Saturday, August 9, 2008

Kittens and Moonbeam [chat]

It's all just kittens and moonbeams.

70 comments:

Caleb said...

Hey! Hey, Batman!

Roscoe said...

THere's an episode of Bourdain's No Reservations that has Bourdain working with Morcheeba.

Trip Hop, Angry Coooking show, and some BADASSED spoken word, on par with Screenwriters' Blues.

_J_ said...

Hey, Batman!

_J_ said...

Best best best best Venture Brothers episode ever

Caleb said...

I don't think that link does what you think it does.

Roscoe said...

It may not. Then again, I spent much of last night sending offline messages to him calling him a bastard for having watched it early.

Roscoe said...

http://www.the-isb.com/?p=467

For those who've read Dark Knight Returns, I offer some wonderful laughs.

for those who haven't?

BEGONE.

You're dead to me, much like those who aren't Freakazoid fans.

Roscoe said...

Obama/Adama 08?

Adama/Obama?

Coup D'Etat?

hmn...

Mike Lewis said...

Animation Test from the unproduced, animated version Buffy: The Vampire Slayer.

The action is over the top, with the matrix swingy effect. Also the writing sucks.

Caleb said...

Who's the jerk who calls himself The Tick?

I'm that jerk!

Roscoe said...

......... that was a good line, it was.

_J_ said...

"Bufly Vampire Slayor"

So...passing familiarity with the show at least.

Crap damn that is some shitty voice acting / writing / animation.

Also, is Xander Randal? Does Xander not need your Slayer? Will Randal make his own Slayer?

_J_ said...

OH NOEZ DAGRON!

Mike Lewis said...

it is hella sucky.
we were saved from something that could be really awful.

_J_ said...

Why we capitalize I

Roscoe said...

.. the lowercase i in early typeset being indistinctly distinguishable from surrounding words...

that makes a whole HELLUVA lot of sense.

Roscoe said...

the last paragraphs ruin it all like a M. Night movie, though.

Mike Lewis said...

I stopped capitalizing when it wasnt the first letter in a sentence a long time ago. I think a lot of that has to do with IM and its ilk. If we buy into the typeface argument, that is a good reason to stop capitalizing 'i'. the default font for web browsers (and macs) is Helvetica where there is no difference between a capital I and a lowercased L. Also, word auto corrects i into I so i dont have to worry about it either way.

While we are at it, we should drop the ' from contractions.

Unknown said...

no, the apostrophe is necessary in contractions to denote it is a contraction.

Caleb said...

Yeah, that was a bat-shit, unexpected curve right there.

_J_ said...

"While we are at it, we should drop the ' from contractions."

One of the things I like to talk to Adam about is how japanese words have two spellings, the "logical" and the "colloquial".

One's preference for either spelling has to do with the manner in which one wants to assess words. Someone who wants to be able to discern the structure of the word will prefer the logical spelling. Someone who wants to just use the word uses the colloquial spelling.

That's the crux of a lot of language debates with regard to the evolution of spelling and punctuation. Some people focus on use. Others focus on the historical structure.

don't is understood to be the contraction of "do" and "not". If we remove the ' then we have dont. Sure, we can understand what dont has the meaning of "don't", but that's one more thing we have to REMEMBER as opposed to something indicated by the structure of the word.

My philosophy is "fuck colloquial", so I prefer the accurate presentation of words and think the asshole who want "stfu" to be a word need to die in a fucking fire.

Unknown said...

"and think the asshole who want "stfu" to be a word need to die in a fucking fire."

... I see what you did there.

Roscoe said...

Okay..I totally disagree with you on all of that, Mikey.

Even in sans-serifed fonts, there are kerning differences between I and l, and really.. claiming auto-correct will save your grammatical soul is a ticket to terrible. Really, appeals to IM? Isn't that on a 12 step program?

Roscoe said...

J's dead on, even though I've got vast disagreements on his stance towards formalism. His position on the structure defining a meaning, is pretty much dead on.
Look at who all gets tripped up by the possesive its vs the contraction it's.
I do prefer the colloquial for it's ability to form new words and langauge; truthiness, transmetropolitan, scornomancy...

_J_ said...

"Look at who all gets tripped up by the possesive its vs the contraction it's."

Meh.

"I do prefer the colloquial for it's ability to form new words and langauge; truthiness, transmetropolitan, scornomancy...

The logical can form new words. It's a matter of those new words being formed logically as opposed to something else.

MA17 said...

I believe that a language is doing well as long as its users are able to understand each other, and that it is impossible to prevent change in a language. I also believe that forcing a change, even one that undoes a previous change, is at best a complete waste of time.

But that's mostly regarding syntax or spelling or pronunciation. Devising new words is a good idea.

MA17 said...

I saw Kelsey Grammar on maybe Conan one time, talking about how he pronounces "succinct" (suck-sinkt), and how he aspires to reintroduce old, and in his mind, correct pronunciation. Problem with his little hobby is that while he may get away with succinct, he's going to eventually stop making sense as he finds old pronunciations for more words, and when he calls the cops to report being stabbed by a guy with "two knives", I don't know that he'll get any help. Other problem is that there's no clear "earliest" pronunciation upon which to rest. One could out-do Grammar and find an older spelling and pronunciation of succinct and then he'd have to go back even farther until you force him to that proto indo-european language we all apparently come from.

Also, "he'll" is why we need the apostrophe, among other reasons.

MA17 said...

Furthermore, I think Roscoe's new word examples are fairly logical in that they use parts of existing words to make new ones that have reasonably predictable meanings based on the words they incorporate. They behave a bit like "chocoholic" where if you know about chocolate and alcoholics, then you can logically deduce the meaning of the hybrid. Sure, it's colloquial but it's also logical.

MA17 said...

Also, people often make a big deal about how Japanese sentences tend to lack subjects, but frankly it seems a bit redundant to have to put one into every English sentence with the exception of commands.

In English we might say "I'm hot" or "It's hot", both indicating that the speaker feels hot. In Japanese, one would say "atsuii" (hot), omitting the pronoun (and the verb it requires) entirely. I think this is a reasonable thing to do because what real purpose does specifying I'm or its play in the communicating of a sensation? Could the listener possibly think I was talking about someone else or a different place if I didn't provide a subject? Perhaps, but not in a language that only uses subjects when the subject is not clear from context or in some other way bears explicit naming. It's kind of nice being able to leave those words out, especially because of how easy it becomes to avoid the pronoun traps that appear in such as English when trying to decide if it's appropriate to use I/you/one when constructing a hypothetical, or in the common he/she/they connundrum when referring to an unknown party of an unknown gender.

Roscoe said...

Thing is those words AREN'T logical, J.

not in context of their meaning.

Truthiness is about the lack of objective truth.

Transmetropolitan is a meaningless bit of doggerel, it's a formed word meaning something along the lines of relating to the crossing or covering of a city. But the series is not really about that, so much as it's about politics and Spider, no?

And.. Scornomancy.. is it the practice of magic THROUGH scorn? or realating TO scorn?

What? It's just the practice OF scorn? Well, that's no mancy at all.

Adam's close, but it's not so much logical as it is contextual. Truthiness means something because of the Colbert Context.. and I'm sure he's on his way to trademarking that.

Caleb said...

Maybe he'll give it to us with a Creative Commons License.

Roscoe said...

He'd only use the most restrictive of such liscences, though..

or.. more likely, his own, branded variation.

Colbert Commons?

Roscoe said...

For Der J-
http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2008/08/04/diablo-iii-designer-turns-tables/

Roscoe said...

reading through that is kinda interesting.. in that.. it seems, yeah, D2 pulled a number on folks by convincing everyone it was bleak and grim.. and.. yet. it was really vibrant, when you go back.

Unknown said...

Seriously I feel like I'm taking crazy pills, because I love the new art direction. You have no idea how excited I am to be able to leave my gamma at the default level so I can see the god damn game.

That was always the first thing I did with a fresh install, max the gamma, so I could see.

Roscoe said...

I feel like that with nearly every PC game anymore.

in other news,......gah.

blasted fin. aid. I KNEW something was going to come up when it seemed to be resolved without me even being on campus.

I suddenly jumped up to a four thousand dollar credit from 15 hundred this morning. Looking into it, I have two seperate entries for Pending Stafford loans. For the exact same ammount.

and I don't know if that's sub and unsub, or if it's the same entry in a data hiccup over a week's time.

gah.

_J_ said...

"Thing is those words AREN'T logical, J."

I'm talking about the structure of the word rather than the meaning of the word. The words are sensibly structured, grammatically speaking.

"Other problem is that there's no clear "earliest" pronunciation upon which to rest."

Nietzsche started out as a Philologist. One of his "things" was that "there is no primary text", that as one delves back into history one can continually delve and never finds a stopping point with regard to the origin of texts or language.

Which I think is interesting.


I like the art style of Diablo 3. I can see things.

Roscoe said...

so.. you're talking about the mechanisms of compounding words and of creating new suffixes/prefixes, etc?


that's.. interesting... in that it becomes logical, but initially it's a colloqial action. These structures come from colloquial attempts to shape a new concept.

c.f. Bueller's -isms shower monologue and X-aholics Anon.

It's kinda like drink mixing. A martini is gin and vermouth, and we know that. Except it hasn't been one forever. It's vodka and vermouth since we've been born, at least. Except it's not even THAT, it's just a trendy drink in a cocktail glass. And now any drink is a -ini, or a X Martini.

Or.. like the loss of trademark on something common. Coke, Xerox, Kleenex, or Jello.

_J_ said...

"so.. you're talking about the mechanisms of compounding words and of creating new suffixes/prefixes, etc?"

Not really creating new suffixes / prefixes but the manner in which pre-existing suffixes / prefixes are applied to existing words to form new ones.

And just the general structure of the language.

In related news cable is fucking expensive. I think we need to socialize both medicine AND internet service. We've socialized roads. And the internet is basically a road, or a tube....

_J_ said...

Woot. Dark Knight is still in theatres.

I must go see a 2:30 matinee sometime this week.

Unknown said...

you are slowly coming to join the real world, it's so cute :)

My cable is $125/month how about you?

Unknown said...

Side note: I think Schrodinger's wolfman lives in my closet.

_J_ said...

"you are slowly coming to join the real world, it's so cute :)"

These two contrary forces will meet in an epic battle of frustration.

"My cable is $125/month how about you?"

I do not know yet, because I do not know what I'm getting yet.

I'm thinking about only getting internet and no television. So that would be only around $60ish a month.

I'm trying to weight out the pro/con of television. And in the end? Everything I watch television for is available online.

Caleb said...

Word.

Unknown said...

Wow $60/month is crazy. Mine is only $40/month for Internet. Don't know if the fact that I also get television is driving that down at all, though.

Have you looked into DSL at all? Might be able to save some money with DSL, if they are really charging $60/month.

_J_ said...

I'm going to recheck rates tomorrow. I was looking for tv / internet packages and didn't see what internet alone was. So we'll see what numbers they spit out.

I really don't want DSL, but if cable internet is asinine I may have to go with it. Mediacom is the carrier in the area and they have two different cable packages. There's 8 Mbps Cable and 20 Mbps. So we'll see how those price out.

None of the prices they quoted me on the phone matched the site. So, again, I'll just have to call tomorrow to see what they'll charge.

The more I think about it, though, the less I want/need to pay for television.

Roscoe said...

Today's YAD delves into the dangers of reading too much into Dark Knight.

On the one hand, I think.. yeah, there but for the Grace of Brain go I.

On the other hand, I'm stuck thinking "Why you gotta take my image association fun away?"

_J_ said...

Article on Diablo III's art style.

Enjoyable.

Unknown said...

A little late to the party on that one j? look about 15 posts back. Ros already posted that article, or that article he posted linked to it. Either way, i have already read it.

And I think the end of that article explains why I hate Act III so much. It is the act that has the least variance to the terrains, and becomes monotonous pretty fast.

_J_ said...

"It is the act that has the least variance to the terrains, and becomes monotonous pretty fast."

I enjoy the terrain. I enjoy the long straight line through a swamp.

What I hate is the gigantic armies of fetishes that come out of nowhere which make people die.

For Normal and Nightmare Act 3 was one of my favorite places to grind because it was just a long straight line. Sort of like blood runs. Only this was before LoD.

Roscoe said...

The gag here being, of course, that it wasn't one long straight line, but that the branches lead to nearly nothing necessary.

I'm trying to decide if I agree or disagree with Kyle on the lack of terrain varriance. It's not much different from acts 1 or 2. w/ forest, underforest cavern, and Monestary or Sewer, Desert, Desert Tomb.

Perhaps the fact that swampjungle and swampjungle-city were similar in appearance?

Roscoe said...

on the other hand? Today's YAD?

Makes me weep for the Zucker Brothers, and ask "What Happened, Man?"

Roscoe said...

Anyone see this thing about the hidden reserve of endangered Gorillas in Africa found?

Where there were more gorillas found in this small concentrated spot than there were thought to even exist on the continent?

Best line I've seen regarding it:
"Gorilla City has been found. League expects retaliation by Grodd imminent."

Unknown said...

In act 1 you were constantly switching between outdoors and caves/dungeons

act II you were in the desert, but went into a dungeon every other desert zone, until you got the staff completed, at which point you go to some magical stairwell place.

In act III you walk through some swamp jungle to get to more swamp jungle. The dungeons that break up the monotony are relatively small and short (spider cave, and fetish dungeon). then back to more swamp jungle. The only real dungeon you enter before mephisto's was 3 zones long and it was ridiculously monotonous being nothing but stone squares surrounded by water connected by bridges (sewers).

Act IV only had 3 zones that I can remember all very different. Plains at the start, followed by the lake of fire hell zone, then diablo's castle/lair thing.

Sorry that I don't remember the zone names all that well.

Unknown said...

and yes, the new found gorilla population more than doubled our world gorilla population estimates.

Roscoe said...

Yeah, 4's are different. And you and Jay are both right about 3's linearity making the areas pretty much a gradual shift if at any.

But.. you don't make a distintion between the swampy jungle and the overgrown city?

Becuase.. those are fairly distinct in my eyes.

Roscoe said...

yeah, but again. Grodd's aware of Gorilla City. And no one knows where the Flash is. So, it'll likely drop soon.

Roscoe said...

In other news....

as useful as the suffix can be for constrained discussions?

I'm beginning to LOATHE the (blank)-iverse construction.

I'm kinda sick of seeing it misused.

Roscoe said...

Also... there are levels of discussion upon the internet that drive me away from being a fan of anything.

Comics, video games, television, whathaveyou.

There are fans who can discuss things well and interesstingly.

And then there are those who.... can't. But try and fail. and make me like things just a little less.

Roscoe said...

Things I learned today:

Oppossums are double-wombed.

Roscoe said...

Things YOU all learned today:

Nature abhors a vacuum, and I abhore having half a thought unspoken.

So.. I speaks my half-thoughts everywhere.

what? You thought I'd finish it? (wags finger) Ain't you learned better yet?

_J_ said...

"But.. you don't make a distintion between the swampy jungle and the overgrown city?"

Act 3 is still one long straight shot from start to finish. If one maps it out in single player and then looks at the map? Long straight line.

I thought the other acts did an excellent job of breaking things up. Act 2 has desert, sanctuary, deser. Act 1 is divided into different forests / swamps / and whatnot. Act 4 has river of flame to divide the two main areas. Act 5 is act 5.

Act 3 is probably the most linear in terms of the overall map structure.

Unknown said...

linear and unbroken up.. Jungle, jungle, jungle, jungle-city (sewer), jungle-city (sewer), jungle-city (sewer), travincal, dungeon level 1, dungeon level 2, dungeon level 3. Notice how the jungle and jungle-cities both just wear on and on and on, very little breaks in the action for those zones, just the same zone over and over with a different name.

_J_ said...

As I stated before, I don't mind Act 3 being linear. When every other act is broken up it's nice to have an act that is just a straight line. It's a break in the monotony of change.

What I hate is walking along "dum de dum dum" and then being ambushed by 50 fetishes.

_J_ said...

Books are heavy.

Roscoe said...

monotony of change

I'm on to your little game....

_J_ said...

It is an enjoyable game.

Roscoe said...

This is why you should have been an English major.

_J_ said...

"This is why you should have been an English major.

Fuck those people.

_J_ said...

Missed this one:

"These two, by the way, are the authors of "The Philosophy Of Batman: The Dark Knight Of The Soul", which is one more point in my Unified Shit Theory, specifically, the corollary that any book entitled The Blank Of Blank, where the first blank is some intellectual discipline, and the second blank is some nerdy pop culture thing, IS SHIT. The Genetics Of The X-Men? SHIT. The Physics Of Stargate: Atlantis? SHIT. The Epidemiology of Halo 3? SHIT. Stop writing these books, and stop excerpting them in major publications as if they weren't desperate cries for help."

Yes.