The Violent Glaswegian next door

In comments on the xkcd post, amid accusations I am ruining his life/costing him his job, Davey reminded me of an excellent site: tvtropes.

In particular, I'm a sucker for random generators (whence my work with Abulafia), and tvtropes does not disappoint. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you tvtropes' Story Generator, which will most amusingly outline an episode of an imaginary TV show for you. The result I just got was:
Setting: Cyberspace
Plot: Jumping Off The Slippery Slope
Mandatory Narrative Device: Cursed With Awesome
Hero: Genius Bruiser
Villain: The Libby

Mandatory Character As Device: Violent Glaswegian
Mandatory Trope 1: Dressing As The Enemy
Mandatory Trope 2: Acceptable Targets
(Optional) Stock Phrase: I Heard You Were The Best
(Optional) Genre: Science Show


Which is totally a show I would watch!You had me at Genius Bruiser vs. The Libby, but throw in a Violent Glaswegian and set it in cyberspace and I'm there! It's going to be all Mean Girls meets the Matrix meets Macbeth! Heathers meets Hackers meets Highlander! Here's my quick plot outline based on the above:

Beat 1: Our hero, Gordon [genius bruiser], is big, strong, and a talented hacker, but not good looking. He hosts a [science show] (within a show) on public access tv/Youtube [cyberspace] where the format is lessons in computer security punctuated by backyard Mexican-style wrestling matches between Gordon and his crew (show name: Linux Lucha Libre!). Megan McFadden, the morbid red-haired goth chick recently moved next door from Scotland [violent glaswegian], watches the wrestling from her window; develops crush on Gordon. Gordon's sister Julie [the libby] also has an ongoing video podcast series entitled "Jules & the Gang" and its her and her popular friends dishing gossip and being catty about the losers at their school, which to Julie definitely includes Gordon & his loser friends [acceptable targets]. Their show is wildly popular, all the wannabees at school watch Jules & the Gang hoping to be favorably mentioned or looking for who to pick on. Everybody loves and hates Jules & the Gang. Until one of the nerdy kids they've been ripping apart on the show kills himself [jumping off the slippery slope]. That's all just setup, the first 15 minutes of our hour-long pilot.

Beat 2: The first day of school. Megan decides the only way to stop Julie and get with Gordon is to infiltrate Jules & the Gang, and so hides away the leather & eyeshadow in favor of cool kid clothes [dressing as the enemy]. She hates them all with a violent Scottish passion, but it turns out she's actually really good at being popular even though she's all conflicted about it [cursed with awesome]. Meanwhile she and Gordon start to flirt a little. Climax of this beat comes when Jules & the Gang make fun of Gordon and Megan has to join in or risk the whole operation. She does - Gordon is devestated.

Beat 3: Megan's plan hits stage 2 - she's going to sabotage the Jules & the Gang videocast, inserting scenes of (gasp!) Jules and the other girls without makeup, or showing them as the insecure girls they really are (she's been sneaking footage of them with this weeks product placement - a small videocamera). But in order to make that happen, she has to get Gordon's help computerwise ['I heard you were the best']. Gordon and her get together, sabotage videocast. Day after the new Jules & the Gang hits the web, Julie and the other girls come to school furious and looking for a fight. Megan, now back in her goth garb, gets into a catfight with several of the Gang in a hallway, kicks ass, pulls hair, claws faces, shouts awesome Scottishisms at them. All looks resolved, except for the teaser for next week where we see Julie plotting sweet revenge.

That's my random show - thank you tvtropes and thank you Davey - you've had your revenge while I thought about all this instead of work.

Edit: Now with casting!
*Gordon: I'm thinking Jesse Plemons of Friday Night Lights fame might be sufficiently big but nerdy.
*Julie: Emilie de Ravin (sans Aussie Accent as in 'Brick') or even Heroes' Hayden Panettiere would be good.
*Megan: This one's tricky, but maybe with proper dialect training, Bonnie Wright (whom you know as Ginny Weasley from the Harry Potter films) might do the trick.

You're __________!

We (re-)invented a terrible game here at work. It's straight out of third grade:

Whenever somebody says something, evaluate whether it would be amusing to take the last word or several words of their sentence and say them back in an accusatory way.

Example:
Josh:"The humidity makes the air feel thick."
Me: "You're THICK!"
Josh:"Seriously, that's getting kind of annoying."
Me: "You're ANNOYING!"

Yes, it's infantile (you're infantile!) and stupid (you're stupid!), but it's also totally fun. Try it today!

Self-Analysis from my Three-Year-Old

From the drive down to our timeshare this last weekend (in the middle of her favorite sea shanty):

"But... I'm a good singer!"

Me: "Yes, baby, you are. Who told you that?"

"I just learned it by myself!"

What 'R' You?

xkcd Rules

So, there's a few good webcomics out there. Actually, there's probably tons and tons and tons. Turns out the internet is B-I-G. But one of my favorites is xkcd, because its all nerd-point-of-view in the best ways.
Examples:





And one that seems right at home here:

Pass the Parsley

This got brought up in comments about the "What's on my Plate" tree, and Maren didn't know what it was. It's time you all knew. Brace yourselves.

First: a little history. In 11th grade Gabe Soll and I were partners on a civil-war era novella for our AmHist class. He did most of the work, I mostly proofread. One of the other groups got a failing grade when it was discovered that they had essentially rewritten the film "The Posse". I digress. Anyway, I borrowed Gabe's copy of Penn & Teller's How to Play with Your Food, and I never gave it back. Gabe, if you're reading, I'm sorry. Also, why are you reading, we haven't spoken in years - I heard from Chuck Moscato that you were a balding lawyer. Call me.

What the rest of you need to know is that the book in question is chock full of fun things to do with comestibles. That's right. Everything from "How to transport David Letterman's Watch into the Belly of a Fish" to "Stabbing a Fork in your Eye" (ask Kari about that one sometime - I did it at the Potomac Mills Food Court and she totally freaked). One of the tamer entries is "The Parsley Game." I quote:

"The parsley game is very simple: when Parsley, that useless biennial bastard nephew of the carrot family, is served on your plate as a garnish, you sneak it onto the plate of one of your dinner partners without being seen by the recipient. It's as easy as that, but, like chess, the possibilities are endless... The first few times you play the game, you'll win, but then your pals will catch on that you're playing and it will get harder... After a while, no one will turn around for anything."

So there you have it. Palm your parsley early, when nobody's thinking about it yet, and be ready at a moment's notice to get it onto the plate of anyone who looks away or goes for a drink refill.

On Notice

Bloggers of the following Blogs, you are ON NOTICE:


You are all at risk of being PURGED from my Google Reader!

27B - you're prolific, but seriously: I don't care who the voting official is in San Diego.

Matt - Do more, post more. Step it up.

Joe McDonald - Do you even remember you have a blog?

Ben Lehman - Same problem. I want to hear about your games, but there's nothing to read!

Defense Tech - you haven't been the same since Noah left. I'm sorry.

Dancho - You tease us with exciting ideas, and there's no substance. You can do better.

Wil - I know, I know, "you're just this guy, right?", well, I don't want to hear about poker. Or your blogging software.

101 Cookbooks - "Baked Peas with Tarragon, Yogurt, and Pistachios"? Barf me a river. Find something that sounds YUMMY in those books.

You all have one week before you get THE PURGE.

Where do Wendy's dehydrated chives fit in?

Today's lunch topic.

The Neverwas Haul

Can I just say that the Neverwas Haul looks like the coolest thing on wheels in a long, long time.

All this 'Maker Faire' and DIY craziness going on out there in CA is exciting, and a little sad for those of us not on the left coast.

by Request: Violent Civil Disobedience Decision Tree

Tricky.

Edit Added geographic qualifiers on juntas (see comments).

Horse-Drawn Wheeled Vehicle Decision Tree

Just so we're clear, carts & wagons are for moving mainly goods (yes, even Conestoga wagons and gypsy wagons). Carts have 2 wheels, wagons have 4.

Updated: Now with Surreys! (Thanks, Maren)

Vehicle Venn

Part 1 of a series:

Urban Lewis & Clark

So, here's a (pdf) link to a game you can play with 2 people travelling in any urban/downtown space at any time. enjoy.

Update: Flickr group pics of UrbanCrawlers in action.

Hobos & their Ilk

Tree Tree reloaded

Now correct for Texans! and incorporating Stands!