Jessica Fletcher does penace for Mrs Lovett

I've only seen Angela Lansbury in three roles: Jessica Fletcher, the amateur sleuth on TV's Murder, She Wrote; the devious mother in the film The Manchurian Candidate; and the possibly sociopathic Mrs. Lovett in the musical Sweeney Todd. Of course, Jessica Fletcher was the last of these roles that Ms Lansbury created. Was it in penance for the crimes of the other two?

And you thought they were just toys

Lego bricks are manufactured to tolerances of 2 micrometers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lego

Day 109 - Where is your inspiration?

Day 109 - Where is your inspiration?
Originally uploaded by like_shipwrecks

Ever feel like this? I know I do.

If Star Wars was an RPG

Less than a week ago, I stumbled on Irregular Webcomic, a series of several occasionally intertwined comic strips done with Lego minifigures and figurines made by someone else for RPG purposes, whose subjects cover many of the things I was into as a teen (and in a closeted way, I suppose I still am into). The comic has published close to 2000 episodes, so it took me two or three days to get through them all, but that's because I had other things to do as well (e.g. work, clean out the cats' litter box). The comics also include humor at a variety of levels, some of it based on misunderstanding, some of it meta, some of it involving early 21st century physics - basically, marvelous stuff for geeks such as myself and several of my friends, and in cases where an understanding of science is necessary, there's often an explanation given below the strip for the uninitiated. Check it out for yourselves.

The gentleman behind Irregular Webcomic, however, is also involved with Darths & Droids, a reimagination of Star Wars as an RPG. [Ed: those ignorant of RPGs may stop reading here.] Ah, yes, you think, another RPG set in the Star Wars universe. But no, not exactly. This comic imagines that there is no such thing as Star Wars, that Jedi Knights and the Force are character classes and phenomena dreamed up by the GM, and regarding which the players have no clue ("It's a type of Monk named after a cheese. Lawful Good, unfortunately.") and part of what is so marvelous about this version of events is that it allows the writers and readers to ponder over and poke fun at some of the peculiar decisions made in writing those six films. Or, one film, so far, as they're only about as far as the beginning of the pod race in Phantom Menace. So, check them out, to.

Also, the bridge is out ahead

Dr Maturin, a glass of wine with you

I have long been a fan of Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin novels. Some time back a friend of mine suggested that I consider turning them into a graphic novel. I balked at the time - I would probably need to be Geoff Hunt to successfully put Mr O'Brian's work into drawings or paintings - but the idea has stuck with me. Though I don't know about graphic novels, the idea of writing a vignette or two, even just for myself, is appealing. Raw materials abound in several accounts of that period of history, some of them contemporary, and how nice it would be to revisit Jack and Stephen.

Today, I cut metal with fire

The oxyacetylene torch: personally, I think this is very cool. I made a simple jigsaw puzzle out of 5" scrap strap steel. Since it was made from scrap, it has a lot of slag and stuff on it from the practice welds it was exposed to. I can't decide if I should leave the slag there or grind it off.