3/30/09

Choose your own adventure: 16

The story so far:
You awoke on an island after a night of binge drinking with friends because of a shitty day. You don't know how you got there, so you go off to find how to get home. After a few adventures you find a village where the natives, a bunch of otters, have all been slain. You follow the trail of whoever killed them and find a secret lair in a cave in the cliff wall. There you sneak around until you find a secret passage, and overhear some leader and his underlings discussing the deaths of the otters, and that there is some spy (aka you) in the cave. You find a passage to a prison where there are three captives, a huddled furry thing, a penguin with a cool hat and a scary sounding thing in a corner. You talk to the penguin, who encourages you to escape with him down a secret escape passage that another prisoner made in the cell next to his. You free a young otter who is too afraid to speak, and a scary jaguar, who guards the exit while you escape. After escaping, the penguin, Pierre, volunteers to bring you and the otter child to Ellestria if you go with him to his ship, last seen due west in Edgeton. While walking west through the forest of fortune, you stumble into some lizardmen on patrol and get into a fight. You manage to disarm one of them, but reinforcements arrive and chase you all to a marsh, which the lizards are afraid to approach.

Now begins Time is a Loop: Episode 16

Surely there is a reason the lizards won't approach the lake, you think, but the devil you don't in this case may be the better option. You tell Pierre and the child to hop in the canoe, and you make for the island in the middle of the lake. You figure that if you wait there, maybe the lizards will get tired and hungry and leave, giving you a chance to escape.
"I don't like the idea either, but I guess it is our best option." Pierre says.

You push the canoe out, and help the otter child into the middle of the canoe. Pierre hops up front and you push it out into the water, hopping in the back. As you begin to paddle out you look behind you. The lizards, still about 50 feet away from the shore, look horrified. They start yelling unintelligibly at you all, pointing and waving frantically. You look forwards again, but the lake is empty and still. You look down at the water, it is completely black, and you can't see past your oar. You think that the lizards' panic is just superstition, when, while still looking down at the water, you watch as the black in the water zoom by from underneath you.

And then you realize the black is not the water, but the... thing... in the water! You yell to Pierre to row as fast as he can, and to book it to the island! With all your might, you lunge the oar into the water, and push forward with all your might. The black has now moved behind your canoe. You frantically row, pray, and try your best to not look back as you hear the sound of something large emerging from the water.
The otter child screams.
Pierre yells: "Don't stop!"

50 yards from the island.

With every stroke of the oar you feel the black monster approaching.

35 yards from the island.

As you are paddling, you feel a cold shiver, and you notice that a giant shadow has cast itself over your end of the canoe. Whatever is chasing you, a head, an arm, a... something, is right above you. You paddle harder.

15 yards.

You feel something large fly by your head, close. Only inches from you now. You jab your paddle into the water and push back as hard as your possibly can, into the water, push the water back, lift, repeat. Something goes flying down into the water just behind you, launching the boat forward on a giant wave. The canoe goes flying, as do the people inside of it. You cling to the side of the canoe and reach for the otter child, but it all happens too fast. You land near the shore of the island, the canoe crashes on a rock and breaks. After spinning underwater, looking for the surface, you emerge and gasp for breath, then, seeing the shore, you swim to it. Pierre reaches the shore at the same time as you, looking frantic. You look out at the lake and watch a large hump submerge itself into the water, disappearing from sight, leaving only bubbles and wake.

"What the hell?" Pierre says.
You agree, after catching your breath.
"Where is the child?" Pierre realizes. You look around but you see no one else. Just the wreckage of the canoe by the shore, an oar which floated to the sand, and just under a tree by the shore you see the rapier and spear, which must have been thrown from the canoe.
"No! It couldn't have!" Pierre runs over to the wreckage and looks around, you follow, but neither can find a body.
Did that black monster get the child?
"I hope not. I pray not. It must have swum away, right?" Pierre says. You then realize you were talking out loud.
You continue to look around the beach, but don't see any body. You do see that the island goes on south for about half a mile, and there seems to be smoke coming from somewhere in the middle of the island. Pierre also says he spies what looks like a small cave mouth on the east side of the island, with water flowing out of it, and it seems too small for that black monster.

You think about what to do next. You could:
A: Head towards the smoke you see in the middle of the island.
B: Check out the small cave.
C: Stay by the shore where you crashed, hoping the otter child comes there, if it is still alive and can.
D: Try to put your canoe back together and get off the island, braving the black monster again.
E: Other ideas?

(Remember to vote for wednesday.)

3/27/09

Envy, Todd and that ninja bitch, Lynette


The Clash at Demonhead are probably one of the best bands ever, inmyhonestopinion. But don't tell Scott that. It might make him all depressed.

3/25/09

The robot is the coolest



I am a little too excited about this. Where the Wild Things Are, the movie, by Spike Jonze, with music by Karen O! O my!

Ps: Catherine Keener! How did I miss that?

Choose your own adventure: 15

The story so far:
You awoke on an island after a night of binge drinking with friends because of a shitty day. You don't know how you got there, so you go off to find how to get home. After a few adventures you find a village where the natives, a bunch of otters, have all been slain. You follow the trail of whoever killed them and find a secret lair in a cave in the cliff wall. There you sneak around until you find a secret passage, and overhear some leader and his underlings discussing the deaths of the otters, and that there is some spy (aka you) in the cave. You find a passage to a prison where there are three captives, a huddled furry thing, a penguin with a cool hat and a scary sounding thing in a corner. You talk to the penguin, who encourages you to escape with him down a secret escape passage that another prisoner made in the cell next to his. You free a young otter who is too afraid to speak, and a scary jaguar, who guards the exit while you escape. After escaping, the penguin, Pierre, volunteers to bring you and the otter child to Ellestria if you go with him to his ship, last seen due west in Edgeton. While walking west through the forest of fortune, you stumble into some lizardmen on patrol and get into a fight.

Now begins Time is a Loop: Episode 15

You decide the best course of action is to try to disarm the lizardman as he rushes you with his spear. Luckily you took Karate from Dr Yang in college, and remember a thing or two about disarming opponents (although you mostly remember because he used you as the example in every class, and you are pretty sure he almost broke your arm more than once). The lizardman runs towards you with the spear out in front of him, and at the last possible second you twist to the right, and pull the spear from his hands as you knee him in the stomach. What luck! That worked? You are quite suprised, and stand there remarking at your luck as the lizardman stands back up to face you. Unfortunately for him, you now have his weapon, and he looks hesitent to approach you again. He looks at his compatriate, who seems to be in a similar predicament with Pierre. They both nod to each other, then let out a load yell, and turn and flee.
Pierre chases after them, throwing the rapier the other lizardman dropped, but he misses, and the lizards get away.
"This is no good," Pierre says, as he picks up the rapier. "They will alert the others of our presence. Grab the kid. We need to move."
You follow after Pierre, who is now running at a brisk pace. The otter child seems to be having a hard time keeping up. You turn around to grab its hand and help it along, when you see behind you a horde of lizardmen in the distance! Pierre notices them too, and they have definately noticed you.
"We need to move as fast as we can! Now!" Pierre shouts to you both, and starts sprinting West. You pick up the otter child to carry him, and follow behind Pierre.
The terrain is difficult to run on, however, especially carrying the child, and you almost lose your footing once or twice, but you keep running as fast as possible.
You try not to look back, but you are pretty sure you can hear the lizard's cruel shouts getting louder behind you.
You keep running, jumping over this log, dodging that bush...
You run for what feels like days, you run until you feel you can't run any more, but every time you want to stop, you hear the lizards, and they seem closer, close enough that you can feel their hot, smelly breath on the back of your neck. So you continue to run.

Now you are running down a hill, towards the bottom you see a gross looking marsh covered with patches of land and bog, and farther behind it, a lake, with a small island in the middle. You start to run past it, but trip over something and fall. You and the child go flying, and both of you roll down the steep hill towards the marsh, finally stopping at the edge of it. Pierre sees your fall and runs down next to you. He helps you to your feet. You turn to see the lizardmen have all stopped about 50 feet from where you are. They seem terrified to come near you. You help the otter child to its feet, and turn to Pierre.
"I have no idea why they stopped, but I don't like the look of this," he says.
You stand there and look about you. It looks just like any other marsh you have seen before, but the lizardmen won't seem to approach any closer.
"Maybe if we just stay on the edge of it, they will keep away from us?" Pierre suggests.
You agree that it is your best plan, and you all begin walking slowly along the edge of the bog. The lizardmen keep about 50 feet away from the bog, but continue to follow you all, not letting you out of their sight.
As you continue on, you run across a small canoe sitting by the water. It seems to have been sitting there for a while, and has two paddles in it.
Pierre suggests: "We could use this canoe to row out into the lake. It seems to go on for a while, and maybe we can lose the lizardmen that way. They don't seem to want to come close to the lake. We could look for a river that may connect to the sea, or we could paddle to that island and wait out the night, to see if the lizardmen go away. Or we could just continue on walking beside the lake and hope they don't decide to man up and come down here. Any ideas, boyo?"

What do you do?
A: Row out to the lake
B: Row out in the canoe and look for a river that might connect to the sea
C: Continue on down the side of the lake, hoping the lizardmen don't brave up/
D: Surrender to the lizardmen and hope they will go lenient on you.

(Put in your vote before Friday)

3/23/09

Choose your own adventure: 14

Time for another Choose your own adventure episode

The story so far:
You awoke on an island after a night of binge drinking with friends because of a shitty day. You don't know how you got there, so you go off to find how to get home. After a few adventures you find a village where the natives, a bunch of otters, have all been slain. You follow the trail of whoever killed them and find a secret lair in a cave in the cliff wall. There you sneak around until you find a secret passage, and overhear some leader and his underlings discussing the deaths of the otters, and that there is some spy (aka you) in the cave. You find a passage to a prison where there are three captives, a huddled furry thing, a penguin with a cool hat and a scary sounding thing in a corner. You talk to the penguin, who encourages you to escape with him down a secret escape passage that another prisoner made in the cell next to his. You free a young otter who is too afraid to speak, and a scary jaguar, who guards the exit while you escape. After escaping, the penguin, Pierre, volunteers to bring you and the otter child to Ellestria if you go with him to his ship, last seen due west in Edgeton.

Now begins Time is a Loop: Episode 14

You decide to take the straight route to Edgeton, through the forest. You reply back to Pierre, it is called the forest of fortune afterall, maybe something good will happen?
Pierre looks at you, puzzled. "You really don't know anything about this land, do you? Its full name is the Forest of Fortune and Peril. Sorry. I guess I should have been more upfront. Most people know to stay away from forests..."
The otter child nods in agreement.
"But who am I to stop you? Perhaps today we will have luck on our side. It would be about time..."

You look up to the sky, and see the sun setting, and you head off towards it.
"Where are you going?" asks Pierre.
You reply to Edgeton, in the west.
"Then why are you heading east? What, you don't even know which direction the sun sets in? You are hopeless."
the otter child nods.
"Come, I will lead the way." Pierre states, as he walks off away from the setting sun. You think that maybe in this land, what means west to you means east to them. Or perhaps Pierre is a bit nuts. You proceed cautiously behind him.

The Forest of Fortune and Peril, luckily, seems to you just like any other forest. Trees everywhere, pine, fur, oak, birch, etc. Not too much underbrush, you are able to walk freely. Pierre soon finds a small trail which you all follow "west." After a while you start to realize what seems to be missing from the forest. Animals. You haven't seen or heard any animals for hours now. You ask Pierre about this.
"Animals? In the forest? Why would they live in the forest when they can live much better in towns? Sure, there may be some hermits out here in the woods, or perhaps a small settlement, but animals don't just 'live' in the forest. We come here when we need things from the forest, but you don't just see animals wandering around in here. Well, besides us."
You guess that that makes sense.
You decide to ask about why Pierre was imprisoned.
"Why was I imprisoned? That's a good question. I really don't know if I can really answer that. I will try though. As I said before, I am the dread pirate captain Marlowe of the famed Josephine. Well, my crew and I were out sailing in the waters nearby and we ran across this vessel, which looked like the Forerunner, the vanguard of the Mullenhind navel fleet. It was by itself out adrift at sea, and we thought it would be a fine time to pick it off, and save us the trouble of fighting it in the future. We drew up near it, but there was no movement on deck, so we drew up beside it and boarded it. The ship was empty. We searched the ship and found no being, however, we did find a horde of treasure below deck. My men began hauling the treasure to our ship. Some of my crew was nervous, it is quite a strange situation, a ship with a fortune on it and no beings at all, not even corpses. Rumors began flying about it being a ghost ship. I tried to quiet the rumors, but you know how men are. Well, matters only got worse when one of my crew, Jimmers, said he heard voices below. Now all the men were frightened, and none would go below deck. I told them to man up, and went below deck to show them there was nothing there..."
The otter child pulls at your arm, he seems to be scared by the story.
"And what happened below deck I will not tell you. Mostly for the reason that I don't remember. The next moment I remember after walking below deck was waking up on the shore of this island, with those lizardmen standing above me. They hauled me off to jail, and thats where you found me. So, yes, to make a long story short,"
Too late, you think, and high five yourself for referencing Clue.
"I really don't know why I was imprisoned." Pierre states. "Does that help explain the situation?"
You are about to ask why Pierre thinks his ship is at Edgeton if he lost it at sea somewhere, when you notice the otter child is still tugging at your arm. You look down at it. It points off to your left. You see some movement in the bushes in the distance, and you turn to Pierre.
"Yeah, I see it boyo. Get ready, something is coming."

Out of the bushes come two lizardmen. One is carrying a rapier, and the other has a spear. They look at you all menacingly, mutter to each other, then draw their weapons and make ready to attack you. You make ready to run.
"We won't be able to get away from them, lad. Our best bet is to attack them head on, and hope they are just a search party, and there are no more of them near. We should be able to handle two of them."

You draw your knife as the otter child hides behind you. The otter with the spear comes rushing at you. What do you do?

A: Throw your knife at its face.
B: Wait for the lizardman to get close, then jump quickly to the side, and stab your knife at its foot.
C: Try to disarm the lizardman when he gets close.
D: Run away!
E: Throw your hands in the air, and surrender.
F: Feel free to submit your own option too.

I am sure some of you want some stats on your character, so I will work a full one up soon. Here are basic stats:
LVL: 1
HP: 24
MP: o
ATK: 4
DEF: 2
MGC: 1
MDF: 0
AGL: 3
LCK: 3

Weapon: Knife
Armor: Plain Clothes
Badass Gloves

(Remember to vote before wednesday.)

3/20/09

Choose your own adventure: 13

The story so far:
You awoke on an island after a night of binge drinking with friends because of a shitty day. You don't know how you got there, so you go off to find how to get home. After a few adventures you find a village where the natives, a bunch of otters, have all been slain. You follow the trail of whoever killed them and find a secret lair in a cave in the cliff wall. There you sneak around until you find a secret passage, and overhear some leader and his underlings discussing the deaths of the otters, and that there is some spy (aka you) in the cave. You find a passage to a prison where there are three captives, a huddled furry thing, a penguin with a cool hat and a scary sounding thing in a corner. You talk to the penguin, who encourages you to escape with him down a secret escape passage that another prisoner made in the cell next to his.

Now begins Time is a Loop: Episode 13

You decide following the penguin out of here is probably going to be the best option you have at this point, but you still don't know what happened to the otters. You tell the penguin to listen by the door as you go check out the other prisoners. Perhaps they can help you, or maybe they know what happened to the otters.
"Okay, but hurry! I don't want to be stuck here any much longer! Take too long and I am going without you." he says.
You quickly weigh your options, and decide that the left cell, with the huddled ball of fur, is probably going to be easier to convince to escape, or at least will not eat you. You head over to the cell and peek in. The fur looks up at you. It seems to be a young otter, covering itself in a dirty green cloth.
"..." it says.
You explain to not be scared, and that you are here to help it escape.
"..." it says. But it looks interested.
You open the lock with the key, and help the otter to its feet. It looks at you in thanks, but still doesn't talk. You walk it to the empty cell where the passage is supposed to be.
"Hmm. So I was right. It was an otter child in the cell next to me." the penguin says, looking at the child. "Could use some cleaning up though. I guess I shouldn't complain, one can get pretty dirty in a cell. Look at me."
You look at the penguin. He looks very clean. And distinguished.
You ask how they are doing for time. The penguin says "I have nay heard anything yet, but better to play it safe than sorry. We should head out now."
You tell him to wait, you want to check on the other prisoner.
"Really? That sounds like a terrible idea. I really don't want to deal with... whatever is in there."

You think about it, but are determined. You are sure it is just a wrongfully accused animal. Afterall, why would bad guys imprison another bad guy? So you walk, quietly and carefully, towards the door. You may want to free the creature, but you are not stupid.

As you get closer, you can see what is in the cell. And it sees you. As it bares its fangs at you, you try to decide if freeing a jaguar is a good idea. You approach the cell cautiously, and greet the animal. You explain that you are here to free it, and if it would like to escape its cell and promise not to eat you and your companions, you would be more than happy to open the cell.
"Grrr... Why would you think I would eat you?" it growls at you. Behind the growl seems to be a hint of a smile.
You explain that maybe you are completely in the wrong, perhaps sir jaguar would not eat you or your companions, but you just didn't want to take any chances.
"Why don't you free me, and you will see if I eat you or not?"
You think that doesn't seem to be a good argument. You tell the jaguar that if he promises to not hurt any of you, you will open the door.
"Open the door if you like, but I will make no promises until I see who your companions are."

This doesn't seem to be a good idea.

"Hey kiddo, somethings coming... Whoa, so that's what was making all that noise!" the penguin says as he approaches. "We need to get out of here. Leave that beast."
"Beast? Really. How polite you are." The jaguar says, licking its paw.
"Sorry sir, its just... My mother always said to never trust a carnivore."
You think to yourself, aren't penguins carnivores?
"Well, anyways, we need to go, now. That little otter kid is laying on the floor, freaking out."
You look over, the poor otter is crying in a ball on the floor. You tell the jaguar that this is his last chance.
"Fine. Have it your way." he says.
You open the lock.
"This is a terrible idea." the penguin says. "But too late now. Nice to meet you, sir jaguar. Now follow me everyone, lets get out of here." He walks into the empty cell, pulls a rock aside, and reveals a path. "Follow me" he says. You help the otter to its feet, it seems especially freaked out about the jaguar. You send the otter down the space after the penguin.

Now you and the jaguar are alone in the cell.

It looks at you and licks its lips. It seems to be smiling.

You remember how you thought this was a bad idea.

"Go on, human. I will take the rear." it says.

You are hesitant to turn your back to it, though. You hear noises in the hall.

"Go now. I can take the lizards. I will follow up after." it says as it turns towards the door. "Also, thanks for freeing me." It starts growling, then lets out a loud snarl. You turn and escape down the passage. Behind you you hear lizardmen open the door, and then voices: "Boakes is free! Boakes is free, run for it!" After that you hear yelling and screaming, and then, as you get further down the passage, silence.
You continue to crawl down the passage, it gets darker and darker, and narrower and narrower, but finally you seem to be crawling upwards, and then finally, you see light. You crawl out of the ground to see a wooded grove. Seated on a fallen log are the penguin and the otter child. You approach them.
"So you made it out alive. We were worried." the penguin says. "Congratulations. Where is the jaguar?"
You explain it stayed to fight the lizardmen.
"I guess it probably hated them more than it wanted to eat us. Anyways, now that we are free, what to do now? I am going to head back to finding my ship. I don't know what your plans are, but if you are going my way, I would welcome a traveling companion. And I should thank you for rescuing me. Once I find my ship, you will be hansomely rewarded."
You ask about his ship.
"Oh yes, I guess I haven't even introduced myself yet. My name is Pierre DeLaCroix, but you may know of me better as Captain Marlowe of the famed ship Josephine. At your service."
You bow back to the penguin, and ask Sir Marlowe where his ship is.
"Just call me Pierre, my lad. You have earned it. Last time i saw my ship it was... west of here. If we are where I think we are."
You ask Pierre where that would be.
"I believe we are on the outskirts of the forest of fortune. To the north is the mountains of woe, and past them is the capital, Ellestria. To the west is the port town, Edgeton, which is where I am planning to head."
You then look at the young otter, who seems to have brightened up after hearing Ellestria. You ask it if that is where it wants to go. It nods in reply.
"Poor child. It seems to have clamed up after all the horror it has seen. I tried conversing with it while waiting for you, but even after hours and hours, it wouldn't respond to anything. Ellestria seems to be the first thing it has responed to. Do you have family there, child?" Pierre asks. It nods. "Hmm. Well, I guess, as an honored gentleman, it would be my duty to take you there. I will do my best to get you to your family. Now, what about you, sir. Where are you going?"

You explain your story to the two animals, and then think about your options. Pierre suggests two possible ways to get to Edgeton from where you are:

A: Going through the forest of fortune
B: Going south to the main road, then traveling west.
C: Or you could go north and take the child straight to his family without Pierre.
D: You could also wait around to see if the jaguar shows up. But who knows if it is still hungry?
E: You could also head back to the otter village, although that seems like a mean thing to bring the otter child back to.

(Reply with your vote before monday.)

3/19/09

Fansterpiece



So our video Time is a Loop made for the Flight of the Conchords contest made it into the FINAL FANSTERPIECE. It was played on HBO last night after the Flight of the Conchords episodes, and you can see it above. Yeah. Go Team.

D&D cast

The dungeons and dragons cast. Featuring: Drinkso McElf, Turino the Barbarian, Roy the Monk, The Halfling Rogue whose name I never remember, and Peebearr, the druid, with his wolf, Red XIV.

Choose your own adventure: 12

The story so far:
You awoke on an island after a night of binge drinking with friends because of a shitty day. You don't know how you got there, so you go off to find how to get home. After a few adventures you find a village where the natives, a bunch of otters, have all been slain. You follow the trail of whoever killed them and find a secret lair in a cave in the cliff wall. There you sneak around until you find a secret passage, and overhear some leader and his underlings discussing the deaths of the otters, and that there is some spy (aka you) in the cave. You find a passage to a prison where there are three captives, a huddled furry thing, a penguin with a cool hat and a scary sounding thing in a corner. You are trying to choose which to talk to.

Now begins: Time is a Loop: Episode 12

You decide to approach the penguin. He seems the most hospitable, as well as the fact that he seems to be looking at you already, so it would be rude to ignore him.

You approach his cell and ask him who he is.
"Who are you?" he replies.
You explain that you are a stranger in this land and are trying to find out what happened to the otters that were killed in a town nearby.
"Otters? I don't know anything about that." he replies. "But the guy in the cell next door might. If he's not gone loony."
You turn to go to the left cell.
"Wait, first howsabout you get me outta here?" the penguin says.
He seems harmless enough, so you go to open the cell. It is locked with a small lock. You try kicking and pulling at it, then you remember the key you found earlier. You try it. It works. The door swings open. "Thank you sir. Now, by your leave, I will be out of here." the penguin says.
You turn to him to warn him that the guards are all searching for you, and it will be hard to escape.
"Now you tell me. Great. I was better off being locked up."
You ask why he was locked up.
"We should talk about that another time. Right now we should get out of here."
You ask how. There is only one exit, and it seems to be heavily guarded.
"I know how. There is an escape tunnel the guy in the cell next to me was digging, he said he was almost finished, but then they took him away one night, and he never returned. I am sure it is still there, they never cleaned his cell..."

It sounds like the best plan you have right now. The penguin asks if you want to do anything else before leaving. You think about your options.
You could:
A: Leave with the penguin thru the escape tunnel.
B: First go to the furry guy in the left cell and see if he will come with you, then all three of you escape.
C: Go to the scary guy in the far right cell and see if he wants to escape too.
D: Go get both and see if they all want to escape, going to the left cell first.
E: Ditto, but far right cell first instead.

What do you do?
(Remember to vote before Friday.)

3/16/09

Choose your own adventure: 11

Despite a great want to jump out screaming, you decide to try to cut a hole in the tapestry to see what is out there before you make yourself known. You take out the knife and press it against the tapestry. Luckily the cloth is tied down both on the floor and ceiling, otherwise this would be futile. It is still difficult to do, and you feel you may have made moved the curtain a lot in doing so, but you manage to cut a small hole, big enough for your eye to see through. This is what you see:




You ready?



You see 12 lizardmen with large swords and spears all pointed at the tapestry. Holy Shit!

JK hahaha. This is what you really see:

You see a large room with tapestries on the walls, a red rug on the ground and a large chair on the right. On the tapestries are depicted wildlife nature scenes, of hunting and stuff like that. You don't really take in any details. You are more focused on what is sitting in the chair.
In the chair is a large, very ugly dog, wearing a sombrero. You find the sombrero kinda amusing, but you are much to intimidated by the pit bull that is as big as you, sombrero notwithstanding.

Anyways, it seems the dog has not noticed you yet, despite your cutting at fabric over to his left. He seems lost in thought, with his head resting in his hands, er I guess paws. While you are frightened of him, and hope against everything you are not seen, you also feel bad for him. He seems to be genuinely upset about something.
You hold completely still for a while, trying your best not to breathe, for what seem like hours. Finally, the dog gets up, stretches, and walks to your left, where you think you can see a door. He pauses, breathes deeply, then slams the door open and yells: "Have you lazy sacks of shit found the spy yet? No? Well get searching before I rip your jaws off!" The door slams behind him.
Weird.

You don't see anything else in the room, so you decide to peek around from behind the curtain. You still don't see anything, but now you see the room better. There is another door in the back, with a little light shining through it. You decide that is a better idea than the front door the dog walked through.

You quietly open the door and peek through. On the other side you see a long hallway, lit sporadically with torches. Despite the torches it is still quite dark in the hall. Far to the end you see another door. This one not as fancy as the one you went through, it seems to be just a plank and a handle. Since there is nothing of interest in the hall, you look through the next door. Here you see another hall, also lit badly with torches. The door you opened is in the middle of the hall, and it dead-ends on both sides a ways down. On the other side of the wall from the door you entered are 4 very dimly lit alcoves. After looking at them for a moment, you realize they are cells. Three of the cells seem to be occupied by... something. The far left cell has a large, furry creature huddled in the corner on a pile of hay. In the next cell you see what looks to be a penguin wearing a continental styled hat, complete with a feather in the cap! He looks up at you as you open the door. The third cell is empty. The fourth cell is further down the hall, and there are no torches near it, so it is very dark and you cannot see what is there, but you hear a low growl coming from the cell, as well as what look to be broken plates and hay thrown out of the cell.
You realize you should probably check with one of the creatures held captive. You are not sure which to start with, and you don't really know if you have time to talk to multiple captives. Will you approach:
A: The furry creature huddled in the corner
B: The penguin with the feather in his cap
C: The empty room
D: The dark room in the corner with the noises coming from it
E: Decide not to talk to any of them and instead turn around, braving the entrance you saw the Bull Dog leave from.

(Next update is wednesday, so leave your reply before then.)

Duracell

Battery powered buses. What will they think of next?

3/14/09

Elmo



Ricky Gervais and Elmo , Steven Colbert and the Cookie Monster, really I think that Sesame Street characters are much better when NOT on Sesame Street.

3/13/09

Choose your own adventure: 10

You think about either going back out into the hall where you heard what sounded like people talking, or searching the room for a hidden passage. You do have a knife now, and some badass gloves, but you still don't feel comfortable enough to take on whatever type of creature could be there. So instead you look around the room some more for a secret passage.

Lo and Behold, you do notice something suspicious. By the fireplace there seems to be one brick that is sticking out a bit more than others. You inspect it, and you think you can move it. So you give it a try.

You hear a very soft creak as the wall seems to move apart. Tally Ho! A secret passage. What luck!
You look down the passage, which is a very tight, straight line through the earth. There is no light in the passage, but you think you see some at the end. You decide to walk down it, but first close the door behind you. You move slowly in the dark, hoping not to bump into anything or make any loud noises, for as you get closer to the end of the passage you start to hear noises.

By the time you get to the other side of the passage you can distinctly make out a conversation. In front of you is a heavy dark cloth. If you were to venture a guess, you would think you are standing behind a tapestry? Why would you think that? You don't really know, but you decide to run with it. On the other side of the tapesty you can tell there is light, and multiple people discussing something. You decide to just listen for now. This is what you hear:

"...and there didn't ssseem to be anything elsse there, ssire." said one voice, from the left.
"So you, disposed, of the bodies and everything is in order?" said another, much deeper voice on the right.
"Y..Yes, gov'nor. We buried the corpses in th'dirt an' cleaneded up th' messes, justasyouasked, sir." said another voice, also from the left.
"Good. Good. And nothing can be traced back here?" said the voice on the right.
"No.. Sir." said one voice on the right.
"Well... er..." the other voice muttered
"WHAT DID YOU DO?" boomed the deeper voice on the right.
"Nothing Sir... It'ss jusst that..."
"WHAT? OUT WITH IT!"
"Well.. on our way back heress... We... saw some printss in the sandsss... Printss that weren't oursss, or yoursss...." said the voice whom you have now decided must be Greg, that tall lizard you passed by earlier. Strange, they seemed to have gone to that village, cleaned up all the blood and dead otters, and gotten back here in a very fast amount of time, you think to yourself.
"Where did the tracks lead?"
"They sseemed to lead sstraight into the secret doorsss..."
"So we have a spy in our lair?" You hear something knock over, and what sounds like someone being choked.
"It... it would appear ssso, m'lord." Greg sputters out.
"Grr. Nothing to do about it now," the leader says, and you hear something fall on the ground. "Fan out, alert everyone else, we have a spy in our midst. Find them and bring them to me."
"Yess Sir!" You hear both lizards say. Then you hear a door open and close.

You pause for a minute before you do anything. You need to be really really careful from here on, they know you are here, and from the looks of things, getting caught could be really bad. Death bad. You think of your options.
You could:
A: peek around the curtain and see where you are, hoping nothing is out there to see you.
B: jump out from behind the curtain, yelling about how you are the great scourge who has come to destroy all lizard people and bring justice to otters everywhere, allthewhile flailing your knife around.
C: use your knife to cut a small hole through the tapesty to see what is in the room, hopefully being sneaky enough to not be seen.
D: turn around and head back down the passage back to the room you were in before.
E: walk out from behind the passage with your hands in the air, surrendering.
F: Other options you can think of.

{Please post your option. The next update will be on monday, so vote before then.}

3/11/09

Choose your own adventure: 9

You decide that light is better than noise, and head towards the light.

After turning the corner, you see a square room with brick walls and shelves across one wall. In the far corner you see a fire burning in a chimney. Above the fire there seems to be a small animal being cooked on a spit. Other than that dead animal, there is no one in the room. However, there are some chairs by the fire, and a table. On the table are some playing cards and some coins, as if someone had been playing cards, but then left quickly for some reason. You look at the cards. They seem to be very similar to regular playing cards you have used many times back in THE CITY, however, the face cards do not have human kings and queens, but dogs dressed up, as if a crude mockery of the monarchical system. The coins, too, do not look like any country's coinage you have seen before, and feature a giant eagle eating a snake on one side, and foreign lettering on the other.
You look around at everything else in the room. The shelves are mostly bear, there are some large sheets of paper on one shelf, and after looking at them, you notice that they seem to be wanted posters of some sort. While you cannot read the writing on them, it appears to be the same script as the coins, you do see two images of a face, one from the front and one from the side, of a large, ugly bulldog wearing a sombrero. The dog is sneering, and has large gashes on its face over its right eye. You look at it, and determine that the reward, from what you can tell, is 10,000 of what you think are whatever currency they use here, probably those coins you saw. All the paper in the stack are the same. Apparently they are fliers to be placed in towns or whatnot, you figure.
Also on another shelf you see a couple of candles, which are lit, and half burnt down. The wax is dripping onto the floor. Beside them you see a small key. You pick it up and put it in your secret pocket in your jeans.
On another shelf you see a small knife, like the kind you took on camping trips as a boy scout. It is in a leather sheaf. Beside them are some leather gloves with really cool looking skulls decorating them. Well, they would be really cool if you were in a biker gang or something. You decide that its about time to start, and if you start wearing the gloves, maybe next you will find a wicked awesome motorcycle you can steal too, since you are stealing all sorts of stuff now. Hopefully just not a Kawasaki Ninja. Gross.
Anyways, you loop the knife sheaf through your belt loop and put on the rad biker gloves.
You feel like a man now, you think to yourself. You gain a +2 to bad-ass-ness.

But you still need to do something. Afterall, it seems that whomever, or whatever was here did not finish their card game and definitely did not finish their roasted rat over there. Should you stay in the room, or head back out towards the noise earlier now that you have wicked gloves and a small knife? Or should you roll for a spot check on the room and see if there is anything you didn't see before, like a secret passage.

(Editor's Note: So I want to check with people about this choose your own adventure thingy. Are you enjoying it? Do you want me to keep doing it? How often do you want it updated? How long do you want it to be? I assume you want something to happen in the post, but do I make it too long? What do you want to see/ not want to see? Would a 3x a week update sound good? Like M/W/F? Thoughts/Comments/Feelings would be great.)

Kaki King



I almost forgot how amazing Kaki King is. It is strange that College Humor would be the one to remind me. Also, she apparently went to my rival high school. Grrr! If only I had known how awesome you would be in the FUT, we could have suppressed those high school rivalries together, Romeo and Juliet style. (I, of course, would be Juliet.)

Inappropriate

Just think about it for a second.

3/8/09

Choose your own adventure: 8

You decide to follow the footprints in the sand and find out what happened to the poor otters you saw butchered in their own homes. Afterall, the seawitch will always be there, and you don't currently hav any kelp, nor do you trust yourself to fish some out of the ocean. You start to follow the tracks as they lead south along the beach. You try to walk sneakily through the sand, however, it the moon is out in full and there is not a cloud in sight. You cannot see anything looking around, and hope that nothing can see you.

After walking some distance, the footprints take a sharp turn towards the cliffside. Following stealth-like, you notice how they seem to disappear into a cliff wall.

Obviously there is a secret passage here, you think to yourself. You fiddle around with the rock wall, looking for a secret lever or button or something. No such luck. Next you try secret words.
"Abrakadabra"
"Open Sesame"
"Mellon"

Nothing seems to work.
You sit down, exhausted, against the rock wall. You have spent an entire day climbing cliff walls rowing boats, finding dead otters and being terrified of giant birds, and it is late in the night. You try your best to stay awake, but sleep begins to overwhelm you again.

You start to dream, remembering more of the night before. You remember a girl at the bar you were at with your friends. You remember there was a girl, but for the life of you you cannot picture her face. You remember you couldn't keep your eyes off of her that night. Maybe it was because your life had just been ruined by your ex and your boss, or maybe it was... something else. And Jim. Now Jim was trying to tell you something. What was it? Was it about the girl? What...

Suddenly you wake up with a start. You hear voices coming, but as you look around, you don't see anything in the moon's light on the beach.
The secret passage! They must be coming from the secret passage, you realize. You run and hide behind a larger rock just as the passageway opens up. You watch as two large lizard-like... things... march out of the cliffside. They are both wearing some sort of armor and carrying spears. Other than their clothing and spears, they looked completely different. One was tall and thin, with long, sharp looking spikes down his back, starting on his head, where they were trimmed and brushed nicely, almost like hair. The other was short and squat, and almost looked more frog than lizard, except the tail. They seem to be talking to each other. You listen to what they are saying:
"Well Greg, I'da say a Gov'nor Brattel should just'a go fuchk hisself, if'a you ask me. Making us'a go march all'a way to harborton to clean up hiss'a mess." said the short one.
"Yess, well, Brattel has nvr wanted to get hiss hands dirty before. Its a wonder if he even killed them himselvess." said the groomed one. "Hold on, Bill, let me lock the door." The taller lizard then reached over to the wall and said: "Azile." The door then disappeared into the wall.

You watch the two lizards walk away north to the town you were just at. Luckily they are talking the whole time, and apparently don't notice your footprints in the sand. After they are out of sight, you decide to try to open the door again. You place your hand on the wall and say "Azile." The door opens with a shudder.

You look down and see darkness. It looks like a natural cave, with no light that you can see.
You walk inside and say "Azile" again, the door closes behind you. You stand there in complete darkness for a few minutes until your eyes begin to adjust. Finally you can see enough to walk around down there.
You walk forwards for a while, until you get to an intersection. To the left you think you can faintly hear noises, possibly voices? from far away. To the right there seems to possibly be more light, you aren't sure but you think maybe there is a torch or fire or something around the bend. There is no noise at all coming from the right that you can tell. Which way do you go?

I Wanna Play Video Games with This Guy

3/5/09

Choose your own adventure: 7

You decide to row back to the shore and knock politely on the doors of the 5 shacks until you find someone who would give some kelp.
Back at the shore you walk up to the first house and lightly knock on the door. You don't know what to expect, or what you are going to ask, or how you are going to get kelp even if anyone has any, but you figure its the best idea you have.
You hear no answer, and no lights or noise from the other side of the door.
You knock a bit louder.
Still no answer.
You knock a bit louder.
The door creaks open a little. You peek inside.
At first you cannot see anything, as your eyes have not adjusted to the dark, but slowly you start to see the outlines of shapes. The first thing you see is a broken wooden table in the middle of the room. There is a cracked plate on the ground, some clams and a fish on the floor. In the corner is a shelf with some books that appear to have been torn up, and in the other corner is a bed, with the sheets all thrown about.
Oh yeah, and on the floor of the shack lies a giant dead otter. It has a dagger sticking out of its chest.
You look at it for a few minutes, not sure what to do. You look around the room, and find there is no kelp. Sigh. Next house.

You walk over to house number 2. This time you decide not to knock. If someone is there, they may think you killed the otter in the last house. Instead you roll for walk quietly and hide. Luck! You roll a 24. You are just glad you used dexterity as a dump stat.
You quietly crack the door open and look around. Guess what you see?
Yep. The same thing as the last house, but the dead otter is dressed differently, and sitting slouched in a chair with a dagger in it's back. You are starting to see a pattern.
You check the other 2 smaller houses and see a similar situation. You turn to the larger house, the one that had smoke coming out of it earlier. There is no smoke, nor light, now.

You quietly open the door to this shack, looking in. In the middle of this shack you see a large black cauldron with a strange, grotesque face carved on the front of it. Around the cauldron are 5 fur pelts. 4 of the pelts are stained with blood. One is clean. Again, no kelp. Walking back outside the shack you notice via the moonlight another pair of footprints in the sand, much smaller than yours, who look more like an animal than your converse prints.

You start to consider what you have seen, and inductively try to determine what happened here, a la Sherlock Holmes.
All you can guess is that whomever killed those poor otters stole all the kelp too.

You decide to come up with a new plan. You could follow the footprints, or you could row back out to sea and use the fishing pole and net to hopefully catch some kelp. Or you could just skip the kelp and chant for the sea witch without kelp.

Mad climbing skillz

I've got a lot more. Deal with it people.

3/4/09

3/2/09

More Dungeons and Dragons


These Dungeons and Dragons comics are really fun to draw. They are also all completely true.

3/1/09

Choose your own adventure: 6

You decide that of all the options that crazy bird gave you, traveling out to sea to meet a sea witch seems like the best one. I mean, libraries are cool and all, but kinda boring; and who wants to climb down a well anyways?
So you meander on down the cliffside you just climbed up and head over to the small village you passed by earlier, remembering there were some canoes tied up there. It is now night, and you notice that none of the shacks have any light or noise coming from them. You decide to sneak past them anyways, as apparently you don't like talking to people, and you untie a canoe. As you start to row out to sea, you remember the black bird's directions for contacting the sea witch. You need kelp to throw out your boat. But where are you going to get some kelp? You weigh your options. You could:
A: row back to the land, knock on a door and ask for some.
B: row back to the land, sneak around in a shack and steal some.
C: use a fishing pole and net and see if you can catch some out at sea.
D: Ignore the bird's directions and look for the sea witch without the kelp.

What do you do?