Victor's Laboratory

The latest episode sucked ... hard.
I thought there were nice touches but RTDs excesses and desire to turn The Doctor into a godlike messiah figure ruins everything yet again.
The monsters could have been scary but were mishandled, the npcs were completely miscast, and yet again the bloody sonic screwdriver was a magic wishing wand in disguise!



I havn't actually seen the episode. I'm just guessing.



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A Plush a Day - Pinky

In order to make myself use up this embarrassment of tshirt material, I am instituting a Plush a Day Challenge to myself. Essentially, I have to make some sort of plush creature every day.

Despite his small size, Pinky is a very loud bird. VERY LOUD. Almost as loud as the pink color he is.

I obviously need to work on my bird sewing skills and make Pinky a friend.

Now that’s how to write a fucking lede.

(Automatically crossposted from warrenellis.com. Feel free to comment here or at my internet church at Whitechapel. If anything in this post looks weird, it's because LJ is run on steampipes and rubber bands -- please click through to the main site.)

I was called in to cover the shift of a sick coworker at the book store this afternoon, which means my day was more productive than it would have been otherwise. (queenmomcat had a productive day herself, one that puts me to shame. As usual.) Work was pleasantly busy, with a steady flow of customers, some of whom even asked interesting questions. For the first time in a while I feel that I earned my paycheck for the day.

In the evening, to while away the time between my shift at work and dinner, queenmomcat and I watched the 2001 "documentary" Winged Migration. The movie itself was stunningly filmed and interesting to watch, although we then ruined the experience by checking out the "making of" featurette on the DVD. Turns out that much of the film was staged and/or scripted, that the birds involved weren't really completely wild, and that, overall, it deserves to be called a documentary only if the word is put into quotes as I've done above. (The narrator of the featurette admits to this last point, saying that the film is neither fiction nor documentary, but somewhere in between.) Still, it was worth watching, if only for the jaw-dropping footage of birds in flight. That much was a real technical achievement.

Tomorrow (and Tuesday and Wednesday) I have a full eight-hour (or seven-and-a-half-hour) shift at the bookstore. My knees are already complaining in anticipation.

I had a very exciting weekend! So much happened! But I forgot my camera cord today, and all the pictures I downloaded are on my laptop at home! I am a bad blogger! But a friend asked me for a list of recommended/essential/I-won't-like-you-if-you-don't-read-these webcomics, so you get that today, instead. And, really, wouldn't you rather have that, anyway?

Wow, these are really all over the place. Um, I'll try to sort them a little? (And obviously I need to increase my comic vocabulary. In this case, "Book-like" comics are comics that obviously tell a set story from start to finish, like a book. "Story" comics might keep the same cast and have stories inside them, but they don't feel like there's One Big Plot that's driving the whole thing. Which doesn't mean there isn't! Maybe I just haven't seen it, yet! "Daily" comics are comics that you can just drop in on on a random day, and you will laugh (or groan). You don't have to know all the background of everyone to get each joke. Sometimes I just like something straightforward, you know? Does this make sense? Anyway, here! Comics!

( Book-like comics )
( Story comics )
( Daily Comics )

( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )

TOTW is basically a joke that Ariana and I pull each week in our joint guise as the International Electrophonic Unit. Basically, we take some of the stupider things I’ve said on Twitter and elsewhere, often in a state of extreme alcoholic refreshment or severe sleep deprivation, and put them on a t-shirt. Ariana set up a Cafe Press store (because this is a joke and engaging with a serious maker of t-shirts would be less funny to us), and… well, once a week, here we are.

Through this website and this Cafe Press store, we’re going to release one t-shirt a week. It’ll go live on Monday… and it’ll die Sunday night — midnight UK time, more often than not. Each one lives for a week, and then it’s replaced by the next week’s shirt. Until I either run out of dumb ideas or Ariana’s brain explodes.

So, every Monday, I’ll post the new shirt here, and you can peer at it more at http://www.cafepress.com/electrophonic.

Anyway. I present to you — this week by popular request on Twitter — T-Shirt Of The Week #004: SPACE BASTARD:

We also offer a couple of perennial items. Mostly because I wanted one of these for myself:

(And also a MAN COOK MEAT WITH FIRE "splatter-shield", because Ariana’s crazy)

Thank you for your kind attention.

(Automatically crossposted from warrenellis.com. Feel free to comment here or at my internet church at Whitechapel. If anything in this post looks weird, it's because LJ is run on steampipes and rubber bands -- please click through to the main site.)

Forgetting My Camera Means You Get Drawings!
On Saturday we lugged a suitcase to the annual Wake County Booksale. I'm honestly not sure what the scale was the two previous years that I went, but this year I knew there was going to be 300,000 books. I'm sorry, that seems like it needs an exclamation point:
300,000 BOOKS!

The prices were awesome, of course, with hardcovers $4 and paperbacks $1 (graphic novels count as paperbacks, though they didn't have as many as they did last year).


Suitcase O'Books
We brought a rolling suitcase (we learned from previous years that carrying around a box sucks) and filled it to the brim with books.

It's lasting five days, so I may end up going back. The prices drop throughout the sale, and sometimes new stock is introduced as they clear out room - it's insane! It's like Black Friday for bibliophiles! With a little more nerdy camraderie.


I know you're not supposed to judge a book by its cover, but sometimes I can not resist buying books purely based on their covers - I mean look at these!

(Plus, the guy let us have them for $1 each, since they were kid's books).


You guys have any books you bought entirely based on the cover?
Cross-posted from blog Leah's Stuff

( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )

So I was reading about Nash Equilibrium the other day. I'm sure there's lots of complexities that aren't covered in the wikipedia article, but there was one thought that stuck out for me. It's in the introduction paragraph, so I can't really claim it's a great insight, though I think their example is non-ideal. "However, Nash equilibrium does not necessarily mean the best cumulative payoff for all the players involved; in many cases all the players might improve their payoffs if they could somehow agree on strategies different from the Nash equilibrium (e.g. competing businesses forming a cartel in order to increase their profits)."

It's entirely about local equilibria. Which is an important and valuable tool, in the way that a photograph is an important and valuable tool, but it you draw all your conclusions just from either, you miss an important axis, the changes over time.

It also doesn't work when one or more of the participants aren't aiming at maximizing their whatever. Which is also covered in the article

So, I guess I'm not really adding anything about it, but it's still an interesting article and concept, so yeah.

erestania isn't able to go to see Lobster & Vantastic at 7pm tommorrow at Oval House. Would anyone like to come with us? The ticket's only £5, the play looks interesting and fun plus it would be good to get bums on seats for athena25.

A collection of WWII Political cartoons by Dr. Seuss

I'm sure you've all heard about the guy who sails around stalking and harassing whaling fleets by now.

10 important social psychology studies on why people do dumb stuff.

( the two )

From Mare Biddle's awesome blog:

"When I saw the mock up of ” I was easily taken with Von’s artwork and his beautiful ability to illustrate “silence” on the page. The cover art is actually my favorite frame in the book. The detail of the "Lost Cat" sign on the light post sets a perfect tone. The more intriguing part of this book, and what made me Von’s fan, is the story.

When I read this book the first time, I immediately wondered how I would’ve felt about it when I was 13. Would I have pushed it away? Would I have exhaled warm air from my lungs in the kind of way that can change a teenager’s trajectory? Marie’s future is uncertain. Her giggles are stolen between day-to-night worries. Von leaves Marie’s story open so the reader can walk with her on – "

And from the blog japoly:

"This is indeed a very touching, very dramatic tale. Von Allan's dialogue is never at all unrealistic, and the everyday characters presented are fully-formed enough to cause the reader to wonder at what persons may have inspired such situational drama, such quietly desperate burdens. This is the kind of story that wonderfully, moodily, is all too real. Such a rich and honest portrayal of mental illness and the effects such can have on the many persons stuck in the tortured position of loving and/or living with the inflicted.

And the art is absolutely as effective, from smart page constructions sporting fluid faces and gestures to an appropriate pacing that intuitively slows down the camera whenever a forced introspection is dutifully beckoned from the story itself. This movie is shot in real time, with all of the world of nuances that the unbiased camera is always eager and willing to capture, beit for the amusement or judgement, of others. while the overall narrative is a sea of calm before the storm sensation, the few moments of violent action are called into vivid imagining with all the more clarity. And shock, like with ripples in the stillness of waters.

A fantastic and self-aware work, I am thankful in my own way to have come across it...Most definitely one of the finest graphic novels of the year, I think."

Um...Wow?

Von

I’ve had the throwing-up-and-falling-over virus since Friday morning. Broadcasting may be bitty, because I’m still doing the falling-over part from time to time.

This is Warren Ellis dot com. Good morning.

And this is the brilliant Ellen Rogers:

(Automatically crossposted from warrenellis.com. Feel free to comment here or at my internet church at Whitechapel. If anything in this post looks weird, it's because LJ is run on steampipes and rubber bands -- please click through to the main site.)

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Jeff Bridges, Ewan Macgregor, George Clooney and Kevin Spacey are all funny. Recommended.
( Very funny, minor spoilers under cut )

So, the other day at work my boss comes to the press and tells me he's got a guy with a load of flat files he's looking to get rid of for $25 and asks if I'm interested. I think my voice steadily rose an octave as the reality of the offer set in and I gave my reply of "hell yes!" Even now it seems kind of surreal, but let me put this in one clear sentence.


Ooooooooooooh fucking hell YES!!! I've wanted a flat file for AGES. I think probably anybody who does work on paper sort of drools over the thought of getting one of these. But the thing is they're heavy, HUGE, and generally cost hundreds of dollars unless you score one from some place going out of business. And that's basically how this worked. One of my boss's buddies clears furniture out of industrial buildings when the businesses shut down. He had 20 of them, and was only asking $25 for each one. Really, I just got lucky that my boss is well connected, and that this connection though to call him first.

I went ahead and purchased two. I figured I would be retarded not to. Part of me thinks I should have gotten more, but two is enough for now, and they are really big, so I have to consider that I have to PUT these things somewhere. What I'm thinking right now is that I'll break down the shelving I built under my kitchen table and put them there. Hm. I really need to build a stand for my vacuum table and move it back to my room before I do that, though.

Anyway, that is pretty goddamn exciting and I needed to share! Still need to post about halloween! And I've got another [BIG] contract printing job coming up, so that's super exciting, too :)

More later!
-P.

• 03:19 Jesus, these Exten-Z "male enhancement" ads are horrible. #
• 03:20 The worst is the montage of guys saying, "Well, it got bigger". #
• 03:20 At a certain point, just come out and say the word "penis". Or maybe "cock". I don't care, just quit beating around the bush. #
• 03:21 I would respect your product more if you just said, "Your pantsnake will be engorged as if it had feasted on a small goat." #