Chapter 2 - Stories Need Pirates. Sort of.

Ready for chapter 2? It's down at the bottom somewhere. I was thinking what a good idea this was so that I wouldn't have to actually bother finding links or stuff to post, but of course since I did that someone sent me a good link I have to post.

This is Dungeons and Dragons on the Microsoft Surface. Pretty cool.

Well, ok, I had one link. No wait, I have two.

This is some thermal imaging of bats flying out of their cave. Again, pretty cool.

Also, I enjoyed these ridiculous and unnecessary product reviews.

See, I totally give up trying to find links and I have 3 of them without trying.

OK, on to Chapter 2:

***

On the deck of the "Green Squid" Captain Voosh looked out at the country side as they sailed into the harbor of Grandview and said, "Someone's built a fire out there."

His first mate, Mumphrey, took a look and said, "Probably orcs."

"Or hunters." The Captain said.

"Hunters don't build fires. Scares the animals away."

Captain Voosh got out his spyglass and tried to see if he could spot any orcs, but it was getting dark, and all he could see was a small campfire with some shapes around it. He said, "You're probably right."

Mumphrey didn't bother gloating, just shrugged and said, "We're going in tonight?"

"Landing on the docks. Like a legitimate ship."

Mumphrey's face soured. "This is no way to be pirates."

"We're not going to be pirates for much longer." Voosh said. "They're giving us a conscription."

"What does that mean?"

"It means we'll be legitimate. At least as far as Grandview is concerned. We'll be privateers."

"What the hell is a private ear?"

"Privateers. Like, legalized piracy."

Mumphrey said, "I don't like things that are legal."

Voosh shrugged. "It won't make much difference. There's not a lot of ships on the sea to rob anyway. At least this way we get paid a stipend."

"What the hell's a stipend?"

"Cash. Money. Gold. They'll pay us once a month."

Mumphrey said, "What for?"

Voosh shrugged. "I don't know. I guess for not attacking Grandview ships. And for attacking ships Grandview is at war with."

"Who's Grandview at war with?"

Voosh shrugged again. "No one as far as I know. But if they're signing up privateers then you can bet they're gearing up for one."

"Gearing up for a war." Mumphrey said, mulling it over. "Hm. Interesting."

"Is it?" Voosh asked. He was trying to put his spyglass back in it's case and was watching the black cat sleeping on the deck rail. "Doesn't that cat worry about falling off of there?" Roll over the wrong way, Voosh thought, and boom, a forty foot drop to the ocean. He didn't think the cat would like that very much.

"They like heights." Mumphrey said, looking at the cat. "It's interesting, the war thing, because I can't imagine anyone our king would want to go to war with."

"Our king?" Voosh asked smiling.

"Well, he's going to be paying us. Plus, I was born in Grandview."

"Oh." Voosh continued to smile. "I think the problem is, he's asleep. I mean he's not going to know if he rolls the wrong way, is he?"

"The king?"

"The cat."

Mumphrey said, "Oh. If it bothers you so much go move him."

"It doesn't bother me. I mean, he can sleep where he wants right? As long as he keeps the rats off the ship."

"He has been doing a good job of that."

"Gandermere, maybe?" Voosh asked.

"I think his name is Midnight isn't it?"

"No, I mean the country. Would Grandview go to war with them?"

Mumphrey frowned. Sometimes Voosh made it hard to follow along a single line of conversation. "Why would we fight Gandermere? Over rye bread? Do they even have any other resources?"

Voosh didn't know the answer to that. He was still watching the cat, sleeping soundly as the sun set behind it. He thought of something else and said, "We're supposed to get a new guy, too."

Mumphrey said, "New guy?" Not sure whether this related to the sleeping cat or imminent war discussion.

"Yeah, a sailor. I talked to him before we set out last time, told him to meet us here tonight. Midnight at the Frozen Parrot. Today is Tuesday, right?"

"Yes. It's Tuesday. Who is this new guy?"

"Thought he could be a good replacement for Xarot. Not sure what the hell happened to him."

Mumphrey said, "Probably somebody's husband caught up with him and strung him up."

"Wouldn't surprise me." Voosh said, "Probably the only person that has more girlfriends than the King."

Mumphrey shook his head. "So, this new guy, he's a sailor?"

"Young guy. Maybe sixteen? Seventeen? Got the look about him, though. And he says he's always wanted to be a pirate."

"We're about to not be pirates anymore, remember?" Mumphrey said.

"Oh, right. I hope that's not a problem."

***

Voosh didn't like to walk into a bar through the front doors. He'd explained the reasoning to Mumphrey once, and it went along the lines of this: If everyone looked at you when you came in, that was a bad thing. It meant you were getting too famous. You couldn't be a good pirate if everyone knew who you were. If no one looked at you, that was a bad thing. Bad for the ego, he'd told Mumphrey. It meant nobody cared.

So when they went to the Frozen Parrot, Voosh always insisted on slipping in through the back door, up a flight of stairs, over the alley, and taking one of the tables on the second floor balcony. They usually didn't have trouble finding a table, even when the place was packed. Not a lot of people liked to sit upstairs because it made it harder to run if someone came in looking for you. On the first floor you could always go out a window.

Voosh and Mumphrey took the table closest to the back door and sat down, ordering a pair of drinks and waiting.

Mumphrey said, "What does this kid look like?"

"I believe the word you would use to describe him would be 'strapping'."

"So a big kid?"

Voosh nodded. "Not huge, like that guy that used to load crates by himself, remember him?"

"Something that started with an A, or an M. Not sure, but I know who you're talking about."

"Yeah, he's not that big." Voosh said. "But he's tall and in pretty good shape."

Mumphrey said, "I think he's coming this way."

Looking up and seeing the kid coming Voosh thought, he's not as big as I thought he was. Young, definitely, and perhaps strapping, but he looked younger than Voosh remembered now that he was actually looking at the kid. And he was healthy, but certainly not strapping.

Mumphrey said to the boy, "Sit down. You're Reed?"

"Yes. Indeed, I am." The boy said, taking a seat.

"We should get some drinks." Voosh said. "Are you even old enough to drink?"

"I'll just have some ale, if it's all right."

Voosh said, "Son, you could order Dwarven Whiskey in here and they'd serve it to you, long as you have money."

"I have a little." Reed said, seeming embarrassed.

"First round's on me." Mumphrey said.

"Thank you very much, sir." Reed said, bowing his head a little towards Mumphrey.

"You're going to have to cut that out." Voosh said.

"I'm sorry?"

"You're far too polite to be pirating, lad." Voosh said. "Relax. Be yourself."

"Right. Sorry." Reed shook his head. "I mean right."

"Right as rain." Mumphrey said, though he couldn't imagine why. Voosh was looking at him funny, and he shrugged.

"Stuff goes right into your brain, doesn't it?" Voosh asked, still looking at Mumphrey. He turned to Reed then and asked, "You ever killed a man?"

Reed looked concerned, shook his head and said, "No. I don't believe I have."

Voosh knocked back the rest of his drink and started looking for a barmaid.

Mumphrey said, "Don't worry about it. Most people haven't. Not even some 'real' pirates. You ever stolen anything?"

"Bread?" Reed said, like he wasn't sure if it was considered stealing if it was food.

"Did you need it, or just want it?" Voosh asked.

"I was hungry."

"S'not stealing if it's for need. It's provision procurement."

Reed said, "I'm not sure what you mean."

Voosh said, "Forget it. This stuff is going through me, and I can't seem to flag down a wench. I'll be back with some drinks. You said Ale, right?"

"Yes, sir. I mean, yes."

Voosh left and Mumphrey leaned back away from the table, studying Reed. He didn't look like much. A dirty white shirt, long scraggled hair. He could already pass for a pirate if he were armed. He was certainly dirty enough.

Mumphrey said, "Why do you want to be a pirate, again?"

"I hate this place." Reed said. "I want to get away."

"Where are your parents?"

"Mom died a couple of months ago. I've been on my own since then."

"Where's your father?"

"He hasn't been around for years." Reed said.

Something about the way he said that made Mumphrey pause. He said, "What did your mother do?"

"Ran a jewelry store."

"Jewels?" Mumphrey asked, his eyes widening.

"Not real ones. Fake. Costume jewels. Paste and glass and gilded engravings. Cheap, is what it's called." Reed said. "When she died I sold everything, even the store, and didn't make enough to live for a week after I paid all the outstanding debts. I'm not sure how she did it."

"And you think pirating is the answer?" Mumphrey asked.

"When she died, I decided right then and there, I was going to be a pirate."

"Voosh said you told him you'd wanted to be a pirate all your life."

"I did. I mean, I never thought I'd have the chance. But when she died, I decided to do it. You know. To go for it. Live out my dream."

"Of being a pirate?"

"Why do you keep asking me that?" Reed said.

"Pirating isn't fun. It isn't rescuing damsels and swinging from chandeliers. It's mostly dull and uninteresting work. It's sitting on a boat on the high seas, watching for another boat to come near, not too near, so that it sees you and runs, but near enough that you can catch it, after half a day's sailing, and if you don't manage to get blown apart by it's cannons, you jump on board, kill a few people, and take what they have, which isn't usually much. I've never in my life known a rich or a happy pirate. People get into this line of work because they have nothing else. Some survive, and some don't. The ones who do will tell you, if they had it to do over again, they'd do something else. Probably open a costume jewelry shop."

Reed just looked at him, unsure of what to say. He hadn't thought it would be all chandeliers and damsels, but he'd hoped there would be some of that in there somewhere. Something in the back of his mind told him he hadn't really considered the whole thing. Being on the run. Wanted by the law. What would happen if he were arrested? What would happen if he ended up in a dungeon somewhere because he'd tried to rob a ship and failed?

He started to ask Mumphrey why he became a pirate, but was interrupted by Voosh coming back to the table. He sat down with four drinks and said, "Met our new boss at the bar."

"New boss?" Reed asked. "You're pirates. You don't have a boss."

"We do now." Mumphrey said. "Oh, we forgot to mention. We're privateers now."

"What's a private ear?" Reed asked.

"That's exactly what I said." Mumphrey told him. "Exactly."

"It's true." Voosh said. "Ah, here's our man."

An older man, short and bald, skinny and angry looking, sat down at the table. He had a hood over his head, and he spoke from the shadow it cast over his face. "These are your men?" He seemed to be talking to Voosh.

"Yes, this is Mumphrey and this-"

"I don't need to know their names!" The old man said. "Just take the marks and sign the paper."

Voosh looked vaguely annoyed as he took the paper and a quill and signed his name to it. The mark was handed to him and he folded it up and put it in his jacket pocket.

The old man said, "There. Now you're official privateers in service of King Otho." He started to get up.

Voosh said, "Your drink?"

"Keep it." The old man said, and he disappeared into the crowd.

"Well, that was certainly exciting, wasn't it?" Voosh asked.

Mumphrey looked over at Reed who was frowning. He said, "Welcome to the life of a pirate."

****

Surprise! You wonder where I been?

I been working, but sounds making danger,
and black bird's chirping

That sounds a lot better in my head because those are lyrics from an EPMD song. I had all these reasons why I hadn't posted yet, one of which was I been working. But that said I didn't really have that much to post this week. Or at least I didn't *think* I did. Til my wife reminded me (inadvertently) that next month is National Novel Writer's Month.

That reminded me that last year I did actually finish a book, but I never let anybody read it because I thought it was terrible. That reminded me that I thought I had lost it when my hard drive crashed sometime in February? Which turned out not to be true because I had a backup of it on a thumb drive I'd forgotten about. Which reminded me that I'd told Travis that I'd let him read it, which in turn reminded me that I had forgotten to do that.

Follow all that? Good.

But the practical point of that is, I had thought a long time ago about using a webpage to write a story on that would just be continuous, because I like things like Order of the Stick, where the guy has been telling a great story for a few years now, and it always makes me wish I could draw so I could have a webcomic, but I can't draw, so having a webcomic just isn't gonna happen.

But then I thought, I could have a webbook instead. And so, while Allie reminded me about NaNoWriMo being next month, it occurred to me that I could just post my terrible book here, one chapter at a time, and possibly drive you all away in a few weeks. So we're gonna give that a shot.

I may have some preamble before chapters or something (like this one, only not as long) and if I find any nice links I'll drop them in there, but for now there's only one thing I want to link (the most awesomest game ever, called Miami Shark) and then chapter one of my "new" book, Skullduggery.

***
"Listen, I'll explain it. What we're saying is this, you find parents, particularly ones with only one kid. I mean, there could even only be one parent, as long as there's only one kid. Got it? Ok. So what we're saying is, that kid has enormous potential, you just have to let it out. You got it? So you kill the parents."

The other orc said, "I don't get it."

Loro sighed. "You kill the parents. This unleashes the pent up potential inside this kid. The one kid. The orphan."

The other orc said, "I still don't get it."

Loro said, "We're both orcs, right? How many Orc Champions have their been since the Battle of Dungore?"

The other orc, younger than Loro, still fresh faced and unscarred thought about that. His name was Akar. He was holding his hand up, looking up in the sky and raising and lowering fingers as he counted. He had three fingers up for a while, then put up a fourth, then put it back down to bring his total back down to three. Then at the last second raised it again and said, "Four."

"Right. Gagnar the Invincible." Loro held up one finger. Akar nodded. "Grush." A second finger, another nod. "Kolo the Black Blade." Three fingers now, and Akar waiting expectantly. "And Grimfist."

Akar said, "That's right. That's the four I got."

Loro said, "And what happened to them?"

"What do you mean?"

"They're all dead. What happened to them?"

"Well, Gagnar was killed by a wizard, I think."

"That's right." Loro was nodding his head, smiling now.

"Grush was killed by Kolo, and then Kolo got killed by a knight, didn't he? A human one from that place in the south where they make that bread."

"That's right, Gandermere's that place. That bread is something with an 'R' I think. Rye?"

"That's it. And then Grimfist was killed by a horse."

"Not just a horse." Loro corrected.

"Oh, right, a horse with a guy on it."

"A guy?"

"What was he? A ranger? He wasn't a paladin was he?"

"Cavalier. The humans call them cavaliers. Come on now, he had a flag and everything."

"I heard the horse did all the work."

"Well, the cavalier trains the horse, so, you know. It's pretty much an even share of the killing."

"Ok, fair enough." Akar had forgotten where this was going. "What was the point of all this?"

"The wizard, the knight and the cavalier, you know what they all had in common?"

Akar shook his head.

"Orphans. All of them. The wizard, Gagnar killed that guy's parents when the wizard was a baby. Kid grows up with vengeance on his brain and becomes one of the most powerful wizards in the world. What does he do? He hunts down Gagnar and kills him."

"Seriously?" Akar was a bit shocked.

"This is what I'm saying. That knight? Kolo killed his mother. Father was long dead, but killing his mom? Kolo made an enemy for life. That kid trained with the sword and shield, found Kolo out in the frozen swamps and put a blade right through him. That cavalier?"

"Grimfist killed his parents?"

Loro shrugged and said, "Well, you know, we're checking on that. I mean we don't really know much about that guy, he just sort of showed up and ran Grimfist over and then left, you know, but it's a pretty safe bet."

"So what you're saying..."

"Of the last four Orc Champions, three of them were killed by humans, two of which were for certain revenge killings, and one is a maybe. Only one of them died like he should have. Killed by another orc in battle."

"So what you're saying is, orphans are what, powerful?"

Loro nodded. "They can be. They get powerful, you know, for vengeance. They get mad, they want revenge, they train themselves, push themselves harder than normal, those guys, they become like death incarnate. They become true warriors."

Akar was starting to catch on but had some questions. "Why single kids?"

"You got two kids they're sad, but they have each other to lean on, you know? They don't get the crazy like a kid left alone."

"Ah."

"You got your wizards, your knights, your cavaliers, apparently. They get tough, they go looking for the killer."

"And our plan is to be that killer?"

"Our plan is to create those orphans. We go around every place we can, we create some orphans who have revenge on the brain. Then, later, when they're trained up they come looking for us."

"And then what?" Akar was still fuzzy on the end goal.

"By then the dragon will be back. And when they find us, they'll find the dragon. And when they find the dragon, they'll kill it."

"But the dragon didn't kill their parents." Akar pointed out.

"No, but humans and dragons, you know, it's all historical. They're always killed by a human."

"Really?"

"You ever hear any stories about dwarves killing dragons? Elves? No, it's always a human. But this dragon, this is a big one. We're going to need more than just one guy out there hacking away at it. We're going to need an army."

Akar said, "And we're going to create that army."

"Now you've got it."

"By traveling around the countryside killing kids parents."

Loro nodded. "That's about the size of it."

"How many have you done so far?"

"Well...we haven't really gotten started yet. I wanted to wait until we had a full group. But now there's like six of us, including you."

Loro and Akar were on a small hill and Loro nodded down to the hill's base where the rest of the orcs had set up camp. They were waiting for Loro to explain the whole thing to Akar, the youngest, who had just joined them. His uncle had sent him to find Loro and join up with the group.

Akar looked off to the north and saw lights. "What's that?" He said. The sun going down was making the lights more visible.

"That's the big city. Grandview. Human city. Where their king lives."

"Are we going there?"

Loro snorted. "Gods no! We're avoiding it. We're going to stay out here in the open country. Hit some of these farm houses around here. See what we can find, you know, kid wise, with orphan potential."

"Tough city, huh?"

"Thousands of people. We'd be slaughtered. They kill us on sight, don't forget that."

Akar nodded. He sat down and Loro sat down beside him and they looked at the lights. Akar said, "How do you get to be an orc champion?"

Loro shook his head and said, "You have to kill lots and lots of people."

Akar looked off dreamily at the lights of the city.

After a while Loro thought they should go back down to the camp, but before he could say so Akar asked, "What do you know about the dragon?"

Loro had to think. He said, "I saw it once, when I was a boy. Scared me to death. Flying over a village I was walking to with my parents. It was huge. Bigger than the hill we're standing on."

"Serious?"

"On my honor."

"No one knows what to do. The shamans say you're the only one that's come up with a decent plan. That's why my uncle sent me to find you. He says if anybody's going to get anything done it'll be you."

Loro took the compliment and smiled. He said, "What are things like back at home?"

"You mean when I left? They say it's going to be a while before the dragon comes back, so there's not a lot to do. They're making weapons though."

"They're always making weapons."

"True." Akar said, "But they're making bigger ones."

"That's a start."

"When will the dragon come?"

Loro said, "No one knows for sure. They say it goes in cycles. It comes and burns down some villages, and eats the burnt bodies that get left behind. Then it goes off somewhere to sleep, or wreak havoc somewhere else. Who knows?"

Akar said, "But it's a long time between them."

"Like I said, last time it came I was a little boy. Now we have to wait a while. Long enough for some of these humans to grow up and not be kids."

Orcs have no concept of years, or seasons. In the far north the weather's always the same, so they measure time from battle to battle and not from season to season. If Loro had known how he would have told the young orc that the dragon came to their neck of the woods every thirty years or so, but since he didn't have the vocabulary to do that it seemed pointless to even try.

Akar had worked out the time in his head though, and he told Loro, "I'll be your age when it comes then, yes?"

Loro nodded, impressed with the boy. "Yes, something like that."

"How long will we be out here, then?"

Loro said, "Could be a while. Don't know how long it will take to find enough kids to orphan. We may need ten? Twelve of them?"

"And we're going to stay down here in the human lands until we do?"

"That's the plan. We stay out of sight, you understand? Guerilla tactics, we keep to ourselves we stay out of the humans way."

"Except the ones we're killing." Akar said.

"Right. Except those. That's why we have no fire for the camp."

Akar said, "Ah."

From the shadows at the base of the camp an orc voice called up, "We're building a fire."

"All right then." Loro shouted back down.

"But you just said-"

"I know." Loro said. "But no fire? That sounds terrible, doesn't it? Besides we're not where anyone could actually see it. And if they did, they'd probably think we were just hunters out, you know, hunting."

Akar said, "Oh."
***

Lots of stuff, for some reason.

This is gonna be a big one, I think, so take a deep breath and let's get started.

This game is called Huje Tower. Not Huge Tower. Huje Tower. I haven't figured out why. But it has adorable little bacteria from the sewers that are trying to reach the sky. Yeah, you read that right.

Ok, this is on a beer page (I think. Is Tuborg a beer?) But it's a name that tune game that's actually pretty well done. And I like name that tune.

And this game is called Growbox. And it's cool. I like puzzle-y games and it's very puzzle-y. You have to cruise around through little mazes eating things, and sometimes they make you bigger and sometimes they make you smaller and sometimes they change your shape completely. And if you get too big in some places you get stuck. It's like a metaphor for not overeating or something. But it's fun.

Ok, no more fun for you, now we're on to things that annoy me. Remember this? Of course you don't, you're not 135 years old. But you probably know what it is. And you probably saw this (and really, was Billy Zane ever in a more terrible movie? Oh, wait, scratch that). Well now there's this. That's right, somebody's gonna take another shot at it. Oy. Listen, don't get me wrong, I'm all for comic book characters getting tv shows and movies. I love them. But the Phantom, well, it's just never been done well, and I'd love to see it done well, and it's gonna have to be reimagined to get it done well, but...this ain't it. In particular I like that there's a scene in that clip where they imply that part of the problem with the Phantom is that ridiculous looking suit. And then they go on to give the new guy an even more ridiculous looking suit. High comedy.

Speaking of high comedy, remember when Tim Burton was going to do Superman with Nic Cage? Good times, good times. Here's some pics so you can see what might have been.

Again with the Oy, this remake doesn't need to happpen. Ever. But thank God the director from Fast and the Furious Four is still getting work, am I right?

Hey, in the list of things that don't need to get remade, where does this rank? I'm gonna say it's top 100. Wolverines!

Hold on, I'm feeling a little ill. Seriously? Somebody's doing this? Oh. My. Lord. STOP IT.

Really James? The movie's not even out yet and they're already talking sequel. I can't wait to not sit through that either.

Ok, I think we're through the annoyance part of the show. Here's some pics of Seth Rogen as the Green Hornet. Well, some are stuntmen and some are Seth, but it looks, um...ok?

And weirder than weird, here's some pics from the A-Team movie. This is a good list of them. This looks like actual set pics. Isn't Liam Neeson weird with silver hair? That's just odd. Oh, and the guy playing "Howling Mad" Murdock? That's our old friend from District 9. That guy was not even an actor when District 9 was done, he was just like a buddy of the director or something. (*Note: on further review he was a producer. He'd been in one thing before District 9, something called Alive in Joburg, which upon further research turns out to be a short film that the guy who made District 9 made that was the basis for District 9. So, yeah). Anyway he was awesome in D9, and now he's in the A-Team movie. The world is a strange place.

Speaking of strange...Opie Cunningham is making a Cthulhu movie. There's really no comment I can add to that.

Robert Rodriguez Predators movie might not suck. They're doing a most dangerous game thing where predators nab some of the most awesome warriors on earth (which it turns out are serial killers, gang enforcers, assassins, etc.) and then hunting them on the predator home world with predator falcons and predator hunting dogs. Sounds predator-licious.

Other things that might not suck include Gentlemen Broncos. I think I put a trailer up for that before, but check out Sam Rockwell talking about working with Tim Allen. Amuses me.

Things that look cool: the Batman Superman Animated movie. They got Tim Daly and Kevin Conroy back to voice Superman/Batman respectively. Sweetness.

Also in animated movie news, sequel to War of the Worlds that looks cool.

Video game news, Crackdown 2. There's some cool stuff going on in this video.

In more interesting video news, John Lasseter, the awesome guy from Pixar who did Toy Story, Toy Story 2, Cars, etc. talks about how they came up with Buzz Lightyear for Toy Story. Fascinating. (Also, how they picked the colors for Buzz's suit. Neat.)

Other things that fascinate me: 50 extraordinary and attractive billboards. Some of those are very clever.

And speaking of clever, HBO has an impressive thing called HBO imagine. It's like a little puzzle of movies and sound clips that tell a story, but the most interesting to me were the movies that you can watch from 4 different angles.

And just to round things out, trailer for The Crazies. Horror movie. Don't watch if you don't like crazy horror movies, but I find this intriguing for some reason.

Very Little Excuse for a Post This Week

Johnny Depp is apparently now not playing the Riddler. Which I predicted a few posts ago.
Somebody sat down with Michael Caine and had an interview and basically debunked all those rumors he started after the last batman ended.

Meanwhile Jackie Earl Haley *is* playing Freddie Krueger. Prepare yourself for a rarity, because for once, Hollywood has backed into agreeing with me, albeit most likely accidentally. Even a broken clock is right twice a day and all that jazz. See, there's a lot of complaining going on that Freddie doesn't do funny in this movie and it's all dark and scary and taken too seriously. And I say, huzzah. Finally. One of the things I've always hated about Elm St. Movies is the stupid cheezy dialog (which for the record is almost completely absent from the original movie, which is dark and scary and...well, good.) So, I say bravo. I'd much rather have a scary Freddie than a bizarrely punny Freddie, and I think Haley was a good casting choice. Of course, just to make things sacrosanct in the universe and to annoy the living *#!? out of me they'll make 9 sequels to this dark scary Freddie filled with bad puns.

Not Safe for work language in this video about cell phones in horror movies.

You want bizarre? How bout a museum full of stuffed gophers. That good enough?

Enjoy Cube Colossus if you can. Too much talky for me. Though I kind of like the weird control scheme.

There's another game here called Thunder Attack, that's supposed to be good, but so far I haven't found a browser on any of my machines that has the right plugin for it. Can anyone see it? Maybe it's a hoax. "Haha, remember that time we pretended to make an awesome game and there really wasn't a game? Good times, good times."

William and Sly. I can't even tell you how much I like this. It's pretty, has great sound and music (I leave it on while I work because it's like great white noise) and it's just kind of neat to cruise around and explore.

Things that happened over the weekend.

Let's see, I moved all the computers around, including swapping hard drives for 3 hours so I could get my Mac back, and ostensibly so I could give Allie the good machine to play WOW on. Really it was to get the Mac back. Going from a 17" monitor to a 21" monitor...my eyes still haven't readjusted to the awesome.

Note, also, that if you have a monitor with a DVI-D and a D-Sub plug, and you have a DVI-D and a D-Sub wire, and the computer has only a DVI-D plug on it, don't use the D-Sub wire with a DVI-D adaptor on it. It just make things look fuzzy, right up until the point where you realize you're an idiot and you plug the DVI-D wire in and things go back to normal. Just saying.

Saw Jennifer's Body with the kids. Funnier than I thought it would be. Actually didn't annoy me. And I don't really care for Megan Fox that much, so seeing her as a bad guy was all right with me. Not sure how that worked out. Definitely rental material, or maybe dollar theater.

I'm gonna do a little different format for the links here, just bear with me.

The Beatles Rock Band Intro - Looks awesome. I would totally watch a movie or a cartoon done in this style, especially if it was about the Beatles. Does the game have any of this in it, or is it just the intro? I assumed it was just Rock Band with Beatles songs. Is that not true?

Ingrlorious Basterdz Villain - This guy is awesome. He was great in Inglorious Basterdz and now he is going to be a villain in the Green Hornet movie with Seth Rogen. He should be a villain in the Green Lantern movie (which we discussed last week may or may not get made). Wouldn't he be a great Sinestro?

Pictures of the Green Hornet movie - With Seth Rogen. Yep, it's apparently shooting. Enjoy the pics and then wonder if it will be awesome or terrible. I kind of like Seth Rogen, but this seems like it might be fail. Maybe Green Hornet is just one of those properties that you can't make a serious, dark movie out of like Batman, or maybe this is just a bad idea. I'll wait for a trailer to make a decision. Maybe the dude up above will make it awesome.

My new favorite trailer mashup - Just full of win. Dark Knight vs. Toy Story.

Ridiculous Japanese Game Plot - This game might or might not be about porn. I have no idea. It's just ludicrous though.

Scariest Movie ever? - Supposedly. This is what they're saying. Everyone seems to think it's awesome. I'll have to check it out.

Gentlemen Broncos - Seriously funny. Like Sam Rockwell, like the guy who plays the writer (from the fabulous Flight of the Conchords). Looks great.

Robots shoot Pool - Slowly. But still cool.

Guitar Hero for the C64 - Now this is funny. That's totally what it would have looked like too.

Hotel made out of hotel key cards? - Strange. Very strange.

Football Season Begins. I write blog post.

Yay, football. I watched a lot of it today.

Also, I started this post on Wednesday I think, so check when it's posted, because right now I'm about to post it and it's Sunday night. (EDIT: I started it on Tuesday. So apparently Blogspot just takes whatever day I start editing a post and marks that as the day it was posted. Fantastic. I could make it look like I posted every day. I'll just start a post every day and...who am I kidding, I'm too lazy to even do that.)

Ok, we good? All right then, let's get started.

Some kind of parkour game here. You're running on building ledges, jumping over things, through windows occasionally...I don't know. It's kind of addictive. But it will give you a headache. The screen shakes a lot. I mean like your monitor is stuck in one of those things they have at Home Depot that shakes the paint cans up. It's kind of annoying. And it seems to never end. But I click on it and play it again occasionally...

Super ultra violent video. Starring 12" GI Joe figures. Kinda creepy. I think it's the unchanging expressions on their faces. Bizarre and fun.

Holy Kri-zolie! Solomon Kane Trailer! Somewhere in the recesses of my mind I heard this movie was being made but I had little hope for it because...well, lots of reasons. First of all you may or may not know who Solomon Kane is. Well, he was created by Robert E. Howard, who had a much more famous character, that got not one, but two movies (the second of which is, how shall I put this, not good. I mean it's fun in a cheesy way, but really, just kind of crap, as Eddie would say.) So I thought, Oh, it'll be terrible and they'll screw the character all up and I can rant about it later if anyone ever notices the movie's existence, but here, now, they've gone and intrigued me. That trailer looks, um, decent. Like I really want to see that. I love Solomon Kane. He's awesome. (Hint, hint, someone buy me a book for Christmas).

More Awesome HERE! That's the trailer for the movie Plan 9. That's the remake of the Ed Wood Classic, Plan 9 From Outer Space. How cool is that? Plus the original was delivered in 1959, so this is like the 50th anniversary celebration. Nicely done. See, I view this differently than the knuckleheads trying to remake The Birds, because here's the thing: both movies are classics, but they're classics for different reasons. The Birds is like Steak and Potatoes. It just goes together well. Plan 9 From Outer Space is like Ketchup on Eggs. Some people really love it, but most people just kind of go, "huh" and then eye you bemusedly while you eat it, tolerating without hate, it's just kind of a weird thing that's there. So, I think the remake of Plan 9 will be like Salsa on Eggs, cause it's a little updated, and now a lot more people are like, "oh, that sounds good." So, yeah. There. The Plan 9 remake is like salsa on eggs. Bow down before my mad simile-constructing skills.

It's awesome movie week here at Madtoad Enterprises, apparently, so yeah, I'm gonna throw a little Black Dynamite your way. (Thanks Travis). Yes that's a real movie. Yes it's coming out soon. Yes they're serious. (That's acutally Michael Jai White playing Black Dynamite. I love that guy. First he was Tyson in Tyson, then he played Spawn, and then he kind of disappeared. But I've always thought he was a good actor. And in the last few years he was the voice of Green Lantern in the incredibly awesome Justice League cartoon, and then he had a nice cameo in what should have been the Oscar Winner for Best Picture Last Year, and now he's going to be in this and in Robert Rodriguez's Predators, coming next year, so I'm kind of stoked. By the way, he's credited as a writer on this movie). By the way, how lame is it that in the movie TYSON the guy playing TYSON got 3rd billing? That's kinda messed up.

Thanks to B-Fish for the following: Cat can't figure out how to get a drink. Kitty has a drinking problem.

Laborious Posting

It was all you could do to think that I'd use the fact that it's labor day as an excuse to not post today, effectively killing my monday posting ritual that has been going for an astounding, what, 5 weeks? 4? I don't even know. Travis, how many weeks in a row is this?

See, it didn't happen. I posted anyway. So bleh.

Clearly Hollywood will pay for any script that allows random B-list actors to shoot at each other for whatever the heck reason they can think of. Can you imagine this? All the world's greatest assassins get together to battle for 10 Million dollars in some random sleepy town? I'll probably watch it though. See, this is how they get me.

Disney buys Marvel. Can't wait for the Micky Mouse, Spiderman crossover comics.

Adopt-A-Dog segment goes horribly awry.

A brief primer on dimensions, up to the 10th. Apparently this has been floating around the internets for a while, but I had never seen it.

For those of you who love fast food, here are 10 secret menu items you can get at, perhaps, one of your favorite places. Mental Floss, by the way, is one of those pages I can get lost on pretty easily for hours.

How to destroy the Earth. You know. If you need that kind of information for any reason.

First Citiwide Bank. How do you make money?

So A-Team casting news is apparently being scooped by the MMA now, since this guy was apparently going to fight this guy (I don't know any of these guys. The only MMA person I know is Kimbo Slice and that's only because his name is Kimbo Slice. I don't even know if he's good.) But now, instead of those two guys fighting those two guys are going to NOT fight so that that first guy can play B.A. in the A-Team movie.

Um. Ok. Sure.

That IMDB link for A-Team is another place where I should point out that they have ludicrous and conflicting information all on one page. According to that page both Common and the Game (both rappers, incidentally) are playing B.A. in the A-Team movie. Clearly that's not true. Unless both of them and the MMA guy are all gonna play B.A. at different parts of the movie. Maybe they play him at different ages or something, or maybe the plot involves B.A. having his brain transplanted into different bodies. Come to think of it, I'd watch that too.