Bringing back the funny

As reading through Making Money* has proven to me, footnotes=funny,** and I haven't really been that funny lately,*** nor have I been using enough footnotes. I mean, look at this post, I don't have any footnotes at all yet.**** (Admittedly this is still the first paragraph, but I put one in the title before******). I've also not made much note of wicker coffins.*******
*Terry Pratchett's latest, but certainly not greatest, discworld novel.
**Unless they're references to academic journals. In which case footnotes=confusion. Which can be kind of funny.
***The complete lack of content indicates a certain lack of hilarious content, does it not?
****This was actually true in the first draft.*****
*****Well, partly true, there was a footnote right there saying: "well, apart from this one". But who needs metahumour when you have silliness?
******It was kinda funny, but not great. No need to look it up if you missed it.
*******Which are kinda the point of this place, but if you don't know why I won't explain.********
********Until the next paragraph, which will have it's own set of footnotes,********** because the number of asterisks is getting absurd.
*********A practise I used to use all the time, but which does cause formatting problems on certain programs.

Wicker coffins are of course a very important thing, hence the very existence of Project Woven Death. One wicker coffin in particular* concerns us here: The Wicker Coffin Til Lindemann Will** Make For Vixen.**** As such, I try and keep an eye on Rammstein's wellbeing, but being utterly lacking in contacts I know very little. And the place I signed up to for info on Rammstein are plugging other german rock-metal bands.***** So I reckon the better approach is to keep up on craziness and music in general until I do learn more about the guys.

*A currently non-existant one, but don't let that bother you.
**Absolute certainty void in the case of the death or permanent physical impairment of Til Lindemann within the next 18 months.***
***Which given his line of work, isn't entirely implausible.
****All the words are capitalised because it's a proper name, of course. It may be shortened to The Wicker Coffin or TWCTLWMFV if you want, but try pronouncing the latter at your peril.
*****Krieger and Emigrate.******
******If any of you know these bands, or where they're touring, let me know. If not, I'll investigate. Clearly, they're more related to Rammstein than I am.

This post (c) Kingreaper: Will he get 'round to bringing back the funny? Will japanese people shoot milk out of their noses?

Two random discoveries

While listening to one of my pandora stations I discovered: Golden Shoulders
specifically their song What You're Proposing. Unfortunately the only one available on their myspace that I really like is Friends and Family. But is very good.

Also, while looking through my webcomics I noticed the joke email address itsnotmybloodthankgoodness@iwokeupcoveredinblood.org on Dinosaur Webcomics. And being me, I checked out iwokeupcoveredinblood.org: Check it out, there's a great clip from The IT crowd on there at the moment.


This post (c) Kingreaper: Just thought he'd share.

Happiness is a banana shaped hotdog.

After I linked them to my blogs last week, someone asked me how I found the time to do them. At the point I linked them I didn't have an answer, because I thought it really wasn't that hard. By the time I got their response, I didn't have an answer, because I wasn't managing it anymore.

The shift between Summer Holidays and freshers week was quite major. By comparison my (hugely hectic by most standards) physics schedule is almost nothing. Maybe that's kinda the point, make fresher's week so hectic that the course schedule seems almost relaxed.

But then, if it seems relaxed, people might just keep drinking. Which they do seem to do.

Anyway, I've got more to say, but not in this post. I'll be back*

This post (c) Kingreaper: Staring at his 1500 page textbook in horror

*Yes, this is meant to be said in the voice of good ol' "Auntie Sweaty-Knickers"

The Mancunian Candidate

I have now arrived in my new prison cell. Well, actually, it's uni accomodation, and I arrived two days ago, but there is a rumour going around that my accomodation is actually based on the design for a prison. That really wouldn't surprise me too much, given how much architecture is reused, and the similarity of purposes.

It doesn't have the internet yet, and won't until monday afternoon, when HORNET* (a rather odd name for something you'd want in your room) will finally be available to set up, but fortunately I have access to a computer centre for the uni very nearby, so I'm not entirely cut off from the internet.** I have done a very small amount of propagandising for Dr. Steel, but a rather larger amount of having fun. I also have had one person agree with Project Woven Death, but I can't exactly remember who he was...

... I'll have to sort that out.

But it is understandable that I'd forget, I have met, and got the names of, about 100 people minimum. I can't expect to remember them all. But I will try to remember those who I recruit to PWD in future. It probably doesn't help that I've had a total of about 7/8 hours sleep in the past two days, and have been drinking every night for the past four.

I've met someone who's in to Harry Potter slash fiction, and happens to have gone to my primary school (several years above*** actually), a girl who brought more clothing with her than I own, a woman who's reliving her freshers year despite the fact she's now a postgrad, and is really rather cool, in a kind of overly-immature way,**** and many other interesting characters. Including a woman who was going round flats with the accomodation officers, trying to find where she'd locked herself out of before going off to get hammered.

This post (c) Kingreaper: Enjoying university.

*the university accomodation internet system
**although the availability of porn is a whole lot lower
***Yeah, I kinda thought it was teen girls that read those things, but not in this case. She's actually mature slightly beyond her years IMO, just nice and quirky.
****I am a big fan of immaturity, so this isn't a problem.

Author in transit*

I'm finally leaving London, and going to Manchester. Next on my list is New York, then Orleans. Not New Orleans, Orleans, just because I have the idea that Orleans is identical to New Orleans, just slightly more out of date:
"Oh, I say, there appears to be a conglomeration of sodomites meandering and philandering along the boulevard, what is occuring?"
"Don't worry my good man, it's just Fat Tuesday."
"You mean to imply that this occurs every tuesday?"
"Oh, no, only on this one tuesday before the lenten fast."
"How dare you despoil the grand christian traditions!"
"Quite easily."

*both draw their swords from their swordcanes*
"Have at you!"

This post (כ) Kingreaper: living in a bizzarre fantasy-land.

*A white transit van, please help, they've kidnapped me!

All this post are belong to meme*

Join in the project, we have memes**

We also have a plan now, and one that doesn't rely on summoning a demon that can be killed by throwing rocks at him.

1. Put some motherfucking snakes on a motherfucking plane
2. ?
3. Coffin!

I hope that you endorse this product and/or service.

This post (כ) Kingreaper: Glad that you, for one, welcome our new coffin-weaving overlords.


*Should be pronounced correctly, as one syllable rhyming with dream
**Should be pronounced incorrectly, as two syllables "meh-meh". Like I always pronounce it.

The Top 10 Uses of a Wicker Coffin

1. Giving Vixen, for use if/when she should die, hence fulfilling Project Woven Death
2. Taking lunch to the annual Cannibals Picnic
3. Burning with Til Lindeman inside, until he gets out, as part of an awesome pyrotechnics display.
4. Parodying the Easter story, without the worries about air from a normal coffin.
5. A cradle for an extremely obese american baby
6. A large basket for an assortment of cats
7. The bed of a hippy vampire
8. An impromptu hiding place in a horror film
9. A place to hide the body*
10. A way to prove that the rockband you, an ex-basket-weaver, are lead singer for, is truly awesome.

This post (כ) Kingreaper: Found coming up with uses for wicker coffins surprisingly hard, but had help from Vix.

*"It's in the wicker coffin officer" "Wicker coffin? Are you having a laugh? You damn punk kids!"

Random Music for random people

I've been worrying a bit about the cost of music at uni, given as my university's internet system is unlikely to allow me to pirate as easily as I have been doing,* but I've realised I'm being irrational.

Why should I worry when I have Pandora? It's one of the best sources of musical enjoyment I have, and it's actually legal. I've also just stumbled** on a great new flash-based source for music online, which has it's own random element (it doesn't categorise anything, so what you find is really happenstance) SeeqPod.

I'm very much into random music, and hence I'm very happy to have these resources. The thing about my taste in music is that it really doesn't go by categories; but then honestly I doubt many people's does. There are things you like, and things you don't, but the industry created categories aren't based on these things, they're based on something far more coarse: If they're relevant at all it's in deciding WHEN you'll like the music if you do, not whether you will or not.

Get out there, and enjoy some random tunes. Discover new tastes. Don't be one of those people who listens to what's on MTV and assumes that's the best there is.
But then, I'm preaching to the converted here.

This post (כ) Kingreaper: Spinning out to Rammstein Radio.

*Universities don't seem to like being sued; I don't know why.
**Literally, I spend a lot of time on StumbleUpon, eBay's latest acquisition

A Blog Meme

Blog Memes are a rather popular way to fill out the time in blogs, and of course passing them on serves to encourage backlinks to your own blog.

As I have absolutely no creativity*, and I don't want to abuse StumbleUpon for traffic until I have this place going slightly longer, I feel I might as well pass one on.**
*Actually, just as I'm too lazy to use it.
**By pass on, I mean "make up"

So here comes the
Weirdness Quiz

1. What is the strangest thing anyone has ever given you?
   In context, probably a pog. It was completely random, some guy I'd never met before (and have never met since) at a party just rnadomly gave me a shiny pog.
2. What is the strangest promise anyone has made to you?
   Well, I have one friend who owes me the eyes of his firstborn child. I have no idea what posessed him to go and bet them, but he did, and he lost, so now if I develop cataracts in my old age I'll know just where to go.
3. What is the strangest thing you have ever given anyone?
   Recently I went to a party, and was wearing sunglasses on the way there (I hate direct sunlight, but I'm clearly not a vampire, and I'm really annoyed that people seem to think a stake through the heart is the best test). At the end of the party I noticed one of the lenses was gone, so I gave the sunglasses to a guy beside me, who looked like a really cool pirate wearing them.
4. What is the strangest promise you have ever made?
   Clearly, one of the two funeral-related promises I have made to my good friend Vixen. In addition to promising to try and get a wicker coffin woven for her by Rammstein, I have promised to tell bad jokes at her funeral. But then, she's promised to go up to people at my funeral and say "At least he died doing what he loved, biting the head off a small animal." so we're even on that score.
   
   I think Project Woven Death edges it out on the weirdness scale though, weighing in at 3.5*
   *1 is your mother bringing you groceries when she comes for a visit despite the fact you're 30; 10 is your mother bringing you groceries when she comes for a visit despite having been dead for 10 years.
5. What is the weirdest game you've ever gotten addicted to?
   I've personally never been addicted to any game quite as strange as the game where you play an italian plumber who's dating a princess, and has to save her from a giant fire-breathing turtle.
   
   Nor was I truly addicted to the games where you play one of several ten-year-old kids who go around saving the world from evil, winning tournaments, and defeating your nemesis, through the capturing of house-sized monsters into airtight balls smaller than your fist.
   
   However, I am currently addicted to a game where you control a jelly baby which jumps over a keyboard, collecting futuristic weaponry and a nuclear arsenal, in order to kill a bunch of other jelly babies.
6. What is the oddest project you have ever embarked on?
   Well, I've already mentioned Project Woven Death, but the other competitor is a poem I never quite finished, called Humanity Must Strive, detailing the future of the human race in poem form. There were a few more complicated rules to the poetry, but suffice it to say I have well over 500 stanzas of the poem, and it's nowhere near complete. And that's not counting the second draft.
7. What is the weirdest scenario you have a plan for?
   Well, like most people on the internet, I have a plan for Zombie invasion. Unlike most people on the internet I also have a plan for: My rectum being sealed shut. But weirder than that (if only slightly) is that I have a plan for a portal* that opens in the door of my flat leading to a highly advanced alien spaceship.
   *that lets things through forwards from their original origin, and backwards from the other side, but otherwise they pass through as though the portal isn't there.

Tag 3 bloggers to pass this on:
P.Z.Myers
Sciencepunk
Sam Logan (Not technically a blogger, but I want to see his answers)

This post (כ) Kingreaper: Finding ways to pass the time since nineteen hundred and ninety nine

Some encouraging news

Reading through Fark today, I spotted an amazing thing: If I Blog It They Will Come a blog I hadn't heard of in 6 months, has been successful in its mission. Kevin Costner has read their blog, or at least some of it.

This has been achieved in only 7 months by a bunch of unknowns, contacting a big-name star without directly pestering him. I feel we can do better, and have the wicker coffin ready for Easter.

Which, obviously enough, gives me an idea. If Vix is willing to put up with a cramped enclosure for a day we could have an excellent set-piece lined up. Unfortunately, Rammstein isn't planning a tour that soon, but heh, if they're willing to make a wicker coffin maybe they'll make an exception? Well, either that or we could wait a year.

This post (כ) Kingreaper: Trying to work out the practicalities of spending a day in a wicker coffin. It could get kind of messy.

The project gets a home

One not-actually-drunken night, after watching the Simpsons movie, me and my good friend Vixen were chatting, and when the subject of funerals came up she mentioned a desire to have a wicker coffin produced by Til Lindemann of Rammstein
Thus was born:
Project Woven Death*
*It would be hard for me to think of a more melodramatic name for this; which is the only reason I haven't.

My aim is to find a way to persuade Mr. Lindemann to produce this coffin using his keenly honed basket-weaving skills.
But first, we must contact him; and that is where you come in. Keep checking back here, invite your friends to look, and spread the word. Eventually, someone in a position to tell Til about it will hear, and then it will be a simple matter of convincing him to do something totally insane. Given as this is the entire point of Rammstein, I don't expect too much trouble in that phase of the project.

In the month since its inception, Project Woven Death has already gained one celebrity supporter, Robert Rankin was recruited while I was on a day out with Dr. Steel's Toy Soldiers

This post (כ) Kingreaper: Plans to update at least once a week (tuesday or thursday) with info or fun things to do.