Categories
humor poetic

Tumble Dry Low-ku

We tumbling vestments,
warm and content, if dizzy;
you cannot bleach our souls.

12.14.2005 Ahniwa Ferrari

Categories
news

How do you define “patriotism”?

House passes Patriot Act Conference Report.

Which leaves the Senate.

I’m not anti-Patriot Act, but I think an extension would be good to clarify some issues in language and intent before we permanently place anything into law.

But then, I’m anti-American.

And I hate safety.

Categories
humor poetic

An ode to tumble dry.

Oh me, oh my,
I’m getting dry;
a flock of socks has
just passed by,
their long necks out
and wrapped about
each other.
They’re indecent like that,
socks.

12.14.2005 Ahniwa Ferrari

Categories
webcomics

Steamed, whole-grain comedy.

I find this comic to be consistently funny.

Ladies and Gentlemen, may I present:

The Angriest Rice Cooker in the World.

Categories
news

Liberty, Equality, Constant Supervision …

ACLU joins fight against internet surveillance.

Some lawmakers have already joined their voices with the opposition. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., cautioned that the mandates could give the government the authority to dictate software designs, drive innovators offshore and threaten security as well as privacy.

Cornell’s response to the CALEA amendment.

Not for profit accredited educational institutions contribute uniquely to American society by exploring and sharing knowledge for its own sake. Teaching, research and outreach rely fundamentally on principles of unimpeded communications and open inquiry. If the uncertain administrative, financial and technical expenditures suspect in this regulation do not alone exacerbate the many burdens that currently challenge the autonomy of higher education, the technical oversight provision is plainly inconsistent with our missions. Were no other means available to achieve its purpose, the government could argue a compelling interest. But the alternative exists. Cornell University already provides this kind of information when properly served. Therefore there is no compelling government interest in this specific surveillance technique and it most certainly is not a narrowly tailored method for compliance.

ACLU calls for vote against cloture on Patriot Act.

“Congress must not let a fake threat by proponents of Patriot Act to let it expire to cause them to support a defective bill,” said Lisa Graves, ACLU Senior Counsel for Legislative Strategy. “Common sense corrections that would better focus limited resources and protect the privacy of innocent Americans already enjoy strong bipartisan support. Lawmakers should adopt them.”

Take action against the Patriot Act!

Categories
book personal

Huzzah for the blue and bronze!

That’s right, ’cause I’m clever like a fox.

Said Ravenclaw, "We’ll teach those whose intelligence is surest."

Ravenclaw students tend to be clever, witty, intelligent, and knowledgeable.
Their diabolical cunning should be well-respected, if not worshipped.
Notable residents include Cho Chang and Padma Patil (objects of Harry and Ron’s affections), and Luna Lovegood (daughter of The Quibbler magazine’s editor).

Take the most scientific Harry Potter Quiz ever created!

Categories
news webcomics

027: We have a winner.

a la casa comic

Drama Llama has a MySpace account.

Lacking a llama of our own, we had to make do with actual drama, matrix-style kung-fu, and our sweet computer hacking skills. Which worked out pretty damned well, I think. I mean, check out panel 2. That panel is a work of art. Save it, print it out, and hang it on the wall. I mean, really.

There will be more of the posting later. Until then, practice your sweet comment-leaving skills.

Later that day…

Do you depend on La Casa Comics to keep you informed about what is going on in the world? If so: What in the FSM’s good name is wrong with you!? Regardless of the fact that you’re clearly insane, I’ve plumbed the depths of the internets (i.e. I looked at Technorati’s top 10) to bring you today’s breaking news.

Ever since I mentioned Dawn Yang in this post, we’ve continuously gotten hits to our site for people that just HAVE TO KNOW what the pretty internet lady is up to. I maintain ignorance as to why this might be important. To anybody. But there you go. Dawn Yang is the poster-child of the internet right now. So what has good old Dawn been up to? Well, she has a nice Snow Patrol song playing on her website. Compulsive music on websites is one of my major peeves (in other words, I hate pretty much everyone on MySpace), but at least it’s decent music. Her blog has been quiet lately since the “fiasco”, and perhaps that’s the best way to deal with it. I stated before, and will restate, that I don’t see what the big deal is. Let the poor girl get back to her life. Besides, we have such better things to gossip about now.

Like Jennifer Aniston’s boobies. Oh wait, right … I don’t care about her either. There must be something wrong with me. I don’t particularly want to see nude pictures of Jennifer Aniston. What do I want? I want Playboy. In Braille. Now those are some hot “bumps”. Am I the only one that doesn’t find Aniston that attractive, or more importantly, attention-worthy? Anyway, the news is that some “razi” took some topless photos, and now Jennifer is gonna sue. And well she should. I mean, she can’t have just anyone taking nude or nearly nude photos of her, when she makes bank selling equally racy photos to GQ. GQ named Aniston their first ever “woman of the year”. I don’t understand. Someone please explain this to me. Has she been saving babies from burning buildings? Does she give 80% of her net income to third-world countries? Oh, right, we are talking about GQ. Perhaps she has just been seen in some nice outfits this year. That would probably do it.

Firefox is on there. Firefox is good. Firefox 1.5 is now available. I haven’t bothered yet, as I hear the differences are not drastic by any means, but I’m sure I’ll get around to it. I’ve never really had a need to be at the front of the line when it comes to such things. But then, if you’re hearing this for the first time, from me, then you’re not either. Let’s start a club!

The Xbox 360 is mentioned, as is Howard Dean, and some other things I don’t know anything about. In any case, I’ve rambled on more than enough for one day.

I’d like to dedicate today to two of my favorite regular readers: Sister Amos and Sister Rachel. Shower them with your kind comments and affections, for they are worthy.

Categories
humor poetic

If your boss is blind, this might be NSFW …

Playboy. In Braille.

This would be a terrible gift for the visually impaired, because you don’t give the visually impaired one quarter of a decade-old Playboy as a gift.

But for you? Put it out on the coffee table like I did. Owning Playboy in Braille is like having a Day-Glo orange monkey that can curse in Farsi. It gets attention. People talk.

Categories
game music personal

Three songs, a rant, and a very big fish.

So far today I’ve already had stuck in my head:

Fefe Dobson – Stupid Little Love Song

The Lovin’ Spoonful – Do You Believe In Magic?

Dr. Seuss – You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch

I’ve got garlic in my soul, and it tastes delicious.

So I’m going to geek out on your for a second. If you have a high opinion of me as a man of culture, a refined individual of exceptional tastes, or a debonair superspy, then first I’d like to know what you’ve been smoking, and second, you might want to stop reading this right now. I’m proud of my geekdom, but I’d hate to ruin such ludicrously high opinions of me. They’re in short demand.

Anyway, so I was playing Icewind Dale 2 last night, until about one in the ay dot em dot, and aside from really liking it a whole lot, I remembered why I got so infuriated with the basic D&D system, back in the day when I was the uber-dork. In one word: casters. In two words, one hyphenated: low-level casters. Low-level casters in the D&D system get about 4 spells, per day. This means that, in extended dungeon crawls and larger, multi-part encounters, they either have to conserve their spells, and thus either: a) show off their exciting dagger-throwing skills, or b) show off their incredible melee skills, or c) examine flaws in the fighter’s technique while they clean their nails, making sure to loudly exclaim about various improvements the fighter could make after the fight is over. Oh yeah, and let’s not forget d) die quickly before they even get a chance to cast anything. The other option is that they can use their spells quickly (at least getting them off before option “d” occurs), and then sit around doing any of options “a” through “c”. Why on earth, I ask, would I want a caster who has to spend most of his time as a fifth-rate melee class?

They seem to have made some improvements in this regard, and perhaps it is entirely better later on in the game. But I am, and will always remain, sad that the better system never caught on. I was always a huge fan of Earthdawn (warning: ugly site). Earthdawn kicks ass and takes names. I haven’t played in a LONG time, but here are some of the traits I remember and appreciate:

Melee to hit and be hit was based on dexterity. Armor didn’t affect this except that heavy armor could reduce your dexterity roll. What armor did do was reduce the damage you took when you were hit. “Critical” hits were “armor-defeating” blows, thereby bypassing the armor damage reduction. I always thought that this melee system made a heck of a lot more sense. Similarly, dexterity gave you bonuses to hit, while strength gave bonuses to damage. Also more sensible.

Magic-using types begin with a pretty flush spellbook. Per level, they get a certain number of spell slots, so to speak, which are basically spells they have memorized. They can cast these spells over, and over, and over, and over, and over, to their heart’s content. Additionally, they can cast any spell in their entire lexicon at any time, though the ones that they don’t have actively memorized at the time are much more difficult to cast and require some additional checks.

Finally, add that melee don’t choose to just “attack”. Instead, they use an attack skill (of which there are many) to attack in a way they choose. Each skill is a little different, each class has different specialties, and it makes hack-and-slash oh-so-much more fun.

But enough about that. Earthdawn was one of the few systems (and I’ve tried many), where I enjoyed playing a fighter as much as a cleric as much as a rogue as much as a mage. The worlds and stories were interesting, and the roleplay was always easy and fun.

But back to Icewind Dale II. The combat is fast-paced and real-time, and I have a measure of difficulty controlling 4-6 characters in real-time when they’re all doing different things. Granted, it’s the only way to keep things running smoothly or the game would slow way down, but I do kind of pine for the old, turn-based system I grew up with. The tasks are fun, the story is interesting, and the voice-dialogue is well done. I’ll stick it out for awhile yet, but that whole spell-casting thing is a major thorn in my side. Oh well.

Thus ends my review, and rant. The rant is really more about D&D spell-casting systems than about Icewind Dale II. ID2 is fun. D&D, as the rpg medium, is a joke. Honestly, I’ll just never understand why Earthdawn didn’t take the table-top world by storm. No accounting for taste, I guess …

—————-

Listen and sing along!

You’re a mean one, Mr. Grinch.
You really are a heel.
You’re as cuddly as a cactus,
You’re as charming as an eel.
Mr. Grinch.

You’re a bad banana
With a greasy black peel.

You’re a monster, Mr. Grinch.
Your heart’s an empty hole.
Your brain is full of spiders,
You’ve got garlic in your soul.
Mr. Grinch.

I wouldn’t touch you with a
thirty-nine-and-a-half foot pole.

You’re a vile one, Mr. Grinch.
You have termites in your smile.
You have all the tender sweetness
Of a seasick crocodile.
Mr. Grinch.

Given the choice between the two of you
I’d take the seasick crocodile.

You’re a foul one, Mr. Grinch.
You’re a nasty, wasty skunk.
Your heart is full of unwashed socks
Your soul is full of gunk.
Mr. Grinch.

The three words that best describe you,
are, and I quote: “Stink. Stank. Stunk.”

You’re a rotter, Mr. Grinch.
You’re the king of sinful sots.
Your heart’s a dead tomato splotched
With moldy purple spots,
Mr. Grinch.

Your soul is an appalling dump heap overflowing
with the most disgraceful assortment of deplorable
rubbish imaginable,
Mangled up in tangled-up knots.

You nauseate me, Mr. Grinch.
With a nauseous super-naus.
You’re a crooked jerky jockey
And you drive a crooked horse.
Mr. Grinch.

You’re a three decker sauerkraut and toadstool sandwich
With arsenic sauce.

Categories
webcomics

026: Monkeys, Porpoises, and Gary. Oh my!

a la casa comic

We jumped around a bit, what with the Secret Crocodile Adventure Club bit, and the Bumvertising strip thrown in there. You might say we lack focus. We like to think that we excel in multitudinousness. Ooh, shiny!

Huh, what? Anyway, today’s strip follows this strip, where we left Ahniwa and Beth in the midst of a “date”. As you might have guessed, things get … interesting. Be sure to stay tuned as the thrilling story unfolds!

On the business side of things, the archives button up top now works, and will be phased in to the navigation bar under the comics as well. I’ll keep it updated once a week. Who knew we’d be doing this long enough, and with enough strips, that an archive menu would not only be helpful, but almost necessary! Crazy! The about link works now too. So if you’ve ever wondered who the heck we are, that might shed a smidgeon of light on the subject. Not too much light though. We’re shy, and mostly nocturnal, after all.

In other news, our humble comic is getting noticed! Woohoo! We’ve been linked from a blog called Space For Commerce, who found us through Dean’s World, where this fellow recommended us. He was, in turn, turned on to the comic by one of my co-workers. So, for this great big chain of links, thanks Margaret! This is proof positive of the power of word-of-mouth advertising. As for the Secret Crocodile Adventure Club contest we entered, we got 8th, out of 16. You can check out the entries here. I like some of the other submissions, but honestly think we might have deserved top three status. It’s cool though. We like the Club, and we like the Archcroc V, and we’d hate to wake up being eaten by a caiman any time soon ….

Thank you, everyone, for enjoying the comic, and spreading the word. I’m not sure you know how warm and fuzzy it makes us feel that people are reading, and sharing, what for us is an exciting and entertaining adventure. I hope you enjoy this little story-line, which will continue on Wednesday. ‘Til then!

update: Two more links! Another Dean’s World reader, this fellow over at Dodgeblogium. And a permalink on the sidebar of Hungry Hollow Book Tank, which appears to be run by our friend Sky, who also blogs here. I’ll warn you now, and it may get tiresome, but until the novelty wears off (and that may take awhile), I’ll continue to link back to everyone that links to us. I’m a little obsessed.

Categories
webcomics

025: Because we think it’s absurd!

a la casa comic

This is a true story.
I mean, it’s serious news!

My name for it: Panhandler Oppression.

That’s all I got. Have good weekends. See ya Monday.