Good lord, DVDs. Does anyone remember when I received a fairly large shipment towards the beginning of the summer and predicted that that shipment would carry me through August? Yeah, what a load of crap that was -- I must've purchased 20-30 DVDs since then. WHY? I've still got at least a hundred movies I haven't watched, yet I keep buying more. It's insane. This week I bought seven. The week before that I bought four, one of which was a budget set containing six films. I think I bought two or three the week before that. IT MAKES NO SENSE I TELL YOU. I haven't even watched all of the movies I picked up during my last two trips to NYC.

On the plus side, these purchases haven't been terribly expensive -- I may have bought seven DVDs this week, but the most expensive of them, House of Flying Daggers, was $6.99. Gamera (GAM-OOH-LA!) was a buck. Still, it's gotten to the point that I bought a couple more DVD storage booklets, one of which has been designated as a queue for all of the movies I haven't watched. (You know how people use Netflix? Well, I call that booklet Wesflix.) I had intended to use the other one to house only the movies I despise, but much to my surprise I don't actually own enough movies that I dislike on that level to fill an entire booklet. (more...)

I stole this from De. I didn't get officially tagged (:cry:), but I'm gonna do it anyway since I think it is NEAT. I will also forego the tagging part and extend the meme to anyone who wants to play. 🙂

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next 4 sentences on your Blog/Live Journal along with these instructions. (So does that mean we're supposed to be posting sentences 6-9 or 5-8??? I will cover all bases and post 5-9.)
5. Don't you dare dig for that "cool" or "intellectual" book in your closet! I know you were thinking about it! Just pick up whatever is closest.
6. Tag five people.

There was a knob, with a dial on it, sort of like a clock with one hand. Only there were no numbers for the dial to point at. Right now the dial was pointing at a strange symbol that looked something like a Chinese character, but different -- some alien letter. To the right and left were straight lines. To the left, the lines got wider and wider apart.

The book is Marco's Millions by William Sleator. Other nearby books that would have been the meme selection but for a few inches are The Pocket Treasury of American Folklore and Who's Next: An Unofficial and Unauthorised Guide to Doctor Who. There are also several Barney and Madballs books patiently awaiting Scary-Crayon reviews (if you're interested, see the existing reviews here and here), but none of them have 123 pages. There's also The Pogo Stepmother Goose by Walt Kelly, but in addition to being a collection of comic strips and illustrated stories its pages are not numbered. Which makes the table of contents significantly less helpful, but at least one knows which stories are in the book. 😛

Ja ne!

First time ever! I think today was the first time I've purchased gummi anything -- bears, worms, children, Super Mario Brothers and assorted enemy shapes, etc. I've tasted these things, of course, but they're the kind of thing I'd take only when someone else had them. They're the snacks mothers buy, sticking the little pouches in their kids' lunchboxes before shuffling them off to school. They're the kinds of things you find at the ice cream topping bar and pack onto your makeshift sundae at the endangered species of a restaurant that still has that sort of thing. And, yes, they're available in the snack aisle at your local supermarket, but does anyone buy them? Are there people who write "gummi bears" on their grocery lists? Someone must. I never did.

I happened to be standing in the line at the dollar store today when I saw them there amidst the impulse buy candy that every store places near the front in order to pump their customers for spare change and incite violent tantrums from children. (In front of me, a little girl with chocolate frosting smeared across her mouth wailed, "MOMMY I WANT IT," as her mother scolded her for eating the chocolate treat she now wore on her face. The girl was holding what looked like a wax paper bag -- the kind one fits with a cone-shaped tip and uses to frost a cake. She had apparently gnawed a hole in it and had been sucking the frosting from the wound.) Gummi bears. And I would have looked away without giving them a second thought -- as I have so many times before -- if not for the voice in my head. It said:

"Would you like a jelly baby?"

I snatched the bag from its metal peg and placed it among my other purchases. No, gummi bears are not jelly babies, but they will do.

Curse you, Doctor Who. Curse you and your jelly babies.

...is finally up on Scary-Crayon! This piece details the methods that resulted in my first batch of homemade Daleks (affectionately dubbed the "Bootleks" due to their obvious dissimilarities to the official models). Next time, we take a look at the more "legitimate" plans found at The Ultimate Dalek Factory, including my extensive recoloring jobs. Hurrah!

In other news, there are apparently groundhogs burrowing holes in the yard. Not that this bothers me -- I mean, they're groundhogs; the outdoors are pretty much their territory -- but Mom has placed a trap on the back porch in an effort to catch them. About a week ago, a squirrel ended up in the trap. And on Monday? A coyote.

A COYOTE. (more...)

Despite my prior statement that official production of Daleks had ceased, two more Daleks (and one bastard Dalek that will likely remain unfinished) were created this weekend. One preexisting Dalek received an unplanned upgrade. Four Daleks now have interchangeable domes (!!!) and secret compartments. Yes -- they're almost like action toys! The aforementioned SC arts 'n' crafts article (working title: "Genesis of the Homemade Daleks") will be transmitted in two parts, the first of which will probably go up some time tonight or tomorrow.

I have also been fooling with Audacity in order to Dalekify my voice. Here are the test files for your listening pleasure:

"EXTERMINATE!"
"This is not war; this is pest control!"
"It is forbidden to dump bodies into the river!"

I have not slept.