Memes Blog

Not Ronry at All?

Posted on September 24, 2005 by Tim Hall

“J Nelson Kwango” of the KFA Forum is rangly.

Comrades!

I am terrored! A film has just arrived on the markets of Cameroon, this film the American Police Team or some name that is similar. My nephew, purchased this and asked me to watch because he said is had something to do with DPRK. The shock I see! The general, beloved general, Kim Jong Il is a puppet character in this film and speaking the most offending things! He swears in English, kills his interpreter, and turns into a small insect at the end. They make the Dear Leader to be evil man, and lonely man. They find risible the undying love of the Korean people? They think the leadership of DPRK and the revolution is a joke? Forgive me for saying but makers of this film are bastard people! I denounce them and curse them! Bastard people!

Can we not complain to someone about such slander? Why has not the KCNA denounced this piece of capitalist propaganda? To think that they make light of the general and debase his greatness!

Some of the followup comments are well worth reading too. Nowadays it’s getting harder and harder to tell what’s parody and what isn’t. (Link from Samizdata)

Posted in Memes | 2 Comments

Meme of the Week

Posted on June 27, 2005 by Tim Hall

Norm is spreading a name meme

  • My prOn star name (name of first pet owned plus street name of first address): Pepper Alderbury
  • My West Indian cricketer’s name (surname of the US president in year of your birth plus last seaside town visited): Kennedy Sheringham
  • My Star Wars name (first car owned plus the name of any medication you’re on, which reminds me of this): Volvo Loratidine

I had to cheat on the last one since, like Norm, I’ve never actually owned a car; it’s the vehicle my parents owned when I was 17.

I can imagine Kennedy Sheringham as a swashbucking middle-order Batsman.

Posted in Memes | 3 Comments

Bookmeme!

Posted on June 5, 2005 by Tim Hall

This meme appeared on Ken Macloed’s blog, although it doesn’t seem to have spread very far, at least through the sections of the blogosphere I read. It appears to be a mutation of the earlier music meme.

1. How many books to you own
Never tried counting them all, but adding up all the SF novels, railway books and RPG rulebooks probably comes up with a figure in the high hundreds. Don’t think it’s in four figures yet.

2. Last book read
Neil Stevenson’s Quicksilver I’m about halfway through so far.

3. Last book purchased
Blue Pullman, by Kevin Robertson, purchased yesterday at the DEMU showcase.

4. Name five books that mean a lot to you

The Book of the New Sun, Gene Wolfe.
An epic in the true sense of the world. I can’t think of any other fantasy or science fiction work that rivals this for atmosphere; it’s been a big influence on my own RPG worldbuilding.

Pebble in the Sky, Isaac Asimov.
Asimov’s first novel, not his best work by any means. Probably very dated now, like so much ‘golden age’ SF. The reason I’m listing it is because it’s the book that first got me hooked on SF, borrowed from the school library when I was about 14.

Red for Danger, L T C Rolt.
Tom Rolt’s history of railway accidents. Rolt avoids the tabloid-style lurid descriptions, and concentrates the technical aspects. He shows how the worlds railways are a safe means of travel today because of the lessons learned from the past.

Diesels in the Duchy, John A M Vaughan
An odd choice for “Books That Changed My Life”. When I returned to railway modelling in the mid 80s, I was looking for a suitable prototype to follow; John Vaughan’s wonderful photographs of class 37s, 50s, and Westerns in the beautiful Cornish scenery made that choice for me; the end result was several Cornish holidays doing ‘research’, and far too many N gauge locomotives.

The Bible.
Read the whole thing, and discover how the random verses the fundies love to quote often mean something quite different when read in their proper context.

5. Five people to tag
Since I didn’t wait to be tagged, anyone not on this list who wants to pick up the meme shouldn’t need to wait either! I’m still going to pass on the baton anyway, to Carl Cravens (responded), Ken Hite, Patrick Crozier (responded), Ginger Stampley (responded), and of course, Scott

Posted in Memes, Railways, Science Fiction | 1 Comment

YAMM

Posted on May 21, 2005 by Tim Hall

Or Yet Another Music Meme.

I’ve been tagged for this Music Meme from Perverse Access Memory: Some similarities to an earlier music meme, but I’ll do it anyway.

1. Total number of records I own on CD (or vinyl or cassette):
CDs: Long time since I counted them, so I have no idea, but in the high 000s
Vinyl: About 300, all in storage at my parent’s place. There are an awful lot of classic albums I’ve still only got on LP.

2. Total volume of music files on my computer:
Very little

3. The last record I bought:
Van der Graaf Generator’s reunion album: Present

4. The last record listened to / song playing now:
Last record listened to: Porcupine Tree’s Deadwing. As I started to write this, Robert Plant and band were performing a song who’s name I didn’t catch on BBC2′s Later with Jools Holland.

5. Five records that I listen to a lot or that mean a lot to me (either singles or albums):

  • Pink Floyd: “The Wall”. First album I ever bought. Overlong, patchy, and self-indulgent in places, but still magnificent in others. And I got to see the whole thing performed live.
  • Rainbow, “Down to Earth”, or more significantly the song ‘Eyes of he World’. This wasn’t Rainbow’s best album, with some cheesy pop singles and far too much mediocre filler, but that song is still a classic. And it was hearing that song on the radio that got me into Rock
  • Blue Öyster Cult: “Some Enchanted Evening”. Their 1977 live album, with the incredible version of ‘Astronomy‘. I got into this band through a friend at university, Mark Huggett. I remember being completely blown away the first time I heard that song.
  • Twelfth Night, “Live at the Target”. This was the debut album of the relatively short-lived 80s neo-prog band, who never achieved much commercial success, but were a big influence on bands like Marillion. Significant for me because I was in the audience the night they recorded it. I’ve since been to shows by UFO, Gillan, Thin Lizzy, Marillion and Uriah Heep that ended up on live albums.
  • Mostly Autumn, “The Last Bright Light”. First time for many years I’ve been really enthused by a new band, and this one’s still my favourite album of theirs.

6. Finally, tag five people to do this meme:

Scott (again), Karen Cravens, Steve “Electric Nose” Jones, Martyn Read and Alan Monk. Not having a blog in no excuse, that’s what the comments are for!

Posted in Memes, Music | 7 Comments

Ten things I’ve Never Done

Posted on May 20, 2005 by Tim Hall

The current blog meme doing the rounds, from Harry’s Place, Ten things I’ve Never Done:

  1. Owned a car
  2. Visited any country outside Western Europe or the US.
  3. Voted for any successful election candidate who hasn’t either suffered from cancer or died in office.
  4. Been able to tell the difference between Coke and Pepsi
  5. liked The Smiths or Morrissey
  6. Managed to read more than 100 pages of Robert Jordan’s “Wheel of Time”.
  7. Read anything at all of “Ulysses” or “Atlas Shrugged”
  8. Played a MMPORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game)
  9. Actually finish a model railway layout.
  10. Managed to build a Parkwood OOV “Clayhood” wagon kit that runs properly.

Posted in Memes | 3 Comments

Meme time again

Posted on April 28, 2005 by Tim Hall

Time for another meme. This one comes via Perverse Access Memory:

List five things that people in your circle of friends or peer group are wild about, but you can’t really understand the fuss over.

Since this blog covers multiple interests that are beyond the ken of “mundanes”, I’ll try and include one from each of them.

  1. Depot layouts: A model railway consisting of a traction maintenance depot, with loads of locomotives, but no coaches or freight wagons. Sorry, but I’m interested in trains, not just locomotives on their own. At one point, for diesel and electric era modelling at any rate, depot layouts had become as bad a cliche as those endless GWR branch termini (half of which were of Ashburton)
  2. Morrissey and The Smiths: A good candidate for the most overrated singer of all time. If this self-obsessed bore was really as good as his fanboys claim he is, he’d have sold a lot more records than he did. At least Roger Waters had some music to back up his miserablist lyrics.
  3. The entire superhero genre: Comics, films, RPGs, the lot. I find the common tropes of the genre so inherently ridiculous I’m unable to suspend disbelief enough to care about the characters or the stories. If people started developing incredible superhuman powers, why do they adopt silly codenames, wear brightly-coloured Spandex costumes with their underpants over their trousers, and Fight Crime! And silliest of all, why do they always have to have secret mundane identities? And why does the presence of vast numbers of superpowered beings have no significant effect on history or culture?
  4. Dice Pools: As used in Storyteller, and the horrid Deadlands. I guess the idea behind dice pools in RPG game mechanics was to create a level playing field between those who could do basic arithmetic in their heads, and those who are functionally innumerate. The problem with too many dice pool mechanics is that the designers themselves don’t seem to understand the probability curves of their own systems, which for me can lead to some very unsatisfactory gaming. When I keep rolling critical failures, I’d actually like to know whether I’m just being unlucky, or whether I’m attempting things my character doesn’t have the skill level for. Or whether the probability curve is so opaque that the GM doesn’t know what target numbers to set.
  5. Football: If I go to the pub at lunchtime with work colleagues, most of the time they spend the entire lunch hour talking about bloody football. I’m sure the number of sad obsessives amongst football fandom exceed the total number of roleplayers, railway modellers and prog-rock fans. And when was the last time serious drunken violence erupted at a model railway exhibition or an RPG convention?

And now I’m supposed to pass the meme on. I’d like to nominate Amadán, except his blog is in limbo. Or Steve “Electric Nose” Jones, but he doesn’t do memes. But I can nominate Scott, Silkenray, and Carl Cravens.

Posted in Games, Memes, Music, Railways, Science Fiction | 9 Comments

Change just one letter

Posted on January 30, 2005 by Tim Hall

I’m told this meme started somewhere in the Blogosphere, although I ran into it on Dreamlyrics.

The goal is to change one letter of a book title so as to give the story an entirely new meaning. After the altered title, offer a one or two sentence explanation of the new story.

I’ve interpreted changing one letter and including adding or removing a letter as well as replacing one. These are my contributions to the meme:

Neuromincer:

The true story behind Mad Cow Disease

The Curious Incident of the Bog in the Nighttime

Why did a suburban garden suddenly change into a swamp?

The Munster Manual

A d20 sourcebook for TV sitcoms.

Lard of the Rings

The adventures of a team of seriously overweight wrestlers.

Star Ward

Stories from hospital for celebrities, being treated for such things as freak gardening accidents.

The Mountains of Mudness

The terrifying story of sanity-draining non-Euclidian mud!

Valley of the Dulls

Very boring, and nothing at all happens in 703 pages.

The Stairs My Destination

A Dalek scientist struggles with the problem that’s been thwarting the Dalek conquest of the universe.

Gob Emperor of Dune

He rules the universe. But he’s all mouth.

Casio Royale

James Bond must thwart a villain who’s trying to dominate the world using sinister mild-control devices embedded in pocket calculators.

Dr Po

Another Bond adventure, featuring a terrifying overweight red villain with a television ariel growing out of her head.

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Just step away from those Freedom Fries…

Posted on August 1, 2004 by Tim Hall

It appears that a European advert for the film “Super Size Me” is upsetting the Freepi. Serves them right for the ridiculous “Freedom Fries”.

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The Colour Illuminati

Posted on July 18, 2004 by Tim Hall

Making Light tells us of the sekrit conspiracy that decides what colours domestic appliances and clothes will be each year. Yes, there really is a cabal that meets and decides that beige will be the new black (actually, grey is the new black, this year). They also come up with the ridiculous marketspeak names for them.

These are the official colours for “Transportation and Related”:

Tusk-Ivory influences aluminum reflecting the global warming of silver.

Acier-Sounds like French, but this steely gray is really from Pittsburgh, and has universal appeal. It is an expansion of the cool metals.

Aloeminium-The healing power of aloe combines with aluminum.

Mystic Quartz-A purple whisper adds mystery to silver; mature, technical and genderless.

Broadway Bronze-This dark and murky complex neutral is pulled from the streets of the concrete jungle.

Peace-A unifying global blue represents peace on earth.

But do One Anglia know about them?

Posted in Memes | 1 Comment

Another Meme…

Posted on May 2, 2004 by Tim Hall

1. Grab the nearest CD.
2. Put it in your CD-Player (or start your mp3-player, I-tunes, etc.).
3. Skip to Song 3 (or load the 3rd song in your 3rd playlist)
4. Post the first verse in your journal along with these instructions. Don’t name the band, nor the album-title.

The way that the willow bows over the stream
Like a mourner crying for their loved one
Reminds me of last fall
When on one knee, I pledged myself to you

(From Cold Spring Shops)

Posted in Memes, Music | 3 Comments