The City of Mind Controlling ... I Don't Know, Spiders Or Something

3592Just your average day in the average coffee shop out in the Foster-Powell nabe, and you want to use the restroom but you've got to wait for the mind-controlling spider to finish what it started with the guy who went in there first.

Or maybe it's a cybernetic ant, I don't know. But you know, it's the way people everywhere are.

What do you mean "no, not here?"

[story] Ames Link and the Waitron of Doom

3511.

And now, it's story time.

Ames Link walked up the streets of an average downtown of an average large American city, except it's Portland (which we're currently staging in Vancouver BC until the union and budget issues work out), brain-filled mind deep in thought.

Of all the things that The Agency had entrusted him through the years, this was perhaps the most monumental. On the least movement of the many that were to come, and soon, could fates of empires and powerful men depend. But he was the organization's top operative, and there was much risk, but also much confidence.

If #AmesLink were to mess up, it would be epic.

Ames Link approached Pioneer Courthouse Square (we worked the labor and budget issues out, this is really downtown Portland now) and felt a tension fill the air with a palpable palpation reminiscent of a much-anticipated yet dreaded medical exam, one which promised awkwardness yet would end in much diagnosis.

Ames Link decided that medical metaphors were useful but maybe not here.

Ames Link entered the Square from the 5th and Yamhill side, noticing - what was that? A flash? A flair? Something visually incidental that whose rubric began with the letters f and l? He wasn't sure. Just as he was going to remember a key aphorism taught him by his Tibetan Ti Kwan Leep instructor (well, he *looked* Tibetan), his adversary drew themselves out from behind one of the overwhelming number of trailer-based food conveyances that Portland, somewhat smugly, boasted about. His adversary was slender. His adversary was bearded (but still could be male or female, which we, I think, all agree, can be valid forms of expression). His adversary was polite.

"Ames Link. So we meet again."

A pause.

"May I take your ... order, sir."

Ames Link knew this was a barista, of course - a barista ... of menace and doom. A barista of malice and aforethought. A barista, in other words, that couldn't possibly have worked at Dutch Bros. And, suddenly, dropping all pretense of barista-like behavior (paging editorial, is that shipment of adjectives in yet? Let me know when they are, yeah, thanks) the silver of a finely-honed kitchen knife (bought at great expense from Sur le table, Kitchen Kaboodle being closed that day) flashed in the Portland afternoon sun, and the danse macabre was joined.

Ames Link dove left.

Ames LInk slid right.

Ames Link jumped, narrowly avoiding the tip of the toxic service employee's knife and reminisced, briefly, on when Portland AM radio was listenable.

Ames Link, of course, in the end, won the epic battle, doubling back and divesting the foe of his knife, and using a trick encoded in the second skit of the fourth episode of the third season of Portlandia, pinned the opponent to the bricks in such a way that any movement on his part would sever his cardiod .... carotid ... carotin ... that big artery in his neck utterly, completely and mostly into two pieces, and drew close to the aproned-one's ear (and yet, it just looked to the passers-by like two good friends finding a named brick, so sly was their style).

Ames Link breathed softly into his opponent's ear: "I know your secret. You are not the barista you claim to be.

"You are a diner cook.

"You never fooled me for a moment."

Ames Link's adversary slumped in defeat.

"May I," he said, in soft supplication, all arrogance gone from his voice, "take your order, sir"
Ames Link brought in his voice-tones of command.

"Reuben. Use real sauerkraut."

Ames Link paused again.

"Toast the bread."

AMES LINK WILL RETURN.

[political_humor] There Is Another System

3428.

There are a lot of people right now who are discouraged by politics, and I get that. Boy, do I have the 2020 ticket for you:

Don't care for the current crop of humans? Tired of waiting for the Singularity? Well, as the villain in Colossus: The Forbin Project revealed:

So it goes.

[cartoon] Spiral Notebook Comics Binge Watches The West Wing

3412.

John E. Williams (no relation), a comic artist of great amounts of ilk, has entertained before with a look at Law and (dunkdunk) Order. Now, on TV hour at Spiral Notebook Comics, he takes a rocket ride through any given episode of The West Wing, in which we may or may not get the answers to questions like this:

The writing is as sharp as a very sharp thing. Hie thee hence:

http://times5online.com/westwing/westwing1.html.

It's in a spiral damn notebook, y'all!

[pdx_liff] We Were Wierd Once … And Young

3394.

Seen in the Portland group on Imgur (http://imgur.com/r/Portland) where many nifty things both appalling and banal can be found:

Once upon a time....

We have come so far.

[pdx] The Original Design For The City Of Portland's Seal, Revealed

3386.

It's long been known that, in the secret history of the Rose City, that Portland is a town that was built on an ancient unicorn burial ground. What's less known is that the original city seal's design featured one.

Portlandia, of course, is a virgin in this depiction. Unicorns will only associate with virgins, goes the legend.

Naturally, more sober heads prevailed and we have the current boring version which features Portlandia, a sheaf of wheat, a hammer, a gear, a ship to shop the poor people out so more prosperous people can move in, and three food carts, only one of which is ever open (never when you stop by).

And so it goes. 

[liff] In Which I Replace The USS Enterprise's Warp Core

3385.

Seriously! I replaced the USS Enterprise's warp core, if by USS Enterprise you mean "the five-inch-long desktop light-up model version sold by Running Press"  and by 'warp core' you mean "the three LR-41 button batteries that power the little tiny light inside".

The ship in peril during a
not-peril time.

I love this model because it's very accurate to the way the ship looked in TOS; the markings and details are actually quite precise. It's a lovely little model in a size that fits, rather literally, in the palm of your hand.

It's a little like having that tiny little metal ship that was in a couple of the episodes, you know, in "Cats Paw" where that witchy chick dangled it over a candle flame and everyone on the bridge got really really warm.

I lusted to have that model. Just as well, as clumsy as I was, I would have just broken it anyway.

One fun little bit of dross I insist on carrying around is a little pulp-style SF ray gun made by Kikkerland. it's a little keychain fob and when you pull the trigger it makes a little ray gun zap sound and flashes a red LED. This, as the Enterprise replica, uses LR-41 cells, and being carried in the pocket, is subject to some wear. I had a couple of broken ones.

So, breaking open the case of the little ray-gun I found three LR-41 cells, which just so happened to be the number of cells my Enterprise needed.

The results speak for themselves.

Cannibalizing a ray gun blaster to power the USS Enterprise is a step above MacGyvering.

I'd prefer to say I got my Scotty on. 

[teh_funnay] Only 80s Music Can Fixx America Now

3368.

The campaign banner joke has been pretty played out recently; blandishments to support Republicans for Voldemort or Vote Cthulhu: Why Settle for the Lesser Evil get a bit tired after a while.

But my knowledge of the lyrics of a certain favorite song of The Fixx and the fact that I'm tired of a certain candidate's deception without any tact and the sight of a Fixx tour t-shirt with the line clipped out reading like a campaign slogan kind of forced my hand. You might say one thing led to another.

I'd vote for Cy. Sad he's not an American citizen.

He's in favor of standing tall, against red skies at night, and on health care, he's noted that the wrong antidote is like a bone in the throat.

Those are all positions I can get behind.

[liff in OR] True Oregon Facts! Volume 1

3366.

There are a lot of 'facty' facts about Oregon. As a native son, I know quite a few of them. Additionally, as a native son, I know a great deal of facts about Oregon that are so true, so down-to-the-bone, that one actually has to create them.

When it comes to True Oregon Facts!, you've come to the right place. As a trained Oregon explainer, I am prepared to Oregonsplain them to you. Get ready to rock your knowledge of Oregon with True Oregon Facts!

• True Oregon Fact! Oregon's current motto is "She Flies With Her Own Wings",changed from "The Union" (1957-1987). Other mottos we used include "Between Washington and California" (1901-02), "Pull My Finger" (Most Holiday Seasons Between 72 and 76), "Not Idaho" (Jun-Aug 1943), "No, Cut The RED Wire" (37-39), "Take the Red Pill, Neo" (Odd numbered months in 97), "Home Of Leverage" (Sundays 8pm, 7pm Central) and "Nadine, Get Me A 6-Pack of Beer At the Plaid Pantry" (incomes of $30K and under)
• True Oregon Fact! The first mayor of Madras was a sasquatch. Her name was Nancy. Nancy Marie Sasquatch.
• True Oregon Fact! Oregon's beta-development code-name was "uh, Clem".
• True Oregon Fact! Ken Kesey was, in reality, a hobbit. Yeah, we know that one's a bit obvious maybe, but still.
• True Oregon Fact! Wy'east, the original Multnomahn name for what we call Mount Hood, actually translates as "Suck it, Tahoma, YOU'RE GOIN' DOWN!"
• True Oregon Fact! The approach of the annual session of the Oregon Legislature is heralded by the State Senators and Representatives swimming up the Willamette River to spawn.
• True Oregon Fact! Sam Elliott's mustache served one term on the David Douglas School District's school board.
• True Oregon Fact! All of Oregon is in the Pacific time zone, except for Malheur County, where it's later than everyone thinks.
• True Oregon Fact! Former Governor Vic Atiyeh's tears could balance the state budget without having to call the legislature into session. Sadly, he never cried. Peter Courtney wasn't having it.
• True Oregon Fact! Legendary Statesman Journal political columnist Ron Blankenbaker, who passed away in 2011, was kept in a secure location whenever the Governor and the legislature were in session for the State of the State address, to ensure continuity of commentary should anything happen to state government during the event. Even today, it is said he sleeps, Charlemagne-esque, in a cavern beneath Mount Jefferson, ready to ride to the rescue of the state of Oregon when the need is dire.
• True Oregon Fact! An original name for Seattle was "New York Alki", meaning, in a hybrid of emigrant and native, "New York, By-and-by", envisioning Seattle's prospering into a major metropolis in time. Similarly, the name of the original people of the Portland area, Multnomah, was misunderstood by settlers to mean "San Francisco, As Soon As We Can Sell The Land From Underneath The Natives And Jack Up The Rent."
• True Oregon Fact! While Mount St Helens' historic eruption was thought to have been caused by pent-up gas causing a massive landslide, subsequent research by the USGS has suggested it was really pent-up resentment and aggravation over Vancouver's being treated as 'merely a suburb' of Portland for decades.
• True Oregon Fact! The transmitter tower for KPTV Channel 12 was built, single-handedly by Ramblin' Rod Anders over a course of an 18-hour stimulant-fueled binge in 1954. There was nothing amiss about the stimulant; Rod was such an easy going guy all he needed were three or four cups of really, *really* strong coffee. Well, that and his super-human level of hustle. Reports of Heck Harper handing him up the materials remain unconfirmed for the foreseeable future.
• True Oregon Fact! Gilliam County was created for the express purpose of aggravating Morrow County.
• True Oregon Fact! Tom McCall, Oregon's legendary governor, wasn't a single Republican man but actually two small moderate Democrats and one liberal Republican in a specially-designed suit. That's why he was so tall.

That's the first batch. As you can see, you can know Oregon, or you can know Oregon … or you can "know" Oregon.

"Know" Oregon. Read True Oregon Facts! and don't blame us when if you don't pass your Oregon citizenship exam.

[liff] Waiting For Godot On Facebook

3362.

I created this on Facebook while I was figuring out what my Moebius Stripper name was.

[funnay] Fish Wielder: High Fantasy, Meet J.R.R.R. (Jim) Hardison, Your New Court Jester.

3348.

I suspect that there are depths to the epically silly tale I've not yet found. It opens itself up on repeated viewings like a … what are one of those many-petaled flowers, you know, the ones you see in Japanese design?

Chrysanthemums?

Yeah, right. That's it.

This is another way of saying our friend J.R.R.R. (Jim) Hardison has finally released his novel Fish Wielder and we've read it, almost twice now, and it is just about everything we've hoped it would be. Which sounds glib in this era of everyone writing superlatives on everything, but which totally fits here.

Fish Wielder is the story, of course, of Thoral Mighty Fist and his quest to prevent The Heartless One … the Grand Master of the Bad Religion … from tracking down and consuming the Pudding of Power, a treat that was created a thousand and two years ago by the Dark Lord Mauron and whose consumption would enable the eater to command another piece of jewelry and conquer the land of Grome somehow. He manages to complete his quest with a cast of characters every bit as absurd as you can name, including elves, because it's not a fantasy epic without dignified, very very important elves. There's also the talking koi, claustrophobic talking horses, young elf-warrior-maidens with hilarious names, assassins that can't assassin straight,  running gags done right, and magic practice that was born on the Food Network.

In this world, if Gordon Ramsay yells at you about how undecooked the pudding is, you'd best pay attention.

The book is over-the-top in almost every good way. It describes itself as 'kind of like Lord of the Rings, set in Narnia, written by the guys to made Monty Python and the Holy Grail while they were listening to the music of They Might Be Giants'. It's only an unfair description in as much as it doesn't cover all the marks it hits and decisively rubs out. I detect hints of Hitchhiker's Guide in there (Thoral always seems to have a towel at the ready), for instance. It starts out fast and furious; within two chapters we're not only introduced to our hero and his second but his first set of assassins do themselves in with comic timing not seen since the Three Stooges.

The story's greatest magic is in timing, pacing, and the way all the jokes link together in the way a fine clockwork does. There is a ton of stuff going on here, and the layers all work well together. There are reveals you don't see coming that are made at just the right moment, and eventually you realize that all characters are just as they look, but not as they seem. And, all along, Jim's deftly orchstrating all the reveals and the homages, and he's winking at you, knowing you'll get the joke.

If I had to pin down the style, I'd say the best parallel would be Police Squad!. The show only lasted for six episodes, and the reason legendarily given is that it was because you had to actually pay attention to the show. Fish Wielder's humor is just as witty and non-stop as the Zucker-Abrams-Zucker Airplane! school of comedy.

All of which finally means that high fantasy, which needs a new court jester, has found one. Fish Wielder should share a shelf with Aspirin, Anthony, Pratchett … It's a world that's a very intelligent joke.

Publisher: Fiery Seas Publishing
ISBN: 978-0-9968943-1-9
Retail Price: $16.99, Kindle Ebook: $7.19
Learn more of the world of Thoral and Bradfast at the book's site, http://http://fishwielder.com/.
The book's Amazon page can be found at this link here, available in both dead-tree and ebook. 

[teh_funnay] Holy Talking Koi … Fish Wielder Character Cards!

3316.

As the release date for J.R.R.R. Hardison's epic, Fish Wielder, approachetththehth*, the swag gets better and better. And if you're lucky enough to be at a convention where J.R.R.R. is, you might stumble your way into this nifty find:

Fish Wielder Character cards! And a nice production they are, too. Slick, wonderfully colored, great-looking mementos of the adventure yet-to-be, they are great portraits of our main protagonists and antagonists.

Our hero, Thoral Mighty-Fist and his faithful companion, Bradfast … the talking koi.

Of Thoral, the card saith Perhaps the strongest, toughest, most mythical fighter in all the mystical world of Grome. His most striking feature is his piercing gaze. So intense is his stare that those on the receiving end often feel the need to look away for fear they'll catch fire.

Well, why … I eyes ya.

The heroine … Nalweegie … looks delicious. And there's a reason.

The elfish warrior princess, in the elfin language, Nalweegie translates as "the Evening Snack". She is so named because to look on her in twilight quells the hunger of one's heart without making one feel overfull, as can happen with a more substantial meal. 

You know what would be perfect? If her visage would also be part of 'this' nutritious breakfast. 

And, how can be a heroic tale without the villains? The set contains two:

This is Necrogrond:

The mysterious and evil sorcerer. A high priest of the Bad Religion, kidnapper of Princess Nalweegie** and the self-proclaimed nemesis of Thoral and Brad. Oh. He is also immortal.***

As nemesis-proclaiming goes, self-proclaiming saves a lot of time. We approve of the getting-things-done attitude of Necrogrond. 

And someone who needs no introduction … but he's getting one because he's a silent type … The Heartless One:

The scarlet-robed and mostly silent leader of the Bad Religion and the mastermind of the plant to find the lost Pudding of Power. By eating it, the Heartless One hopes to bring the peoples of the magic world of Grome to their knees.

Talk about eating like you mean it. I hope it comes with a MSDS.

The art is by Herb Apon (who drew the FW cover art), the coloring is by Dan Jackson (who worked with JRRRH on The Helm) and the silly is 100% Jim. Each card has the above descriptions and a QR code on the back, so you can sail away to where-ever that takes you in the online world of Fish Wielder.  And if you were lucky enough to go to Emerald City ComicCon, you may have run across Jim and he's probably given you one. If he offers you one, it's our hearty recommendation to accept … and join the school of afishonados waiting for this work to come out.

The world of Fish Wielder on line is best accessed though FW's site here: http://www.fishwielder.com/, which has as much as you need to know about the whole spree, and should keep you wanting some more.

Two fins up, so far. 

* ththththhthth. Thththth.

** Booo, hisss!!!!

*** So, there's that.

[teh_funnay] Spot The Error

3314.

In the last week, in as much as Wife™ and me were parched, we stopped at one of the fine purveyors of artificially sweetened, flavored, fizzy water arrayed along the many miles of SE Division Street and acquired a small supply of said beveraginal substance in the cup you are about to see here.

Bearing in mind the time of purchase, I invite you to spot the error.

Go on. Take all the 'time' you need!
 

[Out122ndWay] The Aliens Have Arrived Out On 122nd …

3309.

Or, at least, their tagger has. ET's no Banksy, not by a long shot, but I kinda dig his style anyway:

The above fella was spotteed on SE 122nd between Oak and Stark, on the old, boarded-up car wash on the lot between Ron Tonkin Honda on the north and the Astro station on the south, whereas this guy:

… was similarly eagle-eyed at SE Market (note the sign) and 122nd, on the same lot as the Plaid Pantry store, SW corner of that intersection.

Some things we can deduce from mere observation:

1. The aliens are quite happy.
2. They may need dental work.
3. They are rather horny.
4. They are good as opposed to evil (note the halo), and
5. They have chin clefts that remind one, uncomfortably, of derrieres (or maybe it's me with issues, who knows).

So, let's welcome them, whoever they are. David Douglas is amongst the most diverse communities in Oregon, so a couple of ETs should fit right on in.

[comics] What We're Still Loving: The Helm

3265.

We're a bit late to the party on this one. But we stumbled on it in meeting a wholly witty person. Therein lies the tale.

During OryCon last, we stumbled upon a man billing himself as J.R.R.R. Hardison. Little did we know. He was promoting a book … but I'll not get ahead of myself. To promote himself, he was distributing copies of the comic he wrote, The Helm (with heroic art and Frazetta cover homage by Bart Sears). I thumbed through it, and, as though by fate, a sequence hooked itself right into my cortex.

It's just after our main character … Mathew Blurdy … has gone through the worst part of his no-good, very bad, terrible day. Not only has his girlfriend dumped him, publicly and humiliatingly, at his place of work … a DVD rental shop … his inability to keep it together there immediately and subsequently cost him his job. A miserable mess, the now-unemployed, now-nodding-lonely, 30-year-old, overweight manchild manages to intersect with an eerie, almost-comically portentious garage sale. A whim draws him hither, where he meets the titular artifact, which calls to him in only a voice he can hear.

Mathew is the Chosen One. But The Helm's vision is cloudy, that day … and once it sees what doughy clay it has to work with, tries to reject him, all but saying I said GOOD DAY, sir! And, in the frame after, after the garage sale's equally-creepy proprietor (who figures mightily in a crucial way much later) tells him bluntly to put the merch down unless he intends to buy, a bronze, chiseled hunk of a brick house appears as though fated to be, and asks to look at a sword. The Helm, tellingly, speaks not to him.

The hunk so distracted, the chunk steals away with The Helm.

That, friends, the sort of deft comic timing I enjoy. The joke may not be complex, but the telling is timed like a precision time piece. And that's the sort of comic timing that made the comic worth the possessing.

I've read it many times since; if I was going to write about it, I want to do it justice, but the subtext that sticks with me is that Mathew Blurdy is terribly believable. He gets the superpower, he slowly learns to pay the cost; like most mortals, he certainly didn't genetically know what to do next and stumbles about with it like a 6-year-old kid who just got the keys to a Lamborghini. But somehow, chaotically, when the moment presents itself, he goes with his considerable gut and shows he has what he needs just when he needs it. He ends the adventure changed a little, but not significantly, and The Helm, realizing it's stuck with him, does the best that it can with what it has to work with.

Everything and everyone in this play is so perfectly imperfect.

It's that comic timing and grasp of the absurdity that is people that give me high hopes for Jim's upcoming novel, Fish Wielder. The wit of The Helm's writing shows an aptness for writing sharp satire. I don't think I'll be disappointed, but the wait … the book's due out in August of this year. But, if the story's good enough for Piers Anthony to glowingly recommend it, and if the comic's good enough for Harlan Ellison to be delighted by it, then it ought to be good enough for anyone.

Holy crap, Jim! You did all the LOLs!

Contact Jim on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jim.hardison.75

[funnay] I Can Hear You Better if You Increase The Font Size

3256.

An ad recently espied in Soylent News™:

YES, I'M HARD OF HEARING BUT FORTUNATELY YOU UPPED THE FONT SIZE SO I CAN HEAR YOU VERY WELL NOW THANK YOU!

[liff] Neil Armstrong: Straight Outta Wapakoneta

3221.

Neil Armstrong is one reason I don't do bucket lists.

Why should I? I'm not only never going to the moon, he sharked being the first guy to do it. I mean, think about it. If he were still alive, no matter what you were doing, no matter what your peak experience is, even if you're in the middle of it, he could walk on stage, take the spot from you, say "I'm Neil Armstrong, and I'm the first human being ever to walk on a celestial body that isn't Earth", and that's history's mic drop right there. You can never compare to that. How can you? Are YOU going to the moon, chump? No. Even if you could, are you getting there in 1968? No.

And then he just retired and lived a quiet productive life, like OG Astronauts should. Zero shame in that game.

Neil was the luckiest human being who ever lived.

Just sayin'.

[teh_funnay] How One Sometimes Feels When Watching The News Out Of Salem

3198.

Tomorrow's another day, Jake.

[teh_funnay] It's Either This Or Your Next Favorite Character Will Die

3189.

I'm not saying GRRM is close to snapping, mind you. But I probably would be if I had to put up with the circular SadPuppysplaining that he's had to on his blog.

[teh_funnay] Meanwhile, somewhere near Westeros…

3158.

GRRM hasn't killed all 140 characters … he still uses Twittah …

JK Rowling, Joss Whedon, and I walk into a bar... Everyone you've ever cared about dies.
— George R.R. Martin (@GRRM) October 3, 2014