So, Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus...

I could just write a more conventional review of the movie, but instead I'll just write a checklist of things that are in the movie. Perhaps this will sway your decision to watch it:

1. An explanation as to why why the shark gets to be mega and not the octopus
2. Tons of scientific sounding jargon
3. Lots of food color chemistry
4. The Golden Gate bridge gets destroyed
5. Bad clip footage (see 8)
6. A retired/washed-up stripper as the female lead (Vivek: Doesn't she look like a retired stripper? Me: ...no, Vivek, I don't know what you mean
7. Snarky/sarcastic male lead (who reminds me of the main antagonist in Kindergarten Cop) complete with an inappropriate (for his station) suit, ponytail, and sideburns
8. Amazing use of clip footage (see 5)
9. A transforming fighter plane (goes from an F-15 to an F/A-18 to an F-22)
10. A tender love scene between a Mega Shark and a Giant Octopus
11. Amazing one-liners
12. An Asian male romantic lead hooking up with a Caucausian female lead... in a broom closet
13. Silver ties
14. Some bad spelling
15. Snakes + Plane << Giant Shark + Plane
16. Bad CGI
17. Weird and bizarrely awkward sexual tension scenes
18. Massive advertisement for the incredibly exciting and adventurous lives of oceanographers. See more below.

This is a list on "Why you should be an oceanographer;" they get to:
1. Use skills from a range of disciplines, including: philosophy, physics, chemistry, and biology (with a focus on marine biology)
2. Pilot submarines
3. Act in some capacity as G-Men
4. Effectively outrank a ship's captain (or in this case, boat); at least in the Japanese submarine fleet (which is super-secret)
5. Wear silver ties as a badge of office
6. Hook up with "hot" (depending on your preference) women

Seriously, if this movie is a realistic depiction of what they do (and according to the "Making Of" special feature, realism was a strong focus), I'd want to be an oceanographer.

I wonder what tropes are in this movie...

New Mechwarrior Game!

Figure 1. Another day at the office...

I just learned that there's a new Mechwarrior game coming out (from Piranha Games along with Smith & Tinker). It's supposed to be a "reboot" of the series kind of like the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica. I certainly hope so; Battletech certainly has some campy elements and it could use a harder edge overall. I, obviously, have a hard sci-fi/military bias -- there just isn't a lot of it out there, alas.

But now, I'm going to write about what I noticed in this video. Immediately, the viewer is informed that this little vignette takes place on the planet Deshler in 3015. Deshler is on the Federated Suns' (Coreward?) border with the Draconis Combine in the Draconis March. I also happen to like Level 1/Late Succession War (3rd/4th) stuff AND the House Davion-House Kurita conflict so this video had me immediately excited.

As an aside (and I'm struggling not to make an entire post of asides), there's a sort of standard for all Mechwarrior game intros, at least starting from Mechwarrior 2: 31st Century Combat and going on to at least Mechwarrior 3. Having watched this video, I can say that there isn't the same sense of... desperation and heart-pounding action, but it's still pretty good. Also, all the videos tend to follow the same progression, but I'll not get into that. Now, on to the nit-picky and 'mech identification...

The protagonist of sorts is piloting a Warhammer. I don't think I've ever seen a Warhammer in a Mechwarrior computer game. It's not quite the Unseen version, but I rather prefer that. Based on the observed weapons fire, I assume that it is the common (of the time) WHM-6R model.


Figure 2. I rather like the newer stylings of this non-Unseen Warhammer.

He encounters a Jenner. Based on the HUD readout and the era, I assume that it is a JR7-D; so maybe it's the DCMS as the enemy?


Figure 3. That's one of the stranger looking Jenners I've seen.

A Warhammer vs. a Jenner? It should be pretty obvious where this is going. A third 'mech makes an appearance:


Figure 4. I'm not sure what an Atlas C is, but I do know that you don't want to be right in front of one.

While the HUD read-out says something about a "C" model, it can't be an AS7-C as that model shouldn't exist for awhile later. I can only assume that it is an AS7-D, as that's really the only variant that was running around at the time. Anyway, the majority of the fight is between these two beasts and this is where one of my questions is answered:


Figure 5. Now that's a PPC blast!

All of the Mechwarrior 2 type games had this kind of bizarre kind of ball-lightning version of the PPC that seemed sort of at odds with the fluff in the fiction. This was fixed in Mechwarrior 3; the above PPC blast seems more consistent with that and what I've read.

On a somewhat unrelated note, the most recent comment (at the time of viewing) was one of the dumber comments I've seen. That is, dumb under the veneer of intelligence:


Figure 6. A moron.

I suppose that's really neither here nor there.

Ringtones I want...

...though am not sure about whom they would be assigned:

1. "Green Bird" from Cowboy Bebop (Yoko Kanno)
2. The title song from Max Payne 2 (or is it 1?)
3. Ron Perlman saying "War. War never changes."
4. The creepy music from whenever you're near a Witch in L4D
5. Some of Francis's "I hate ," also from L4D
6. Something (lots of things) from TF2

[2:33:56 PM] Peter A. Combs: Hmm... I think I may make "Who touched sasha?!" your ringtone now.

Friendisms!

So, one natural consequence of any tight knit group of friends is the generation and evolution of certain inside jokes/sayings. You might even call some of them aphorisms. Because I am stuck at work and posting away, I will open the call to catalogue these:

Ethanisms
-So hard, so hard
-I don't know why he didn't punch her in the stomach
-That was distasteful

Ozanisms

Vivekisms

Peterisms

LeAnnisms

Andyisms

More Pseudoscientific Units!

So, no one else suggested anything, but I think we're going to go with the following:

Douchery will be measured in Pratts (Pr), for Spencer Pratt; here's an example of his douchery. Note: The abbreviation will not be "P," as that is the symbol for poise (on a side note, measuring viscosity is a kind of annoying exercise). I, unfortunately, don't know how to zero this scale or have any useful comparisons; I suppose I could make Spencer Pratt = 1 Pr, but there are a couple of issues here:

1. That would make most everything else in fractional Pratts, but I guess that's okay. I mean, most of the time, things are measured in fractional Tesla, right?
2. It's a moving target; the trend for Spencer Pratt's douchery is to increase. That is to say that his douchery is non-static. I suppose we could freeze him and store him at some institute of standards... I mean, I'm all for freezing him.
3. This really isn't an issue, but I have a suggestion on how to make Pratts even more representative of douche-y: it should be a non-Metric unit. So, 7 Pratts = 1 Cruise (Cr) (this is merely an example. I don't know how to compare Spencer Pratt to Tom Cruise).

Frustration will be measured in Friscos (Fi). I should go back and expand on how much I dislike that person to really build a more complete profile of frustration. Also, in keeping with the idea of being frustrated, I again propose that Friscos be non-Metric. Another unit of frustration should be Claw Shrimp (CS)... how about 13 Fi = 1 CS?

Please, make more suggestions as you see fit.

A glimpse at my general thought process.

Basically, for trivial things that excite me a lot, my thought process can be broken down into roughly four steps:


So, the first frame represents the question or point of interest. The second frame represents my contemplation of the first frame. The third frame represents a solution or proposal of action to the first frame. The fourth frame represents my response to the third frame. Do you need a flowchart for that? I hope not.

Note: This image was taken without permission from here. If you like Metal Gear Solid (MGS), I strongly recommend checking out the rest of the comics. They're a pretty good synopsis of the series, in the same way that Yu-Gi-Oh: The Abridged Series is a good synopsis of Yu-Gi-Oh. That is to say, it is fucking amazing.

In case you're wondering how this all came about, it's mainly due to a discussion about the vagaries/idiosyncrasies of rank nomenclature in the US military -- all branches, but mainly the Army. In fact, I thought of this comic mainly because of how appending "Big" to "Boss" to make "Big Boss" echoes or parallels the "laziness" of the existing rank nomenclature:

[6/9/2009 4:40:49 PM] Ozan D: yup
[6/9/2009 4:41:05 PM] Ozan D: they have some pretty random ranks
[6/9/2009 4:41:08 PM] Me: Haha.
[6/9/2009 4:41:13 PM] Ozan D: like they needed more ranks, but ran out of creativity.
[6/9/2009 4:41:23 PM] Ozan D: "gunnery sergeant"
[6/9/2009 4:41:26 PM] Ozan D: "master sergeant"
[6/9/2009 4:41:29 PM] Ozan D: ...
[6/9/2009 4:41:33 PM] Ozan D: "master gunnery sergeant"
[6/9/2009 4:43:47 PM] Ozan D: it's kinda like "you're not fooling anybody. you just put two ranks together."

On a side note regarding ranks in the branches of the US military, how many can you get correctly? I got 88; I can't believe I missed all of the Petty Officer ranks.

Finally, to tie this all back into the original point of this point and as an illustration of my thought process:

[6/9/2009 5:01:59 PM] Me: Boo, they don't have anything else military related that is also trivial like that.
[6/9/2009 5:02:06 PM] Me: Sporcle, I mean.
[6/9/2009 5:03:01 PM] Ethan K: you could make one
[6/9/2009 5:03:18 PM] Me: !!!
[6/9/2009 5:03:19 PM] Me: I COULD.
[6/9/2009 5:03:29 PM] Me: Weapons used by the US Military by war.
[6/9/2009 5:03:30 PM] Ozan D: i am imagining andy saying this.
[6/9/2009 5:03:35 PM] Ozan D: it is pretty awesome.

Ooh, ooh, time for some pseudoscience!

Of course, not to be confused with a psuedocarp.

So, if you had to come up for a unit of measure for "douchery", what would it be? My friend Ozan thinks that it should be, in typical form, related to the name of a notable douchebag, though the exact person needs to be determined:

[2:43:51 PM] Ozan D: you certainly wouldn't want to choose the biggest douche you could find
[2:44:02 PM] Ozan D: since that would make everybody else have fractional douchery
[2:44:07 PM] Me: Right.
[2:44:23 PM] Me: Well, fractional douchery is fun.
[2:44:28 PM] Me: Because then you can use metric prefixes.
[2:44:34 PM] Ozan D: but you would almost certainly want someone whose defining characteristic is douchery
[2:44:35 PM] Me: Which make it sound more science-y.,
[2:44:46 PM] Ozan D: that is, they don't have any other important qualities.
[2:44:53 PM] Andrew Chen: Like a microdouche.

If we were to make this a rigorous kind of thing (and not pseudoscience), I suppose I should define what douchery is. I won't. Instead, I present to you a list of douchebags (I'm lazy, it was one of the first links I Googled). EDIT: I don't like this list. For one, it's even lazier than me and is sort of an example of approaching the Godwin limit. I suggest simply going by what you define as a douchebag, because, really, there is no really rigorous definition of douchery. Any proposals for units, of course, should be accompanied by an appropriately humorous reason.

On a related note, Vivek provided me with a funny term: the douchebaguette.

ESPN and the Konami Code

So, I've seen the Konami Code in a lot of strange places, but this is one of the stranger implementations in terms of location (ESPN) and effect (rainbow ponies). You'll note the publication date of that article to be a non 1 Apr day. You'll also note, unfortunately, that the function has been removed from the ESPN site. Instead, go take a look at Google's cache of the page. Thanks Google!

P.S. I believe that the "start" button isn't technically part of the code, but is the key you have to press to execute the code. For ESPN, the "enter" key (as in the article) will be your equivalent.

Hau: so awesome hahahah
Hau: and then keep pressing buttos
Hau: buttons after you input the code
Hau: hahahaha
Hau: this is so ridiculously entertaining

(For later, perhaps include a reference to the song "front front back back side to side")

And I read them!

So, I went ahead and read all three volumes of Cat Shit One that were set in Vietnam; a quick read at about two to three hours. There are a couple more volumes that take place in the late eighties (the descriptions seem to suggest the Iran Hostage Crisis).

So, having read the comics, I have confirmed that they're pretty good. Why? Well, for one, I'm a military anorak, so I can't really help it. Just don't lump me in with Tom Clancy; that guy has no imagination and is a complete whack-job. The level of realism (from my perspective as an informed, non-expert enthusiast) is pretty good. There are some good footnotes and references for the times that military lingo is used in addition to some neat mid-volume inserts with some background information.

Second, these three volumes are set during the Vietnam War, which is one of my two favorite wars. Now before you go nuts about how I could even have a "favorite war," let me explain. The conflict in Vietnam was and is still quite interesting to me. The lines weren't as clear as wars previous (like World War II), the horrors and futilities of war fighting were more apparent (compared to other previous conflicts) in some ways, there was a lot of assymetry in how the conflicts were carried out... I could go on for awhile. What can I say -- there's just something about Vietnam.

Third, the main focus of the stories involves special operations (not to be confused with Special Forces); if I am enthusiastic about the military, I'm especially so for special operations. Heck, there's even a weird sort of cameo/recurring character in the real life Charles Beckwith, otherwise known as the main founder of our 1-SFOD.

If you like Vietnam era conflict, also take a look into the Punisher Born comics; they are similarly fucking awesome.

MGS4 + Redwall/Mouse Guard = Cat Shit One

So, I found this interesting little anime/manga called Cat Shit One: The Animated Series. Don't let the name scare you; it doesn't appear to have anything to do with shit. It's no secret that I love military themed shows, and the more "realistic" the better. I say "realistic" because I'm no expert and so I couldn't really tell if what's being portrayed is correct, but there you have it.

First, I want to say that there are some really obvious MGS4 stylings here: the game is post Cold War and appears to be about the rise of PMCs (private military companies/corporations or mercenaries) and in the Middle East. The music is set "appropriately" and the opening follows a truck before deployment. The similarities are more than startling. But enough of that; perhaps it's an attempt to generate interest by riding off of MGS4 and I'm okay with that.

It looks to be about two Americans (Americans are represented by rabbits) named Packy and Botaski doing a mission(s) in the Middle East somewhere. I'm going to assume they're not part of an official military unit; maybe non-official or semi-official. The persons who I imagine to be Arabs are represented by what look like camels (oh, that's clever). Packy and Botaski are assaulting some village to rescue their friends (?). Other than that, there are some nice bits of realism that I can sort of pick out... and I always love trying to identify weapons.

Packy seems to be armed with an AR15 style weapon; at first glance it would appear to be a carbine kitted out with all the normal fittings... so an M4 perhaps. A closer look, mainly at the magazine, reveals that it is probably an KAC SR47 or SR47-type weapon. The curvature of the AK47 magazines is quite distinct:



Around this point, he also discards his primary arm and transfers to his sidearm. I'm guessing the reason for the inclusion of this bit is because it looks awesome when you can smoothly transfer to your sidearm and put someone down. I do have some questions though; why did he toss the weapon aside? I can understand why it wasn't slinged to him -- a sling can be used against you if someone sneaks up and pulls the sling, thus trapping you and your weapon, especially if you have no one watching your back. There didn't appear to be any diagnosis of weapon malfunction; but then again, you can learn a lot just by the way the trigger pull feels and in a really tight situation, why take the chance (I guess)? He later appears to use his primary weapon, so the malfunction wasn't an actual jam or part failure. His sidearm also appears to be American; maybe some sort of M1911 (but is a bit "blockier" than most). It is hard to tell from this picture though, so it's mostly a guess on my part:



Botaski appears to be using some sort of M14 weapon with an EBR stock:



Nice. I'm glad to see something other than a massive hard-on for HK weapons... though, I am American, so there's my bias.

Anyway, none of this actually says anything about the content of this series. I can't wait for it to come out!

Notes after the fact:
The Sister: But that doesn't make sense - they don't even have opposable thumbs!

Ozan D.: oh no. they've gotten andy. we're too late.
Alex C.: dude, it's metal gear bunnies. of course they got andy

Christine W.: bunnies shooting people
Christine W.: i'm not surprised you liked this
Me: That's what my friends said too.
Me: I'd say it's bunnies shooting camels...