Fashion Horror

Coat arrived yesterday, and -- wait, that reminds me, must ring shop about coat.

Despite it being exactly the same as the coat I tried on at Omega, I think it is not in fact the same coat. I think it is several sizes smaller. Certainly the sleeves are too short, and I'd have trouble wearing more than a couple of very thin layers underneath it. Not what you want in a bulky overcoat. Also the collar is weird.

Comics also arrived, and it was good. Last month (well, cover date January) was Legion Month, and there were two issues plus a Secret Files special. They're up to some freaky shit with Apokalips and Superboy, and Live Wire seems to have returned from the dead in Element Lad's body (though EL might just think he's Live Wire, he was a bit crazy at the end there). And it looks like Brainiac 5 might have a thing for the Invisible Kid. It's all cool. Simultaneously, JLAvengers continues to be toptastic, Teen Titans goes in new directions without betraying the established characters and Formerly Known As The Justice League was finally integrating with the DCU at large (instead of picking up where they left off 10 years ago). Though they do keep talking about Hoppy the Marvel Bunny as though he still exists - I don't think Keith Giffen's read a Marvel Family comic book since about 1972. But Blue Beetle rang Oracle for help, and they flirted a little and used each other's given names, so they at least did some research. The one down point is that I think I may have missed an issue of various books, which shouldn't happen. In theory they should just check my list each week when the comics come in and slip one in the bag. Well, nobody's perfect, I'll give them a ring.

Oh yeah, must ring coat shop guy...

SUPPLEMENTAL: One more thing... Gamers: The Game, The Game About Gamers. Read forward from there through to today. I so want to play that game. Apparently the writer and his friends are developing it as a freeware d20 supplement, designed for use either as a standalone game or to liven up a session of an existing one...

Scream of the Shalka

Part Four is up.

"No, all I need is a door handle - don't bother with the sign -"

"I can explain."
"You don't have to."
"Oh, good."

"Permission to speak freely - retroactively - sir?"

"You heard the man, Greaves, don't bully the monster."

Santa

One of the emails that seems to do the rounds at this time of year is the one claiming that Santa's annual trip is fatal to him.

( Email reproduced here for reference purposes. )

I find fault with that logic. First it presents the fact that a reindeer cannot move at such a speed and then it calculates that a reindeer moving at that speed must die. The logical conclusion from the first fact is that a reindeer that IS moving at such a speed must have some form of external propulsion, which proves the second statement irrelevant - a natural extrapolation from this conclusion is that anyone who has the technology to propel anything at those speeds is likely capable of including some facility to protect the passengers or the technology becomes useless and would not be used. A similar reasoning process can be applied to the end conclusion; given that Santa has the facility to process a house in 1/1000th of a second and move at such astronomical speeds it is unreasonable to assume that he would be crushed by the force of acceleration. A more interesting calculation would be one determining the amount of relativistic distortion produced by moving at such a speed (assuming that Santa maintains a constant speed even while negotiating the chimney and distributing gifts, which seems reasonable given that he can do it so quickly).

The only logical conclusion is, of course, robot elves.