Eduard Khil, the Russian entertainer who enjoyed a resurgence of fame as the “Trololo” singer, died this weekend in St. Petersburg aged 77.
Happy trails Mr Khil!
Behold the Majesty of The Emperor’s Jaws!
Rather than spend my weekend doing anything constructive, I’ve wasted several hours on another bit of stupid 40k related javascripting – this time a random Space Marine Chapter name generator. This was inspired by a mention on 40k Radio of one that used to exist on the Games Workshop site, but was apparently taken down after it spat out the suggestion “Flesh Swords”.
My one can theoretically come up with “Flesh Swords”, but I haven’t seen it yet. It has come up with some quite entertaining ones though, such as the Noise Punishers (the Chapter you call when the Tau next door are having a party at 2:00am), the Reclaimers of Hammers (for when the Necrons down the street won’t give back your tools), the Mantis Exsanguinators (for problems in the garden), the Supplicators of Angron (I don’t think they got very far), the oddly emphatic Tiger Tigers, and my absolute favorite (so far) the Hand Gauntlets. It can also however produce perfectly sane suggestions such as the Lunar Wardens or the Black Purgators, so it may have some value.
I’ve also rigged up a sun projector for my telescope out of a coat hanger, a plastic plate, the cap from a deodorant can, some wire and some duct tape, in anticipation of the Transit of Venus on Wednesday. I’m taking the day off work and the plan is to head up to Kings Park to observe. They’re predicting clouds, but I live in hope.
Oh, and I also made soup. Hooray!
Reading the Runes
Lego is releasing models for the Lord of the Rings. This is a combination of two of my favourite things, and is hence awesome! 🙂
There’s one thing that’s bothering me though. One of the panels in the Mines of Moria set is decorated with text written in the cirth…
Cool, no? Except that I can’t for the life of me figure out what it’s meant to say.
If my interpretation is correct, it appears to read ndigwbndio pdy eobo.
I have no idea what this means.
So, am I using the wrong mode? Is it written in Khuzdul, or Sindarin? Or maybe Maori or Danish? Or is it just decorative gibberish? I have absolutely no idea, and it’s going to drive me nuts until I figure it out.
Later: Bah! It’s not the Cirth, it’s standard Futhark and says “Diordie was here”. Bastards! ;D
Synesthesia
Standards compliant HTML code written in a text editor by someone who knows what they’re doing sounds like this.
HTML code produced by a WYSIWYG editor sounds like this.
HTML code produced by pasting Microsoft Word content into a WYSIWYG editor sounds like this.
Thank you! Come again!
Children are the Future
Down at UWA yesterday I overheard the following from a student…
“Giving to charities is so mainstream!”
I hope she was joking.
Warblings of a Diseased Brain
Last week I was sitting at the Morley bus station (as you do), and – not having anything to read while waiting for my bus – my brain was wandering (as it does) down highways and byways of the strange, mysterious and downright stupid.
By far the most stupid of these trackways was speculation on what would happen if Games Workshop signed a promotional deal with A Large, Unnamed Fast Food Company™ (ALUFFC™ for short) and started handing out snap together Space Marine models along with burgers.
Think about the possibilities! All the overweight nerd children who could be lured into the hobby by a single model with some cheap chapter stickers and a collectable Primarch information card! All the burgers that would be bought by fanatical GW fans desperate to get their hands on the exclusive burger-deal-only Space Marine model! The money would just roll in on both sides!
But best of all, ALUFFCâ„¢ could launch up to 21 new meal deals based on the Emperor and his Primarchs! For instance…
The Emperor: An oversized burger with the lot – guaranteed to keep you immobile on the “Golden Throne” for what seems like millenia.
The Guilliman: ‘Blue’ beef with extra cheese.
The Fulgrim: Wagyu beef, Italian lettuce, brie and artisanal hand cut fries.
The Angron: Three beef patties, spicy pickles and ‘extreme’ chilli sauce.
The Sanguinius: Rare beef with a side of wings.
The Perturabo: A pretty standard burger, but you have to eat your way through a massive breastwork of fries to get to it.
The Mortarion: Extra onions, limberger cheese, garlic sauce and underdone meat (for the thrillseeker not afraid of intestinal parasites).
The Horus: Flame grilled beef on a wholemeal bun with spicy ‘heresy’ sauce.
The Alpharius: You never know what they’ll serve you, but there’s two of it.
The possibilities are endless!
(I’ll shut up now ;))
Europhoria
I haven’t been paying much attention to Eurovision this year – work has been a nightmare lately and I’ve mostly been coming home, grabbing something quick to eat, then crawling into bed. But I had dinner over at Rebecca and Dom’s last night and watched some of the second semi-final, so I have some thoughts on that.
What I heard of the Netherlands seemed to be a cheerful little song, even if the Native American head-dress seemed a little culturally insensitive. Sweden’s song was nothing really special, but there was something about Loreen’s voice and performance that… I dunno, it just had something that kind of lifted it above its parts (and is probably responsible for its winning). Georgia seemed to have no idea what they were doing – as Rebecca commented they seemed to have looked at all the winning entries for the last 30 years and tried to incorporate elements from them into their act – with the result being a horrible mess. Slovakia got confused and sent a Whitesnake impersonator, while Lithuania sent Scott Summers. Turkey featured a posse of dancing bat-men who periodically turned into a boat. The song didn’t really grab me, but after re-listening to it I can perceive some of its latent merits.
What I found particularly interesting about this year was the use of video screens to overcome the “only six performers” rule. Several of the acts featured extra – often computer generated – dancers. It’ll be interesting if they allow that next time.
Don’t know if I’ll watch the final tonight. We all know who won and I need to be up early to get into work tomorrow (supposed to be my day off I might add!).
While on the subject of music and dancing, how’s this for a marriage proposal? There’s been a lot of debate over whether it’s a viral marketing campaign or not, but it genuinely seems to be authentic…
Nextwave
Finally got around to reading Nextwave: Agents of H.A.T.E. over the weekend. My opinion? One of the funniest things I’ve read in ages.
For those unfamiliar, Nextwave is Warren Ellis’s deconstruction of modern super hero comics. He describes it himself thusly…
“It’s an absolute distillation of the superhero genre. No plot lines, characters, emotions, nothing whatsoever. It’s people posing in the street for no good reason. It is people getting kicked, and then exploding. It is a pure comic book, and I will fight anyone who says otherwise. And afterwards, they will explode.”
He forgets to add that it’s freaking hilarious.
Having read something freaking hilarious it’s very tempting to expound on the bits that were particularly freaking hilarious. I’m not going to do that, since not encountering them in context would spoil the jokes. But I will mention the following things…
Purple underpants
Rocket Submarines
The French
Tabby’s Mindlessness
Letters that don’t stand for things
The big bad’s intestinal problems
The entire existence of the Captain
Track it down and read it people. You won’t be disappointed.
PS: The book managed to inflict a bit of a crush on Tabby on me. There’s something about an insanely stupid woman that makes me go all masculine and protective – which is ridiculous because I’d most likely want to throttle myself after spending ten minutes with one 🙂
More of this Rubbish…
There are a lot of mysteries in the 40k universe. Exactly who is the Emperor? How tall is an Imperator Titan? Who would win if Ursakar E. Creed played chess against Eldrad Farseer? Exactly what is a true Hufflepuff anyway? But there is one riddle that out-puzzles all of these combined. How do you pronounce Roboute Guilliman?
This a mystery that has tormented the 40k fandom ever since those long ago days when we first learnt of the Primarchs. But today, I can provide you with an answer. Behold! How to Pronounce Roboute Guilliman.
I trust that answers all of your questions.
If you still can’t get enough hot Primarch action, you might like to check out this infographic that I whipped up over the weekend…
All the basic info on the Emperor’s twenty genetically-engineered supermen in one handy location!
That’s it. Gotta go do the washing up now.
PS: Techno-Viking, shorter than you think but larger than you imagine, Eldrad until he realises his rooks have been replaced with Baneblades, what the hell is a Hufflepuff!?
Norrilund
Were it not a violation of God’s law I’d marry this map…
Map of Norrilund (Big PDF file Warning!)
It’s a genius steampunk remix of London by one “Handsome Rob” and is so rich in detail and language that it feels like somewhere you could actually visit. If I could produce just one conworld artifact as good as this, I’d die a happy man.
Good show sir! Jolly good show!
