Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Another weird test...

Supposedly only teenagers can hear this tone. My hearing powers are all sorts of screwed up from too much loud music with headphones, noisy work environments, and a stupid hunting accident with a dimwit ex-friend years ago.

I can't say that I really "heard" the sound under or over the outrageous tinnitus...I could just tell there was a sound added to the cacophony of "WWWWOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!" I always hear.

It was an interesting test.

The Teenager Audio Test - Can you hear this sound?

Created by Oatmeal

Babbons Fear My Wrath....

How many baboons could you take in a fight? (armed only with a giant dildo)

Created by Oatmeal



This was good news to know indeed. :)
Check out this guy's site, "The Oatmeal". There is some funny stuff on the site. The link to the baboon question is under the title of today's entry: http://theoatmeal.com/quiz/baboon-dildo
Enjoy!

Saturday, May 22, 2010

Things of note for Saturday, May 22, 2010

I learned today that if I were to dig a hole straight through the planet, I would end up in the middle of the Indian Ocean. Where would you wind up? Find out at the link below. Just for the record, if your located in most places in the continental United States, Canada, and Mexico, you’ll be in the middle of the same ocean with me. Sorry for the spoiler.

http://www.ubasics.com/dighole/

I learned how much of the Dallas/Ft. Worth area could be destroyed by various sizes of nuclear bombs and the big-ass asteroid that supposedly wiped out the dinosaurs at the below website. Please make note that the detonations were centered directly over the Cutting Edge Haunted House in Fort Worth, Texas. No particular reason why, it just seemed darkly humorous to me. I love that place!

http://www.carloslabs.com/node/20 and http://www.carloslabs.com/node/16

I actually preferred the weapon selection device better at node 16 because it is a drop-down menu. The weapon selector at node 20 is a slider bar and seems harder to pick the exact weapon of choice. Node 20 has more goodies, though, like thermal damage, pressure damage, and fallout damage that would occur from the selected weapon of choice. Also, if you click on the map marker in node 20’s map, it tells you the different degrees of damage/pain/effect the explosion would cause. The damage done by a comparable anti-dinosaur meteor is simply frightening. We’d all be screwed in the U.S.

This site had the above Google Mashup map links and actually had some other very cool articles to read and ponder. I spent a good hour or so here and at the suggested links. Finding this site was a result of “Stumbling”, which is a very good way to waste lots of time (and even days) and destroy productivity. I have, however, found several good things that had benefit at a later date from Stumbling….oh yeah…the link to the fun site: http://www.nerdmodo.com/2009/07/10-cool-google-maps-mashups/  I’ve decided to follow this site’s RSS feed. :)

Oh, Hell no….The next site to catch my eye has enough links on the left of the webpage to keep a small army busy for weeks. Utter bliss! :)  I was perusing the article on castles when I happened to look at all the goodies on the right of the article. Unfortunately for me, there was a link to old, obsolete, and novelty maps. Again…pure bliss! I have always loved looking at maps and learning about the areas represented in the maps. I think I was mesmerized for about 45 minutes on that link alone…and there are a disturbingly large number of links to explore. Mans gotta do what a man’s gotta do…http://www.darkroastedblend.com/2008/10/castles-that-will-inspire-and-haunt-you.html  This will be another site I’ll probably follow. Dammit….

One link I ran across was rather disturbing. http://www.marty.com.au/sci-fi-gallery/art-sculpture/3-clone-alone-sci-fi-alien-art.html This guy has made a sculpture that is disturbingly similar to one of my projects for the Cutting Edge Haunted House.

image

Martin Dolan’s work above. My work below.

kaos bar 037

convention 025

I need to get into the set to take some closer pics, but the comparison between our work is spooky. Some of the things he did to his “blue baby” I could see myself or anybody on our set designing crew doing. It was freakishly close to set design we have done in the past.

Hell, I emailed the artist, Martin Dolan, and complimented him on the work and told him how close it was to my own strange work. I am curious to see if he has any interest in looking at the pictures of my project I had taken during the build. I found the pictures in a 2008 folder, so that’s obviously when I had made mine.

My idea broadly sprang from the “Blue Children” in one of our cemetery sets from the 90’s. I think it was a set we called the “Dep Set” for reasons lost to me. I’m curious about how Martin came up with his idea and the thought process he had while designing the piece.

I think he is in Australia, if my small knowledge of website addresses is correct. There is a .au at what would normally be the end of his web address….yes…It’s called an internet TLD and .au is Australia. Just looked it up on Wiki. Anyhoo, I’m hoping to hear back from him and hoping he won’t try and claim I plagiarized him or some such nonsense. That would be terrible and completely uncool.

You should look at the creations at this website: http://www.llonovoy.com/english.html Most of the artwork made me feel very uneasy since the pieces are rather nightmarish. Very unsettling and spooky work.

Gads….I surfed for almost 10 hours straight today. I only stopped to poop and pee a couple of times. This site was partially to blame:  http://www.darkroastedblend.com/2009/08/jet-engines-on-trucks-for-fun-and.html   and of course, the other sites I mentioned above. It’s time to quit and let my brain sleep.

This has pretty much been my schedule since I’ve been recuperating from the Achilles tendon blow out on January 28th, 2010. I’ve done a few other oddball things, but not much else. How do I get paid for doing this, I wonder? Hmmmmmm…I could be rich and considered an “over achiever” of sorts. I’m liking that daydream! Later!

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz………………….

Friday, May 21, 2010

Something New…

Tonight I’m trying something new to me. Windows Live Writer. It’s supposed to be a blogger tool and I should be able to do my dirty work in the program then send it off to the blog. We’ll see how well it works here in a few minutes.

I haven’t posted for a few days because I had to watch every episode of “Lost” in a few days time so I would be ready for the last episode. I was brain dead for a couple of days from watching so many episodes and suffering through many emotional occurrences with the various characters. Those folks had a lot of silly shit to deal with in a few months time.

image

Seriously….people blowing themselves up, folks dying and then some Doppleganger coming back in the person’s image and screwing around with the characters that were still alive, a  black carbon monoxide cloud chasing folks through the jungle and beating them like cheap piñatas against trees and rocks (I swear I saw candy falling out of one of the smoke monster’s victims), shooting each other, stabbing each other, a couple of the female and male characters screwing everything that moved as long as it was an Alpha-type character (*ahem* Kate), a devious little bug-eyed not-out-of –the-closet-yet homosexual flitting about the island spreading dissent and having people kidnapped or killed….I mean, DAMN!!!!!

All that plus more drama, heavy breathing (Jack) through much of the dialogue, and God knows what all else I’ve forgotten to mention. Watching everything from the pilot episode all the way to Season 6, Episode 15, just about did me in mentally…yet I couldn’t take my eyes off of the spectacle…

Don’t get me wrong, I really liked the series and I’m truly bummed it will all be ending in a few days. Seeing the episodes back to back over a few days time may have not been a clever idea. There was one day in particular that I had a low blood sugar episode creep up on me and I actually thought I was involved in some whacky Lost-type conspiracy here at my Aunt and Uncle’s home.

I had nodded of with my head phones on and I guess I was letting the ongoing adventure twist my sleeping mind into a fritzy mess. I didn’t realize my blood sugar was low when I first woke up. My first thoughts were to figure out how I was going to escape and get to the haunted house I work at where I would be safe from my captors and I wouldn’t be tortured anymore…WTF!?!?!?

That line of thought lasted a few panic-filled seconds before I realized I had been asleep and had heard the current episode playing on the head phones. That and being pretty dang low on my blood sugar count had left me a bit confused upon waking up from my fitful slumber. I was fine once I got some juice in my carcass and fiddled with my dog, Roxy, for a while.

I got a good chuckle out of the freakish show I had playing in my noggin.

*Sigh* It will be the end of an entertaining and confusing epic in a couple more nights. I honestly don’t see anything on the horizon that will keep me quite so mesmerized.

…at least not yet. 

:)

image

Many thanks and best wishes to Jeffrey Lieber and everyone else who was involved with bringing us the series. I can’t even begin to imagine how much work went into the production. All of you should be commended and given extra rations for the massive effort involved!

Sunday, May 9, 2010

Dialects I Like

Assamese and Dogri. Indian dialects, I kid you not. I found these while doing a circle-a-word puzzle today and this made me a very happy camper. Not only did I learn that there are over 23 official languages in India, I learned that the population was close to 337 million.

I'm quite unsure how accurate this particular word puzzle book's facts are, so I'm looking at Wikipedia while I type this missive.
HA! Ginormous mistake on population: 337 million!? More like 1.18 BILLION people accounted for in India. There is a very good chance there are more than that because of the inaccuracies of the census.

Languages: 23-24 is about right according to the Wiki. Here is the Wiki link for India if anyone cares to learn a tad:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India

I have always thought the Indian culture was intriguing and extremely interesting, especially in art and music. The music is very hypnotic in my mind and the art and sculpture is both shocking and alluring. As an example, the Khajuraho temple in Madhya Pradesh is a perfect example of the exotic aspect of some Indian sculpture. India would be one of my top destinations for a world wide trek. I firmly believe I could easily spend a couple of years exploring the country and soaking in the art and culture.

As banal as this will sound, and I'm sure this will eventually piss somebody off, the two languages I mentioned at the beginning of this post brought me special (and admittedly juvenile) glee. I mean no dishonor to people who speak the two dialects. I hope they find much humor in our English speech as well.

Assamese just sounds like it should be butt talk. I'm sorry...it does. I can bet you a hefty amount of money that some group of juvenile delinquents here in the U.S. had accidentally come up with Assamese Butt Talk as a language of their own without knowing it was an official dialect of India. It is too perfect for juvenile fecal humor to not have been stumbled upon by some miscreant youth. Assamese: The Language of Farts.

Dogri. I speak that to my lovable sidekick, Roxy, quite often. As a matter of fact, EVERY time I talk to Roxy the conversation is in Dogri. It is the language used when one "talks" to their dog. It's not just a spoken language, but also a language of belly rubs, ear scratches, and kisses between the eyes. It's the silent, loving language of bonding when you are alone with your dog(s). That aspect is more felt than heard. To know Dogri is to know unconditional love.

Sometimes I will speak Assamese to Roxy, but she doesn't always understand because it is such a staccato dialect. Well...mostly staccato with a little glissando thrown in occasionally. That can be alarming and confusing to her sensitive canine ears and sensibilities, so I try and stay away from such butt banter. She thinks I'm yelling at her when I drift into Assamese.

In all seriousness, I suggest going to the links I have put in this post that are dealing with India. I spent a couple of hours drifting in between all the HTML in Wiki's entries on India. Here is another good link to look into:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_India

That actually came from the first Wiki article on India, but I felt it would be a good alternate place to start if you wanted to learn more of the culture of India than the basic, general facts and figures of the first article.

And now, I am back to the "Lost" series and hopefully a good night's sleep tonight.

Lost-The Series

Dammit....I may have made a huge error doing something. Last night I started re-watching the series "Lost". I had no freaking idea there were so many episodes....and I had stopped watching as religiously around season 3 or 4. Soooooooo.......I did not sleep last night at all and will be celebrating Mother's Day with raccoon-like rings around my eyes and a distant look in my pupils from trying to figure out a few minor things I had not noticed when I was watching the series the first time. The not sleeping was not caused by the show.

I was not sleeping anyhow, so I figured a couple of episodes would knock me out. Believe me, I made honest attempts to snooze, but failed miserably. I thought I was ready to sleep several times and had shut down the laptop and doused the lights. Argh...it was a trick of my carcass. I did nod off a few times last night while watching the episodes and woke myself up with a couple of really loud and robust snores. These bodily emissions were not as bad as last week....I was waking myself up by both snoring AND farting. Yes. Charming and devastating, eh?

I digress.
I found a "Lost" website that looked pretty good for fans. The site is here:

http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page

The season finale is at the end of this month. Unfortunately, the site is not allowing new members to post, blog, or do much of anything but research the existing information. No big deal. I just had one question I can't seem to locate an answer for and am a bit tweeked. The tweeking is more from lack of sleep than anything else, I'm sure, but the tweek is still there.

My question is very simple and is a result of an observation that I'm sure many people have made: In season 0ne, episodes 1-13, there are a few scenes where they have common hand tools, in particular an ax that was used many times in the early parts of the first few episodes, and a shovel I noticed leaning against a tree in episode 13. Where on earth did those tools come from!?!?!?!?!?

I can almost believe the ax may have been on the plane for emergencies, but I have never personally noticed a full-sized ax on any passenger-type airplane...unless they are stowed or hidden in places only the crew can access.

The biggest "HUH!?" was the shovel in the above-mentioned season one, episode 13 scene. Charlie and Jack were coming out of the jungle heading towards a fire pile that was in the process of being built for the next night. It's roughly 31 minutes into the scene. Charlie and Jack are picking up sticks of wood and are about to start walking towards the pile. At the right of the camera shot and to the right of Charlie, a shovel is leaning against a palm tree. M'kaaaay....why would a passenger airliner have a shovel on board? This is not a survival-type shovel that folds up and is compact. This is a full-blown, garden variety shovel.

Realistically, it's not that big of a deal. I'm just very curious about an explanation for these two large, sharp, utilitarian farm implements being aboard a passenger airliner originally flying from Australia to Los Angeles.

Some of the curiosity comes from an incident that happened to three close friends of mine that just happened to be visiting Hawaii. In particular, they were in an area where some scenes were shot. I apologize for not remembering which island they were on. The three friends were strolling in a jungle area at the edge of a beach when Tammy (one of the friends) noticed a peculiar looking "rock". Upon further investigation (helped along by copious amounts of alcohol, I understand), the "rock" turned out to be a pillow that had been painted to look like a rock for a scene.

From what they had heard from a few locals who were in the area, the "rock" was used in a scene where an unfortunate soul landed their noggin during a fracas of some sort. It was either a fight scene where somebody got knocked to the ground and bounced their coconut on the "rock", or somebody was running, fell, and THEN bounced their melon off of the "rock".

Apparently the set designers, gaffers, or whoever had left the "rock" there after the scenes were shot and the film crew and cast bugged out. An oversight, I'm sure. If anyone out there has ever been involved with a location-shoot and the ensuing pandemonium, you can probably understand how something painted to look like a rock could be left behind in the scramble to get the hell out of the current location to go film in the next location.

It is very easy for things to be left behind, especially if the set designers and artists are good at their craft. Hell, we've almost left behind children, siblings, and mates in our scurry to evacuate a location....Note I said "almost". It has not happened to us in 20 years, but there is always time for a first.

The exception would be a few folks who had gone "Feral JackAss" on us at a few conventions, spring breaks, and weekend jaunts away from our wives/girlfriends. We can be rather unforgiving when people get a case of The Ass and need to get knocked down a few notches to cool their attitudes.

There have been a few times when some people should have been abandoned but were not, thanks to the kindness of our collective rotten hearts. Some soap-boxers may get roofied and ass raped in the future if they can't keep their nose out of other's business, be nice and civil to people in general, and quite judging people around them. Just don't be a dick. Not that hard.

I am fond of the saying "Just because you don't like it, don't mean it ain't no good." I have to hold myself accountable to that saying most of the time. I don't always like or enjoy what I am seeing or being exposed to, but those events may be the cat's meow for many other folks. The older I get, the less tolerant I am of idiots, drama, and folks who have no business drinking alcohol or consuming things of a recreational nature. That stems from working in the haunt industry for so many years and seeing guests at the worst they can possibly be without flinging shit at each other and us.

I've noticed my tolerance for people in general has gone completely South and I am less willing to get involved with events where large groups of people have the opportunity for the herd mentality take over. I'm afraid I may be one of those people who snap and start screaming incoherently and flinging feces at the herd so they will unass my area of operations.

I definitely do better with dogs.

The whole idea of "Lost" is appealing to me, sad to say. Being stranded on a fairly sizable island with a good supply of hot ladies and mostly intelligent folks who can take care of themselves in a survivor-type situation. At least I think it is....I may change my mind when I get caught up on the last three seasons and finally find out what that black, smoky, dinosaur-sounding, freak-of-nature beastie is and why polar bears were on the island. (If there were polar bears, could there have been Eskimos, too?)

I may be more comfortable with a "Castaway" type of scenario, but I would need more than just a whacked-out volleyball named Wilson to chat about the newest fashions in seagull attire and fiddler crab housing issues. I'd at least need a good dog to help drag Wilson around.

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Entertainment has arrived!!!!!!!!

After a relatively short wait of a few days, my book order from Amazon.com has arrived! Great Googly Moogly, I'm almost beside myself with bookwormish glee!

I had ordered "Sense and Sensibility and Sea monsters by" Jane Austen and Ben H. Winters, published by Quirk Classics. It is a spoof of Jane Austen's "Sense and Sensibility". I had recently completed "Pride and Prejudiced and Zombies" and "Dawn of the Dreadfuls", both based on stories by Jane Austen and extremely entertaining. I assure you, if I had to read either story the way they were originally written, I would have burned my eyes out with a soldering iron and a hot spoon ...just not my cup o' tea, lads and lasses.

I also received "The Undead World of Oz" by L. Frank Baum and Ryan C. Thomas. This book is published by Coscom Entertainment. I'm curious to see if they portray the flying monkeys as I hope. Ideally they will be flinging zombie-flying-monkey poop at the group. We shall see. (....Clever little unintentional rhyming going on here. Sweet!)

Next on the manifest was "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Zombie Jim" by Mark Twain and W. Bill Czolgosz. This was published by non other than Coscom Entertainment. I did not realize I had two books from the same publisher. Kind of an interesting coincidence, I guess.

The last book is "The War of the Worlds plus Blood, Guts, and Zombies". Written by H.G. Wells and Eric S. Brown. *Eh!?* ...AND published by Coscom Entertainment! Well how about THAT!? (Brief jaunt to Coscom's website)......It appears Coscom has several other books that I may have to look into depending on how these three go. Here is Coscom's website if y'all would like to look also:

http://coscomentertainment.com/index.html

I have to admit I am very excited about these books and have high hopes for their entertainment value. I could barely put down the last three spoofs I read. *Oooop!* I almost forgot to mention "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" by Seth Grahame-Smith and published by Grand Central Publishing. This book was based on Lincoln's secret diaries and was a very educational AND entertaining read. Not only did the author write believable encounters between Lincoln and vampires, he also jogged my dusty, cobwebbed memory of American History and tied in events throughout Lincoln's historical life....and made it very enjoyable to relearn some of America's history I had forgotten!

See, if stories about history had a few mentions of zombies, werewolves, vampires, aliens, and robots, kids might be more willing to tuck into the less-than-thrilling history books and required reading material. Yes, yes, yes, I know, I KNOW!!! It's not what really happened (as far as we know, anyways), but adding some spark and fire to the lesson plan shouldn't be too damaging, I would hope.

Of course later in the tot's lives we would have to clear the myths up about Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and other mythological beings anyways...what's wrong with dispelling the myths of vampires, zombies, werewolves, aliens, and robots to the mix at the same time. We tend to tell lies to children to keep them in line and subservient throughout their childhood. We know a telling of "The Truth" is going to happen eventually. Let's cross that bridge when we get to it and set it ablaze with the little ones still trudging across, shall we? (BwaHaHAHAaaHahAHaHaaaaa!!!!!!)


 Of course I jest, but the visual is amusing to me. 


Dear GOD!!!!!! I am flumoxed by formatting! The pictures being arranged all on the left of the blog are perfect give-aways to me being a freaking NOOB!

Screw it.... they stay where they are and I will acquire further skills for doing stuff all neat-like in the future.




Enjoy the books if y'all decide to get them before I post my thoughts here. I promise my book reports won't be terribly long. More like "Yup. I liked it and I laughed until I shat myself." That'll pretty much be the extent of my review.



You'll just have to deal with the weird spacing until I figure out how to get these damned pictures to fit the way I want them to in my posts. I'm hoping to put more visually entertaining things in my blog since my skills at verbal and written communication are so...well...grossly inappropriate and almost as bad as a bear eating mashed potatoes and honey with it's paws. It's not a pretty sight.

Well, back to mindless self-indulgence on the Internetz. :)