I have nothing against Twilight by nature. Except that it is a badly written book. And… well, look, my problems with Twilight have nothing to do with what I’m about to show you. Something so horrifying, so disturbing, so flat-out wrong, that, well, I had to post it and share it and inflict it upon you guys.

You’re welcome, by the way.

Brace yourselves…
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Terminology changes all the time. Some recent ones give rise to a question though. I’m gonna get there the long way. Sorry. Twitter has given rise to a few new bits of terminology, bits of how we talk to each other. I’m not talking 140 character limits and we’ve all learned to shut up. No. I mean things like this. It used to be if you left a comment on a blog, or an article and someone replied you would see this:

3wok (jub jub the mic) wrote:
Man this article sucks, it’s round about and has a crappy lede.

Party On Darth (Palpataine’s world, it’s party time, it’s excellent) wrote:
3wok – Then stop reading it, idiot.

But now, thanks to Twitter we all seem to use @ signs.

3wok (jub jub the mic) wrote:
This article hasn’t gotten any better since I was last used as an example.

Party On Darth (Palpataine’s world, it’s party time, it’s excellent) wrote:
@3wok Then why are you still reading?

And I suppose if you read the @ as an “at” then it makes a bit of sense, that’s why Twitter used it. But it really has spread all over the place. You can’t escape it. I’ve tried.

But the one that gets to me, and is also thanks to Twitter, and is the reason for this whole thought, is the hashtag. Twitter used hashtags originally to let you note that you were talking about a specific thing. Their system would pick up hashtags and you would end up with trending topics and so on. It was a way to create a topic and contribute to an ongoing discussion in a strange little way. You would, normally, end your msg with a hashtag (so named due to the hash mark (#) at the front of the tag) like so:

Dear lord he does like examples doesn’t he #examples

But quickly people started to use hashtags as a form of sarcasm. Obvious, blatant sarcasm, and metacommentary.

Oh, here we go again #moreexamples #thatsuck #andaremeaningless

I’ve started seeing it done in emails, in all sorts of places. We’re on the verge of having the # become an international symbol for sarcasm. This is like the fucking smiley, isn’t it? If you need to tell me you’re joking because I can’t get it from what you’re writing – chances are you’re doing it wrong. The same applies to sarcasm.

I do wonder though, if and when the # will be known as a sarcasm mark. No relation to the SarcMark, mind you. Thank fuck. They really are just communication failure marks. #noreally

If Frank Oz came up to you and was like “Hey, let me shove my hand up your ass and we can pretend you’re a Muppet,” wouldn’t you say yes? I mean you’d be freaked out and disturbed but come on! That’s the hand that controlled Yoda and Fozzie and so many other characters from our collective youths. Wouldn’t it be an honor to have Frank Oz’s hand right up there? I think it would be. I’m not suggesting it’d be pleasant, or anything, just that it would be an honor of some sort.

And maybe that’s just me. It probably is and I’m going to come off a bit strange here, but I’m used to that. It isn’t like I generally want people’s hands up my ass, that’s not a thing with me. I’m just saying. Frank Oz. It’s like… I don’t know what it’s like. I reached for some analogy, some metaphor there that would help this all make sense and I came back empty.

Really though, aren’t there some celebrities you would let do strange things to you, out of respect for how they shaped you? Maybe? If Mr. T and I met in an airport and he demanded I trank him, otherwise he wasn’t getting on no foo’ plane, I would trank him, out of love and understanding. See that’s what I’m really saying. I think. So back to OZ.

Oh, the Wonderful Hand of Oz. I don’t believe I just said that. Ow, I’m sorry for that one. It was beneath me but I went for it anyway. Back on target! Frank Oz. I don’t even imagine he likes shoving his hand up people’s asses. He has to do it all day for work, you know? He doesn’t come home and get off that way. Naw, that doesn’t make sense.

So, I suppose the chances of him randomly asking to put his hand up your ass is slim. But then again, maybe he senses you’re a huge Muppet fan. He wants to give you something more than an autograph, something you can tell your kids about. And there we are.

There we are.

Of course, you have to then wonder, would he sign your ass? Would you get that tattooed on, if he did? Would you, also, start collecting Muppet puppeteers signatures (and interior handshakes)?

Remember, it’d be an honor. You could start a club. “Hey, you got a Dave Goelz? Sweet! I just got a Michael Frith!” Both of you, trousers dropped, posteriors in the air toward each other. Of course, God help whomever decided to get Jerry Nelson. Sweetums was full body, yo. And I don’t know that a full Nelson (as it would have to be called) would fit inside you.

But hey, live the dream.

I hate Phantom Cat. See, I am so used to having a cat around when I’m home that when I travel somewhere and stay at a place, like a hotel, without a cat, my reflexes are off. I keep turning around, looking where I step, being careful where I sit – because of cats.

Because of cats that don’t exist. Not particularly helpful.

It’s worse at night, though. Say… when I try to sleep. I expect a cat jumping on the bed at some point. My body is used to that. Very much so. So when I go to bed, I expect it. And when it doesn’t happen I can’t fall asleep. Nothing, no cat, has leapt upon the bed and demanded I pay attention to it before I dare go to bed. No little lump of solid mass against my hip, burrowing in like a sandworm.

It’s Phantom Cat. That stupid set of cat reflexes that are utterly useless when you aren’t around a cat and that, no matter how much you want to, you can’t turn off. When you go to a friend’s house and check the sofa before sitting, in case there’s a cat under foot. When you start to almost shuffle in a dark room that isn’t in your apartment, because you know that’s the best time for cats to trip you up. ARGH!

Of course, for me, what ends up happening is that I stay away just long enough to get used to no cat. Then I go home. Now, the reflexes all kick in within seconds of getting home but that always winds up being about ten seconds too late. Somehow, in that slice of time, I end up tripping over the cat or something, as if I’d never lived with a cat before.

Still. Phantom Cat is one of those dangers. I don’t know a single cat owner who doesn’t get it, dog owners probably do as well, I’d guess, those they wouldn’t call it Phantom Cat I suppose. Fish owners must be immune. They must be.

Phantom Cat. Just another way they’re out to get us and warp our brains.

It seems that Charles Cecil, the guy who created the game Broken Sword, has a new project. He’s making a new version of Minesweeper. Martin de Ronde, director of OneBigGame, a non-profit game publisher, said recently, “Charles Cecil [of Beneath a Steel Sky fame] approached us and said he wanted to do an adventure version of Minesweeper, with a backstory as to why the mines are there. I told him to run with it.”

Now this gets odder still. Cecil made a slight reference to a game in a recent interview. A new game he was working on that he couldn’t talk about. Here’s what he said:

“All I can say is, I am working with Dave Gibbons and we’re working on a new adventure game. We have a number of ideas for premises and we honestly haven’t decided which road we’re going to go down. But I love writing and playing adventure games and that is what I’m going to stick to.”

Now it could be Minesweeper. The timing works out. Minesweeper, with art by Dave ‘I drew Watchmen’ Gibbons. In a new adventure story that explains how the mines got there. And by “there” I really do hope they mean to explain how mines got placed until flat grey titles. I really do.

This whole thing is so full of crazy and wonderful I can’t stand it. I want to see this game right the hell now. Seriously. Right now. Someone get in a DeLorean going 88 m.p.h. and bring me that game. G’wan.

You know what I love? Someone who stands by their convictions. Someone who says “I like [$thing],” and who knows that they like believe in something. It can be religious or personal, about musical tastes, movies or books, I don’t care. I just truly admire, respect and appreciate people who know what they feel and like and can say it, without worry.

They don’t turn around and pretend to hate a movie because people around them hate it and that’ the best way to fit in, or not be mocked for it. These are the people who will tell you that they do believe in ghosts and don’t care when you ask if busting makes them feel good. Because they are stand-up folks.

On the darker side, of course, are the people who also refuse to believe they’re ever wrong. That’s a problem. I mean you can totally believe in whatever God(s) you want. Go for it. Don’t be ashamed of it. But also know that maybe you aren’t right. When you don’t like a movie, understand that other people do.

It’s a line that has to be drawn. We use blogs and spaces on the internet more and more as a pulpit to preach to our choir from. And I’ve been seeing more and more people say things along the lines of “If you don’t agree with me you can stop reading,” and I want to smack those people upside the head.

You don’t learn in silence. You can’t grow in a dark corner where no one challenges you. You need that. And yes a lot of people who will come in will also be going on about how only they are right and you are wrong. But in the chaff there will be wheat and that wheat will help you become a better you. Worth the cost, I think.

And there are those who, if they don’t like something, will exclaim they don’t get how anyone could ever possibly like it because that thing is so horrible: blargle! Yes, a bunch of that is to get reaction and readers, people respond to strongly worded sentiment right or wrong, but it also does encourage and continue the trend of not allowing for alternate takes.

I enjoy a good argument. Not a yelling, screaming one, but an exchange of ideas. A discussion where people have reasons and proof and thoughts and can share them and keep going. But more and more that seems to be falling by the wayside.

Society truly flourishes when we can have people who truly do stand by what they think and feel debate with others who feel the same way – so long as both parties are open to change. We need to foster it and welcome it and invite it in.

Of course, I could be wrong.

The picture above is a shot of Sarah Baillie’s Haptic Cow in action. What is the Haptic Cow? From the project page:

“The Haptic Cow is a virtual reality (VR) simulator developed by a veterinarian (Sarah Baillie). Sarah has been working and teaching in veterinary practice for many years and also has a Masters and PhD in Computing Science. The Haptic Cow was developed to help train veterinary students to palpate a cow’s reproductive tract, to perform fertility examinations and to diagnose pregnancy. The simulator uses haptic (touch feedback) technology and has a PHANToM haptic device (from SensAble Technologies) positioned inside a fibreglass model of the rear-half of a cow. When being trained with the Haptic Cow, the student palpates computer- generated virtual objects representing the uterus, ovaries, pelvis and abdominal structures. The teacher provides instruction and feedback while following the student’s hand movements inside the cow on the computer monitor. The Haptic Cow is being used by several of the UK vet schools.”

So yes, it is a virtual cow ass. That you shove your hand into. This has, it seems, been proven to help people learn about shoving their hands inside cow asses. Now that is, for vets, important, I admit. Though it does call into question the idea that before the haptic cow was around vets-in-training would spend hours with instructors, hands up a live cow’s ass feeling around and hoping the cow didn’t get pissed.

Same for horses, elephants and any other animals that generally end up with people’s forearm’s inside their rectums. From a Wired article on the simulator:

“Not only can professors follow a student’s exact movements and critique the technique, but they can also keep track of how much force is being applied. If a fledgling vet gets too rough and exceeds the number of Newtons considered safe by experienced vets, virtual Bessie will belt out a cautionary “Moo-oo!””

I… yeah.

I mean it’s a virtual cow ass that teaches you how to properly stand around with your arm inside a cow. Tell me this won’t be a video game in Japan by the end of the day. Come on! Oh, wait, Boong-Ga Boong-Ga already exists:

People doing things. Randomly. Oddly captivating.

Well I give you the new wonder of the world: Bacon Jam. Yes, that’s right. From their site:

“we take a big bunch of really really good bacon, and render it down…add a bunch of spices…onions, etc…and let it simmer for about 6 hours…give it a quick puree, and blast chill it…and you have bacon jam.”

Spreadable bacon. For reals.

I dunno. I mean on the one hand it’s spreadable bacon. On the other hand it’s … well … spreadable bacon. You know what I’m saying? That’s kind of bothersome.

Oh, they also sell shirts:

So there you go. Bacon Jam.

I feel like this monkey. So I give you this picture of a monkey: