One of these things just doesn't belong
Can you tell which thing is not like the others
By the time I finish my song? ♫



Did you guess which thing was not like the others? If you guessed that the other branches are 1.5 inches in diameter, but the right lowermost branch is made of one thousand crocodile tongues boiled in the skull of a dead witch for twenty days and nights with the eyeballs of a lizard, then you're absolutely right!

( snake news in pictures )

So. I live with crocuta, hyenagirl, and westly_roanoke in Fremont, CA now. Yeah.

...and you know what that means. Time for STARFISH HITLER.


Don't forget Part 2. It has a romantic ending.

(Crossposted to furcon.)

As promised, here are my videos for FC (or at least out of the twenty-three gigabytes I'm willing to sort through). Below I present you with such rare scenes as: dancing! And… dancing! And a number of random spectacles FOLLOWED BY MORE DANCING! D:

-Random moments, set to Cats on Mars because I realized it required some kind of music but I couldn't be bothered with trying to come up with something appropriate.
-Caspian and EmoBurd at the dance!
-Lmnop in the ball pit, doing Lmnop stuff.
-More of the ball pit, in which we break the damn thing.
-The Macarena outbreak, documenting the 6 minute spread of infection from start to finish.
-Vega at the dance!
-Brillo at the dance!
-Masquerade act 26, 27: Millikan and Wolf Link, who happens to be a sacred beast.

Additional convention highlights I recall:
—A bewildered middle-aged Asian couple, CLEARLY not with the convention, blundering into one of the dances in wide-eyed delight. They were very inquisitive and took pictures. I have a short bit of them on video but I couldn't really fit it anywhere.
—One of the hotel staff girls wearing an understated pair of ears and a tail on the job and gushing about her shift being over so she could mill around the con-space. I'm not certain, but I think I may have her in one of the dance videos.
—The professional hula dancer opening act of the variety show which refused to die for nearly a half hour (by comparison, the other acts averaged less than 5 minutes). People actually blogged while it was in progress to complain. Later came the Welcome to Hell sketch based off the Rowan Atkinson routine, except something felt, um… off… the whole time. It might have been the parts where the Devil's tone of bored annoyance and bureaucratic geniality felt swapped with less-funny snarling anger and denuded sadism, but it most likely it was this line: "And finally, the Jews. Jews? Ah. Yes. *slow mocking sympathy* I'm afraid the Christians were right. If you could just get over here that would be really kind of you…" whereupon the audience went from a sympathetic mixed-bag to scattered boos followed by uncomfortable silence. Of course this is the opposite of the Atkinson line, and I really hope it was a flub, because otherwise, wow. Just… wow.

Dammit prawns, you don't go on a sandwich.

Been killing sickness time with Nation States recently. It's a little online browser game created to promote the book Jennifer Government, in which you create a small country with it's own flag, currency, and political style, then brutalize its helpless, captive populous through a series of psychotic laws you pass on a daily basis to drive them into insanity and cannibalism. Or not, but that's what I did. My nation is Automated Joy Inc, and its staff of 62 million employees loves you to the maximum extent of the law. Profile information is generated automatically from your decisions, and the "game" basically consists entirely of making said decisions and watching your profile change, and maybe roleplaying with other nations in some UN parody (the game is notable for having received a cease and desist order from the real United Nations to stop using their name). Due to a misread word in the creation process, corporations are both above the law and illegal… which I guess works out fine. Tonight I'm banning product liability suits and privatizing nature. My advisors tell me "there are people enjoying themselves without paying for it," and that's just antisocial, I say.

Tangentially, my flag is Angola, which is tied with Albania and Trinidad & Tobago for blatantly villainous flags. Meanwhile Martinique's is snakes, Bhutan's and Wales' are dragons, and the Isle of Man's is a triskelion of 3 disembodied legs stuck together and their motto is 'whichever way you throw it, it will stand.' See they have a legend that "Manannán repelled an invasion by transforming into the three legs and rolling down the hill and defeating the invaders." Yeeeah.

Back from FC. I'm lightheaded from having caught the Death on the last night, so I'll be fairly brief and let the gallery speak for itself. I'm somewhere on page 2, and very briefly at around 4:50 in this parade video. Also redstorm is the yellow cat right after, and crocuta is the second hyena at 4:25. It was my first year in the parade, so I was easily distracted and confused. I almost wore a crumpled Hawaiian shirt over my getup, due to the *shudder* "Surf Safari" theme, but thought better of it. Next year's theme, supposedly, will be "The California Gold Rush" which is… just… yeah.

Special highlights included:
—A furry (I assume) being led away by the police in tears and handcuffs as I approached the motel. When I asked the desk clerk about it he would only say "routine check." Drugs?
—The appearance of Sarah Palin (page 1). See, it's funny now that she can't do anything to us anymore for the next 4 years. That's my newspaper she's holding. See also this and this. She has 3 fursuits.
—Trying to come up with more positives… but… euuuh… So, I was at McDonalds, and this fat woman ordered about a half dozen fries, and then she kept bringing them back to the register one by one, telling the girl on the other side to replace them with hot, new fries straight from the basket. And the girl would wordlessly take the uneaten package, drop it in the trash, and wait for the machine to grease up a new batch. And then the fat lady would come back later with another package and the girl would do it again. She had this hollowed-out, thousand-yard stare on her face all the time. I felt so bad for her. I wanted to tip her $10 just for bringing me my fucking McMuffin. The woman didn't look like she was with us (or I hope not); all the furries in the room were positively flaming.

So to summarize, yeah, it was totally fun. Videos later, sometime.

If you wrap a frozen mouse in a heating pad on it's lowest setting, when you come back two hours later you will have… a frozen mouse. However, when you come back eight hours later you will have an exploded mouse. A snake will still eat it, however the abnormally violent reaction to the heat and smell combined with the nonexistent structural integrity will result in spray of orange-brown liquid gore, which can only be described as "hairy mouse chili," in all directions. This will require cleaning the entire cage, followed by airing the curiously delicious aroma permeating the entire room.

I just thought I'd share that.



Also, snake is a dumbass. He tried to swallow a pipe 20 times the size of his head because it had mouse juice on it.

© Tirrel

So some of you may remember my rattlesnake-eating-mice-to-Alice-Cooper video on the YouTube. Well, it was just pulled for an audio copyright infringement claim. I guess I don't feel shocked. There's an option to re-release it muted or edited, but I'm just going to let it go. If you still wanted to watch it you can download it here. By what is surely coincidence it had suddenly garnered some disapproving comments a few hours ago and a couple of others earlier on (one specifically raising copyright, though that was a fair time ago). I got this weird feeling today that I should save the comments page, because all I have are the ones I reply to (the negative ones) and it would be nice to have had the 49 others. Oh well. They were:

( dramas )

I would like to be able to unplug the computer while it's off and not have Epic Failure occur.



Really? Really Windows? Seriously? Are you serious?

Fixed in 15-20 minutes (an external enclosure and a backup system running XP are as always extremely valuable), but what the hell, man. What the hell.

The Navajo call them "wó see ts'inii" ("skull insects").



I will call him Spud.

They eat "organic matter," which I'm guessing means roots or bugs or souls. Though so far, an almost disappointing taste for apples.

METARUUOBAMA!!　KINGUAMERIKAATSU!!

オバマ「マケインなんかには負けいんってかｗｗｗｗｗｗｗｗｗソーノイジーｗｗｗｗｗｗｗｗｗｗｗ」　　　　　思いつき＋やっつけです




[artist "屁" ("fart") on register-to-view, Japanese-only webpage pixiv.net]

I listened to the concession and acceptance speeches last night. McCain was rather decent and classy- surprisingly so, in fact. He reminded me of… what's that guy's name again? Right, McCain– he reminded me of McCain. I was left wondering why he couldn't have borrowed that man's grace during his campaign, but oh well… it's not time for that anymore; rather I'll agree with both speeches that it's time to see if we can stop being assholes to each other now, if we still can, and get shit done. Listening to Obama's speech I recall my amazement at how it is that anyone musters up the special effort required to hate him. That is, not dislike or disagree with him, but to be filled with a literal murderous rage, as was laboriously whipped up in the worst moments of the past months. To be honest, I have concern for his safety in the coming years. There are people out there with a real belief that Obama's a Muslim terrorist in disguise, like he's going to peel off his rubber mask to reveal that he was Cobra Commander this whole time, hell-bent on destroying America and Israel and drawing his face on the moon, and people like that don't really get better, and they don't look for restrained solutions to their issues.

I've been hearing some republicans say that it's time for their party to do some soul searching (specifically a "Dr. Phil moment," but I refuse to support that phrase) about the job they've been doing with the middle class and minorities and the strategies they've been employing. Hopefully, this kind of talk sounds the death knell for the Rovian doctrine of demagoguery and scaremongering as winning tactics, if only for a time. As to the job Obama (and indeed America) faces, as it's been said this may be the most difficult presidency since FDR, and I'm not waiting on (further) miracles, but I do feel this alien sense of what you humans call "optimism." The previous occupant left a steaming mess on the floor of the Oval Office, but as shatterstripes put it, "hell, if all he does is shovel that pile of shit for the next few years and fails to get us in new wars, I'll be pretty damn pleased." For now, it just feels to good to have a smart, aware person at the helm, who listens as if he thinks about what's being said, and speaks to me as if I understand what he's saying.


Now, a downer. Proposition 8 passed, 52 to 48. I wasn't really surprised, but I was let down… And then, as I listened to them talk about it, I got pissed off.

On election night I watched a woman on the Prop 8 team have the gall to dedicate their win to Barack Obama because of the importance of traditional black marriage. WHAT the FUCK are you TALKING ABOUT? Ok, ignoring the phrase "traditional [not interracial] black marriage" (an inherent value of Obama voters because they're all black) and the whole mindfuck of "I'm thanking one oppressed minority for my similar oppression of a different minority" thing, Obama has expressly condemned Prop 8 as "divisive and discriminatory" and wants nothing to do with you crabby cunts while you blatantly flip-flop away from your actual supporter John McCain. Oh, and their webpage, ProtectMarriage.com (which, by the by, has asserted that backing their opponents is "a clear indication that you are in opposition to traditional marriage," just like how being pro-chocolate makes you anti-vanilla) has as their advertisement slogan "Support Marriage Rights." Incredible. It's like… not only do these people get away with constantly saying things that are glaringly not true, but they are actually the OPPOSITE of true. It's like declaring that not only does gravity not cause objects to fall to the earth, it instead REPELS them from the earth, and having everybody nod their heads and clap. And you know you could spend an hour locked in a room with one of these people trying to explain the cognitive dissonance and they would just stare at you like a crushed possum on the side of the road.

Whatever, creeps. I promise you this: history will not be looking back on you with kindness. It's a new day in America, and yours are numbered.

Hot damn.




That is all.

Before I forget, I drew again.



Pentex First Team #36 for fenris_lorsrai's Rage card set. It's a strike force of radioactive, demon-possessed mutants fighting werewolves abroad for megacorporate interests. And we pass the savings on to you. Do you think those Wal-Mart prices just lower themselves?

Incidentally, you've probably noticed the new layout around here (unless you just ?style=mine everything, FASCIST). I've been wanting to try S2 for awhile and Halloween seemed a good enough excuse. But I'm not liking the lack of customization (I want my Verdana back, bitch) and it looks a little cluttered, so… I dunno. We'll see. Also, I've been going back and adding tags to all of my entries.

Also also, it turns out I can put links in the "Music" field. Interesting. Although there seems to be a character limit.

I almost didn't celebrate Halloween this time. Almost. There have been some… difficulties. But, at the last minute I resolved to put up some décor and distribute childhood diabetes as The Ragpicker (reminder). I put out some speakers, a green-glowing skull pile that flickered according to changes in background volume, a sporadically moaning, long-haired, Japanese ghost head, a kennel of bones with claws sticking out of it that spewed fog, and a hidden camera. One child started crying just trying to approach the still-closed door. A few groups stopped in front of the building, looked at it, and walked past to the neighbors. I recorded a little for posterity. Later I crept around suburbia spasming and twitchily looking at passersby like an insect, as is the custom. There was some screaming.

Now while it's still vaguely appropriate, I have a show for you. If you like Evil Dead, you might like/hate this no-budget pilot for the homage/rip-off series Stiff, which aired quietly on Adult Swim one forgotten October night in 2007, never to be seen again. I liked it, but apparently it's virtually unknown and incredibly unpopular, so enjoy/vomit.
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4