Talking Soup

The time has come, my friends. I am a writer. I play Pokemon and other silly video games. I have participated in online LJ RP games. I have long discussions about various sci-fi shows and watch things like Star Trek, Farscape, Doctor Who and Firefly. I respect William Shatner. I watch anime with a somewhat religious fervor at times. I have conversations about the merits of certain weapons, the various histories and lifestyles of the Middle Ages, and complain about historical or logical inaccuracies in movies concerning the era. I have been to a Renn Faire. I have gone to sci-fi and fantasy cons, as well as anime cons. I read comic books, webcomics and manga. I play WoW. I collect Magic Cards. I'm an amateur astronomer and I listen to shortwave radio. I can readily quote Star Wars.

In short, I am a full blown nerd. And the time has now come to tackle the last bastion of nerddom, to venture into the fearsome, Mountain Dew-soaked, Cheeto-stained basement in the nether regions of the House of Nerd.

Yes, my friends. I speak of Dungeons and Dragons.

I am, as we speak, in the process of building a character and will soon start a campaign involving my similarly nerdy Ithaca friends. I am learning all about Spot Checks, Ability Modifiers, and D20s.

With this, I say my final farewell to the world of coolness, fashion and all semblance of sanity. Farewell, Lady Gaga, Eat, Pray, Love, 24, and True Blood. Goodbye, Justin Bieber and Louis Vuitton. Auf wiedersehn, mainstream media. To make a nerd quote, "I don't know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve." I go now to the Land of Fun, the Plane of Silliness, and the House of Nerd, and never shall I return to hipness, coolness and popularity. Good night...and good luck.

Just be glad I'm not LARPing.

Oh my. Sea monsters.

Anyone heard of this? The Bloop? Apparently it's the more famous of several underwater, unidentifiable sounds picked up by an old underwater sound recorder used to track enemy submarines. Now the system is used to track underwater earthquakes, volcanoes, and whales as well. But it's also picked up a handful of sounds that no one can identify.

The Bloop is the most famous of these, recorded several times in the summer of 1997. It's got a ridiculous name, but it sounds ridiculously awesome. As far as I know, it's the only one of these unidentified sounds that's most likely an animal. It sounds a lot like a whale.

How did I not hear about this until now? I love this kind of stuff!

Anyway, you should all hear it, because it's amazing. Personally I like the idea that it's some kind of deep sea creature. We certainly don't know all of what's down there, although the thing making it is supposed to be huge, a lot bigger than a blue whale, and who knows if that's possible? There's a chance it could be something supposedly extinct--they keep finding coelocanths, megamouth sharks--but who knows?

Of course it could all be a hoax, but I like to dream ^_^ We don't know half of what's down there.

Here's the sound file, here's the Wiki page, and here's the Acoustics Monitoring Site that tracked and recorded the Bloop and the other unidentified sounds. Check them all out--it's interesting and awesome at the very least.

Well that's your random stuff for the day.

Went to HP5 again today with my mom this time. She loved it. It was as great as it was the first time.

It's pronounced "abble-heb-ebble-bob." Kinda. I had to write a character sketch, and I couldn't think of anything, so until the muse decided to speak I just typed random letters and, since it was amusing, read them out loud to Julie. One of the things that came out was Abbelhoebebblebobp.

This is what we do late at night when the surplus of homework just kinda shorts our circuts.

Had a Psych test yesterday, first ever. It was really easy, actually, which was pretty awesome. Though the best part was when the lights went out. The class is in Textor, so when all the lights go out there it's like--cave-dark (if you've ever gone on a tour through a cave where they turn the lights out on you, you'll know what I mean). It was funny because as soon as we realized the lights weren't coming back on anytime soon, dozens of cell phones appeared. That's the first and only test I've ever taken by the light of a cell phone, which just made everything hilarious.

You know when you're in college when everything becomes an adaptive tool ^.^

It rained buckets yesterday! I was excited!

Finally saw the Demon Skunk that lives under Hood. It was so cute! It was all fluffy and poofy with this big ol' poofy tail and he was rooting around in the bushes right next to the doors. It was funny because all these people were like walking by and people just froze at the sight of this tiny little poofball not much bigger than a cat.

I had a dream last night that, in the process of trying to shoo away two bees that were hovering near me, I angered the whole hive which was off somewhere, and ended up getting chased by all these bees.

Which wasn't all that scary, actually.

I'm working on chapter 7 of the fic, I swear! Actually I have like four pages already and will hopefully finish it over the weekend.

Finally sent my packages, too.

There is apparently a Third Woman.

Julie and I are still watching Naruto and, sporadically, Monster and Honey and Clover and Descendents of Darkness, the former two of which we're showing to Julie's friend, Sophia. ASIC last night was some kind of awesome. In Gankutsuo the revenge plot is finally unraveling. And in Yakitate Japan we had Butter Roll-Sama and XOMG, margarine, OH NOES! And more exaggerated reactions to bread. ("I hear cicadas! The stillness! It's like poetry! Ahhhhh!! I want to eat curry!")

Dude, I actually started Spirits! Focusing exclusively on working it out for the past week must have paid off! Actually the character sketch I mentioned was the beginning, and it went pretty well. I only have about a page, but I've got a general plot, a good idea of the villain and the protagonists, and just what the hell is going on in general. Also how all the characters will connect. Woot!

Abbelhoebebblebobp!