Category: Mild Lunacy

August 14, 2003 /

Power’s out in the whole northeast world, which, when I heard it, made me really nervous. I thought they were supposed to get better about this kind of thing! But then they say in the same article repeatedly that it’s not terrorism. So it’s one of two things:

  • It’s really a power grid screwup, not terrorism.
  • It’s terrorism, they just don’t want to cause a panic.

If it’s the first, I feel perfectly justified in posting this; if it’s the second, I will pretend I’m aiding the effort to keep things calm by relieving the tension with humor.

I mean, it’s big. It’s not terrorists. That really leaves only one possibility, you know?

Supervillains.

Update 8.15.2003 0839 hrs: Oh, never mind.

August 10, 2003 /

I got a new toaster oven this weekend, and I’m a little afraid of it. I am a huge fan of toaster ovens, which are both cuter and more wieldy than your typical harvest-gold Kenmore stove. Also, they actually allow you to SEE if your toast is getting overdone, which is plus ten points. (Why don’t they make toasters with glass sides? [Because the constant fluctuation in temperature would cause them to explode, showering you with glass.] Well still!)

Yet this toaster oven has me awed and a little frightened. My past experience with toaster ovens has been with old, comfy appliances, the kind that can dial all the way up to REDUCE TO CARBON and only achieve a kind of mild browning. My new toaster oven (suggestions on a name, anyone?), though, is a mite more enthusiastic. It’s the young, brash Loose Cannon from the buddy cop movie. It hits dark brown before the dial is even on medium, and I’m too scared to try the darkest setting on anything edible. I bet it could burst into flames.

Maria: ACK! Brendan, your toast has burst into flames!
Brendan: Oh no! Crap, get the extinguisher!
Maria: There’s no time! You’re going to have to throw it out the window!
Brendan: Aww MAN! (grabs oven mitts, shoulders aside balcony door and tosses toaster oven off with a smoky plume)
Maria: Where’d it go?
Brendan: I think it–
Maria: BRENDAN! You hit and killed that elderly philanthropist!
Toaster Oven: HA HA HA HU-MANS

Seriously, I do like it. It makes nachos and pot pies well, and those essential functions will serve it admirably. I was also going to buy this neat little eight-dollar Target waffle-maker; I abandoned the idea since the oven maxed out my toaster budget, but then Maria bought it anyway. This nearly doubles my breakfast-cooking options. If I learn to bake granola, I’ll be a breakfast bandit!

Maria: No, toaster oven, don’t! It’s too dangerous!
Toaster Oven: IT IS OVER FOR YOU, BREAKFAST BAN-DIT
Brendan: You’ll never take me alive, buddy coppers!
(hail of gunfire, and the smell of burned fingers)

July 25, 2003 /

Today’s Doonesbury, even though it’s the “Summer Daydream,” implies that Mike is interested in someone other than Kim. The original (1998?) Mike-and-Kim story, including both major arcs, is collectively my favorite Doonesburies ever. If Mike is tired of Kim, Mike needs to die.

Speaking of great comic storylines, Checkerboard Nightmare just wrapped up (I presume) probably my favorite continuous run of strips in its history; Wednesday’s edition packs more great lines into four panels than the fire marshal really allows. I talk about Checkerboard Nightmare a lot, and I still don’t talk about it enough. I was going through the archives a while back and noticed that Mr. Straub produced these three strips all within one week. Those are some of the most perfect one-shots ever committed to pixel. I can’t stand it!

July 21, 2003 /

Overheard from the cubicle next to me, just now:

“Oh, you know George! I say we kill him.”

July 14, 2003 /

The LeonardR writes:

“I made a doob-doob (http://www.crummy.com/2002/09/03/1) rendition of Xorph. I’d give you a picture, but I have no way of getting it to you.”

First, that makes me feel bad, since I haven’t updated Xorph in a long, long time. Well, no, first it makes me feel all tingly and flushed, as happens every time someone cool talks about my comic. Second it makes me feel bad. Third: Leonard has made fan art for Xorph; the fan art is made of paper; I have never seen this fan art; I have also never seen most things made of paper. The question this poses, obviously, is are all paper things I haven’t seen actually Xorph fan art?, but I kind of like it better unanswered.

May 27, 2003 /

I want the last two shots to be the last Idiotcams© from in Rodes 2, but there’s a problem: apparently I spent all of senior week adding to the Plastic Mullet Series.

Yes, I am aware that thanks to the Fox network, mullets themselves have jumped the shark, but I still find the plastic mullet itself (which turns out to have belonged to Lisa all along, and which she ended up donating to me) a singularly baroque object. It possesses a level of absurdity above and beyond that of the standard mullet picture. It is, in short, a higher calling.

That I might better answer its siren song, I present to you Plastic Mullet Extravalooza 2K3! This unprecedented collection not only the mighty Darren at last, but new inanimate objects and the only girl who’s ever seemed happy to be wrangled into the headdress. If you order now, you’ll also get Jon’s whole entire dang family, not to mention a couple of Lallys (elder and younger). To top it all off, this one-time-only special captures the elusive Evan and–yes!–my own sister!

Back to bittersweet angst soon, I promise, but right now I’m going to have to glory in the possession of this much dirt on so many people. I hope none of you ever want to run for office, guys. I own you.

May 11, 2003 /

Spam: 

	236865@delphi.com		Increased skin thickness and texture!	599000110

I'm a rhino!

February 7, 2003 /

Via Crummy comes a site with screen caps from a bootleg Asian DVD of The Two Towers, glorious subtitles included. A lot of them are just random, but these five are better than anything I could have come up with. The top left one’s a Unix nerd joke. The bottom right one is, somehow, going to be my new desktop wallpaper.

root toast I say toast
sister love

December 3, 2002 /

Managed to sleep for three hours. For me, Mister Doesn’t Nap, that’s fairly hardcore. I feelbetter, if not nearly better enough to do everything I have to do tonight. Onward, men! Bring me mysword and red shirt!

Anyway, music. I recently rediscovered that the soundtrack to Sneakers is excellent walking-around music, especially in winter. I think itwould also be great music for a silent underwater documentary, or a console RPG, and would like totest those theories someday. BrendanCo: Where the music for everything is the soundtrack toSneakers!

Something about providing great semi-rare music illegally, blah blah blah. Listen to this, it’s myfavorite track.

james_horner_feat._branford_marsalis_-_’too_many_secrets’.mp3