You hear that, Mr Andersen?

Songs, Weekend, NetComics

First off -- I'd like to direct your attention to the songs of Jonathan Coulton -- specifically, the melodic Mad Scientist love ballad Skullcrusher Mountain, though honourable mention should be made of Re: Your Brains (a tale of zombie negotiation), and a new take on an old classic, Baby Got Back.

Good stuff.

In a somewhat different vein -- how about clothing for multiple people, like the "Classic Hug Jacket" pictured on the left? If this seems like a really stupid idea, you should go and look at the site... that way you can see that yes, it really is.

And in a slightly tangental note -- how about a programmable beverage container? Yeah, I'm not sure it's a good idea, either.

***

Last weekend was fairly exciting -- Giffy's birthday, with piles of delicious pad thai and plenty of cool people to chat with, followed by a quick visit to the 21st of a family friend of C's. Others have covered how good Giffy (and many of the other people) looked, and the various shenanigans that people got up to, so I'll concentrate on the 21st -- or rather on one incident during the 21st.

It went something like -- huh, some boy has decided to dance without pants. Look at him, boogying away in his boxers. (There was a definite gender divide on some songs -- "Pretty Woman" drew the girls but cleared all but one of the boys from the floor, while some of the HardRawk did the opposite.) Anyway, there's a lot of white dreadlocks here... okay, someone's taken it to the next level, and is protecting his dignity by carrying a box of wine around... aaaand now he's put the box down... and now he's wandering outside. Man, doesn't he know how cold it is out there? Then again, I think he's wearing the Armour of Ethanol against the chill...

I guess it's not streaking if you're just casually walking. Anyway, I got to chat to C's family for a bit, and meet some other people, and got a weird-ass experience, so not too bad an end to the evening.

Sunday, I completely failed to go on the walk that people organized, and only turned up quite late to J & CL's pre-marriage soiree (which was apparently a "kitchen tea but we won't call it that so as not to put off boys"). Odd rituals cribbed from the net were enacted, such as creating effigies of the couple to be married out of newspaper, balloons and old clothes, or writing down possible problems and solutions (and reading out random combinations thereof). I'm pretty sure the fencing wasn't one of the rituals they found, but it was pretty interesting to watch J take on all comers wearing just a mask, when his opponent got a mask and enormous protective vest.

(As well as the fencing mask, J was wearing normal clothes. Just to make that explicit, after the 21st-party anecdote.)

***

Congrats to Sok & Giffy for their G&S audition success, and to JJ for scoring a named part!

***

The problem with starting to read a new online comic are two-fold. First, I find it very hard not to read the whole thing as quickly as possible. To take the most recent example for me, mundens pointed at Miracles of Science, in relationship to "Science Related Memetic Disorder" (or "Mad Scientist Disease"). It took me a couple of days of reading to get through the articles and associated columns, as C will no doubt attest.

Secondly, they'll often link off to other web comics... which tends to compound the problem. I ended up reading all of Concerned: The Half-Life and Death of Gordon Frohman, which is a comic made using screen captures from the Half-Life 2 engine, and had another look at Reprographics (including the recipe for Hyper-delicious (evil) burgers); but I just don't have time to properly look at all of the comics that look interesting, so I'm leaving a list here, in the undoubtedly false hope that I'll find time to have a look at them in the future.

http://www.fluffinbrooklyn.com/html/comics.html
http://www.tweep.com/comic/
http://www.radioactivepanda.com/
http://indavo.comicgenesis.com/
http://www.galactanet.com/comic/
http://www.misfile.com/
http://arcanetimes.comicgen.com/
http://zebragirl.keenspot.com/
http://abbysagency.us/
http://www.eykir.com/
http://www.pawspace.com/~misadventures/
http://www.hellboundcomic.com/
http://notweird.com/bugsport/
http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/
http://www.vanvonhunter.com/
http://www.starslipcrisis.com/
http://www.nekkoandjoruba.com/
http://www.heebink.com/metacops1.html
http://www.inkytales.co.uk/rainboworchid/
http://www.schlockmercenary.com/index.html
http://scribs.us/

And thirdly, they'll often link to other types of pages of interest, such as selections of one-panel, magazine-style science cartoons, or evil genius practical joke ideas (with a list of tricks for kids that I hope most kids never see).

And the Jonathan Coulter songs that I linked to above came from here as well, actually.

***

Turns out I lied about talking about Primetime Adventures, by the way. Next post, for sure. :)

Posted by svend at March 26, 2006 9:55 AM