more sleep...sammiches...sleep again...lots of work...er, um, MPreg? (At least, according to Hysteria, that's what this upcoming Confic needs.) As you can imagine, not a lot has transpired between the work/sleep alternations. But tomorrow's a day off, one that shall be spent doing a whole lot of not much. And there will be much rejoicing.

Oh, and Run! The Teletubbies are coming!

By Greg David

It's been 10 years since those rotund, pastel playmates graced TV screens. They're back, and aiming for an older audience. Po, Tinky Winky, Laa-Laa and Dipsy are back, and in a big way. The foursome, who debuted on BBC television in 1997 and took the world by storm, are celebrating a return to the limelight after a decade away, and they're aiming for an older crowd.

Ragdoll, the British company that owns the rights to the preschool characters, have launched a campaign which includes a special Website that boasts trivia, blogs and podcasts. A retail store has opened in Manhattan, and the characters will appear at the Apollo Theater, Times Square and various charities.

The goal of the campaign? To broaden the appeal of the brand beyond toddlers and their parents. To that end, Isaac Mizrahi has designed Teletubbies handbags which will be auctioned on eBay; a rock concert is also planned. "The Teletubbies were the first media property targeting an extremely young audience," Lynn Godfrey, senior marketing director at Ragdoll USA said in an interview. "We're also connected to a wider audience as part of that cultural fabric. We need to reach out to broader audiences, tweens and teens, the age group that grew up with us."

Sorry, but my Laa-Laa blankie is staying in my hope chest, thank you very much.


...words escape me, beyond the obvious "KYAAAAAAA!!!" The article link can be found here:

http://entertainment1.sympatico.msn.ca/Run+The+Teletubbies+are
+coming/TV_Guide/TVNews/Articles/070328_teletubbies_GD.htm?isfa=1


Today's Lesson: a bunny in heat can and will molest your elbows. Both of them. (Notice the skillful way I didn't even mention how this happened to Mel, not me.)

Labels: bunny sexxor, MPreg, MST3K, Teletubbies

posted by Phillip at 9:41 PM

 

It's not going to be a fun week, mostly because I'll be spending a great deal of it working. Not that working is as such a particularly bad thing (hey, money is good, yes?), but as there's substancially more shifts I need to work this time around, the hours themselves may do me in. So while there will be a very happy paycheck waiting for me at the end of this rainbow, it's still going to be long and strenuous. As such, there may be a teensy bit o' "so when is this idiot going to post again?" happening this week.

And so to entertain you, if not for a few minutes, I give you...Link-O'-Rama!!! (brought to you in Blog-o-vision!)


Wax Banks - while it's Whedonverse-based, this is a particularly cool & insightful article about writing to give your readers not just what they want, but to still leave them wanting more (and thusly loving you for it):

http://waxbanks.typepad.com/blog/2007/03/what_you_want_w.html


The Mary Sue Project - the (literary) science of self-insertion, proving that Mary Sues can in fact be educational and not serve solely as MST-fodder:

http://www.hbook.com/publications/magazine/articles/nov06_almagor.asp


Fandom Wank - for all your deleriously amusing anecdotes on people whose egos are too lumpy & fragile:

http://www.journalfen.net/community/fandom_wank/

Labels: links, lumpy ego, Mary Sue, wank

posted by Phillip at 5:42 AM

 



Many bold new discoveries have been achieved this week. And not only because the store has been so amazingly quiet that I've had time to brush up on my elastic-flinging skills.

According to The Brunching Shuttlecock, http://www.brunching.com/geekhierarchy.html , in the geek hierarchy I rank lower than an amateur SciFi author, on par with a Treekie, and fortunately much higher than someone who writes erotic, self-insertion, furry-based fics.



See?

I have also been basking in the recent completion of Angel Electric. Not in the glory and praises, per say, but dammit, after 3 years I must confess I'm happy to have it finished. It was a long and joyous and aggravating journey, and I only lapsed into that whole "tortured emo artist" thing once...okay, maybe twice...er, five, maybe six times?

All right. Fine.

I emo author'd fourteen and a half point two times.

Now I need an icon that has a picture of me dancing and going "I am emo author! I am emo author!"

Anyhoo, I have destroyed the Silver Millennium and cacked off an entire cast of (mostly) beloved characters. With beer, no less. (No, I didn't kill them off with beer...though that would be an amusing way to end the world...but as I worked on the final revision, I smote them all with a celebratory beer in hand.)

Now I need an icon that has a picture of me holding aloft a beer and going, "I'm smiting. With beer."

So now that the genocide's all done, let's get back to that carnivorous forest! But first there's the Confic. And The Project. And a recreation of the Battle of Troy made entirely out of french fries. And unmasking Dr. Claw.

No, really: http://www.progressiveboink.com/archive/drclaw.html


And finally, here is our newest segment, entitled Today In Pants:




(Taken from the fanstastically cute site: www.icanhascheezburger.com )
posted by Phillip at 9:46 AM

 

It is about 8:30am. It is cold, dark and snowy outside. This vexes me greatly; I neither asked for snow, nor do I ever recall approving snow to appear this late into March. I demand that the weather issue a snow recall immediately.

In other news, I hear there was a Test The Nation IQ test of some sorts this past Sunday. Is it just me, or does it seem like a really silly idea to have this sort of test done the day after St. Patrick's Day? How many of those contestants were hung over? (Unless, of course, it was pretaped and aired yesterday. In which case, ignore the previous paragraph and instead focus my my brilliance. Or lack of pants. Whichever.)
posted by Phillip at 5:40 AM

 

We've been cleaning out the guest room/study/wall-explosion-o'-pencilboards recently, and it has given me reason to pause and marvel at just how many books Mel & I have between us. There were 2 boxes located under the worktable that were both overflowing with paperbacks and a few hardcovers. One cleaning blitz and a lot of creative rearranging later, and those books are now back on display.

(Temporary display, mind you. We are hoping to nab some of the large Billy bookshelves from IKEA, but that always is something ends up on the backburner. Meh.)

Mind you, some curious anecdotes have arisen from the new layouts. For starters, while it is the guest room, it is also covered in eye candy undeniably mine: the pencilboards, the wall scrolls, the Smile Time puppet Angel from Kevin & Donna, plus a legion of viral plushies. And yet, somehow, an enormous pile of Mel's Nora Roberts books have ended up on a prolific top shelf right next to my desk.

So now it looks like I'm really into romance novels. Lots of 'em. And to further add to the oddity of it, this entire cache of Nora Roberts books have created a makeshift throne for my Cthulhu plushie. Apparently, Cthulhu lords over R'yleh, and also romance novels in the off-season.

(My trio of Lovecraft anthologies, however, are being carefully guarded by Mokona. I don't know whether this is disturbingly appropriate or downright ironic.)

In other news, I adore the high school noir movie Brick, and thanks to my sister, Mel has become horribly addicted to the new Battlestar Galactica series.

Now I must go. There is tea to be had, Projects to continue work on, and inevitably sleep to be...er, slept on...with...in?

Today's Lesson: the Sniffernet will never catch on. Alas.
posted by Phillip at 6:04 PM

 


300 was happiness. Spartans were ass-kickers. And notably, pretty much all of the Persian armies wore pants, again contributing to my theory that perhaps this is why they were ultimately pwned by the Spartans at Thermopylae. Except for Xerxes, who in the movie spent his time wearing a very golden codpiece...which might explain why he was able to dodge Ledonias' spear instead of using it as a fancy (albeit fatal) new eyepiece.

So there you have it: pants destroyed an empire.

(I swear, one of these days, history professors are going to hunt me down and sac-beat me.)

Today's Lesson: you can never really trust the prophetic rantings of a drunken, underage oracle.
posted by Phillip at 8:48 PM

 


If you’re reading this, then it can only mean the following:

1. Our Net connection has finally rectified it’s “refusing to work” status, implying it either succumbed to peer pressure and didn’t want to be the only PC in the city that couldn’t go online…or actually feared all those “disassemble” threats we made to it.

2. You enjoy reading this little bit of nowhere on a regular basis. Or alternately, you came across here by accident while trying to search for porn, in which case you must be incredibly disappointed. So to help offset that, here’s a pair of emoti-boobs: ( . ) ( . )

3. And, more amazing than anything else, that “silly nit of a writer” guy actually got up off his silly nit of a lazy ass and updated this little bit nowhere. Rejoice! (And since we’re feeling rather special today, you can decide whether to rejoice with or without pants on.)


But a lot has happened since the last little bit of nowhere went up. Mel & I traversed down to Connecticut to visit her family, and all in all, a pleasant time was had by all. Presents were exchanged, swag was discovered at the shopping malls, and for some reason the computer there did not like Blogger for some silly reason.

(You there! Yes, you with the pitchfork and the “Convert to LJ, dammit!” sign! Don’t think I don’t see you lurking there behind that last paragraph!)

More impressive than anything was how uneventful the bus ride there and back was. Due to the less than stellar weather conditions, Mel’s mom insisted we take a bus instead of driving down. (And, given the weather and the price of gas at the time, I have to admit I’m glad we did.) Given how it was late February and a midnight trip to boot, the bus wasn’t cram-packed, and our stop at US customs was surprisingly quick.

(Though I’m chagrined to say I think it’s because everyone on the bus was either caucasian or black, so none of us really fit the racial profile that generates all the red flags with the border patrol these days.)

Not that it surprises anyone, but Canadian customs was rapid-fire and uneventful… beyond one poor lady discovering her suitcase had decided to get off the bus somewhere between New York and the border, even though she was travelling all the way up to Toronto. Oops.

After a day devoted to recuperating, it was back to work. And wouldn’t you know it? The store actually didn’t burn down, explode or render itself a giant hole in the earth during my absence. I’m slightly disappointed by this fact. Yet it was a great relief, since I spent only a few hours tweaking the look of the place, and then found myself with nothing left to do. A significant change after last year, where after being knocked out for a week by Hand, Foot & Mouth, it took me 2-3 days to get the store back to normal.

Fast-forward a few days to last weekend’s gathering for SeanCon/Fedorafest ‘07, wherein anime was watched, ninja girls tried to make babies and I discovered that if yo ever mention you have a dial-up connection, the expressions on other peoples’ faces is akin to you telling them your puppy had leukemia and then got run over by a car. (And hello’s to Jason & Christine, since we missed seeing you guys by an hour or so!)

Following closely on the heels of that was another visit to Brantford, where we got to see Kevin & Donna’s new digs. And witness Gabe enjoying a lot more track to run around on/destroy. Movies were watched, late night runs to Fast Eddie’s were made, and…well I’m sure some sort of eternal, life-affirming lesson was learned somewhere there, but damned if I can remember it.

It probably has something to do with pants. Or maybe avocadoes.

And so that brings you all up to speed on all that has been February-into-March. The store’s quieting down and beyond some annual employee evaluations, there’s little for me to contend with. (Though there’s been a bit of a change with people leaving the store, but that frees up more hours for the rest, which is good since I no longer have to hear them grousing about wanting more shifts.)

Angel Electric is on the verge of being done, and while it’s had to be pushed back a bit, The Project is still moving along at a decent pace with enjoyable results thus far. Now all we need to do is get cracking on the Anime North ‘07 Confic

There’s a few more anecdotes and comments I could make here, mostly relating to avatars and some very cool books I recently discovered (though happily, the two topics are exclusive of each other), but I’ll keep those for future bits of nowhere. Hey, I need something to talk about in order to make it seem like I live a fascinating life, and at best all I’ll probably have to give otherwise is an “ZOMG-300!!” entry over the course of the weekend.

So if you need me, I’ll be donning my codpiece and helmet, and revelling in the Spartan lifestyle. You see, Spartans don’t need to wear pants. Which is probably why they managed to kick as much Persian ass as they did at Thermopile. Note how the Persian soldiers are all wearing some form of pants in the trailer. (Historical accuracies not withstanding, natch.) Now granted, the Spartans did inevitably lose, but they still managed to inflict a lot of damage despite being greatly outnumbered. Again, probably due to their inherent lack of pants.


Today’s Lesson: even if the operators you called and the website you visited 2-3 days ago tell you the bus leaving from Hartford to New York leaves at 8pm, always make sure to recheck departure times on the day you leave. That way, when they suddenly change the time to 7:30pm in an attempt to make you miss your bus, you don’t get stuck at the station until the next day. (Greyhound smegheads…)
posted by Phillip at 5:25 AM