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Looking For Quacks In The Pavement

  • Destruction of the Pit of Destruction

    Via collision detection, where they had this to say:

    One of my favorite parts of early, monster-infested first-person shooters was the names they’d give to the levels. Every time I reached a new level in Quake — “Dimension of the Doomed”, “House of Chthon”, “The Ebon Fortress” — I would quiver with laughter at the I’m-being-ironic-well-maybe-I’m-not aesthetic of John Romero.

    I present you the First-Person Shooter Level Name Generator. It provided the title of this entry (because I hate having to do real work, donchaknow), as well as several minutes’ worth of amusement. Enjoy, won’t you?

  • Disheartening Ephiphany

    Have you ever stopped in your tracks on your way to do something and realize just how many things you normally do that you’ve completely let slip because you’ve been so caught up in dozens of other things that need doing?

    Yeah, I had one of those today. I managed to take care of part of one of those long-forgotten things (checking the anti-virus system!) but was pained to realize how many other things I’ve let slip thorugh the cracks. Bad SysAdmin, no donut. Le sigh.

    This doesn’t mean I’m not glad it’s the weekend, mind you…

  • You know what they call people like that, right?

    Tonight, on a Very Special Episode ™ of CSI ™, Nick Stokes tries to save a little girl who everyone else is convinced has already been killed, but… he can hear her voice in his head, leading him from clue to clue.

    Gah. I hate Very Special Episodes. I like the character of Nick well enough, but c’mon. First the two-hour season finale, now this. Are they setting him up for a write-out, or did George Eads just work this kind of thing into his contract back when he was threatening to quit the show a couple of years back? Feh.

    Ah: It pays to Google, my friends.

    The plot of this episode was modified at the last moment to accomodate for a sudden change in William Petersen’s availability — originally, Gil Grissom was going to be the CSI convinced that the younger daughter was still alive. (Source)

    Fair enough, then… but still. Can we get back to our regularly scheduled mayhem next week, please?

  • Not your normal rat bait…

    I’m so glad I discovered Livescience.com.

    Scientists figured they’d trap this foot-long varmint in no time. Eighteen weeks later, they finally trapped it with some fresh penguin bait. On another island.

    Go read the whole thing, won’t you? It’s… amusing, if not also a bit disturbing…

    World’s Most Elusive Rat…

  • Enough with the crazy. Really.

    Memo To The Universe At Large:

    Twice more since Sunday have I dealt with crazy people at bus stops. This is not a trend I’m happy about in the least, especially now that my wonderful Neuros seems to be giving up the ghost. If I don’t have music, the appropriate replacement is peace and quiet, not insane ramblings from complete strangers.

    Sure, they’ve been harmless in general, but they’re annoying. I don’t want a dissertation on how different Tri-Met lines have different standards for how long a driver gets a particular route. I don’t want to hear about some creepy old guy’s medicinal needs, or his escapades at the strip club. And I don’t want to converse with people who think ducks aren’t birds.

    That will be all. Thank you for listening.

  • I have needs!

    If Mari went jumping off a cliff, would I do it too? That depends, I suppose, but if she does a silly meme I’m almost duty-bound to follow suit. So, here you go. This is a lot like the “$Name is” Google thing from a while back, except this time it’s “$Name needs”. (Don’t forget the quotes.) The first ten result summaries that include the two words together are what you post. For instance:

    • There are many situations where Karel needs to repeat an instruction but it is not yet known how often. (Ain’t that the truth…)
    • Karel’s world is always bounded by walls along the edges, but the world may have different dimensions depending on the specific problem Karel needs to solve.
    • Karel needs a semi-colon to terminate instructions (;).
    • Assume that a robot named Karel needs to pick up a beeper and move, but if there is no beeper to pick up, he is to do nothing. (Yeah, yeah. When your namesake is responsible for giving us the word “robot” you get a lot of robot-related things named after him.)
    • Karel needs six weeks for this. (Whatever this is.)
    • Karel needs to get those documents and forms from the Seminary by June 3.
    • Karel needs to find it. (Whatever it is.)
    • The game said that Karel needs that person’s blood in order to transform into that person. (Uh, what?)
    • KAREL flew into the Bay Area today and experienced what he thought might be a terrorist, but the airline disagreed. (There’s a KAREL Show? Why was I not informed?)
    • Karel needs to travel East along the south wall of the city until it reaches the East side, at which point it will stop.

    And there you have it. Mind you, I left out one of the first ten entries that came up… but if you dig around a nearby website you could probably find it yourself…

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