Saturday, November 25, 2006

Calls for cthulu

This is some funny-ass Elder god shit.

Friday, November 24, 2006

Strange facinations...

You may just want to skip over this posting. Really. I'm giving you ample warning that it does not involve foreign travel, hot women in corsets of fighting off ninjas. This post is about an obscure 18th century Italian engraver.

Half Price book is a kick ass store. And when we were last there dumping off some old video games and books I picked up a two books dirt cheap. One was 'How to build a Gazeebo' and the other was called 'Piranesi - The Etchings'. I had no idea who Giovanni Battista Piranesi was but one look at the images in the book and I had to have it. Page after page of wonderful etchings of Roman Ruins, Tombs, monuments, temples, theaters and more. The book is in three languages with a short section on Piranesi's life and work in the 1700's. You can cut to the chase and breeze through his wiki page.

Some of his coolest work were his 'prisons'. Massive spaces with soaring vaulted ceilings, chains, raised walkways to nowhere and ancient gears. My biggest regret is that the images in the book are rather small and much of the detail is lost. Luckily a Japansese university has a website where you can zoom into his images and well as see modern photos of some of the places Piranesi drew. What amazed me was the number of locations that I had never heard of or seen before. A great deal of these places must surely have fallen victem to the modern city of Rome but I intend to look into some of the more interresting tombs using the internets. I'm hoping to get a book with larger versions of his work or maybe a few prints but they aren't cheep.

I have no idea why some things grab my attention so suddenly and firmly. I spend two weeks with my nose buried in a book about personal letter written in the Elizibethan era. Facinating stuff which I may have to write about in the future. And now, I must go, I think I hear ninja's in my laundry room.

Thursday, November 23, 2006

Run Forrest Run!


They're getting smarter. The turkeys, not us humans. We're still dumb as posts. Apparently a group of wild turkeys, in a last ditch attempt to escape the murderous rampage of the humans, tried to take a train out of Jersey.

Good luck guys, many have tried to get out of Jersey. Most didn't make it...

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Slacking towards turkey day

The past few weeks have been...well...we haven't had much to DO. And thats kinda wierd. Last year at this time we were down in Bolixi and New Orleans. It was trip I am glad I made. If you missed it, you can read about it here.

This year we finished up the shows, came home, put everything away and worked on the house. Now most of the big stuff it done and we have....spare tame! It's wierd. There's still a list of stuff that needs to get done (there is always stuff to get done) but its getting shorter and the things that are left I am finding easier to ignore. I need to get work done on my friends website, but I've stressed over his site every time its broken down. I've driven all over gods green acre to find a wifi spot to fire off emergency emails and try to figure out what broke while on the road. Sigh. I'll get back to it tomorrow.

We now have two cats. The Great Cat of Reh (Ray) who is a regular feature in the house. And a female who now lives in the garage. We call her "Little one". Destructo (or Dumas) went missing while we were at Pennsic. Its very likely that Little One is from the same litter as Destructo, they're practically twins. The two cats do not get on well which has turned out home into a french stage comedy. When one cat wants to come in we have to boot the other out their particular door.

Thanks to my friend Grimm I now know how to service my rear brakes AND swap out struts. Grimm had planned on doing his struts too and we managed to get both vehicles into the shop. But in the end all he needed was a couple of rubber washers to completely fix his front end problems. Total cost? $2. Me? I spent about $400 in parts. Next time I want to be the one who spends two bucks.

My rig is pretty much set up the way I want now. I drove up to Detroit last weekend for a LAN party of my friend Monkey's house. I had a great time. There were 20 people crammed into his basement blasting the hell out of each other. It was different from the Ohio LAN crowd. These guys are pretty quiet. Focused. Our local group is far more vocal with their smack talk. And since my FPS skillz are not exactly 'leet' (after all, I do have a life) I need to make up for it by distracting my opponents with taunts and trash talk. At one point, after having been killed for the umteenth time by a guy with the nickname ded_god I threatened to slash his tires, tear his head off and crap down his neck. Now THAT'S sportsmanship.