The Mad Bishounen

Open letter to the EVE online advertising dept.

2009-01-08T18:44:46Z

Look, I tried your game, and I fucking loved it. I loved it so much that I instantly recognized that it would consume me utterly if I tried to play it, but I knew that, someday, I would have to play it.

That day is not now.

I'm a senior in college, dammit. I have a senior thesis. I barely have time to eat and maintain a basic level of hygine, nevermind game. And of all the types of games, an MMO would eat my time the worst. I CAN NOT play this game now, however much it's the game I've always dreamed of.

But I'm a senior.

Soon, with any luck, I will graduate, and then I'm yours. Take my money, all of it, and give me that fine space-economics crack because goddamn I got one small dose and I've been jonesin' ever since. But that's after I graduate.

In the mean time, WOULD YOU STOP FUCKING PASTING YOUR BANNERS ON EVERY GODDAMN WEBCOMIC I READ SO I CAN FINISH MY THESIS.

GOD PEOPLE.

This has been pestering me for a few days

2009-01-03T16:14:32Z

This was, I don't know. Not quite a nightmare, but a thoroughly odd dream I had a few nights ago in a hotel, and it stuck with me. The dream merely narrated this idea without executing it, so I wasn't scared at the time, but the more I delve into it the more disturbing it becomes. I'm sticking it here because I want to write it down somewhere and, really, here's as good as anyplace. It's not really story material, but it would make a great horror movie, and I figure if anyone's going to find it and run with it, it'll be on the internet.

So here we go. Cut for those who would rather not be scarred.

A man and woman go to a hotel, the man murders the woman. He's a dissection fetishist, he cuts her open and takes her apart piece by piece. She lives for a remarkably long time. Eventually, she dies, he escapes. Her memory of the event, her ghost if you will, haunts the hotel.

Now imagine this: This hotel is of that curious old design that puts little lamps next to every door. Imagine that, at odd intervals, the light for one room will flicker out.

This door now leads to the Pin Room.

If you open the door, you find yourself looking at a room apparently made of rotting meat, held open with horrific, gigantic pins. It is inhabited by two things: one, a hideous creature in the shape of a man, made of nothing but pins, scalpels, and sharp edges. The woman's memory of the killer. Two, whoever was in the room the door used to lead to. There is always someone who was in that room, and if you open the door you will find them dissected, held open with pins, parts strewn about, still, horrifically, alive. The room will then attempt to pull you in with a volley of pins, and subject you to the same fate. You can escape this, but you have to be quick. When the horror has passed, anyone in the room under these conditions is found dead, though without a mark on their body.

If you leave the door closed until the light comes on again, they are unharmed.

If you are inside the Pin Room, and have the poor fortune to be awake, you find yourself paralyzed. You feel invisible ropes holding you down, a gag in your mouth. If you look around, you see a single pin, floating in midair, flipping and twisting as if someone was playing with it, but no one stands there. If the light comes on outside your door without it being opened, the pin drops lifelessly to the ground, and you're free. If not, you find yourself suspended and dissected in an instant, in excruciating pain and unquestionably dying.

This becomes disturbing on many levels.

Imagine being the one to open the door, and realizing what you have done to whoever was in that room. A lover, family, a friend, whoever it was is dead because of you. This is made a thousand times worse if you are lucky enough to survive.

Imagine being the one in the room, paralyzed, gagged, watching the doorknob turning, knowing that someone you know, perhaps someone you care about, is about to cause you to die in a truly horrific manner, and being completely helpless to stop them. That is perhaps the most terrifying aspect, to me at least.

There. It's out. I think it will stop bothering me now.

OH GOD THIS BOOK

2008-12-28T21:47:10Z

There are two ways to read House of Leaves.

1. You read the book, straight through, boggle at its awesome and mindfuckery and revel in its creepiness.

2. You read it in a library, surrounded by piles of books and three computers, desperately distinguishing the real references from the beautiful fiction, the real names from the fabrications, testing the line that so thinly divides our world and the book itself.

Currently, I'm doing this way 1. I am far, far too tempted to try out way 2, go hide away in a library, wander through my own ~~labyrinth~~ finding all the odd pieces Danilewski left lying around. Must...not...do...this. Not even in the main branch of the Boston Public Library with its beautiful chairs, endless corridors and the lovely, lovely smell of aged books.

God DAMN it.

Muse may be cleverer than we think

2008-12-10T21:38:44Z

I just noticed that part of the lyrics for "Endlessly" are "I won't give you up, won't let you down."

...Did Muse just rickroll me?

Berstein's Overture to Candide

2008-11-14T01:06:12Z

This song is refuckulous. My orchestra director just asked me to take the load off one of the other trumpet players by taking on the first trumpet part in A WEEK AND A HALF. I got the sheet music and went through it once and was like "eh, s'not so bad." Then I listened to a recording and realized that I'd been playing at, oh, about ONE-THIRD SPEED.

Seriously, it's like playing through someone else's manic episode. It's crazy-ass fast, all over the staff, and shift themes so quickly as to make one dizzy. Even when you're not playing, keeping track of where you are is a challenge. Counting? Sure, you can try, but the times signatures are all out of whack. There are portions where it's shifting back and forth every three measures. Seriously. It's like your hanging on to a speeding train by your fingertips, trying to count where you are, keeping track of the time changes. "4/4, 4/4, 3/2, 4/4, 4/4, 3/2, 4/4, 4/4, 3/2, 6/8" "WHAT" "oh, I'm sorry, 6/8 cut time" "THIRD BASE" and then it bounces me up to a C above the staff. Two beats later, it says "mute." "You mean I put my mute in then?" "No, you play with your mute in." "When do I put it in?!" "You have two beats." "TWO BEATS IN CUT TIME MOVING SOMEWHERE BETWEEN MULTO ALLEGRO AND WARP FIVE!"

FUCK.

Holy shit.

2008-11-05T09:43:59Z

Well, ladies and gentlemen, here we are. We have been witnesses to history. Despite all our fears, all the rumors, the distinct sense that it would all be stolen away once again, the voice of the people was heard, and we can look back on this day and go "holy shit, we fucking did it." The best part is it's one of those things that you can pass down. Right now it's still kind of unreal, hasn't really settled in, but this is good story material, folks. The events of the last twenty-four hours will be passed on to the next generation.

One day, I'll proudly tell my children how Obamatron 5000 defeated McCain-Bot and Mecha-Palin to save the US from Ron Paulicon, and they'll tell me that's nice, Grandpa, take your meds.

Who but the Red Sox

2008-10-17T03:55:28Z

7-0 in the bottom of the 7th, and they come back to tie by the end of the 8th, with Ortiz coming through in the clutch, and Coco Crisp getting an impossible hit.

God DAMN I love it when they do this.

ETA: Oh man, they're doing this classic style. Two men get on in the top of the ninth, and they squeak out of it with an amazing double play. This is why I don't bother with baseball movies. Real life does it better.

ETA2: And then they win it on a ground-rule double with two out.

Love.

That.

Dirty.

Water.

Moonlight wank: Episode III: Leeser the con artist

2008-10-02T03:46:21Z

It JUST NEVER ENDS.

Our story so far: Leeser, admin of Moonlightline, may or may not have absconded with $11,000 donated for a "save moonlight" bus ad campaign. Furthermore, it's now clear that this isn't the first time she's been connected to moonlight fan money that just disappeared. We now have an elegant wiki page on the subject as well, thanks to the extraordinary efforts of ari_o.

From the last posts ETAs, we have a number of disturbing revelations. Leeser has been involved with a variety of business ventures, including web hosting, website design, "virtual life facilitation," midwife *shudder*, and, most notably, a church. A church with an attached academy, at that.

Of course, the academy was kept to the highest standards of education, and certainly wasn't a scam. If you scroll down in this thread, you will also discover that Leeser's "academy" went completely AWOL. She seems to have the "run away and don't tell anyone WTF is going on" strategy down pat.

So what's new? Mostly that the MLLers have discovered these facts. Many of those giving her the benefit of the doubt are starting to waver in light of the new evidence, especially in regards to the school scam. A link to this review (also linked above) was posted in a thread. Sadly, they use her real name in the thread title, so no linkies, only quotes.

BlueRose has faith to the end!
I read that thread and found no mention of Leeser's name. And a search for the name of the school and Lisa [guess who!] resulted in no evidence that she was ever attached to the school in question.

Yes folks, she put Leeser's name in the post where she said she couldn't find mention of Leeser's name. I can't make this shit up. Even better, she responds to someone pointing this out by saying "provide a link," when she quoted the link in her post! Eventually, though Even BlueRose gives in.

Some of us just don't care if she's a con artist. I'm not here for Leeser, I'm here because it is a reliable site to discuss Moonlight.

Or at least it was.

And I would like to thank Meg81 for providing a link that at least shows a potential connection between Leeser and the school as opposed to just a phone number that was from someone else not connected to the school.

By this time, of course, everyone else has caught up. As of Wednesday night, I can't find a single Leeser supporter posting to MLL. There's still no sign of the bus ads, though people seem to be on the lookout. There's still a lot left unresolved: Will the ads actually run? Will Leeser or Kate ever show up and give any kind of explanation? Are there any Leeser supporters left to wank for our amusement? Probably not, but that's OK. This fandom can wank just fine without Leeser.

Oh, and we wankas seem to have a fan club.

Moonlight/Leeser link roundup

2008-10-02T03:06:31Z

Okay, here's a roundup of all the important links. Since I'm not in F_W, I'm going to include links to things with her real name and/or picture. Furthermore, let me note that for most of these I either have caps or know someone who does.

Let's start with redwinter101's excellent summary of her involvement in Moonlight, over on the MLL forums. That pretty well sums up her involvement in the Moonlight fandom.

ETA: Well, almost everything.

Now, onto her myriad other projects. To start with we have her web hosting service (registered under her transgendered daughter) and we have her webdesign business.

If you google the phrase "by [her last name] design" you find most of the travesties she's responsible. Some are her websites, some may not be.

Among those that are definitely hers, we have:

"earthdaughter," which seems to be some kind of pagan horse fiction site, I don't even know.

ETA: She's got a pagan JAPANESE VAMPIRE fiction site, which she plugs on earthdaughter.

Her "virtual life facilitation" service, whatever the FUCK that is. Only picture of her I've seen, but I haven't gone hunting for her license picture from MLL.

"Hubbycide," which seems to have been partially dismantled. Especially notable on this site is part of her life's story told here.

"Book-a-minister," where she hosts and designed the site and is also listed as one of the "ministers."

She also seems to be a notary. Note that this site doesn't have "by [lastname] design" but it is definitely in the same style and oh, by the way, she hosts it.

Finally we come to the REALLY creepy part of her profile, her church, "goddess moon circles". While the website for her academy is down, The Wayback Machine has our backs.

Her academy also has merch. This is her cafepress account.

She also has a MySpace, which is the only evidence she's been on the internet at all. It shows logins on the 28th and 30th.

Now, for some interesting links from the comments of the last JF post:
If you scroll down in this thread, you find evidence that her "academy" has gone completely AWOL ETA: link to another negative review

Here we have someone complaining about her quality of service, when she actually PROVIDED service.

ETA: It seems she may be using an alias as well. Going to start hunting that one down...

Only quoted in the comments, but here's the computerworld article where she talks about credit card fraud.

I think that covers everything about Leeser that wasn't in the last F_W post. Now, what I'm going to do is basically put together a "mock" F_W post here as my next entry, compiling all of this into some semi-coherent form. This post is all linkspam, it doesn't really say what's going on. I'm going to try to summarize some of this beast.

ETA: MOTHERFUCKER. The website is (supposedly) for the writer of moonlight. The address on the front page? Leeser. The e-mail for "financial assistance?" FUCKING LEESER. God damn is she slimy.

More ETA: She has a second webhosting business. On it she has a picture of her parrot.

*Sigh* YET MORE!

Name of her business in oregon, when she was still pulling the academy gig

ANOTHER notary site

Something I just noticed about the current goddess-moon-circles site, it offers listings for a lot of things, but requires people who want to be listed to send their information along by paypal along with a $5 "Fee." Classy, Leeser. Real classy.

ETA 10/3: This is the pure essence of Leeser, distilled. EEUUUGGGHHH

Leeser + pagan adoption = Do. Not. WANT.

Random game reviews

2008-09-10T17:48:21Z

That driving need to write has hit me once again, which of course means its time for another completely random journal post. I decided to do a brief review of a game I've been playing recently for no reason other than it gives me something to write about, and I can write it quickly and be done. So, without further ado...

Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn:
I love the Fire Emblem series. I've played every US release and they're all very fun. Each entry has the same basic structure, turn-based strategy RPG where death is permanent, units gain 20 levels and can then "class up" into a much stronger unit and gain 20 more levels, etc., but each entry messes with the mechanic in some way. In the game that was just called "Fire Emblem" in the US, the first GBA release, you had five inventory slots for each character, a merchant caravan that actually entered battle with you, and other than that it was pretty straightforward. Fire Emblem: Sacred Stones, the second GBA release, added things like being able to choose one of two classes when you classed up and optional levels that could be replayed ad infinitum. The GameCube release was radically different, with a complex "base" mechanic, bonus experience that could be allocated outside of battle (meaning, for the first time, you could actually level a unit without ever using it), half-beast units called Laguz, and a number of other tweaks.

It's therefore not surprising that Radiant Dawn is different in a whole host of ways, but the pattern of changes strikes me as a kind of wish-list from a few hardcore fans, with the tools to make it playable to less obsessional people. There are two new mechanics that would make any of the previous games simply broken. First, you can save in-battle, something that has never been possible. You can now go back a single turn if you mess up rather than having to restart the whole fight. Second, the "Skills" that first appeared in Path of Radiance can now be moved from character to character with ease, meaning that there's no reason to assign every skill you have available. In any of the previous games, these would have made things far too easy. In this game, they're virtually necessary. The levels are larger, the enemies are nastier, it's just a hard game. Here's where the "wish-list" impression comes in: Already, there have been levels that consisted of two characters trying to assassinate a single unit when most of the map is hidden, a battle that took place entirely in the sky with moving clouds, and a massive cavalry battle using AI allied units. These all seem like things that hardcore fans would have asked to see in a game, just to see how the Fire Emblem system could be applied to them. To the designers' credit, they pulled it off pretty well. Some levels were frustrating, but again, the tools they provide make them playable. They've also added the ability to class up again, making for a total of sixty possible levels. This is again something I could see hardcore fans asking for, it was very possible to max out a number of your units without much trouble in previous games, adding an extra twenty levels makes that harder.

It's still very much a fire emblem game and still very fun. The characters are a bit of an odd set, as of yet it's mostly been side characters from the Gamecube game and a few uninteresting new people. It shows promise, though. I'm very interested to see what else the developers throw in, though. From what I've seen so far, there's any number of interesting level designs they could try.

jkefka @ 2008-09-03T09:09:00

2008-09-03T16:12:37Z

The first lecture of the required freshman course at my college was, until last year, given by a classics prof named Wally. The content of this lecture traditionally consisted of learning to sing the first line of the Iliad in Greek. Last year, Wally was on sabbatical and they gave the lecture to the highly entertaining though non-classicist Jan. He did not teach the freshmen to sing. This year, Wally returned, and I arrived at lecture hoping to once again hear the incoming class recite the Greek verse as one, but they gave it to Jan again. I'm a senior now, and half of the students in this school didn't have the same glorious freshman experience I did to start their academic careers. I feel old.

Ah well, I think I'll go watch prof. Yatzhee review EVE instead.

The Ultimate GRE Verbal Study Tactic

2008-08-05T18:41:48Z

God I wish I'd come up with this like a week ago.

SO! Studying for the GRE verbal basically means learning vocabulary. Now, my vocabulary is pretty damn good and I didn't even need to study for the SATs or APs, but the GRE seems to revel in finding the most obscure, obnoxious words in the dusty nooks and crannies of the English language and making you memorize them.

There are three parts of the verbal test: analogies, antonyms, and close reading. Close reading takes some vocab (they like to make you sum up a passage in one absurdly specific word that you will never see anywhere else) but the other two are the real challenges to your verbal fortitude. Even people going for English degrees probably won't use most of these words in any meaningful context, and for anyone in the sciences it's just plain irrelevant. Still, the test is what it is.

The other portion worth noting is analytical writing. This isn't really something you can study for, the only way you could conceivably prepare for it is just to write to refine your turn of phrase and spelling (yes, meta, I know).

How to prepare for all this, then? Memorize a bunch of words that you'll never use again? Sit there staring at word lists or doing wrote copying? That's what I've been doing until now, but today I had a brainstorm. One day before the test, but hey, it can't hurt. I'm going to practice my writing, all right. I've made a list of all the words I could find that were unfamiliar to me, and their dictionary meanings. Now I'm going to write a story, and in that story I'm going to use each and every one of those words. I have a little checklist and everything. This way, I get to actually use each word in a meaningful context, and practice my writing to boot.

The best part is I'll never have to use any one of these words ever again.

Fuck the GREs.

Fuck them in the face.

Sometimes I really hate being a grownup

2008-08-04T20:57:41Z

It's one of those days. I have things to do, I really don't want to do them. Some of the issue is that I have general objectives (e. g. work on grad school crap) and relatively little I can do in the way of specifics. Mostly I just don't want to be a responsible adult today.

But I have to be.

So I'm going to bitch about it.

Because maturity is for losers.

of COURSE!

2008-07-23T15:57:14Z

I had me a revelation! Triggered, of all things, by YTMND. Someone posted a link to a YTMND that quoted the first Willy Wonka movie. The amazing one. I realized something then, something that haunts me to my core:

There will never be a live-action Mononoke series.

Why?

Because the one man who could pull of the medicine seller, the one man who could manifest that level of awesome and suave insanity, is already dead.

I miss Gene Wilder.

Evil Laughter

2008-07-18T17:06:45Z

This rant brought to you by Matt Boyd linking to this Dr. Horrible bloke.

What makes a good evil laugh? There's this powerful stereotype of the Hollywood villianous guffaw, or the Japanese Kefka laugh (Woo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo), or the occasional evil cackle, but none of them really inspire terror. I mean, Kefka kind of doees but for other reasons. Really, the best evil laugh sounds more or less like a normal one, maybe even just a subdued chuckle. It's mostly an issue of what causes it.

Bystander: "You just fired a rocket full of kittens undergoing chemotherapy into a candy factory!"

Evil madman: *chuckle*

Now that is a terrifying evil laugh, i don't fucking care what hollywood says.

Memeageddon

2008-07-08T22:46:17Z

This came to me suddenly, unexpectedly. I would go so far as to call it a vision. Perhaps it's a prophecy of forthcoming events, perhaps just wishful thinking, but it is a striking image nonetheless. Let me explain.

I theorize, somewhere down the line, there will be a Meme To End All Memes. The Alpha and Omega Meme. The meme that consumes all of our beings and leaves the internet or perhaps earth it self a blackened, smoldering husk. But what form will it take? A good meme must be outrageously random, at least moderately amusing, and usually involves some internet dialect. Some big memes have included music, videos, Rick Astley. Most of the really big ones involve some basis in the real world, a photograph, a clip, something. So what form will the ultimate meme take?

I predict, at some event that is known to the internet, perhaps even the recently created ROFLcon, that an event will occur. A tremendous event. An event that will blind all but a few with it's sheer level of memeishness. Rick Astley will ride through a crowded space on a unicycle, wearing a gaudy sweater, with a cat attached to his head by its claws, and he will scream 'IT HURTS LIKE BURNING WINCEST.' As soon as this event occurs, millions around the world will twitch and fly at their computers, sensing some great disturbance in the force. The end will be at hand, the countdown on the doomsday clock relegated to a youtube upload progress bar. All will be lost.

Now to make sure Astley's at the next ROFLcon, buy him a "fan-made" sweater, teach him to ride unicycles and find an ornery cat.

EDIT: Oh, and the cat will be cosplaying a mudkip.

Random Airport Rant!

2008-06-01T14:53:02Z

Hello airport wifi, how are you.

So, I'm flying from point A to point B, point A being on the east coast and point B being on the west coast. I'm flying southwest, which continues to be the least evil bastard in the evil bastard convention that is air travel, which means I have to change planes at one of their central hubs. I could have changed at Chicago, if I was lucky. Maybe Denver.

I'm changing planes in Vegas.

Now, this isn't necessarily a problem. The flight was cheap, it leaves not too early and gets in not too late, it's really all I could ask for logistically, but you will never find a greater collection of human waste than a flight going into Vegas. You know what really scares the shit out of me? The old people. The fifty, sixty, hell, some maybe seventy-year-olds, dolled up like they were on their honeymoon. "Aging gracefully" isn't even a concept to them, they dress and act like they're twenty years younger, and it is painful to watch.

Vegas itself isn't much better. I hate the airport. Not because it's poorly designed or anything, it's an airport. I can get from one gate to another pretty easily, though if you have to change terminals it gets a little dicey. No, what bothers me about vegas is everything that isn't directly related to air travel. First of all, the slot machines. They are common. No, they are ubiquitous. They show up right outside your gate and will track you all the way to your next gate or the exit, whichever you reach first. In the goddamn airport. They don't waste any time leeching the gullible, do they. Hell, some of the machines could be programmed to NEVER pay out and people would still play them. It's so fucking depressing. Then there's the flat out weird shit, like the flavored oxygen bar. You read that correctly, people. Last time I was in Vegas airport there was a flavored oxygen bar outside my gate. My reaction went right past "WTF" and into "I can't even deal with that." What the fuck, Vegas. Flavored oxygen. It's fucking AIR.

Plane's boarding, should contain my rage and disgust long enough to get on I suppose. My layover in Vegas is only an hour. If I ignore the really stupid shit, I might make it out without going into fits of disgusted rage. Wish me luck -_-

IS NOTHING SAFE?!

2008-05-17T03:15:05Z

It's official, even the wiki for this joint has traumatized me. I'm going to buy stock in a company that make brain bleach, because I see myself going through a lot of it. Hello F_W, I'm here until my sanity gives out!