Just got back from a matinee showing.

I enjoyed it immensely, because I knew to check my brain at the door. It's a "Kid's movie," so of course some of the science is iffy.
Though this could have been just as likely a "Modern-day Astronaut gets thrown back into 195x a la Back to the
Future."

Especially as the center of the Alien town is a shout out to the Hill Valley downtown from said movie.

I recommend it as a "fun" movie, not necessarily a "great" movie, if you know what I mean.
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''

-- James Nicoll

What it would look like if Earth had rings like Saturn.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

Rhea bounded in through the main door, checking herself by catching hold of Terrence's shoulder where he sat on the couch and whirling around to drape
herself over him from behind. "Hi guys!' she chirped brightly as the door finished closing shut with a quiet thud.

"Hey, Rhea," Terr rumbled, accepting a quick kiss from her.

Lisa eyed the door, then Rhea, then lifted her chin a little to peer over the back of the couch at the bag dangling from Rhea's hand. It had the Second
Skin logo on it. She smiled and nudged Terr. "Looks like Rhea's got something new," she said quietly.

"Oh?" Terr craned his head to look. Rhea let go of him and stepped back, beaming.

"Check it out!" she said, whipping a light-green bit of cloth out of the bag. Terr boggled. Lisa grinned. Rhea stared at them expectantly, the
scrap of material dangling from her fingertips and appearing to float on the breeze.

"Are you going to put it on?" Lisa inquired, reaching out to close Terrence's mouth with a soft 'clop'.

Rhea shook her head. "No, silly! It's for you!" She tossed it to Lisa, who caught it reflexively and blinked. Rhea continued: "Since
Terr's a party pooper and won't let them brand things with his name," and here she stuck her tongue out briefly at Terrence, "the manager
decided that she'd do the next best thing. Most of the line doesn't have to be redesigned, fortunately. But they said 'Gamma Emission' just
doesn't have the right ring, so they just want you to model the products, maybe do a demonstration video for a couple of them -- I'd be happy to help,
of course."

Lisa blinked. So did Terr. Both their jaws sagged open. Terr got a far-away look in his eyes.

"And I talked to her a little bit, she knows a lady who does education videos -- that reminds me, don't let me forget to show you one of the tricks I
picked up, heh -- and she thinks the three of us would be great to star in one of them. Apparently --"

"WHAT?" Lisa and Terr, simultaneously.

"-- they're having a hard time finding a trio willing to do the Threesome vid who don't come across all sleazy, and -- what's the
matter?"

"The WHAT video?!"

"It's not porn," Rhea said, reasonably. "It's very artistic, really. And educational. Both. But mostly educational." She
winked at Lisa. "I know I feel a lot more educated now that I've seen one of them."

"NO!"

"Why not?"

Lisa glared at Terrence. Rhea giggled. Lisa transferred the glare to her girlfriend. When she spoke, her voice had taken on the flat tone she used to
indicate complete seriousness.

"No."

Rhea signed, but shrugged. "I didn't think you'd go for it," she said. "But it was worth a try." She came forward, bent down and
kissed Lisa softly, then leaned against Terrence and grinned. "I don't suppose we can convince you to try on the new outfit, at least."

Terrence's eyes widened. Lisa regarded them with a half-exasperated, half-amused expression on her face. Rhea blinked her lashes and mock-pouted.

"Oh, all right," Lisa grumbled. "I suppose, since you brought it all this way and all..." She rose and started for the bedroom.

"And I still want to show you that trick I learned!" Rhea called out after she'd gone. She grinned and turned to regard Terr fondly. His eyes
were still somewhat glazed.

Well, it was a very skimpy bit of nothing, Rhea had to admit. And she knew that Terr's imagination was both very visual, and very good.

"You know," she said conversationally, "it might be easier to convince her if you weren't so stubborn yourself..."

"What? RHEA!"

"Can't blame a girl for trying!" she laughed. "C'mon, let's go see what Lisa looks like in her new outfit..."

Two years after the last supplement in the line was released, and four years after this supplement finished playtest, In Nomine Superiors: Zadkiel was released today.

Yay!
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

Never trust a
bar that feels it necessary to have an animal on the premises. It is a gimmick. It could be a snake in a tank. It might be an old, faithful, dog. It might be a
parrot. Parrots are the worst. To start with, they are loud. Unlike popular pirate culture, which pictures them as largely silent shoulder decorations, who
occasionally erupt with a cry of "pieces of eight", "beware the black spot", or "Please Mr. Silver, don't rape me poor Jim-boy
bottom again". They are loud, social birds, who will screech out, imitate or otherwise warble with the force, volume, and high pitch of a four year old
running around inhaling pixie sticks through both nostrils. If pirate parrots acted like real parrots the origin of bird-shot would be much more obvious and
the British Navy would have been prying beaks out of their hulls more often than Lady Hamilton knelt for something other than a passing monarch.

Derrick's Place had a parrot.

It was not a gimmick.

If was an affront to nature.

Thibor considered this. He considered this carefully. As a werewolf, his status as a affront to nature was already well established, but he wasn't sure
that he was entirely willing to share that status with the bird. No. The parrot was not an affront to nature. It was not even a red headed bastard step-child
of nature, to be occasionally slapped as the situation warranted. That was giving it far too much credit. Abomination. No. That didn't do it justice. It
was something far more horrible.

The parrot stared back at him, yellow and black eyes meeting his. It shuffled back and forth on its perch, lifted one avian leg, farted prodigiously, shook
itself, and then with a coughing noise, leaned forward and explosively vomited a mouse skull out onto the top of the bar. Derrick, if that was his name, snaked
an arm in gingerly, keeping as far away from the bird as possible and wiped up the skull and small pool of seed studded vomit. He drew back quickly.

The parrot was green. Well that was an oversimplification. Its wings were mostly green, with a few red highlights, the tail had some green and blue. The few
feathers that dotted the head were green. The neck and chest were bare and whitish pink, a few stubby feathers sticking out in viridian clumps. The beak was
black. It was far larger than any parrot had a right to be. Bigger than most macaws, but without the long tail to give a sense of balance. It smelled. Not
overwhelmingly so, but even without his lupine senses engaged, Thibor could pick up the hint of carrion about it.

Without warning the parrot exploded from its perch, wings spreading as it flapped across the room to where a large man was dealing with a jug of beer and a
plate of Derrick's highly questionable deep fried cheese sticks. The man froze as the parrot alit on the table. Not with the grace of a dove in a John Woo
film or a biblical parable. It alit with all the grace of a three pound stone being chucked over an overpass. The table shook and beer sloshed in the jug, the
patron having lowered the beer level enough that it did not spill. With deliberate graceless steps, the parrot stalked towards the man, who remained frozen in
place. It reached out with its beak and gently turned over the medical alert bracelet on the man's thick wrist. Then it turned its head to the side and
leaned in close, the yellow and black eye held a few scant millimeters over the writing. Satisfied, the bird turned, defecated hugely, and flapped back to its
perch. It landed heavily. Settled back down, scratched under one wing disinterestedly, but kept one yellow eye fixed on the large man. The long black tongue
reached out and explored the beak, as if licking its lips in anticipation.



"Whatcha want?" Derrick asked
emotionlessly, rubbing at a glass in a grim parody of cleaning it. Thibor could not help but notice that Derrick was
several finger joints short of the full complement. He also noticed that Derrick had started with a half score more
finger joints than the standard, so perhaps there was some karmic force at work. A karmic force prone to assuming the
fetal position, giggling happily to itself and engaging in double fisted onanism.



"Beer. In bottle." It was the safest option. "And information."



"Yes. Five bucks. No." Derrick slapped a bottle of Paragon macrobrew on the counter. Thibor considered the bottle and the response. This was a dance that he was used
to. He assumed his werewolf aspect. His frame stretched and expanded, muscles
swelled, and his features drew out into a long lupine muzzle. Derrick kept a bored expressed that was slightly undone
by a single rivulet of sweat that chased down one side of his face and landed with an audible plop on the bar top. The
large man at the table, having been subjected to the parrot and now the presence of a werewolf, abandoned his beer and cheese sticks and fled on suddenly shaky
legs.



Thibor then ate the bottle of macrobrew, chewing the bottle to shards and swallowing the
whole thing with a grating, throaty, gulp. He brushed foam from his muzzle, then for good measure he punched the
parrot. The thing let out a horrendous squawk of indignation as it was slammed off its perch and sent crashing into a
collection of tequila bottles. It regained its feet, shook itself, dipped its beak into one of the broken bottles,
gargled heartily and then flew back to its perch, unhurt by a punch that would have reduced a sixties era Volkswagen to so much Teutonic shrapnel. It lifted on foot and turning the claws upwards, made a classic two fingered British gesture of defiance at Thibor.



Derrick nodded. Thibor handed him a
fiver. Their professional relationship thus established Thibor slapped a photo on the counter.



"What dost thou want to know?"
Derrick's voice had changed, becoming almost musical. His features had changed too, becoming less human, leaner and
more drawn.



"Sparkle vampire." The picture was of a
pale, handsome, young man, his finely boned features seeming to glisten with an inner light. His lips were slightly
parted and long, curved canines were clearly visible. The sun was visible in the sky behind him.



"I know not of sparkle vampires."
Derrick said. The parrot began laughing, a shrieking sound more akin the to the Wicked Witch of the West having a
screaming, flying monkey induced orgasm than anything even remotely associated with humour.



"Am not knowing either." Thibor said
dryly. "And new kind of vampire is never good thing. Is simpler question, is knowing who this is?"



* * *



The fat man was dying. Or rather the fat man was
already dead, but his remaining biological functions just hadn't taken the hint yet. As Thibor emerged from
Derrick's Place, the EMTs were loading him into the back of an ambulance. Thibor could hear the man's heart,
but there was an interrupted blood flow to the brain; a stroke that had occluded flow to, well pretty much everything above the neck level. The brain was
already dead, the body just hadn't gotten the hint yet. Behind him Thibor could hear the parrot continuing its
laughter. There was a pause. A horrific avian fart. Then the cackling continued.



Derrick had been forthcoming. Thibor had a
name. Eddie Collins. The name meant nothing to Thibor. Or rather it meant the same things it had before he had; but while sparkling vampiric douchebag did convey a certain amount of
information, it did not increase his own knowledge. Chances were good that it was a pseudonym; but depending on how
entrenched it was, there might be a mark; Credit cards; Drivers license; library card. Library cards were sometimes
overlooked, but occasionally turned out to be very useful. The IRS might track you down; a dedicated librarian deeply
upset at your failure to return a particularly popular or rare book would follow you to the ends of the world like a bespectacled albatross. They were less likely to take a crap on your car, but did have other, equally repulsive tricks to employ. He phoned it in.



"Operations. Go ahead
Major." Simon Bitterbuck's voice came through the communicator.



"Is having a name. Eddie
Collins." Thibor said. "Am not expecting miracles on this
one."



"If you get one, do we get dinner?"
Naoko's voice chimed in. The slight echo indicating she was leaning over Simon's shoulder. Officers were responsible for the care and feeding of soldiers. This included junior
officers. It just so happened that Naoko was the junior officer equivalent of a baby bird; mouth agape and cheeping in
a loud, demanding, tone. Any bird imagery was wholly unwelcome at this point in time.
The parrot was still laughing. Would Naoko actually eat the filthy thing.
Possibly. But there would have to be a good wine and lots of expensive side dishes.



"Order pizza. On me." Thibor
grated. "No special gourmet with fugu and Norewegian goat cheese. You get
pepperoni. Give me intelligence, can negotiate for proper dinner."



"Good Hunting Major." Simon signed off,
as he did, Thibor could hear Naoko already on the phone to her favorite pizzeria.



The next step. Thibor considered it. Another beer, one without the glass fragment or presence of a deeply troubling bird.
Tempting; but not necessarily useful. He considered the picture again. Where
would such a creature hunt? Who would he hunt?



Thibor nodded to himself. He phoned it in and
asked Simon to make the arrangements. All he had to do was buy a set of coveralls.
After another beer.



· * *



Monkey work. Thibor hated monkey
work. It was fine if you were a monkey. When monkeys engaged in monkey work
they were free the fling their own feces and shamelessly masturbate. These options, and there was a lot to recommend
them at the moment, were not available to him. Grunting Thibor lifted another garbage bin and emptied the contents into
the cart he was pushing down the hall. His only consolation. He was not the
only one doing so. He had mobilized multiple members of his team. High
school. Or rather several high schools. Some team members had been installed as
supply teachers. Others as librarians. One as an avant-garde sculpture in the
foyer. He was a janitor. It was a good role.
It was as close to social invisibility as he could get; which was safer for everyone involved. Some people did
not suffer fools gladly. Thibor was one of them. Though his version
substituted defenestrate for suffer, and dropped the 'not' part of it entirely.



"There goes Mr. Rawdick." Someone
called from the crowd; hoping for anonymity. Good luck there. Daddy's car
was going home without a bumper tonight. Werewolves didn't normally chase cars.
Today would be an exception to the rule. What was funny was that his coverall did not say Sawchyk, but rather
Roderick. Coincidence could be a funny thing. Having a locker filled with the
contents of the biology lab garbage bins could be a funny thing to. Well funny for the guy with the garbage at any
rate. Thibor recognized that he was feeling angry and more than a little vengeful.
He embraced it.



If you want to catch a predator, know the prey.
Based on the photo, high school students would be the target. Thibor had chosen Hero-One Memorial in
Skyway. He had a couple of reasons. The first was that the school's
demographic was such that disappearances, while noted, would not fall into the media sensation of the richer neighborhoods.
Everyone knew JonBennet was murdered. The disappearance of ugly, average looking or poor youth would be met
with a yawn. The second reason was the location of skyway, in conjunction to the massive sewer network. Escape routes for scumfuck creatures of the night. The third and most telling reason was
location. Due to some rather poorly thought out zoning; the school had been built directly under one of the massive
elevated roadways that wrapped around skyway like amorous boa constrictors. The school never received direct
sunlight. Ever.



His hunch had been correct. Several of the female
students were showing signs of anemia; pale, listless, lots of dark eye shadow and faux gothic trappings. The last two
were not actual symptoms of anemia, unless you were related to the last Tsar of Russia, but fit into the profile of the expected victims exactly. That was vexing problem though. No scent markers whatsoever. Vampires, even the most powerful of their loathsome ilk left very specific scent cues. No
amount of breath mints, mouthwash or careful brushing could ever completely hide the scent of old blood. On the
victims. Nothing.



Thibor considered. There might indeed be smell
traces, but he would have to get a hell of a lot closer, and that would blow his cover, reputation and likely lead to a restraining order. Perhaps a Busby Berkeley musical would embrace a singing janitor, but no one would embrace a sniffing janitor. He was monitoring the condition of the victims; if
any of them got much worse, or showed signs of vampiric conversion he would take more extreme investigative measures.

check your gmail.
"No can brain today. Want cheezeburger."
From NGE: Nobody Dies, by Gregg Landsman
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5579457/1/NGE_Nobody_Dies

I was just digging through some old files of mine, when I found something actually interesting. It seems that, years ago, I was struck by the idea of writing
a Stagger in the universe of Big O.

I failed miserably.

The project was too big, and college too distracting. On top of that, I cannot write dialogue, and I have no ability to grasp character behaviors.

On the other hand, I have two snippets, a plot summary, a timeline, and a thematic analysis that I wrote when I was still working on the project.

Anybody interested?

Does anybody have an archived version of Allyn yonge's fanfiction as his archive site was one of the sites lost in Yahoo's geocities takedown. An
unfortunately his fanfics are not showing up on the wayback machine....
--Werehawk--
My mom's brief take on upcoming Guatemalan Elections "In last throes of preelection activities. Much loudspeaker vote pleading."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrtANPtnhyg

Seriously, this is fucking awesome. I want one, I want one so bad.

----------------

Epsilon

I could write standing up on the bus. I want one.

Continuing my Lesser Obsession with All Things Sakura Taisen, I wonder what Doug's metatalent would make of this....

Quote: Hikisaita yami ga hoe furueru teito ni
Ai no uta takaraka ni odorideru senshi-tachi
Kokoro made koutetsu ni busou suru otome
Aku wo kechirashite seigi wo shimesu no da
* Hashire Kousoku no Teikoku Kageki-Dan
Unare Shougeki no Teikoku Kageki-Dan
Machi no hi ga kiehatete obieru teito ni
Niji no iro someagete odorideru senshi-tachi
Akatsuki ni gekijou wo terashidasu otome
Aku wo horoboshite seigi wo shimesu no da
* kurikaeshi
[Sakura] "Watashi-tachi seigi no tame ni tatakaimasu"
[Maria] "Tatoe sore ga inochi wo kakeru tatakai de atte mo"
[Kanna] "Atai-tachi wa ippo mo hikanai ze!"
[Airisu] "Itsu no hi ka kono teito ni"
[Kouran] "Aku ga nakunaru hi made"
[Sumire] "Watakushi-tachi wa tatakai-tsuzukemasu!"
[all] Sore ga Teigoku Kageki-Dan na no desu!"
Yume sae mo chigiretobi itetsuku teito ni
Ai no hi wo dakitomete odorideru senshi-tachi
Inochi sae koutetsu ni chikaiau otome [
Aku wo kirisutete seigi wo shimesu no da
* Hashire Kousoku no Teikoku Kageki-Dan
Unare Shougeki no Teikoku Kageki-Dan