Next time some president or something tells you he needs to have enormous powers to protect you from the looming spectre of Al-Qaeda-sponsored terrorism, show him this link.
FBI: Just 200 hard-core Al-Qaeda (Source: Palm Beach Post)

For Becky’s birthday I got her the DVDs for Bottle Rocket and The Royal Tenenbaums. Along with Rushmore, this gets us all of Wes Anderson’s films on DVD. People seem to either really like Anderson or really hate him - there’s very little in-between.

We watched TRT last night and were both a little wary at first. We’d seen it in the theater and come out knowing that we liked it, but weren’t really sure about it as a whole.

Upon second viewing, our fears were allayed, and we both really enjoyed it. I think the problem the first time is that it’s an odd movie with a large cast, and it was difficult to figure out who and what exactly was the “center” of the movie. On second viewing, once we knew the characters and the ultimate outcome, it became easier to enjoy the steps leading up to them. This might be a flaw in the movie, I don’t know. But I do know that I appreciated it a lot more this second time, both as a whole and in its parts.

I tried my hand at a little SQL and made up a random quote thingy in the upper left. (Well I actually cannibalized the code Kurt wrote for the random pics in the lower right.) I’m still seeding it with quotes, so if you have any suggestions, feel free to mail them to me. Some browsers (Internet Explorer, I’m looking at you) won’t load a new quote unless you do a hard refresh (hold down “Ctrl” while you refresh.)

So the other day I’m flipping through a catalog for ‘Design Toscano.’ No idea how we got on this mailing list, because I don’t think we’ve ever ordered anything from it. Design Toscano is strictly for the gargoyle/gazing ball/gaelic chess set crowd. I’m looking through the catalog and there was a page marked “Angels.” However, the items on the page all depicted Fairies (sorry…”Faeries”), not angels. And yet, as I thought about it, I realized, yeah, they’re right. Because the two beings - angels and faeries - are pretty interchangable to many people, occupying similar niches in paranormal society. Somehow angels went from way scary beings (they always seem to begin every meeting with “FEAR NOT!”) to your little handy helper, constantly on your shoulder, scattering lucky twinkle dust all over you. More of the cute-ification of religion in America, I suppose.

Lots of recent transitions lately.

Happy Birthday to George, Anna, David, and Becky!

Farewell to Beth, Amy, Nigel, and Daniel, who are leaving my fair town for other places. Beth is headed for Massachusettes, and Amy, Nigel, and Daniel are all en route to Michigan.

Good luck to Beth, Amy, and Nigel. Beth and Amy will be beginning new jobs, and Nigel is taking the Bar Exam. Good luck to all of you!

And if that weren’t bad enough! in about two weeks Chris and Christine leave as well for South Carolina, due to Christine’s new job there. These are my best friends here in town, and half of my gaming group!

It’s a sad time.

Update - Photos from the farewell party and David’s birthday are now in the photo database. I’m not sure why the party photos came out so bad, though.

Lately I’ve been reading Star Wars comics of various types. First, there’s the “Classic Star Wars” trade paperbacks from Dark Horse, which are reprinting the old Marvel comics. Then there’s the “Classic Star Wars” trade paperbacks from Dark Horse, which are reprinting the old newspaper strips. Finally there’s “Star Wars Tales”, a current title from Dark Horse with short stories set at various points in the timeline. And there’s something I’ve noticed about them.

The Marvel comics are great. These came out in 1977 or 1978, just after the first movie came out. The writers had nothing to go on but the first movie, and proceeded to take our heroes on all sorts of adventures, meeting many new friends and foes. In fact, in the first volume of this trade paperback, the Empire doesn’t even appear after the adaptation of the movie. They’re great fun, with all sorts of interesting robots and aliens.

The newspaper strips are equally intriguing. I’m not sure when they came out (they may not be in order) but some of them are set before The Empire Strikes Back, even though they were clearly written afterwards (we see the construction and test-flight of Darth Vader’s super star destroyer, for example.) Again, although the Empire has a more prominent role, we still meet many interesting new friends and foes.

The current ones are, of course, being produced after there are five movies out, and are free to take place at any point in the movie timelines. And strangely, they’re the least interesting. The odd thing is, as huge a universe as they have to work in, all the writers seem intent on making it smaller. That is, instead of branching out in new ways as the Marvel comics or newspaper strips were forced to do, they seem intent on closing in, on bringing different points together. So you’ll see strips where, say, Wedge meets Yoda, or we find out that Kitster built the Millennium Falcon or whatever. The writers seem terrified to bring in anything from outside the “canon,” so they find a Point A and a Point B of existing things and join them together. And the result is sometimes interesting, but often dull.

The prequels (and “Special” Editions) have done this too, to a point. There was no need to Anakin to have built C-3P0. We didn’t need him to live on Tattooine. Seeing little Greedo was unnecessary. And don’t get me started on Boba Fett.

It just seems weird to me. With all this space in which to play, why keep going to the same things over and over? Now I admit that I haven’t followed any of the horrible books that have come out, in which new enemies have been introduced, but I’m looking at these old strips which are so much fun and so much in the spirit of adventure and excitement and the later stuff seems so leaden by comparison. It seems joyless. Which is not to say there aren’t some fun ones or some people getting into the spirit of things, but a lot of them just seem to be going through the motions. What would happen if it turned out a young Ben Kenobi had fought a young Bib Fortuna long ago? The world would get much smaller.

From the same internet that brought you Am I Hot or Not and Bush or Chimp? comes a new way to not work: Am I Game or Lame?

This site pits various video games, ranging from Atari 2600 classics to the newest releases, two at a time, asking you to vote on which is better. Sadly, I don’t know or haven’t played most of the games I see, but it’s always fun to rate a 1983 arcade hit over something from the current decade, and to rate Fallout over everything.

Main downside is that it lumps Ultimas 1 through 8 together, so to put Ultima 7 in its rightful place of dominance you have to elevate the terrible Ultima 8 as well, but that’s a small price to pay.

Update - ACK! Baldur’s Gate Series vs. Nethack! What do I do!?

During a search of a Muslim family’s home (on a suspicion of smuggling bogus checks), Agent Comedy McFunny of the Secret Service decided to leave behind his mark. He scrawled “Islam is Evil” and “Christ is King” on the family’s prayer calendar.

Sigh. Read more about it here.