Dead Roach Trigger Warning

So I was looking at something involving cockroaches and robots intended to mimic their social behavior... (The relevant bits are about forty minutes in.)



...And I was rather startled to realize that the video involved a bunch of dead roaches at one point.

It probably caused that reaction because a lot of arthropods have the ability to provoke empathy in me.

In fact, I generally feel much worse about having to squash spiders than I do about accidentally running over squirrels and such. (Admittedly, my lack of reaction to running over furry animals probably has to do with the fact that I worked at a factory for a few summers running the mowing tractor, and I ran over a number of animals without seeing them, especially rabbits, and couldn't really afford to get too upset over it*. The only animal I ever really got upset over hitting was a turtle I hit one year. ...How that turtle managed to get so big when it was living so close to those train tracks, I'll never know.)

*As much as I hated that job, I got to see a lot of nature in less harmful ways, too. Like the local bird of prey that knew that following the tractor would bring it food (and the huge horde of little birds that were after the bugs the tractor kicked up). And then there was the day I must have seen half a dozen praying mantids in one stretch of five hundred feet or so, which was nearly as many as I'd seen in the wild in my entire life to that point.

And then there was the time I was mowing a particularly wet place, and I met two or three entire species of mosquito** that I'd never met before. Ah well, you take the good and the bad together, I guess.

**My general insect empathy doesn't extend to little jerks that want to bite me or people (or animals) I like. I.e. mosquitoes, fleas, those big biting flies, etc. But spiders, roaches, beetles, etc. are generally pretty harmless. Also, I like ants, but honestly anytime they're in one's house, one must be on a war footing with them, and empathy is something you can't afford in that situation.

-Signing off.

Also, Master Asia Is Awesome And Don't Try To Tell Me Otherwise

I'm doing a little experiment.

There's a video on YouTube that has had its content labeled as mature so that underaged viewers can't watch it.

The video is CGI footage of "superdeformed" (oddly proportioned in a childlike way) Gundams fighting with each other from a crossover video game.



The reason it's blocked is apparently to prevent underaged viewers from making troll spam comments on the fact that a character from G Gundam (the goofy, silly Gundam series-in fact, the character is Master Asia, who fights Gundams with his bare hands) is beating up characters from one of the serious series, and indeed, it's the only G Gundam video on YouTube that doesn't have at least one super-stupid troll comment on the first page.

Anyway, that's got nothing to do with this post. I just want to see if mature-rated videos that have been embedded can be watched by somebody who's not logged in. (EDIT: Turns out you can watch an embedded video while not logged in even if it's been flagged mature! ...I don't know why it took me this long to try this deliberately.)

-Signing off.

It Was The Only Logical Conclusion, Yet...

A bit back, I found out about a lost proposal by big-name Power Rangers fan and occasional actual series writer Amit Bhaumik for what became Power Rangers Ninja Storm. (I thought it was amazing for various reasons. Unfortunately I can't find the post where I mentioned it at the moment.)

Today, I found out that he'd been involved in early Power Rangers Samurai production and has posted a synopsis of his concepts.

I mostly just very quickly skimmed it, and was particularly looking for something specific: His plans for the character Bulk and the character who would become Spike, quoted below.

Farkas ‘Bulk’ Bulkmeier – (36) Ally to Ozawa Clan, from Angel Grove. Earnest but foolish. Sushi chef. Unlike earlier seasons, Bulk is aware of the Power Rangers and is part of their operations, assisting as he can and performing many of the functions of the kuroko (assistants in all black) in Shinkenger. Bulk hopes that his son Eugene will learn how to be braver than him by hanging out with the Rangers of the Ozawa Clan.

Eugene ‘Junior’ Bulkmeier – (16) Son of Bulk, assistant to Bulk. Spitting image of Skull. Eager idiot. Sushi chef assistant. Aids the Rangers alongside Mr. Mason and Bulk. Gets along with Oscar and Iris easier than the others. Eventually becomes Gold Ranger.

I mentioned some while back that I was annoyed at the role of these characters in Power Rangers Samurai. They bore no apparent relation to the plot, at least in early episodes; they'd devolved much further into the realm of rather pointless comic relief than the originals (who weren't really all that far into it at all, actually). At the time, I didn't really talk about what I'd have done myself with the characters to improve their role in the show.

Fun fact? It would have been exactly the above-Bulk being involved as something like an assistant and Spike/Junior becoming the Gold Ranger.

I am seriously not making this up.

-Signing off.

Nature Being Disturbing: Bullfrogs

Bullfrogs may be the most disturbing small animals after shrikes (also here-scroll down to "Laniidae").



Something I find annoying about this video: They don't show a bird actually getting caught. Granted, it could be because it's hard for an amphibian to catch an animal that can take off, but I'm mildly more inclined to think that they were avoiding upsetting people by showing a "cute" animal get eaten. (Never mind that there are people who think rats and mice are cute and that one of them was snatched on camera; you could barely see it.)

Nature doesn't care what's cute, guys. Only creatures with parenting instincts care what's cute.

-Signing off.

And Apparently They're Singing In Polish

One of the more disturbing things I've seen in a while:



That donkey thing disturbs me.

(What, you thought I was talking about the grotesque alien creatures? Don't be silly.)

-Signing off.

Best Transformers Related Thing...

...since at least Praise Be To Decepticon (in sequence of my personal experiences with them, not release order). This one could be subcategorized as "Best Transformers Trailer Ever." (And yes, it tops that one with Grimlock in it for the same game.)



I don't know why that folky song ("The Humbling River," by Puscifer, and yes I just linked another Transformers music video set to the same song) works so goshdarned well, but it does. It's frikkin' perfect. (One of the top YouTube comments on the video quotes the first line ["Angel, angel, what have I done?"] and replies "JUST MADE THE MOST EPIC [expletive] MUSIC VIDEO EVER!!")

My sister says it works because Transformers has always been, despite its trappings, about a primitive, spiritual people-it's just that they're primitive, spiritual people who have access to awesome technology beyond easy comprehension. I can buy that-Transformers don't so much have nations as they do tribes built around their charismatic chieftains. (I don't think this is a function of trying to rip off the various cultures that have tribes, despite that sort of thing being rather popular these days-it's more to do with the way that little boy logic runs. Younger kids see leadership as having to do with being the toughest and/or coolest. That's why Optimus and Megatron kick so much butt, you know.)

At least part of it, I think, is because it implies a father/son relationship between Optimus and Bumblebee, but doesn't smash one's face with it. Optimus is pretty much every Autobot's dad, so that's a positive.

Also: BRUTICUS IS MY FAVORITE COMBINER.

GRIMLOCK IS HERE TOO.

I think my favorite part of Grimlock in this video isn't his awesome entrance or his awesome transformation or his sheer huge presence, but this simple little exchange of nods that he has with Optimus. Why?

Because I think Grimlock and Optimus work better as two awesome guys who respect each other, instead of distrusting and/or hating each other. Come on, guys, the kind of infighting that we usually see between those two was worn out by X-Men decades ago. I think it's time we move past it.

-Signing off.

Smell Like a Monster?

I'm not really familiar with the thing that this is parodying (though my sister has seen it), but I don't think you need to be familiar with the source material to find this amusing.



On the site I found this on, somebody commented to the effect of "Grover > Elmo." Granted, but "Cookie Monster >> Grover + Elmo." Seriously, the only other dude on Sesame Street who rivals Cookie Monster is the Count.

-Signing off.

Golden Age Moment of the Day (41)

Some themed villains take themes too far.

Others, like the Clown, villain in a feature in issue #16 of Four Favorites... don't.

In fact, I'd say that he's even less funny than a real clown.

He is in fact so short of being funny that he negates funniness.

Okay, I'll stop.

But his sense of humor is stupid. (Seriously, how can you even begin to think that a knife to the throat is a "droll" death? Unless you think "droll" means "grim and horrible.")

-Signing off.

Are You Listening, Google? This Might Get Me To Download Chrome.

I was browsing today, and realized, as I slogged through dozens of Internet Explorer tabs, that there's a browser tool I could really get behind: The tab alphabetizer.

The way I browse, I often end up with so many tabs that I can't quite navigate them all, and have to resort to the "quick tabs" view, which has tons of potential but doesn't let me resort the tabs. I want some button that can immediately alphabetize all your tabs alphabetically by URL, so that when you've got thirty tabs (or however many the limit is-I actually reached my computer's limit on tabs in a window the other day), you can just hit it and get something organized instead of a hopeless mess.

Tabs, by the way, are one of those things that, once I learned they existed, I realized I could never go without them again. Not 'net browsing, anyway.

-Signing off.