Cheeseburger in a CAN?

Note the date on this post... it is NOT an April Fool's joke. I had been exposed to the fact that somebody in Germany was putting out a cheeseburger in a can earlier, but let it lie, since I didn't have any evidence of what the can actually contained close-to-hand. Now, thanks to the wonders of the Internet, a group stateside got one to try out and did a report on it... the link's here.

Thank whichever those things are mostly safely on the other side of a large ocean, I'm thinking.

DVD Pick: Balls of Fury

Normally, I'm not big on "spoof" comedies... however, that's usually because I didn't care enough to see the thing(s) being spoofed, and the spoof is done in a rush, while the spoofed bits are still current in the minds of the viewing public. Balls of Fury can't be accused of rushing things, as it's loosely based mainly on a couple of old Bruce Lee films... and some care went into making it too, from what I can tell. The timing of gags, in particular, is very well polished.

Mind you, it's not The Kentucky Fried Movie (which, if you haven't seen it, and are old enough to get some '70s references, you definitely should), but it is a fun little film. I won't go into great detail, since some of the jokes really need the set-up beforehand for full effect... but, between the "training" sequences, the various opponents, Christopher Walken as Feng, and Feng's "courtesans", it all just flows and works, with several laugh-out-loud points. What more can one ask of a comedy?

Oh, and as a side note, one added advantage of the DVD version... if you watch through the trailers at the start of the DVD, the last ad they throw up is shilling for HD-DVD... something that, so soon after the "victory" of BluRay in the high def format wars, is pretty amusing, supposing you weren't one of those silly "early adopters"... :)

Peep Show

Just in time for Easter... it's the Peep Show.

Mabinogi

I don't know how many readers are Windows users, or like MMOs, but Mabinogi is an interesting little game that comes with an advantage out of the gate: it's free to play. Mind you, there are a number of such games out there (the most popular being one called Runescape), but Mabinogi's a bit different.

First off, try not to be thrown off by the "anime" look of the game... it came originally from Korea, and it's more an artistic style choice than a gameplay-indicator. The game is supposed to be (loosely) based on a Celtic storyline called the Mabinogion, but I have yet to stumble across any grand story-arch quests or anything like that. What's grabbed my interest are the mechanics of the game itself... it combines levels, skills, and aging to create a unique advancement system (note that the word "class" wasn't in that list) that makes sense and simply works. Throw on top a combat system that requires the active involvement of the player, without getting too "twitchy", and you've got something special to try out.

Oh, by the way, the game's in "open beta" just now, but that doesn't mean that any progress you make is going to be for naught... their profit model is a "cash shop" model, where you buy services and items for the game with real money, as and when you want to do so. The shop's not up yet, but it's in their best interests to let current players simply keep playing and start paying for the extras, rather than force a restart on everyone. I'd recommend giving it a go.

Government funding

For a long time, I've had an issue with the way government, at seemingly all levels, funds its irregular/big-ticket items through the issuance of bonds. I mean, sure, the occasional "emergency" might come along where you need to have that new plow now or some such, but it would make much more fiscal sense, generally, to identify purchases you want to make a few years ahead of time, collect the necessary taxes first (and probably earn interest on them), then make the purchase, rather than pay interest on a bond. OK, there are other real-world issues with this concept (politicians keeping their hands off that pool of collected money, and voters trusting that to happen), but, in purely monetary terms, it makes more sense.

Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that bodies wouldn't try doing things the "smart" way because they legally couldn't. Part of my county is looking to set up a "library capital facility area" to build/expand libraries with (and generate a new bond at the same time), so I decided to look up that term in the RCW (Washington's statutes). LCFAs only exist to issue bonds for library property work, and recoup taxes to pay off those bonds... that's the extent of their taxing power. Another limitation on them... they have to have a board consisting of at least 3 legislators from the counties included... which, if I'm not mistaken, means our 3 county commissioners are automatically at the helm of this new entity, people who could have just issued library bonds in the first place themselves.

So... it's a shell game, like most bureaucracy. That said, with this particular setup, I'm pretty glad that there is no non-repayment taxing authority for this particular construct... it's still quite a surprise.

Gygax is Gone

Yep, according to news reports, ol' Gary Gygax shuffled off today. He made a decent run of it, making it to 69 and all... and he still kept at what held his interest: role-playing games. It's his games that got me into the whole "gaming" scene back in elementary school... a scene that still holds a significant place in my life today. I can only hope I do as well, for as long.