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A Brief History of Game: A nine-part review of the major highlights in rpg history. Other interesting if generally unrelated pieces on the history of gaming, pen & paper or otherwise: "Where Have All the Demons Gone?", discussing the history of Magic the Gathering; A somewhat flippant piece by GameSpy; and some obligatory RPG theory regarding the historical popularity of various styles of RPG.
comment posted at 10:55 AM on Aug-5-05
comment posted at 1:53 PM on Aug-5-05

So bad it's good, the Governator's 1985 film Commando was not going to win any Oscars® that's for sure. But at least it spawned a page of tortuous songs written by fans. Coral cached in case it dies, obligatory YTMD link.
comment posted at 9:05 AM on Aug-1-05

The best American hamburgers? The American Hamburger is one of those things that I truly miss about the US and one of those things that we Brits try to copy but, for some reason, just never seem to get right.

Forget the golden-arches, we need some proper hamburger joints serving up half-pound burgers, real milkshakes and endless refills...
comment posted at 2:28 PM on Jul-26-05
comment posted at 3:25 PM on Jul-26-05

The Left's Dissection of Patriotism. via
comment posted at 1:09 PM on Jul-26-05
comment posted at 1:53 PM on Jul-26-05

Stripped for Parts Although the blogging community has had a hunch for some time, director Robert Fiveson has just confirmed that he's considering an injunction against the further distribution of The Island, as it, ahem, very closely mirrors his own film, Parts: The Clonus Horror. Michael Bay's film doesn't credit anyone who worked on Clonus, and press materials tout its "original screenplay". I suppose, though, Bay can always claim that he's being so deliciously meta by doing a clone of a clone picture... [A sideways-update to this post]
comment posted at 9:28 AM on Jul-26-05

Countdown To Annihilation
Follow the Lancasters and their adventures with the marvelous Origins bomb. next, next, next, next, next.
You'll have to wait until Friday for the conclusion. Hope you enjoy the story and still believe in the best of the web.
comment posted at 2:16 PM on Jul-21-05

From Marine Doom to America's Army to...Starcraft? A community of military games and game developers. Eerie or excellent?
comment posted at 3:37 PM on Jul-21-05

Evolutionary Stickers Struck-down. (login req'd)
"In a ruling issued today, U.S. District Judge Clarence Cooper said the stickers, which call evolution 'a theory, not a fact,' violate the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution."
(A pseudo-follow-up to a post from November 2004)
comment posted at 1:34 PM on Jan-13-05
comment posted at 1:43 PM on Jan-13-05

I had today off so I decided to take pictures of my Pikachu Obsession...
comment posted at 2:12 PM on Jan-6-05

Is John Barlow, cofounder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Grateful Dead lyricist, a threat to national security? "On September 15, 2003, I boarded Delta Flight 310, scheduled to depart San Francisco International Airport for JFK at 7:20 that morning. I was still feeling slightly singed from Burning Man and the hour was one I prefer to see from the other side. I was almost back to sleep when, roughly two minutes before pull-back, I was approached by a Delta employee who informed me that there was 'a problem' of some sort and that it would be necessary to get off the aircraft..."
comment posted at 3:16 PM on Dec-10-04

Lonely Socks. Have you ever rifled through your socks drawer to find only three socks. One green, one blue and the other yellow? Where did the other one go? Post your single socks here and help them find their partners.
comment posted at 10:11 AM on Oct-11-04

5000 year old carved skull "HEAVILY carved with mysterious buddhism objects, symbols and Tibetan letters." Crazy.
(Via Boing Boing)
comment posted at 3:52 PM on Oct-8-04
comment posted at 4:25 PM on Oct-8-04

Senior Photos
comment posted at 2:27 PM on Sep-11-04

Best Conspiracy Site Ever. It covers just about everything, from microwave mind-programming to aliens who want to assimilate us and, of course, the Matrix. Also, a guest article about why Arnold Schwartzenegger might just turn out to be the Antichrist.
comment posted at 1:26 PM on Aug-31-04

How to write a best-selling fantasy novel. Ten steps towards instant literary fame.
comment posted at 1:17 PM on Aug-26-04

Greece gets ready for the return of the Olympics by ridding the streets of its stray dogs. don't watch this if you're an animal lover. Or better yet, DO if you can handle it, because it's one of the saddest things i've seen in a long time. Though the government of Athens is denying it is responsible for this, someone is poisoning the city's thousands of stray dogs by putting it in food (naturally, a stray, hungry dog will eat it). The ensuing death does not come quickly. I've always wanted to visit Greece, especially being from a Mediterranean family (experience the roots, and all that) but suffice it to say it's moved to the bottom of the list of places to visit at this point. I've seen better treatment of animals in countries far less developed than Greece.
comment posted at 12:19 PM on Aug-2-04

Guilty Pleasures (i.e. Def Leppard – “Hysteria”; Justin Timberlake – “Justified”), Essential Albums (i.e. Beastie Boys – “Paul’s Boutique”; The Tragically Hip – “Day for Night” ), and That Damn List Thing (i.e. Everybody Dance Now: 18 Songs That Might Make You Reconsider Disco; Hitched: A 17-Song Tribute to Gay Marriage). Fantastic music related essays and more at Splendid’s “Departments”.
comment posted at 3:57 PM on Jun-18-04

Finally absinthe is legal in Switzerland. After nearly a century of believing the hype that the green liquor could lead people to madness, the Swiss government now realizes leagalizing "would actually enable authorities to control the production of the alcohol and tax its sales."
comment posted at 11:39 AM on Jun-15-04
comment posted at 1:18 PM on Jun-15-04

The 50 Coolest Song Parts [RetroCrush] As always, bringing up our favorites... um... song parts... will be more constructive and fun than destroying the list.
comment posted at 4:43 PM on Jun-8-04

Are you on drugs without your knowledge? Take the quiz and find out! I scored high!
comment posted at 3:40 PM on May-11-04

What's on TV tonight? Nothing! That's right, it's the tenth annual TV turn-off week. I've actually done this in the past three years, though last year I cheated and just watched everything a week later on TiVo.
comment posted at 8:52 AM on Apr-20-04

The $700 Million Gyroscope. A spacecraft set to test Einstein's General Theory of Relativity is now on the launch pad, with the world's most accurate gyroscopes stowed away inside. The experiment will have cost $700 million when the data is in and finally analysed. What practical benefits will the average American reap from this?
comment posted at 2:24 PM on Apr-13-04

Who wants the slice with the bloody lung? How to make a delicious cake that looks like the exposed human thoratic cavity, complete with a ribcage of white chocolate and organs that each secrete a different fruit-flavored sauce. (MNBSFW due to how unbelievably real the thing looks.)
comment posted at 9:03 AM on Apr-9-04

The Dave Sim Misogyny Page - and a recent Onion interview. I find Dave Sim (comic book artist, notable for long-running, multiplevolume Cerebus) to have deeply troubling, almost poisoned ideas about women.(despite his efforts, these bitter screeds are almost unexplainable,unless someone here can explain them, that is - please!)Beware if you've never read them. And laugh with me, an apparentlyweak male-feminist (and lovin it!) if you have. Viva la Void.
comment posted at 1:56 PM on Mar-31-04
comment posted at 2:26 PM on Mar-31-04

US-made ultrasonic gun uses baby's scream The gun is capable of causing permanent ear damage, even death.
Makes me want to scream.
comment posted at 4:11 PM on Mar-30-04

TV Tropes Catalogued: like the As You Know, "Character A explains to Character B something that they both know, but the audience doesn't. "As you know, Simon, Jennifer has never been the same since the tragic codfish incident." "As you know, Jennifer, my Death Ray depends on codfish balls." Boing-Boing Filter
comment posted at 3:22 PM on Mar-11-04

Do you remember that one kiss, the one that blew your socks off, that changed the world, that put you in a new state of mind? Awkward yet adorable, inevitable, or intense - talk about your favorites.
comment posted at 2:53 PM on Feb-6-04

Ikea Walkthrough: Now you are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike. A skeleton, probably the remains of a luckless consumer, lies here. Beside the skeleton is a rusty SKARPT high-quality steel knife with hard plastic handle and a shopping cart. Search the body. Take the IKEA GIFT CARD (still has $43 on it). Take and eat the SWEDISH FISH for sustenance. Now go: S, E, D, D, E, SW, W, SW, D, W, U, S
comment posted at 12:46 PM on Jan-26-04

Morning person or night person? "Scientists believe they may now know why some of us are early risers while others prefer to burn the midnight oil. ... Researchers have found that people with an extreme preference for early mornings are more likely to have a long version of [a gene called] Period 3." The article also notes "Your day or night preference is obviously a complex behavioural trait. It is not solely down to one single gene." My wife and son are morning people; I am a night person. I have often wondered if I, through force of will, could become a morning person and thus spend more quality time with them. Now I have my doubts. What success have Mefites had trying to change from one to the other mode?
comment posted at 12:03 PM on Oct-14-03

The Horror Channel A 24-hour, all-horror, uncensored, digital cable channel plans to be launched for Halloween 2004, with programming to include classic and contemporary movies, specials, documentaries and original series’ each season. CEO and founder Nicholas A. Psaltos (former Director of Acquisitions and Program Administration at Bravo Television Networks) hopes the new genre network will capitalize on the success of other genre channels like Comedy Central and The Sci-Fi Channel. Psaltos has even put together a creative advisory board of genre legends and newcomers including John Carpenter, Roger Corman, Wes Craven, Guillermo del Toro, Tobe Hooper, Stuart Gordon, Lucky McKee, Eli Roth, George Romero and Rob Zombie. Starting a TV network is risky business and The Horror Channel is petitioning horror fans to help with programming by providing a survey on their consumer website. (Via Rue Morgue)
comment posted at 8:53 PM on Oct-2-03

Zombies Redux! More Zombies! Cartoon Zombies! More Zombies! Still more zombies! What is up with all the zombies? It's getting kind of creepy.
comment posted at 8:43 AM on Oct-2-03
comment posted at 8:45 AM on Oct-2-03

Depp: Dumb Puppy Comment Wasn't Anti-U.S. "I am an American. I love my country and have great hopes for it. It is for this reason that I speak candidly and sometimes critically about it."
comment posted at 3:27 PM on Sep-5-03

Waiting in line won't help you. According to the New York Times, Ticketmaster plans to begin auctioning off the best concert seats to the highest online bidders. The paper says there would be no limit on how high prices could go - it would be simply a matter of how much people were willing to pay. So, with ClearChannel, the RIAA and Ticketmaster now officially boinking the fan base...what other methods can the music industry use to drive away fans?
comment posted at 10:27 AM on Sep-3-03

it does look like fun
burning man 2003. more links? photos? stories? from this years fun in the desert.
comment posted at 8:35 PM on Aug-30-03

"Hello, Neo. I am the Architect." For those of us who liked The Matrix Reloaded but got lost shortly after the Architect opened his mouth, here's a handy annotated transcript of his entire scene. Great for people who want to delve into the deeper meanings of what he's going on about, and also great for people (like me) who are interested in the way he talks. [Warning: Geocities site. Mirrored here if it goes down]
comment posted at 7:04 PM on Aug-22-03

On Sundays West Coast Live I heard an interview with Adam Johnson, the author of Parasites Like Us, a post-apocalyptic novel with a decidedly (if somewhat spurious) anthropological bent. Literary criticism aside, as an anthropologist myself (and die-hard sci-fi reader), it got me thinking of what our vaunted Western culture may have to offer the survivors of whatever catastrophe may befall our civilization in the future. From classic novels like Earth Abides, or even The Stand, writers and storytellers have tried to discern what may be the surviving aspects of culture once all else fails; what it is that has made and defines us as modern humans, and perhaps what it is that will sustain us. So, what is it that would sustain you? What would separate you from the crazed and the mad that seem to populate the annals of post-apocalyptic literature? Or perhaps more specifically, what is it that you value of your culture and your technology that makes it worthwhile to maintain and perhaps fight your way back to?
comment posted at 12:40 PM on Aug-18-03
comment posted at 9:17 PM on Aug-18-03

See Through Kayak This has got to be the most excellent Wonder Woman-arific kayak ever created. Only thing I can see that's bad about it is if someone swims up underneath then they'd see your fat ass mashed against the bottom and might just die laughing. Or maybe the fish would die laughing? Doesn't matter though, I still want one!
comment posted at 1:09 PM on Aug-15-03

What makes Dogs happy? Food? Sex? Working? Being pampered and spoiled? A whole host of books are out there alternating between the belief that your dog is somewhere between a fuzzy-wuzzy lovey parasite and a quasi-human companion. (My dog sez, food and belly rubs...)
comment posted at 11:41 AM on Aug-14-03

Passport in Time is a volunteer program of the USDA Forest Service where you can be a real-life archaeologist for a week or just a weekend. There are projects located around the country, around the calendar. With no previous experience, you can help professional archaeologists survey and excavate sites ranging in age from the early 1900s back to the paleolithic. Myself, I helped excavate Pueblo de la Mesa, a pre-Columbian Anasazi site atop a lonely mesa in New Mexico.
comment posted at 9:41 AM on Aug-13-03
comment posted at 9:54 AM on Aug-13-03
comment posted at 10:33 AM on Aug-13-03