GeekHarmony – 5 Minutes to Pudding

It’s been quiet here in GeekHarmony land. I blame Bioware as the root of all my current blogging failure. I’ve spent something like 80 hours cavorting with Dragon Age: Origins since I got it, and I don’t really want it to end. I know the shine will wear off eventually, and I’ll dump it for some newer, sexier, more modern creature that really takes the time to understand me and my feelings (Mass Effect 2), but for now it’s a happy love affair.

To suplement my lack of posts, I’d like to take the time to introduce FlockDraw to everyone, since it was just recently introduced to me. This is a shared paint program, basically, where all users can update it at once. And while I am a proper and completely productive individual in all aspects of my career, I did take the time today to mess around with it with my coworkers. During the tic-tac-toe sessions and drawing people getting shot with cannons, I developed a new Super Weapon that I think the military should really get behind.

The Cheerful Anvil Cannon.

Yes, the bow makes it cheerful.

Yes, this is completely ridiculous. Especially because it took me forever to figure out how to draw an anvil.

No, I don’t really care if you don’t like it.

A couple months ago, another coworker and I were talking about giraffes. (What do you talk about at work? TP Reports? Football? Pffft.) He said that they were not normally frightening creatures. I suggested that if we crossbred them with wolves, they would be more intimidating. I immediately decided I had to draw this.

Those aren’t actually supposed to be lasers coming out of his eyes, it’s supposed to be a snout. Like for a wolf. Whatever, it could still gnaw you to death in seconds and haunt your dreams.

Have I mentioned that I probably love Paint too much for my own good? I get too much amusement over drawing stupid nonsense and giggling over it. At least it’s not clubbing baby seals or driving into pedestrians. Or Twilight. But if it keeps me relatively sane and without a criminal record, then I don’t see too much harm in it.

-darthfenix

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Found this whilst shopping on Amazon.com for the inevitable Christmas bonanza of gifts I have to buy. And also a little something for my family and friends. They have some sort of payment system that will keep all of your credit card info in one place, where you just enter your “PayPhrase” and a PIN and *boom* you’ve got the Xbox 360 Elite Holiday Bundle. Or, you know, whatever it is that you want to buy.

If you don’t have it set up already, they give a sample in the corner about one that you could set up for yourself. This was it’s honest to god suggestion for what my PayPhrase should be:

I think the internet has caught on to me…

So it turns out that the author of Fight Club, one Chuck Palkajseryunik (<– pretty sure that’s how it’s pronounced) had it right. Quite possibly from personal experience. After all, we know that artists are always tortured, and not in the sexy Leather-n-Whips way. Well, not usually. But it turns out that when you can’t sleep, things begin to seem less real, like a copy of a copy of a…you get the point. Unfortunately, this doesn’t apply to the things in life you wish were less real, like the amazing  idea of fashion in the 80’s

Unfortunately, this wasn’t just a terrible nightmare.

Please note: Looking at the above picture may cause your eyes to bleed. This is a normal reaction, do not be alarmed.  Trust me, I’m a nurse.

However, everything else in your life, seems to magically become less and less real. Suddenly you can’t remember if you actually got a voicemail from your mother asking if you’d recently checked out the UFO that appeared over Phoenix, or if that was the fevered imaginings of a mind that had finally cracked in half. Normally, the latter is true for most people. Not so for me.

You may also increasingly find yourself in situations similar to this. …and then you say or think to yourself: “I can’t believe that just fucking happened.”

But enough of the effects, let’s move on to causes.

1. Someone implants in your head a horrifying idea or image that prevents you from sleeping.  I offer the following example.

Babies!!

Also known as the squirmy horrifying things that come out of ladies’ naughty places. [Note: 'naughty places' is a technical term used primarily by gay nurses]. Seriously, one mention of these horrifying and unnatural (despite what religion would tell you) monsters is enough to send most people into a frenzied state of self-imposed insomnia in order to stave off the inevitable night-terrors this will cause. Be aware, most people can sneak this up on you in the most innocent of ways.  Such as mentioning that they are pregnant.  And that they would love for you to be present at the birth.  And that they want lots more after the first one.

The result of “lots more”. Scary isn’t it?

Do not be fooled by the vacant drooling and wide eyed expressions of wonder at every shiny set of keys jangled in front of them. Pygmy demons Babies are a known carrier of hideous evil. Careful, they travel in packs.

Fortunately, the Wachowski brothers were on to something, and figured out the cure.  I choose to call it, intensive baby monitoring.  Seen below.

“Intensive Baby Monitoring”

All those tubes not only tell you exactly whats going on with its internal workings at all times, but also serve to keep it immobile and passive, so it can’t come for you in the night and eat your soul.  Why are babies scary exactly, you ask? Because they remind us all of dolls.   And dolls are closely related to clowns (Their genomes are about 98% the same). Now imagine a horde of clowns taking over your village and you’ll see why babies are terrifying.

2. The next cause of insomnia is ironically, insomnia itself.  Allow me to explain.  Once you’ve gone long enough without sleep, your brain starts trying its level best to force sleep upon you.  Often using scare tactics cleverly disguised as hallucinations or optical illusions.

A completely normal horse…demon

The only problem with this is that these scare tactics end up reverting you to cause number one (see above). And really, you’d think that since the brain is in charge of everything in general, and the pineal gland specifically is in charge of your sleep-wake cycle, it could do whatever it wants at any time.  Which is certainly true, and thats how people end up with narcolepsy.  The brain decides: Hey, now’s a good time to sleep!  And lo, as the brain prophesied, you fall asleep.  These people are fortunate.  Don’t let them tell you otherwise, quoting statistics about the survival rates of those who fall asleep at the wheel and run into K-rails, trees, or say, oncoming traffic.  They’re just making all that up so that us insomniacs won’t lobotomize them to discover the secrets of random sleep. BECAUSE WE NEED IT!!!  Why you ask? Because if we don’t have it, we start to think that things like this are normal.

Crazy aberrant chicken construct.

I assure you, that the possibly poultry animal seen above, is as abnormal as the hideous flesh things referred to as babies. The insomniac brain begins to look at the world and just accepts everything as “The Way it Should Be.”  Which would explain why the writers/producers/anyone else involved in television ‘reality’ shows such as Real Chance at Love, still have a job.

The only fortunate part of being afflicted with insomnia is that it provides endless time to write half-assed articles such as this one, think they are funny, and even more, think they are worth being read by the world at large.  You also start looking up what the correct plural of something is.  Like: Schools of fish; Murders of crows; or a Cher of gays. Well, that and insomniacs can spend more time than you can, watching infomercials and thinking they are interesting.  Internet Shortcuts, here I come!

~Whyspir

I apologize for the delay in posting, I purchased Dragon Age: Origins and it’s been consuming my soul. More on that later.

I don’t know what it was about the 80’s, but for some reason, this was the decade of madness. And not only because this was the first era of the boy bands, as shown by the popularity of New Kids on the Block. Apparently, people decided that children needed to have the shit scared out of them in order for them to function in normal society, and this needed to be done through the use of cartoon animals, furniture, and things voiced by PeeWee Herman.

Granted, I may have a differing opinion on what having the shit scared out of a person is, and I’m not saying the entirety of these movies was frightening. But these each had a few bits that were creepy, dark, and/or disturbing. Kids these days would be fine with watching them, I’m sure, since parents find the need to take kids to R rated movies like Silent Hill (Which happened when I saw it in the theatre. What the FUCK, parents.), but I was part of a more innocent era.

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The Brave Little Toaster (1987)

I don’t know who came up with the premise for this one, but they must have had some horrible drug experience in which their appliances came to life. This movie is like “The Incredible Journey” with kitchen gadgets: a toaster, lamp, radio, electric blanket, and vacuum are left abandoned in some cabin in the woods and await their Master (the clichéd only child who grew up assigning personalities to all of his possessions) to come visit them for the summer. Unfortunately, the family is too terrified of talking furniture to return, and the cabin goes up for sale. The appliances decide to venture out on their own and find him.

This movie is terrifying for a number of reasons. First off, even before the appliances leave the cabin, they’re met with an air conditioner voiced by Phil Hartman, who advises them that their trip is futile and that suicide is the best answer.

Later on, the appliances all get captured by a shady second hand dealer and imprisoned in his thrift store, where they’re surrounded by Frankenstein electronics that have witnessed their friends get torn to pieces, and are all insane now because of it. It’s like Saw, except with singing. And appliances, instead of people.

When they finally get to their Master’s apartment (surprise, the kid’s grown up and going to college. Appliances have no concept of time, evidently), they discover that he’s upgraded to newer models, and the new fancy appliances mock them for being outdated and throw them in the trash.

They get taken to the dump, where they try and escape being crushed into rubble by the evil compactor. There’s an awesome song during this part with terrified scrap cars singing about how they’re worthless and it’s not worth it to resist the sweet embrace of death. In the end, the Brave Little Toaster throws himself into the gears to save his friends from being pulverized.

Oh, but there’s a happy ending, since the Master decides to take the crappy appliances (including broken and now retarded Toaster) to college with him, despite his girlfriend’s protests. You thought a football obsession was bad, ladies; this guy loves a soiled electric blanket and it’s other obsolete friends more than you. It’s not even a teddy bear or something cuddly. I don’t know about you, but if I had to choose between the cassette player I had as a kid or an iPod, I know who’s getting turned into scrap.

Sorry, Tapey.

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The Land Before Time (1988)

Don Bluth is an asshole. He’s got two mentions on this list, but I could devote an entire post to his brand of movies that totally destroyed my childhood. The main character is a lovable Apatosaurus named Littefoot. This heartwarming adventure is about a family of dinosaurs that have to flee their homeland due to a massive drought and search for the mythical “Great Valley,” where food and water are abundant. He gets separated from his heard by an earthquake and has to fend for himself. Oh, and Littlefoot’s mother dies protecting him from Sharptooth (a giant T-Rex), therefore reasserting the fact that tragic death always occurred in 90% of children’s movies in the 1980’s. It builds character.

Non-historically-accurate reenactment courtesy of Dinosaur Comics.

Littlefoot meets up with a cast of other orphaned herbivore dinosaur children, and make their way to the Great Valley while slowing starving to death and getting chased by Sharptooth. The misfit group eventually lures Sharptooth into a volcano, their combined walnut sized brainpower being too much for him. This movie also makes the first usage of the “Mufasa Effect,” where Littlefoot’s mother appears as a cloud in the sky and leads them to the Great Valley.

Don Bluth puts together this cartoon with all the warmth of impending armageddon during the time likely right before the K-T event. Never has the threat of extinction been so family friendly. There’s been 13 movies in this series and it’s spanned 20 years. I’m sure the original apocalyptic creepiness has abated over time, and now I’m just waiting for the Creationists to get on top of these and start throwing cavemen children in there as new playmates for Littlefoot and his friends. That would actually be a lot more frightening, come to think of it.

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The Secret of NIMH (1982)

Don Bluth’s first foray into mainstream depressing cartoons, based off of a mostly harmless children’s book called Mrs Frisby and the Rats of NIHM. This book differed from the movie for a variety of reasons, the most important one being that the rats did not use magic. The rats used science and their increased intelligence to build their own society away from humans.

I guess this wasn’t frightening enough for Bluth, who decided, “Hey, it’s a much more entertaining story if the rats are wizards and live inside of a terrifying cavern of dark magic. Science is for lames.”

This lighthearted romp starts off with a widowed mouse named Mrs Brisby (see what they did there?) who’s son is sick with pneumonia. Because “Moving Day” is drawing near (the time when the farmer’s tractor starts and kicks everyone out of the field), Mrs Brisby needs to find a way to move her son without him dying. This leads her on an adventure through a skeleton infested owl lair to the underground cavern of the rats, where she learns that her husband mouse  saved the rats from the evil scientists who were mindlessly injecting them with superpowers, and he died after being eaten by the farmer’s cat.

The rat version of Dumbledore.

They give her a magic medallion and have her give the cat sleeping powder, so they can move the rock her family lives in. During this, the evil rat Jenner crushes the rat master Nicodemus and the block sinks into mud, with the terrified mouse children inside drowning in sludge. Jenner gets knifed in the back, complete with blood (totally unheard of these days, animals bleed rainbows when they get hurt). The children sink into the swamp, and Mrs Brisby, in a fit of grief, somehow unlocks the super-mouse power in the amulet and lifts the block out of the mud. The movie ends with the family happy and secure in their new spot.

Christ on a bicycle.

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Flight of the Navigator (1986)

I will readily admit that it’s been at least 15 years since I’ve seen this movie. Going off of memory and clips from YouTube, I can determine that the primary terrifying factor of this film was the giant floating lamp eye voiced by Paul Reubens. That and the whole thing about being abducted by aliens, moving inexplicably forward in time 8 years without aging and finding out your family thinks you’re dead, and having scientists pick your brain apart to determine what the hell happened to you. All while being 8 years old.

I’ll let the Wikipedia page speak for the plot of the movie:

Max informs David that his mission was to travel the galaxy, collect biological specimens and take them back to his home planet of Phaelon for analysis before returning them to the place and time from which they were taken. Max’s sensors had discovered that humans only use 10% of their brain and as an experiment, David’s brain was filled with information. During this procedure, David’s brain inexplicably “leaked”. Max then returned David to Earth, but did not take him back to his proper time, fearing that humans were too delicate to survive time travel. When trying to leave Earth and return to Phaelon, Max accidentally crashed the ship into a power line, erasing all the star charts and data necessary for returning home from the ship’s computer. Max needs the information placed in David’s brain to complete his mission and return to Phaelon.

Completely implausible situation with advanced alien technology failing and only an Earth kid can save it? Welcome to the 80’s.

I was curious to see what happened with the child actor that played David. Here’s the extent of his Wikipedia entry. It’s actually kind of depressing:

Joey Cramer (born August 23, 1973 in Vancouver, British Columbia) was a child actor in the United States during the mid 1980s, most notable for his role in Flight of the Navigator. He appeared in the television movie Stone Fox with Buddy Ebsen and Gordon Tootoosis in 1987. Today, Cramer lives in his hometown of Sechelt, and he is employed at a “Source For Sports” store.

I wonder how often he gets “See you later, Navigator”? I’d punch a bitch.

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The Electric Grandmother (1982)

First point of fact: This is based off of a Ray Bradbury short story/Twilight Zone episode called “I Sing the Body Electric.” Second point of fact: This movie did more to traumatize the life out of me that any others combined.

It was a TV movie about a man and his three kids who have just lost their mother. Thinking that insanity os the only real cure for grief, the man goes to a factory to purchase an Electric Grandmother (designed by Paul Benedict) where the kids design their ideal grandmother. She then arrives at their house, and proceeds to care for them by shooting orange juice out of her finger for breakfast. She also has to be plugged in every evening, where she rocks in a creaky rocking chair in “sleep” mode.

YouTube actually has the entire movie, but the second part is the stuff with the actual factory. Not only is it dark and eerily filled with smoke, the concept of choosing a grandmother based on her shadow and to “pick one fast before they fly away” really fucked my head up. Innocent old ladies with robotic souls. I don’t care if she saves the little girl at the end, it’s freaking weird.

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I hope this list brought back some frightening childhood memories. I may get around to listing all of hte Don Bluth movies in their own special category, but every waking hour is being spent right now playing Dragon Age: Origins, so signs point to “not damn likely.”

-darthfenix

This was a triumph.

I’m making a note here: “Huge Success.”

It’s hard to overstate my satisfaction.

Carving a pumpkin,

We do this for Halloween sometimes.

For the good of tradition,

Or for just roasting the seeds.

Now there’s no sense crying if a thinner part breaks,

You just keep on carving and then go get some tape.

And the pumpkin gets done

And you can smash it for fun

For the pumpkin is not still alive.

It’s not even angry.

It doesn’t have emotional thought.

Even though you stabbed it’s head and killed it.

And tore out it’s insides,

And put in a candle to have fire.

As it glows, it’s like it seems that it’s so happy for you.

Now these massacred gourds only last a short time

They get all wrinkled like they’re cougars past prime.

Oh, your finger will get burned

Lighting the candle, you’ll learn.

And the pumpkin is not still alive.

Go ahead and leave it

Out on the porch, or left inside.

Maybe kids won’t smash it on your driveway.

Just don’t give them Neccos.

THAT WAS A JOKE.

HAHA. FAT CHANCE.

Anyway, this carving’s great,

It’s so geeky a choice.

Look at me still typing like this song is so new

I bet Jonathan Coulton’s a nice guy and won’t sue…

I’ve really got to run,

There is gaming to be done.

Can’t believe that this post’s still alive.

Oh believe me, the thing’s still alive.

I’m plagiarizing and it’s still alive.

I feel SARCASTIC and it’s still alive.

The song’ll be stuck in your head, still alive.

And when it’s ended I’ll be still alive.

Still alive.

Still alive.

-darthfenix

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Actual song and Portal credits:

The smoke point of olive oil is 410 degrees Fahrenheit. The flash point is 498 degrees. This information will come in handy in a few moments.

I was recently on a trip back to my hometown, where the most popular activities are to get married and have children, or do meth. Or both, if one is so inclined. Anyway, I brought back Alton Brown’s book I’m Just Here for the Food, which is pretty awesome overall. I was going to cook a recipe from it a few days ago since some friends were coming over for dinner. The recipe called for searing chicken breasts in olive oil before baking. I read the recipe. I bought the ingredients. I was all set for food magic to happen.

I’d call myself more than adequate when it comes to kitchen action. I love baking, I can follow a recipe without disaster, I can remember basic concepts of how food should go together, and the original things I concoct are 85% effective at being good eats. Therefore, I was not particularly worried about this venture. In preparation, I readied my magic stainless steel Cuisinart 3 1/2 quart saute pan for battle.

Kind of like this, except without the hat.

The recipe called for high heat, so I placed the dial about halfway between medium high and high, just for starters. It must be noted at this time that I have an electric stove. These appliances are horrible with maintaining a constant temperature. And no, I’m not trying to completely vindicate myself of responsibility for the following events, it should just be noted for the record, Your Honor.

I did what I needed to do to prep the chicken, and then went back to the heated pan, readied my trusty container of olive oil, and poured it on the pan.

A large column of smoke immediately issued from the pan. I swore at it, turned on the oven hood, opened the kitchen window, and hoped the fire alarm wouldn’t go off before the oil smoked away. But this was not the end of my culinary adventure.

You remember in the Lord of the Rings, when the Balrog first appeared in Moria, and the Fellowship was like “OMG” and ran away, and there was this big staircase thing and it broke, and the Gandalf was all “Oh no you didn’t” and got his wizard boomstick out? That’s sort of what happened next.

May not be an entirely realistic depiction. Also, proof that I don’t have Photoshop skills.

As fire broke out into a fiesta in the pan I was holding, the first thing that came to mind was not “Gee, maybe I should have researched the flash point of olive oil.” It was “HOLY SHIT FIRE DROP IT.” Luckily, I did not listen to myself, and remembered that one was not supposed to use water to put out any sort of kitchen fire, and instead one was supposed to use baking soda or flour. Being kept in a canister on my counter, flour was the closest thing.

Channeling Gandalf with his wizard smackdown skills, I threw handfuls of flour at the flaming pan until the fire dispersed, and the only thing left was a smoking, charred ruin of starch. In order to escape the fumes and clear the air, I immediately went outside to the porch with the pan, put it down, opened my front door and turned on the ceiling fans to try and get smoke out of the air. I returned to my flour-covered kitchen, turned off the stove, and tried to take deep, calming breaths in acrid air.

A few things occurred to me after the fact:

1. Stainless steal can get much hotter than a non-stick pan.
2. My smoke alarm never went off the entire time, which isn’t really that reassuring.
3. Flour has been known to explode. Only baking soda is recommended for a kitchen fire. Or, I could have put the lid over it to smother the flames.

And the most important thing:

Don’t place a searing hot pan on top of Astro-Turf without something under it.

Yeah, that could have been prevented.

The pan is still in my sink. I’ve gotten the plastic off the bottom, but the inside is still covered in black. I’ve worked some of it off with a Brillo pad. It’s cheaper than buying a new pan.

The moral of this story, kids, is always have a fire extinguisher in your kitchen.

-darthfenix