Crass. Just crass.

Nick just told me about a new Fox gameshow. “The Chamber”, that ran last night. Apparently, it’s come down to out-and-out torture for money.

So how long does everyone think it’ll be before we fence off the openings in a football stadium and go back to throwing people in there with lions? The Fox Network will jump at that, I’m sure…

Mixed Marriages CAN Work!

Just finished re-reading the third of the Lord of the Rings books, and looked up some dates in the Appendix… at the time of the first movie, Aragorn (Strider) is 85 years old! I want to look that good when I’m 85 – guess I’d better start working on it now 🙂

The elven princess Arwen, on the other hand, is a youthful 2800. Elrond is somewhere in the 8,000 – 12,000 year old range… when he starts on the “Back in MY day…” line, he means it…

I have been chosen to serve the MCP…

I really tried to resist posting yet another test result here… and, as you see, I failed miserably.

What Video Game Character Are You? I am a Light Cycle. I am a Light Cycle.

I drive fast, I turn fast, I do everything fast. I even breakfast. I tend to confuse people with my sudden changes of heart. Sometimes I even confuse myself, which tends to cause problems. What Video Game Character Are You?

I can’t say I think this one really got me right… I think Kong is closer. But hey, it’s an online test. 🙂

A Question of Identity (long-winded)

I’ve been looking at sites about gaming on the Macintosh, and read again an article I’d seen a few weeks ago. Seems that Mark Adams, a well-known Mac gaming figure who runs one of the major porting houses, publically announced New Year’s that she would now be known as Glenda Adams. Yes, she was remaining with her spouse Suellen; yes, she was having the medical therapy to adjust her body to her personal identity, etc. As has happened so often, articles like these get me all philosophical.

Maybe it comes from growing up a fan and being exposed to a lot of outlandish ideas, but for me, identity is all in the head. Nothing external is a true part of your identity – I’ve often tended to think of my body as simply a vehicle which I used to expose my mind to various things. Kind of a small, somewhat fragile, organic BattleMech for my psyche. 🙂

I don’t think of myself as “a brunette” – I just am brunette. I don’t consider myself “a Caucasian” – I just happen to have skin at the paler end of human range. It helped me deal with my Borg replacements better, not to think that I was “losing” part of myself, but just swapping out a broken part. (In fact, I’ve been heard to complain that they could at least have installed the 100 MPH legs while they were in there.)

So I don’t consider myself “a male” – I just happen to be a person in a male body. (Which, btw, I’m quite satisfied with – don’t get me wrong.) People are people, and common courtesy dictates that we let them be who they are, not who we think they should be. I think that if more people would take that into account, we’d have a less stress-ridden society.

This philosphy is what gives me the confidence to wear a vinyl dress to Halloween and freak out some people. :p

Sluggy Freelance legos!

First the Monty Python legos, now…

Sluggy Freelance legos!

(copyright 2001 Pete Abrams)

New iMacs are up

Pictures leaked courtesy of Time Magazine.

Should be easy to recognize these puppies on TV or magazine photos!

Weeks without posting and this is the best I could do

Apple’s announcing new product at next week’s Macworld Expo. My reliable insider sites have been saying things like “1.2 gigaherz G4 PowerMacs” and “cheaper, smaller, lighter iMacs with 15 inch LCD screens”, not to mention possible bugfixes to OS X.

This week, Apple’s put blurbs on their front page such as “Far Beyond The Rumor Sites”. This, of course, has the rumor sites whipped into even more of a frenzy. Here’s the latest: a Apple PDA to compete with all those Palm and Windows CE machines out there.

iWalk PDA

http://www.spymac.com posted this image, along with a video (which you have to register to see).

If Apple sold a PDA, and it was competitively priced against a Palm, I’d consider it. But it would start with no apps, probably be as expensive as all Apple hardware, and besides, that thing in the picture looks like a mockup to me. One dial to control a PDA?

Guess we’ll see next week…

Non-elven personnel

Foo, I thought I’d be a hobbit. Well, I’d tell you what happens to me in the last movie, but I don’t want to spoil it for anyone…

Theoden

Theoden

If I were a character in The Lord of the Rings, I would be Theoden, Man of Rohan, King of the Mark, and uncle of Eomer and Eowyn.

In the movie, I am played by Bernard Hill.

Who would you be?
Zovakware Lord of the Rings Character Test

Autobots

The online test says I’m Prowl too. I really hoped to be Jetfire ;P

LotR Themes

One of the things that I always found saddest about “Lord of the Rings” is the sub-theme of loss. When the elves made the Rings of Power, they bound much of the magic of Middle-Earth into them; and when the dark lord Sauron made the One Ring, he was able to bind the other elven rings to his. Therefore, the elves know that if Sauron wins the War of the Ring, Middle-Earth will descend into darkness; but if the One Ring is destroyed, it will rob the elven rings of their power and take much of the magic from Middle-Earth. For them, it is a no-win scenario.

The elven lord Elrond feels this most directly in the love of his daughter Arwen for the human Aragorn. If Aragorn is defeated by Sauron, Elrond and Arwen will remain together for centuries, even if they must leave Middle-Earth for the “Undying Lands”. (The elven paradise, unreachable by mortals; distinct from the afterlife, reachable by everyone once on a one-way trip.)
However, if Aragorn is victorious, Elrond will leave for the Undying Lands alone, knowing that his daughter will die a mortal’s death.

Don’t get me wrong – the trilogy’s not a downer at all. But it is complicated; and the child in me that wished for perfect happy endings wanted to change that part of the story, somehow.

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