on flying cars and blue women

I've come to love the Sci Fi convention holding that, if and when humans encounter intelligent extraterrestrial life, our innate individualism and ambition will be misunderstood as avarice and irresponsibility by other, more collectivistic races, but we'll show them, because hoo boy, when some super-ultra-collectivistic race, civilization, or network of horrifying sentient machines starts to invade, we'll save the day with our adaptability, scrappy individualism, and boyishly tousled hair. I wonder sometimes if other cultures likewise project their own interactions with otherness into genre literature in this way. Are there North Korean space operas in which roving bands of alien space cowboys are out to destroy the galaxy and it's up to the humans to stop them with blind obedience and mass chanting? I kind of hope so....for the North Korean nerds' sake.

the not-so-serene republic

At one point in Assassin’s Creed 2, you receive an item that essentially turns Florence and Tuscany into Grand Theft Auto: La Serenissima Repubblica. So long as you mostly restrict your killing to guards and pickpockets, and can outrun anyone you can’t kill (and if you can’t do that, there’s no way you made it this far into the game), you can pretty much rob and murder your way through the birthplace of the Renaissance. As long as you escape the sight of the guards chasing you, and don’t kill too many civilians in a row, you’re in the clear until you commit your next crime. You can even get on a horse and start running people down in the (beautifully-rendered) Tuscan countryside.

I recently spent about an hour just wandering around Florence, killing guards. After sneaking up on rooftop archers and essentially meat-hooking them to their deaths below got old, I started hiring gaggles of prostitutes to distract groups of street level guards before walking around behind them and stabbing them. I could usually pick off one or two before the others in the group saw me coming for them, too, and I would either have to inelegantly fight them off with a scimitar or run away. Then I upped my civic effrontery when I realized that I could get away with killing just one or two of the guards and then just skulk off quietly into the streets, with the remaining guards still wandering off in the direction of the aforementioned prostitutes. Imagine being so enamored of a lady of easy virtue that you not only abandon your post but also leave your like-minded coworker to die in the street. Apparently Renaissance courtesans really did have it going on.

After a while I got to wondering where all these guards were coming from. I would perform my murder ballet on three guys guarding a house, and the next time I circled back around, there were three more guards already in place...whom I would then murder. Seriously, though, where were all these replacement guards coming from? It was when I listened to (not just heard, but really listened to) one of the heralds’ announcements, calling on all of the city’s “ragazzi” (boys, essentially) to apply for jobs with the city guard! These heralds were luring children into the city’s service, promising them easy lives of stable employment and civic virtue, when really all that was in store for them was getting knifed in the back by some jerk in a red cape procrastinating on his mission of vengeance. Don't I feel like the asshole now....Sigh, back to collecting statues....

war games

American Military Operation, or Dungeons and Dragons Feat?

Acid Gambit
Avenging Surge
Cobra's Anger
Desert Strike
Eagle Claw
Earnest Will
Enduring Freedom
Frequent Wind
Morning Light
Nimble Archer
Steel Tiger
Urgent Fury



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[They are all American military operations, except "Avenging Surge."]

on game theory

In case we needed any more proof that I don't know anything about soccer:

PM: i added a new super-star midfielder to my [FIFA World Cup video game] soccer party last night!
PM: it was the equivalent of recruiting a wizard several levels above the party to join you on a tough quest
mikaydee: hahaha
PM: he's playing a defensive midfield position, so he's sorta like my wizard controller who uses buff spells to make my attackers better, and can cast defensive spells if i need him to
mikaydee: i love that this is how you have to explain soccer to me
mikaydee: what I want to know is, who is the warlock in this scenario?
PM: oh, i did just pick up one of them
PM: another midfielder that has the ability to score from distance
PM: i have no idea what my goalie is... he's the other best player on the team... i guess he's kinda like my cleric
PM: especially since he's saved my ass a few times by only the grace of god

inspired by a true story

I recently went into serious someone-is-wrong-on-the-internet mode; what follows is a loosely-inspired dramatization:

Provocative Poster [PP]: You and people like you are oversensitive to the point of being childish.

mikaydee: No, actually I am not oversensitive. What you are perceiving as oversensitivity may actually be well within the normal range of adult sensitivity. Here is some evidence and an argument in support of why that might be so.

PP: Only childishly oversensitive people present evidence and an argument in support of the premise that they are not oversensitive.

mikaydee: Couldn't it just be the case that you were incorrect and that I and people like me are not actually oversensitive?

PP: No, the fact that you would even attempt to contradict my assertion is proof of its truth. LALALALALA.

mikaydee: So, you could conceivably call anyone oversensitive, and if they tried to contradict you, you could use that as evidence that they were oversensitive?

PP: Yes, naturally.

mikaydee: Well, what would stop you from calling everyone in the world oversensitive? No one could ever prove you wrong.

PP: Exactly! I would be master of the universe!

mikaydee: But how can everyone in the world be irrefutably oversensitive? Doesn't 'oversensitive' imply a baseline, regular level of sensitivity that one must deviate from in order to be considered oversensitive?
PP: No! Words mean what I decide they mean, and have no empirical correllary!

mikaydee: Then how do you communicate your ideas to other people, if you're sitting there arbitrarily assigning meaning to words and phrases with no objective reference to share with the rest of us?

PP: I don't! I just put random sounds and noises together and demand that others comprehend me. That way I can never be wrong or contradicted!

mikaydee: You mean, like an infant?

PP: Tortiseshell!

mikaydee: Huh?

PP: Manganese peroxide!

mikaydee: Okay well, that could be a thing, but I'm not sure.

PP: Dornfleiebernektsung.

mikaydee: Okay, I'm pretty sure that just sounds German.


(no trolls were harmed in the making of this mockery)

mean girls

Man, North Korea really is like China's embarassing friend from grade school, isn't it? North Korea shows up at the lunch table, does something off-putting and/or insane, and we all steal side glances over in China's direction, muttering "What are you gonna do about this? You guys used to be, like, best friends, right? Take care of it." And China sits there for a moment wondering if doing something about it will make him more or less popular with the cool kids; is it a welcome favor or a tacit admission of guilt by association? It's like an After-School Special, only with intercontinental ballistic missiles instead of football games.

instant messages, the lazy man's blog post

mikaydee: I love this line in a recipe I just requested from my mom: "For more flavor, throw in a couple of ham hocks."
mikaydee: Not salt or pepper, but HAM HOCKS.
mikaydee: Just toss 'em in there.
MS: ha
MS: it's salt+
MS: NaCl!!!
MS: (!!!=ham)
mikaydee: If !!!=ham, then what=bacon?
MS: F'nNaCl