The Library Dungeon

Microfilm shelving project journal: Day 3,468.

2008-07-15T12:53:00.000-07:00

I am beyond physical exhaustion. Hallucinations have become more commonplace. I begin to wonder if the purple orangutan really wants to be my friend or if he is merely setting me up. I refuse to be a pawn in his little simian game of chess....

For two and a half days straight now, The Powers That Be have had me moving microfilms one cartful at a time from the microfilm mines behind the Course Reserves Department out onto the floor and shelving them.

I have not had to do this kind of physical work, on my feet constantly, for a long time now. Normally that's what I have minions for, but unfortunately, the type of minions we employ around here do not have the mental capacity to be trusted with a job as mentally taxing as putting microfilms in alphabetical order.

I wish I was joking on that last part.

So that leaves me and my esteemed coworker, Lady Dementia, to get everything hauled out into the front area by the end of the week. I know it doesn't sound terribly hard, but when you're used to sitting at a computer for eight hours a day pushing book carts around and carrying armloads of microfilms around can be incredibly taxing, especially doing it all day long for several days straight. If I hadn't lost about sixty pounds recently I doubt I would have even made it this far. I would have died of exhaustion somewhere among the endless stacks of microfilm where the film-spiders would have found my lifeless corpse and dragged it away for a midnight snack.

Note to self: in regards to film-spiders, invest in flamethrower.

In case you've wondered, this project is a big part of why I've been neglecting my bloggly duties of late. It has eaten up almost all of my time during the day planning and executing it, and at night I've either been spending time with friends to relax or resting to heal my tired, broken, undead body.

Hopefully, however, it will be over by the end of the week and we'll be done picking up the pieces and fixing any errors by sometime next week so I should be able to post more often after that.

Until then, no rest for the wicked.

Of Dust Bunnies and Rock Anthems

2008-07-07T14:14:00.000-07:00

Well, despite being the dead of summer, it's officially spring cleaning time here at the dungeon. All of the racks and iron maidens are being polished, the books of forgotten arcane lore are being given a good dusting, and the giant blast furnaces are being scrubbed down. Of course we've already lost over fifty minions on this last job alone, since The Powers That Be refuse to actually turn off the furnaces while they're being cleaned. Seems a bit self defeating to me, but hey, as the poet said, mine is not to reason why, mine is but to do and send others to die.

Or something like that.

Or not.

We've also been cleaning out the office break room, the contents of which have so far included:
-An entire shelf of outdated catalogs from various office supply companies (some going back to 2003)
-A box full of small, black, plastic things on whose function no one seems to agree
-Dozens of folders full of time sheets dating back as far as 1995
-A folder containing all of the job descriptions in the library dating from 1989 (The thing is actually printed on Dot Matrix paper)
-Trays, plates, knives, forks and cups of all sizes and shapes
-Two coffee makers, both of which have a thick crust of long-since-dried coffee and mold on the bottom
-Approximately 23,547,900,342 boxes of holiday decorations.

So at least we're prepared if there's ever a tinsel shortage.

Back at the overlord homestead, things have been surprisingly uneventful, although busy. The wife is currently working on a project related to her dissertation, so my evenings are much more boring than usual. Boring enough that I've finally been able to beat all of the songs on Rock Band on Expert! Booyah! Take that, "Green Grass and High Tides"! You thought your obtuse rythm and illogical, insanely fast solos had defeated me, but I rose up once more and pierced your shield of sixteenth notes with the sword of my sheer rock-and-roll awesomeness!

...
...
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Sorry. I majored in overly-long-victory-rants back when I attended Overlord University. Old habits and all.

Attack of teh kewt

2008-07-01T06:34:00.000-07:00

I have seen the face of cuteness, and it's name is WALL-E.

So this weekend I took my wife, Mrs. Overlord to the local megaplex to see Pixar's newest animated feature, WALL-E (Which, for those of you who haven't seen it stands for "Waste Allocated Load Lifter - Earth Class"). I must admit that going into this movie I had the highest of hopes. The preview was one of the funniest I'd seen in a long time, and as anyone who reads the same webcomics as me knows, I'm a big sucker for cute.

Now normally when I go into a movie with great expectations a horrible, horrible thing happens. Somehow, no matter how good they are they end up disappointing me. Only a few movies (most notably this past winter's Cloverfield) have completely lived up to my hopes. And if they don't, I generally end up being overly harsh on the film in retaliation. I'm happy to say that WALL-E not only lived up to my expectations, but even surpassed them.

WALL-E is a comedy about a scatterbrained robot dealing with his loneliness on an Earth long abandoned by humanity. Despite being the only robot still functioning on the planet, he dutifully keeps going with his endless job of cleaning up trash on the polluted planet. Soon, however, his predictable world is disrupted by the arrival of EVA, another robot for whom WALL-E soon falls head over treads. Giving away any more would be doing a disservice to both you and the movie. Suffice to say, the script is tightly written, and hilarious.

This is the kind of comedy that they just don't make anymore. You know, the funny kind. The kind that doesn't involve Ben Stiller or Adam Sandler or toilet jokes. This is the kind of intelligent, thoughtful humor that has long been missing from modern movies. One thing that may turn off some moviegoers is the fact that the first half of the movie is almost completely without dialogue, however in this case, that's a very good thing. The physical comedy alone is well worth seeing, and the fact that Pixar can make a love story come to life using only two words ("Waaaaall-e" "Eeeeeeeeva") is a testament to this film's genius.

One final note: I've heard a few people say that this film is not really a kid's movie. Although there's certainly nothing inappropriate for kids, it's a more thoughtful movie with almost no dialogue that today's jack-ass generation may find hard to sit through without dying of boredom. Well I hate to sound like a cranky old person (Get off my lawn!), but that's exactly the kind of thing kids should be watching. Too many kids movies today are focused on crude, unintelligent humor and mind-melting action with no thought required, which means that the generations after mine are becoming overly-stimulated and unable to appreciate anything with more depth than Deuce Bigalow. With that in mind, this movie is quite a welcome change in direction that parents would do well to take notice of.

My rating: 9.5 out of 10 lashings.

Bad News

2008-06-26T07:11:00.000-07:00

>Sigh<

So as if I didn't have enough going on lately, my bike is up on blocks in the backyard again, this time with a flat tire. I came out of work the other day and found it completely flat, which means that I haven't been able to get my daily exercise in a while and I'm feeling lazy. Hopefully I'll be able to replace the tire tonight and ride to work in the morning, but in all honesty, with the temperature approaching 100 degrees in the afternoon, I'm not sure that's still a good idea.

In another bit of unfortunate news, I think I may have to start posting less often on here. I've been so busy at home and work lately that it makes it hard to find the time to get on here and update, and when I do get some time in the evenings, I'm so exhausted that I'm more likely to use it to watch DVDs of Angel or play around on Second Life or Rock Band. Not to mention that I'll be starting grad school in a few months and probably have significantly less time for the foreseeable future.

So for now, I'm toning down updates from "Every Weekday" to "Sporadic" I'll probably only be updating when stuff happens that's worthy of an update. I apologize for the inconvenience, but honestly, there's only so much evil to go around and I'm committed to providing quality over quantity.

Catching Up

2008-06-25T06:36:00.000-07:00

First of all, I must apologize. It seems that somehow, someone has managed to hack there way onto this blog and replace my last two posts with babbling gibberish from some weak-minded fool posing as your mighty overlord, as if my loyal readers wouldn't notice the difference.

Suffice to say, the perpetrator has been caught, and is currently undergoing heinous tortures the likes of which are unfathomable to most minds. Let that be a lesson to all of you out there never to p*** off someone who collects vintage dentist's equipment.

I would have noticed sooner, but the last couple of days have been incredibly hectic here at the dungeon. It seems that our new boss has decided to make many well-deserved changes to the way things happen around here, but that means that someone has to be the one to make them happen. Yesterday, for example, was spent frantically shelving microfiche the had been lying around for weeks now waiting to be reshelved by one of my colleagues who decided that it would be easier to simply... well... not do anything. I'm not sure what the powers that be decided to do to her, but I do know that the screaming finally stopped sometime after I got to work this morning.

Anyways, with so much going on in the dungeon and such a rash of people to torture lately, I've been entirely swamped this week. In fact, I should probably let you go now, as I think the hacker is just now regaining consciousness and I have an innovative new torture lined up for him that may revolutionize the dungeon industry. It's too soon to tell you exactly what it is (patent issues and all that), but I will say that it involves a scalpel, a staple gun, and three live badgers.

No one messes with The Overlord.

Day off

2008-06-24T07:29:00.000-07:00

No real post today. I apologize for rushing off on you like this, but I'm swamped with backlogged work here at the dungeon and I'm still a little... off... from yesterday. I'm mostly feeling better, but there's still a general malaise that's been creeping in now and then. I did update the "Fellow Overlords" section with the blogs of those who responded to Friday's post, however, so go ahead and check them out.

Real posts resume tomorrow, I promise.

Time Out

2008-06-23T06:30:00.000-07:00

Those of you who have been here from the beginning know that I don't normally break character. Well today I'm going to. Today the evil overlord thing just doesn't seem as funny to me. Tomorrow I can be funny again and we can maybe try to go back to the way things were, but today I just can't do it, no matter how hard I try.

For those of you who have not yet heard, last night George Carlin, the legendary comedian, died of heart failure.

George Carlin was one of my earliest and most revered heroes; one of the very few people in the world that I'd be willing to label as such. Carlin was not merely a comedic genius; that in and of itself is common enough. He was a prophet; a social commentator without peer. His ideas literally transformed my entire world when I was young, and continued to do so all the way through today. The way I am today, the way i think, the things I do, can almost invariably be traced to his influence.

George was irreplaceable. His unique brand of comedy, philosophy, thoughtfulness, and outright anger will never be duplicated. For many years now I thought that Carlin would live forever. Even despite hearing of his heart problems and knowing that he was getting old, the idea that he could die simply never occurred to me. He was immortal in every meaningful sense of the word.

In talking to my friends this morning, I realized that Carlin is only the third person who's ever died in my lifetime that I will really and truly miss, who wasn't a member of my family. The other two being Douglas Adams and Hunter S. Thompson. I won't say that all of my heroes have died, because that's obviously not true. There will always be heroes, as long as there are people for them to inspire. But I will say that most of the people who truly inspired my childhood and changed the way that I look at the world have now gone away. The only ones left of the five giants that shaped my worldview are Roger Waters and Tom Waits. I guess Rock and Roll really does make people live longer.

I know that whatever I say about George will be hollow and meaningless. His work is his own greatest monument to his genius. I like to think that every time I make someone laugh, or think about some small thing in a new way, that's a tiny tribute to George Carlin, a man who dedicated his life to changing the way people look at the world around them.

Like George, I'm not a religious person. At best I could be described as "non-religious", although I'd be more likely to use the term "Agnostic". So I won't waste anyone's time by saying that I'll "pray" for him, or that "I know he's in a better place", because that's not true, and even if it was it would be insulting to his legacy and memory to say so. All I know is that a bright, fiercely burning light has gone out of this world and for the moment, at least, everything seems a lot darker for it.

"I think it's the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately."

"Frisbeetarianism is the belief that when you die, your soul goes up on the roof and gets stuck."

- George Carlin -
- 1937-2008 -

Please to meet you, hope you guess my name...

2008-06-20T06:51:00.000-07:00

Good morning, all my foul little pets.

This morning, during my ride to work it occurred to me that while you all now know a significant amount about me and my interests, I know almost nothing of you other than the few short comments on previous entries. Bearing this in mind, I've decided that today I'm going to kick back a little and hopefully learn a bit about the deranged denizens that come visit the dungeon on a regular basis.

So consider this a short customer survey if you will. All I'm asking is that you comment on this thread with a sentence or two about yourself, and maybe your interests and so forth, as much or as little as you feel comfortable with. If you have a blog of your own go ahead and link it if you want. I know that several of you that read this blog are people I know in real life, but I also know that several of you are people I've never met, and I'm interested to know a bit about you. And because I'm such a wonderful evil overlord, I'm even giving you the whole weekend to think about it.

So go out there and dance for my amusement, and remember, if this doesn't work there's always other ways that you can be of amusement to me, and most of those involve hot pokers and vice grips.

More Tales From the Dungeon

2008-06-19T06:57:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure what's worse: the fact that our reserves collection hasn't been cleaned out since 1999, or the fact that I now get to be the one to do something about it.

Scratch that. I know which one is worse. The second one is worse. Very much worse.

Here at the Library Dungeon Reserves Department, we keep track of all of the dark, musty tomes that professors want set aside for their classes so that their students always have access to them. Basically, whenever the professors want a book pulled from the stacks for the reserve collection the give us a form and we go get it and put it in our collection. Simple, right?

You may notice, however, that there is a gaping flaw in the above mentioned plan; nowhere in there did I mention when the books come off reserve and go back to the main stacks. That's because until two days ago, they didn't. Great plan, huh?

Just recently we replaced our head of reserves (IE: Boss), and as soon as they discovered this they rightfully decided that this idea was profoundly and disastrously stupid. We've been running out of room to keep the reserve collection in for years now, and we're almost at the breaking point. So now comes the time to go through every one of the thousands of books here in reserves to determine which ones are still being used and which ones haven't been touched since the professor retired to Hawaii back in 2001.

So basically, this means I'm chained to the computer with a list of paper several inches thick, occasionally printing out lists of books for my minions to pull off the shelves and process back into the general collection.

We've already removed about a quarter of the collection, and it's still shrinking fast.

But I suppose this project was long overdue. It'll be nice to streamline the collection and not have to sort through quite as many books to find the nice thick ones that make good weights to jury-rig the thumbscrews.

Because after all, a tidy dungeon is a happy dungeon. You know... in an evil way.

Oh, by the by, we just hit our thousandth page view. Granted, half of them are probably from me in my obsessive compulsive need to correct every little mistake I ever see on this page, but you know, whatever. Yay for more pointless milestones!

Blah

2008-06-18T06:43:00.000-07:00

I'm in a bad mood today, and I don't know why.

I already tried taking it out on my minions, but no matter how many times I take various sharp instruments to parts of their anatomy, nor how loud their screams of terror, I just seem to get more depressed.

I get like this every once in a while. Sometimes there's a specific reason for it, like stress or some kind of bad news, but more often I just get into a very minor funk for a day or two for no reason at all. It's kind of like a very vague cloud of angst settling over everything I do, and for a just a little while I go from being an evil overlord to being an emo overlord.

Anyway, to avoid boring you with my pointless whining and also because I don't seem to have the wherewithal to write very much today, I'm just going to leave you with a TtRWYS update and call it a day. Hopefully I'll feel better soon.

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Things to Read While You Suffer update:

No Pink Ponies - This is a cute comic about a geeky girl who opens a comic book store to impress the guy she has a crush on. This one doesn't really have much philosophical commentary on the nature of humanity or any other profound topics, but it's both funny and fun, with interesting characters, a few sweet story lines, and enough comic book and roleplaying fandom to keep even the geekiest amongst us happy.

Musical Chairs

2008-06-17T06:29:00.000-07:00

Good morning, my foul little pets. Last time I said I was going to talk about music, and it seems to me the best way to do that would be to explain the random sampling of songs I gave you to muse over. For those of you who managed to figure out some of them, you may have noticed that my music tastes tend to be extrememly ecclectic, ranging from country to rap to classic rock to musicals to punk, and hitting pretty much everything in between.

1) "Love has got me down. A tear just hit the ground."

Okay, this one was easy. It's Aerosmith's "Shut up and Dance", and it's firmly in the classic rock section of my music library. This is one of those bands that I listen to not because they're deep or profound or have some sort of world shattering message. They just know how to rock unlike anyone else. Sometimes that counts for a lot.

2) "I tried to kill the pain, but only brought more."

Number two is Evanescence with "Tourniquet". I only discovered Evanescence about a year or two ago, but I was immediately hooked. The complex melodies and hard rock background give them a wonderfully eery feel, while at the same time giving the music an incredible amount of energy. Plus Amy Lee is like, the hottest thing on two legs.

3) "I don't go to therapy to find out if I'm a freak."

This is "What Do You Hear in These Sounds" by Dar Williams. My wife, Mrs. Overlord turned me on to Dar a few years ago, and I'm really glad she did. She has a quirky, folksy sound and incredibly profound songs about topics ranging from religion to sexuality to personal introspection, and she also knows how to rock. Quite a combination. Being somewhat less than mainstream, she may not be the easiest artist in the world to find recordings of (although everything is possible via the interwebs), but she's more than worth checking out. "The Ballad of Mary Magdalene", "Iowa", and "Are You Out There" are a few other incredible songs by her.

4) "When the sleigh is heavy, and the timber wolves are getting bold..."

This is Roger Waters, with "Too Much Rope", from the album Amused to Death. Roger was one of my first loves, musically speaking. I grew up listening to Pink Floyd albums like The Wall, The Final Cut, Animals, and Dark Side of the Moon, and when I learned that Roger had produced some solo albums I ate them up like popcorn. Describing Waters' work is difficult at best, but if you've ever listened to any Pink Floyd, it's like that, only more so.His work is musically nuanced, lyrically complex and charged with more raw emotion than virtually anything else I've found. It's easy to see why the band went downhill after he left.

5) "I touch the fire and it freezes me."

Okay, this one is a bit of a guilty pleasure. This is from a song called "Walk Through the Fire" by the cast of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. For those of you who aren't fans of the show, they did a musical episode in their sixth season that won them an Emmy, and this is one of the songs from that episode. Even though I love Buffy as a show, the quality and cleverness of the songs on that episode still blew me away the first time I saw it.

6) "All the world just stopped now. So you say you don't want to stay together anymore."

Tori Amos, "Tear in Your Hand". Tori is a strange subject for me. I discovered Little Earthquakes when a friend introduced me to it in high school, and I immediately fell in love with it. The album is haunting, deep, and phenomenally introspective. So naturally I went right out to find more of Tori's work. And I did. And it sucked.

The Tori fans out there are probably ready to burn me (and if you think it'll be the first time I've been burned at the stake, you're very mistaken), but I have yet to find another album of hers that was anywhere near as good as Little Earthquakes. My wife still swears by her music, but to me anything other than her first album just sounds lacking somehow.

7) "I come beatin' down the block and I bust the bedrock."

Okay, now we're getting into the bloody, still beating heart of my musical tastes. This one is "Haunted Bump", by the Insane Clown Posse. I've been an ICP fan (or Juggalo) for many years now, ever since High School. ICP is one of the funniest, most intense rap bands in the world, and their music is both visceral and intense. Although it's rarely "Deep" in the traditional sense of the word, it is often filled with twists, puns, and double meanings that reveal an incredible understanding of lyrical poetry and theatricality. Anyone who thinks that this is just a Shock Rock band with nothing going on under the surface is severely mistaken.

8) "If hello could only drop its 'O' and it stayed in the front doorway of your home, would you live there still?"

This is the song "Once Upon Your Dead Body", by Coheed and Cambria. Coheed and Cambria is a band that I only recently started listening to because of a Song of theirs called "Welcome Home" that's featured on Rock Band, a recent obsession of mine. They have an interesting and complex sound, reminiscent of Pink Floyd or Queen, that includes a high degree of theatricality and musical power. I've only listened to one of their albums so far, but I definitely plan on hearing more of them in the near future. By the way, the album is Good Apollo I'm Burning, Star IV: Volume 1. From Fear Through the Eyes of Madness; quite possibly one of the longest album titles ever.

9) "My words are like a dagger with a jagged edge."

Eminem, "Criminal". Eminem is another of my musical tastes that dates all the way back to high school. I still remember when he burst on the scene with "My Name Is" and for a while it seemed like that was the only song on the radio. Eminem is one of the recording artists that I have the most respect for because of his unflinching defiance and ability to transcend musical boundaries. Also, very, very few people put as much of themselves into their music as he does, and it shows through in the raw energy in many of his songs. Although I must admit that I like his earlier albums better than his later ones, even the worst of his work is better than most of the rest of today's pop music.

10) "The bats are in the belfry. The dew is on the moor."

Tom Waits, "Innocent When You Dream".

Oh Tom Waits... how do I describe you? Tom Waits is an artist who is self-described as sounding like "A chorus of drunken bullfrogs gargling bourbon and razor blades." It's an accurate statement. His voice is gravelly and rough, but at the same time mesmerizing, and his lyrics are so complex and expressive as to be almost indecipherable until you've heard them over and over again. Tom is probably my favorite musician of all time, and his work is among the greatest poetry in the world of music. I honestly can't describe it. Just go out and pick up Rain Dogs or The Heart of Saturday Night right now. You'll wonder why you ever listened to anything else.

Clean Up

2008-06-16T07:21:00.000-07:00

Well that was a wasted weekend.

After the zombie invasion on Friday, I spent most of the afternoon scouring the area tracking down and decapitating undead before I realized that decapitating zombies isn't really the best solution because it leaves hundreds of zombie heads laying around still alive and trying to latch onto random plebeian bystanders.

So then I had to spend all of Saturday running around with m-80s and a shotgun to get rid of the heads, and a hand axe to take out the new zombies that they had managed to create by biting people's ankles.

Sunday I spent mostly showering.

So now, hopefully everything is back to normal, but I never did figure out who was responsible for all this carnage. I consider it a lost opportunity.

Regardless, after all the running around dealing with the zombie menace this weekend, I've been too tired to think of anything interesting to blog about today, so instead I give you a cheap ripoff game that I found on someone else's blog. Enjoy.

Here's how it works. I'm going to go put my mp3 player on "shuffle" mode and right down the first line or two of the first ten songs I come across. You're job is to try to figure out what the songs and artists are. Since I've never really talked about music on here, this will be a good segue into a post about that for next time. Enjoy!

Random first lines of songs from my playlist:

1) "Love has got me down. A tear just hit the ground."

2) "I tried to kill the pain, but only brought more."

3) "I don't go to therapy to find out if I'm a freak."

4) "When the sleigh is heavy, and the timber wolves are getting bold..."

5) "I touch the fire and it freezes me."

6) "All the world just stopped now. So you say you don't want to stay together anymore."

7) "I come beatin' down the block and I bust the bedrock."

8) "If hello could only drop its 'O' and it stayed in the front doorway of your home, would you live there still?"

9) "My words are like a dagger with a jagged edge."

10) "The bats are in the belfry. The dew is on the moor."

Night of the Wimpy Dead

2008-06-13T09:49:00.000-07:00

Great.

As if I didn't already have enough to do this weekend, now the zombies are invading.

For those of you not up on current events, today is the apocalypse. Or at least that's what it appears to be from here. As I write this my minions are engaged in fending off a zombie invasion of epic proportions. I honestly don't know what's causing this mass zombie swarm. All I know is that I didn't cause it, and that has me just a little p***ed off.

After all these years, plotting and scheming and building my army of evil minions, it seems that someone, somewhere has beaten me to the punch.

Well, we'll just see about that.

You see, the dungeon is well equipped for just such an eventuality as this. As I type, my goblins are breaking out the machetes and flamethrowers, while my larger minions man the machine gun turrets on the outer walls. Unfortunately, zombies don't appear to feel pain, so torturing them is out, but a good old fashioned bloodbath is still a go. And man, do they make festive party poppers when you stuff 'em with TNT.

You see, when it comes to the undead, your dear overlord doesn't f*** around. Plans are currently being laid to make a first wave assault against the undead menace, and as soon as the cave trolls finish work on the reinforced siding and neck-high, whirling saw-blades, I'll be taking my Deathmobile out for what promises to be a zany afternoon of flying zombie heads and other assorted carnage. Remember, kids, I'm a professional . Don't try this at home.

And as soon as I deal with the living dead I'm finding the guy responsible and showing him the true definition of pain. Much as I love mindless violence, I detest being the good guy. But now, thanks to this putz, whoever he or she is, I have to be the one to save the world, just so I can conquer it later.

I swear. Sometimes it just doesn't pay to get out of the coffin in the mornings.

But at least I can take solace in the fact that whoever caused this is not very good at the whole "World Domination" thing. I mean, Zombies? Really? First of all, they're slow. Second of all, they're stupid, and thirdly, you can apparently take them down with a waffle iron if you're quick enough. Of course, now I'll have to eat pancakes for breakfast until I can afford a new one.

Amateurs.

Anyway, my best advice to you, my little pets, is to seek shelter and let your dear overlord deal with the undead. And for the love of evil, don't open the door for any deceased relatives or friends. Just because it drools on itself and mumbles unintelligibly, doesn't mean it's your grandfather. In fact, just shoot anything that comes to the door, dead or alive. It's safer that way.

Well, for you at least.

And remember, if you see me or my minions coming down the street chopping off heads left and right, you might want to get out of the way.

After all, we're not going to stop and check your pulse first.

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Oh, and for those of you who have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about. Here's a link.

No pain, No Gain

2008-06-12T07:32:00.001-07:00

Blah.

Once again my legs feel like big blobs of tapioca. Biking to and from work and doing a full body dumbbell workout yesterday has left me a quivering blob of overworked muscle and raw nerve endings. And today I'm planning to head over to the University Rec Center after work to join Mrs. Overlord for water aerobics.

I have to admit, it is nice, though. I've lost fifty pounds or more since January, and I know I've put on at least a little muscle. It's nice to be able to get up and walk across the room without being out of breath, and now when I'm turning the giant crank on our dungeon's rack I find that my back no longer hurts.

And I find that I'm enjoying the actual exercise as well. Biking to work has given me a whole new perspective on my neighborhood, and weightlifting has become something of a personal challenge to me. As I get stronger, I find that I've begun actively trying to lift more instead of actively dreading lifting at all.

All in all, I'm a healthier, happier, and more active overlord than I was 6 months ago, and hopefully in another six months I'll be even further along.

After all, in the words of one of my personal heroes, "If you haven't got your health, you haven't got anything."

For whom the school bell tolls

2008-06-11T06:52:00.000-07:00

I'm going to grad school!

I finally got word from the University that the scholarship I applied for is going through and I'll be going to grad school basically for free. Now all that's left is for me to start class in late August.

Which is good, because that's the only type of grad school I can afford right now. You'd think that between pillaging innocent villages, robbing maidens in distress, and holding the world to ransom, that Overlording would be a lucrative and rewarding career choice. But that's only the public face of the overlord. No one sees the enormous amounts of time and money that goes into designing hi-tech super weapons, training and outfitting minions, bribing key officials to obtain permits for the gigantic death lasers, and just generally keeping the forces of evil up to date. So after all is said and done I'm lucky to have enough money left over to buy a case of chicken and entrails flavored Ramen noodles for the week, much less go back to school.

So thank you, Overlord University for coming through when I needed you most and allowing me to further my career and promote evil to newer and higher levels. You've done the world a great disservice. You should be proud.

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Things to Read While You Suffer update:

Flaky Pastry: This genre bending strip is a cute and funny story about a mechanically inclined goblin girl, a bookish catgirl, and a dangerously psychotic elf girl sharing an apartment at a University. Don't expect any epic storylines or tear-jerking drama here, but if you like good artwork and ridiculous situations against a backdrop of classic gamer fandom, then this may be the strip for you. Definitely worth a read.

Love is a Battlefield

2008-06-10T07:42:00.000-07:00

Riddle me this...

Who would win in a fight between a dragon and a T-rex?

Could a squad of ninjas take out a giant hunter/killer robot with a well placed shuriken?

What would happen if a squad of World War II era paratroopers, machine guns a-blazing, charged downhill into the massed phalanx of a roman legion while a group of elven archers provided cover fire?

As an evil overlord, I have to ask myself these and other difficult questions all the time as I lay out my intricate battle plans leading up to global domination. If you also find a pressing need to know whether or not a group of wandering samurai could take down a hill giant (hint: the answer is "Not in a million years"), or if you just enjoy playing well-made miniatures games, then Heroscape, produced by Hasbro, may well be the game for you.

Some of the features that make Heroscape so awesome are an easy-to-learn rule system, incredibly well made interlocking terrain pieces that can be built into virtually any configuration, and well-painted figures representing characters pulled from many different settings, genres and historical periods, all brought together in a giant Valhalla-like setting.

It also helps that Heroscape is affordable. The basic game costs about $30 at Toys R Us, Walmart, or Target, and comes with everything you need to play it right out of the box. Expansion sets cost between $10 and $30 and come with additional terrain pieces, landscape features, figures, and optional rules and scenarios, and they help to keep the game interesting for a long, long time. Basically, you can invest as much money into it as you feel comfortable with.

Anyway, the reason I'm plugging this amazing game is because after a year or two of looking for someone who would play this incredible game with me, I finally found a group of people to game with on Sundays, which I'm really excited about. After all, it does get wearisome (and a bit pathetic) playing a combat simulation game against myself.

So until I raise the capital to produce my army of ninjas and dinosaurs (you wouldn't believe how much a stegosaurus goes for these days. I blame the price of gas.), I'll continue to amuse myself sending wave after wave of plastic figures to their doom on a battlefield of brightly painted hexes.

Because after all, practice makes perfect.

Calling in sick

2008-06-09T06:38:00.000-07:00

Okay, so first of all an apology is in order, which isn't something Overlord's do easily so don't get used to it. Friday I was feeling a bit under the weather so I stayed home. You see, being an overlord is a dangerous job with many easy pitfalls to fall into. With treacherous rivals trying to backstab me, interfering heroes trying to vanquish me, and ambitious minions trying to overthrow me, all on a daily basis, it is utterly imperative that I not show even the slightest sign of weakness at work. One little slip and I could find myself strapped to my own rack with some second rate overlord looming over me ready to exact vengeance for years of making their life a living hell.

Bearing all that in mind, you can easily see why I chose to stay home while sick on Friday. So, you ask, why didn't I update from home? Why would I leave you loyal readers swaying in the breeze without a precious update when a few simple lines of text would make your entire day and allow you to sleep well at night, no longer concerned for my precious well being?

Duh. Evil. Hello.

Anyway, I'm back now and feeling better than ever, so you can stop showering me with get well cards and replacement-body-part baskets. Not that they weren't appreciated, but really, there's only so many kidneys I can keep in the fridge before I run out of room for last week's tuna casserole.

And now that I'm back on the job It's time to hit the ground running. After my absence there's lots to do here. People to torture, minions to abuse, microfilms to digitize... yes, evil doesn't happen by itself, you know, and it all piles up when you're gone. So if you'll excuse me, I'm going to get out there and make the world a worser place.

Just as soon as I finish checking my webcomics.

It's alive!!! It's alive!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!

2008-06-05T06:54:00.001-07:00

Frankenbike is back up and running again, thanks to a quick change of... well... everything. I had to take the wheels, seat, pedals, brakes, and seat bar of one bike and combine them with the frame, gears, and handlebars of another bike to finally come up with a working combination, but now he's back and better than ever, although at some point I may have to replace the back inner tube because it always seems to be just a little low on air.

So once again I am able to zoom into work in style instead of having to take the university shuttle bus with the rest of the lowly masses. Some of the people on those busses creep even me out.

And it's a good thing that I can get back to working out on my bike, because The library has once again seen fit to throw temptation in my path by holding a pizza party for my department today, and this time I don't think I'll be able to resist. The pizza... she calls to me...

So I've decided that I'm willing to forgive myself for one momentary dietary lapse. After all, if Ultimate Evil can't surrender to temptation and then rationalize it away afterwards, who can?

Minions, Version 2.0

2008-06-04T06:41:00.000-07:00

Well, it's that time of year again. The time when hiring for the semester is just about complete and the brand-spanking new minions are beginning to appear at the desks, fresh-eyed and eager to begin their new career of slavery and torture. It always warms my heart to see them gleefully coming to work on their first day full of joy and hope, only to have their spirits broken and their tiny dreams crushed to death by the monotonous drudgery of customer service and office work.

I think we hired somewhere on the order of twelve new student workers this semester, which is a lot for us. Typically we have about 50-60 student workers at any given time. Of these we tend to lose about 5-10 per semester to graduation, internships, and of course, the occasional giant panda attack.

Of course, the worst part of this time of year is trying to learn the names of all the new student workers. I have a really bad memory for names and faces, and it doesn't help when we have three Britneys or two Chrises, or half a dozen Gorgoth, Devourer of Soulses. I've heard that it helps to try to use mnemonic devices to associate names with facial features or outstanding physical characteristics, but that's hard to do when you never know which bits are going to be hacked off at the next bi-monthly morale building meeting.

Well, in the end I suppose that I'll eventually grow to love this new batch of gremlins and imps just like I have in the past. These things can't be rushed, after all. A true Overlord-Minion relationship takes time, effort, and trust to develop.

Well, that and a big d**n vat of boiling oil.

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Things to Read While You Suffer update:

Circle Versus Square: This is circle. Circle is level headed and patient, and is content to let life come to him at it's own pace. This is square. Square is hot headed and impulsive, and creates complex schemes to get what he wants. Circle hates square. Square hates circle. Everybody hates triangle.

This is a hilarious webcomic about a group of shapes that argue, fight, and try to one-up each other in ridiculously amusing ways. The fact that there's no real art to speak of forces the comic to rely on it's wit, humor, and intelligence to succeed; and it does so beautifully. If you're into some of the more outlandish and intelligent minimalist comics on the web like XKCD or Bonobo Conspiracy, you should probably give this one a try. It only started this past January, so there's not much archive to peruse, but it updates tri-weekly, and it promises to be a good comic to keep an eye on.

Like a thief in the night...

2008-06-03T07:29:00.001-07:00

Someone's been stealing my banana peppers.

I have a very small yard out behind our evil homestead, and most of it is the exclusive domain of our faithful hellhound Hastur. This area serves as his playground, exercise room, and outhouse, all in one.

Of the remaining yard, most of it is taken up by either the concrete walkway to the back gate, or the small patio area with a wrought iron table and chairs that Grammammy overlord gave us as patio furniture for a wedding gift.

This leaves about a measly ten square feet of bare ground (which was originally supposed to be a flower bed) bordering the patio area in an L-shape which serves as my makeshift garden. For those of you who don't garden, ten square feet is not very much space for growing stuff. The most I've been able to fit in it so far is one tomato plant, one ginormous dill plant (the thing is literally as tall as I am. There must be some weird runoff from the toxic waste pit in the basement that's making it grow or something), one sickly bunch of chives, a small rosemary plant, and five healthy banana pepper plants.

For the last two months I've watered, tended, and occasionally weeded my tiny little garden in the hopes of some day soon having enough banana peppers to harvest and pickle so that I could use them on sandwiches and pizzas and the like. Long have I suffered and toiled under the blazing hot sun so that one day I could reap the fruits of my own labor, earned through my own blood, sweat and tears

And now someone's been stealing my g**-d**ned banana peppers!!!!!!

I'm pretty sure it's not Hastur, because he doesn't like vegetables as a rule, and at least one of them has disappeared while he was at the park with us.

My best guess is that it's some sort of small sneaky animal like a squirrel or raccoon or maybe even a cat of some sort.

So now my choices are either stay out all night with thermoscopic goggles and a .30-.30, waiting for the creature to show itself so that I can engage it in mortal kombat; or else go back to eating store bought banana peppers.

I love when things boil down to a win-win situation.

Oh, and as a completely random side note, we just recently hit our 666th page view here at the dungeon. The lucky blog surfer who became our 666th victim will receive a coupon for 25% off their next thumb screws, iron maiden, or hot poker session.*

*Offer void where prohibited. Offer cannot be combined with any other coupons or promotions. Coupon value 1/666 of a cent. No substitutions, exchanges, or refunds.

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"Things to Read While You Suffer" update:

Khaos Komix - I just discovered this amazing comic yesterday and I've already blazed through the entire archive. This is the story of a group of friends in high school who are discovering who they are and what they want from life. Featuring extremely realistic characters and great artwork, this comic explores very complex issuess about identity and sexual orientation and deals with some of the questions facing the modern gay community. In an interesting twist, the comic is divided into chapters, each of which tells the story from the perspective of a different character, slowly exposing a complex web of relationships and viewpoints. This one is not for the faint hearted or easily offended, but anyone who is interested in LGBT issues or gender studies in general should probably give it a chance. Warning: This comic contains very adult situations and artwork. It's on your own head if you decide to access this one at work, or anywhere else for that matter.

More Movie Madness

2008-06-02T07:39:00.000-07:00

Well, I went to see Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull this weekend, and I have to say, it wasn't as bad as I expected. Of course, it wasn't as good as I'd hoped either, so it kind of evens out.

My hunch about Harrison Ford being too old to kick ass and chew bubble gum like he used to turned out to be an accurate one. In several scenes he seems to be obviously struggling with the high physical demands of an action movie. However, the screenwriters did use this to their advantage a good portion of the time, purposely casting Indy in an older and wiser role, and leaving a good bit of the physical work to 'Mutt', his surprisingly interesting and worthwhile sidekick played by Shia LeBeouf.

Shia is really the standout of this movie as far as I'm concerned, and after his similarly surprising performance in Transformers, he's pretty much cemented his place on my list of "Young actors to keep an eye on". Going into the movie I thought his role was going to be a lame ripoff of Indy with little depth or interest, but he ran with the character and made it work as a completely separate entity that is interesting in its own right. I can't believe I'm actually saying this, but if Lucas and Spielberg do decide to spin this character off into his own film, and rumor has it they will, they may actually be able to produce a worthwhile picture.

The ever-hot Cate Blanchett did a good job working with what she was given as the film's bad guy, but in the final analysis the character came off as underdeveloped and a little bit cliche. Unlike the previous Indiana Jones villains, she really doesn't stand on her own as a character. A little more exposition by the scriptwriters might have helped here.

All in all, I'd say that the new movie is probably worth the cost of a matinee admission ticket, if only to revel in the nostalgia that the Indiana Jones franchise is loaded with at this point.

In the end I give it 7 out of ten lashings.

Now, just for the sake of switching gears without a clutch, I also watched another movie this weekend that very few of you have probably heard of called Psycho Beach Party.

Now, for those of you who don't know, I have a distinct masochistic streak that manifests itself as an intense desire to punish myself with horrible, horrible B-movies. This film is a pretty funny send up to the B-movies of the 50s and 60s, especially the psychedelic beach teenager movies of the era that almost invariable featured scantily clad (for that time) teenagers running around on the beach surfing and getting killed off in strange ways.

Anyway, the main draw of this movie other than the purposely campy atmosphere and ridiculously cheesy dialogue is that those of you who, like me, are fans of Buffy and Angel will recognize Zander (Nicholas Brendan) playing the main romantic lead as a beach bum psychology major named Starcat.

Those of you who are interested in this sort of spoof will find this one entertaining, and there are plenty of cringe-worthy bits of over-the-top acting and hackneyed phrases to keep any B-movie fan laughing.

And now for some self-absorbed whining...

2008-05-30T09:17:00.000-07:00

Man, today sucks.

First of all, my bike, which I love dearly, is in pieces in my back yard as I am trying to repair it by mixing pieces of it with my spare bike, creating what will hopefully be a Frankensteinian Monstrosity worthy of an overlord such as myself. And after spending two full hours last night working on it, I hopped on and found out that the gears don't work right on the frame I'm using. So back to the drawing board.

Secondly, we received more digitizing requests today than we normally receive in a week, so my itinerary for the day seems to be filling up rather quickly.

Thirdly, It came to my attention a few days ago that I may not be getting the funding that I need to pay for getting my master's degree starting this fall. The scholarship I'm hoping to get has had more requests for funding than it has funds, I've yet to hear if I end up getting anything at all, and that's got me a bit stressed out lately.

And finally, I once again forgot to eat breakfast today. Damn me and my not feeling hungry until it's too late.

Oh well, at least it's Friday. And on top of that, this is like the first Weekend in a month or two where I can just relax and sleep, and not have to do anything at all. So have a good weekend everyone. I'm off to the digitizing mines to hopefully get everything done before clocking out today.

Happy Month-iversary

2008-05-29T07:23:00.000-07:00

Well, today marks exactly one month that I've been doing this blog, and I must say, it's been interesting so far.

When I started this thing, I really had no idea what I was going to say, or even if I had anything to say. Actually, to be honest, I'm still not sure if I have anything to say, but damn-it, at least I'm saying it with style.

From the numbers at the bottom of the screen and the occasional post comments, it appears I've even picked up a few readers, which is a pleasant surprise. It's gratifying to know that I'm not talking to myself out here and that there are people who actually enjoy this pointless parade of silliness.

To celebrate this completely arbitrary day, I've added a new feature to the blog, "Words of Wickedness". Basically, it's just a little html code that'll display random quotes that I find amusing, profound, or just generally sacrilegious. I've only got a few quotes in it now, but I'll be adding more and more as I have the opportunity. Collecting quotations has always been a sort of hobby of mine, and I love any opportunity to use them.

So happy month-iversary to all of you out there who support this blog by your readership, and thank you so much for your support. Remember, in the words of Edmund Burke, "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." So, by reading this blog (which is about as close to nothing as you can reasonably be expected to do), you're doing your part to insure the triumph of evil for future generations.

And after all, that's what's really important.

Oh dear god, the pain....

2008-05-28T06:55:00.000-07:00

I am in... incredible... amounts of pain right now.

It all started Monday night when I got bored. My wife, Mrs. Overlord, was sitting around happily playing away at Bioshock and I was hanging around watching and staying within range so that she could pass me the controller every once in a while so I could hack the computer security cameras and safes for her. After a while, however, I began to grow weary of the proceedings. You see, survival horror games were never really my schtick, no matter how gorgeous and creepy they are (and Bioshock IS both gorgeous and creepy).

So I got the (at the time) innocent idea in my head that I would work out a little bit and make myself all muscular and manly.

So I started out on our stationary bike for about fifteen minutes, you know, just to warm up. Then I moved to the dumbbells that I had gotten about a month ago in order to help me build muscle as I lose weight.

Of course, seeing me thus occupied at torturing myself, the Mrs. kept playing. So, of course, seeing her thus occupied at torturing herself with the game, I kept lifting weights.

Normally I have three different weight lifting routines that I do on three different days of the week to target different areas, but this time I finished the first routine and thought to myself, "Hey, that wasn't so bad. Maybe I could do one of the other routines as well."

So, like a dumbass, I did.

And when I finished that routine, she was in the middle of a boss fight with some dude with a grenade launcher, so I simply moved onto the third set like it ain't no thang.

Well believe me, today it certainly is a thang.

My whole body hurts in ways that people outside of the dungeon industry could never imagine. I feel like someone replaced my blood with battery acid. Like I fell out of the agony tree and hit every branch on the way down. Like I just went ten rounds with Mike Tyson, Evander Holyfield and Carrot Top.

So after seeing the immense amount of pain that a simple bit of weight lifting can cause, I'm having a set of weight benches installed here in the dungeon for future torturing sessions.

Hey, whatever works. I am nothing if not practical.

More Movie Madness

2008-05-27T06:26:00.000-07:00

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HA!

You watched it, didn't you?

Sucks, doesn't it?

Feels like someone just tore open your skull and ripped out the part of your brain that registers happiness so that you'll never, ever, ever feel anything but a deep sense of self-loathing for actually having seen it, doesn't it?

And just think... you had the ability to hit the "back" button to escape the horror. I actually had to sit through the entirety of the horrific abomination when it came on before Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian this past Friday evening. Such things have driven lesser men to leave theaters screaming and tearing at their hair. But not I. No, for I am an overlord, and there is not a torture yet invented that can stop me from seeing a movie I've paid a good $5 to see.

So I persevered.

And I must say, it was worth it.

Prince Caspian had a lot to live up to. The first Narnia movie was a grand tale with fun characters, good battle scenes, and an epic storyline that was both exhilarating and sad at the same time. Plus, you know, it had Tilda Swinton. I mean, really, do you need another reason to like it?

And despite what some people are saying, I think the second movie was basically just as good as the first one. Many of the same characters appear, often just a tiny bit older and wiser, plus there are several new characters, like the eponymous Prince Caspian, and the incredibly amusing swashbuckling mouse Reepicheep, who is voiced by Eddie Izzard, one of the funniest stand-up comedians alive today. And it had Tilda Swinton again. Grrrrrrrrow.

And although I don't want to say anything that will ruin it for those of you who haven't seen it, I will say that the ending of the movie is by far the best part. Having never read the books, I wasn't at all expecting it to go the way it did at the end.

Spoilers in black below for those who have already seen it:

I totally was not expecting Susan to leave. I thought she would stay in Narnia and marry Caspian and blah, blah, blah, yackity-shmackity. Like I said, I never read the books. So when she not only leaves, but is told that she can never even come back, it just made the ending more powerful, and actually very sad.

In fact, when you think about it, Narnia is a very tragic and depressing place in general. The tragedy lies in the fact that it's this grand world of adventure and fantasy that you can never stay in for long. At the end you always have to go back to the mundane world, which I imagine always seems all the more bleak and depressing for having caught that brief glimpse of fantasy and adventure.

The question that really struck me after watching the second movie was: How could you stand it? How could you possibly go on living your life after something like that, knowing that you'd had this brief taste of something more? I don't know if I could have.

Anyways, just something I was thinking about. These are the kind of thoughts that kept me out of the popular parties when I was young.

T.G.I.F.

2008-05-23T07:43:00.000-07:00

Well, it's Friday once again; which means another short, simple, lazy post from me as I head out the door, this time for a long weekend. As I will be at Pappy and Mammy Overlord's house on Monday for a Memorial day barbecue, I won't be updating that day.

Really, the only thing I wanted to add today is another update to the "Things to Read While You Suffer" section. Anyone reading this who is a fan of manga-style artwork or romantic comedies should check out Marry Me, an online graphic novel that updates once or twice a week. It's the story of a popstar who decides on a whim to marry a random person from the crowd on stage at one of her concerts. Although the plot may sound contrived, it is executed beautifully, and the characters are amazing. Also, the artwork is top notch, with a look to it that combines manga-style artwork with a more traditional comic book feel. If nothing else, it's worth reading for Parker, the best friend of one of the main characters and the comic relief of the series.

Well, that's all for now. Have a nice long weekend, and remember: Evil is as evil does.

Happy Memorial Day.

The blog days of summer

2008-05-22T06:48:00.000-07:00

They say that the hottest fires in hell are reserved for those who, in times of crisis, maintain their neutrality. Here on earth, however, it would seem that the hottest temperatures are reserved for those of us who, in times of sheer stupidity, decided to live in the American Southwest.

Here in the great state of Despair (pop. 6,666,666), the temperature was nearly 80 degrees Fahrenheit while riding my bike to the dungeon this morning at 8 am. It's supposed to be 92 by the time I head home. As much as I love riding my bike, this heat is going to kill me. Or at least it would if I wasn't already a reanimated demonic skeleton bent on torture and conquest.

Oh well. At least it's a dry heat.

I've always hated summer, but this year is shaping up to be a doozy. It's gonna be long and hot, which does not bode well for either my excercise regimine or my utility bills. I miss winter already.

Personally, I've always had a somewhat backwards view of the seasons. To me, summer is a time of stagnation. It's a time when everything is hot, nothing is comfortable, and I always feel tired and out of place.

Winter, on the other hand, has always been a season of renewal and life to me. Cold is clean and new and energizing. It makes me feel alive. And if it decides to actually snow, as it does about once or twice a decade around here, then to me that is the essence of life at it's purest.

Hey, even Overlords are allowed to wax poetic now and then.

Pol-i-tics! Pol-i-tics!

2008-05-21T06:34:00.001-07:00

Well, with any luck, today will be a slow one here at the Dungeon. My calendar is free from meetings and appointments. Interviews for the student worker position have stalled out and for once it's not my fault. And most importantly there are only a few measly microfiche digitizing requests. Maybe five total, so far. That should take me all of an hour to do.

So due to the distinct lack of anything interesting actually going on here today, I've decided that today would be a good opportunity to discuss the role of U.S. foreign policy following World War II and it's effect on the global economy, specifically as it relates to Russian military power.

Just kidding. You should have seen the look on your face.

Actually I'm gonna be discussing republican superheroes.

No, seriously.

Those of you who have been reading this blog regularly know that I tend to shy away from politics in here. There are several reasons for this.

First of all, I try to keep things light on here, and politics just drag things down into the mire of idiotic punditry, and there are already plenty of blogs out there that will give you that if you want it. I like to think that humor is more important to what I do on here than politics.

Secondly, a true evil overlord cannot afford to take sides in politics. Evil can come from any sector at any time, and we must be prepared to support it, no matter what form it may take.

And finally, it just doesn't interest me most of the time. I've never been a very political person, and I really just see the two parties as one giant party that doesn't really represent anyone's interests but their own. Call me cynical, but... well, actually there's no real "but" there. I'm just cynical.

However, despite all that, when I saw this article the other day while following up on a link from Superdickery I just couldn't help but post it on here. I know it's old. Like... really old. 2005 old. But that doesn't make it any less amusing.

Even I know that there's something terribly, terribly wrong about making a comic book depicting Sean Hannity, G. Gordon Liddy, and Oliver North as superheroes. And that's coming from someone who drinks the blood of the innocent as a protein supplement.

In all honesty, there's really not a whole lot I can say about this. I mean it pretty much speaks for itself. And what it says is: "Wow this was a really idiotic idea."

I mean, who is this comic appealing to? Republicans? Personally, I don't know of all that many republicans who read comic books. In fact, they're usually the first ones to jump on comics as obscene and childish. Comic book fans? No serious comic book fan would be caught dead within a mile of this title. Children? I'm sorry, but any hope of influencing the Ritalin generation into going conservative is going to go out the window as soon you pause from the explosions and cybernetic ninjas long enough to try and explain economic theory and foreign policy.

But the best part about this is that it really could just be a huge elaborate joke. Maybe the author is just trying to mess with people. Yeah that's it. It's some sort of Andy Kaufman-esque ironic commentary on the plebeian masses and their willingness to accept anything spoon-fed to them by the political machine.

Yeah, that's the ticket.

At least, that's what I'm going to be telling myself to be able to sleep at night.

Tales from The dungeon, Part II

2008-05-20T06:28:00.000-07:00

Over the past several years I've had the rare opportunity of being not only a student supervisor here at the Library Dungeon, but also a *hiring* supervisor. That means that I've conducted more than my fair share of student worker interviews. Of course, anybody who interviews people for a living could tell you horror stories of some of the less than simian applicants they've had apply, but I'm of the opinion that library workers get some of the worst of the lot.

For example, I remember one student worker application that we regretfully never got the chance to interview, who listed as a job title on his application under the "Previous Experience" section: Ovary Scraper.

And the best part is that there was no further elaboration. No place of business listed, no job description other than just that. Ovary Scraper.

Now let me be clear here, being a dungeon overlord, I can certainly appreciate the ability to scrape internal organs with what one assumes would be sharp metal objects, but at the time I really wanted to interview this person simply so that I could ask them some questions about their previous employment.

So, how do you feel that your experience as an ovary scraper has prepared you for a job in an academic environment?

Tell me about your previous job, especially as it relates to working with the public?

Don't you feel that with your ovarian expertise you may be better suited to a job as, oh, say a fertility clinic worker, maybe a veterinary technician, or perhaps a politician?

I consider it one of the greatest regrets of my life that I never got the chance to interview that person.

Regardless, I've had other strange applications over the years, most of which simply consisted of misspellings and grammar mistakes that would embarrass a four year old. For example, one person told me in the Comments section, "I reely want this job because I need moneys".

Don't we all, dear minion.... don't we all?

And of course, there's always the ones who simply misconstrue what the idea of working in a library entails. I can't count how many people have written on their applications something to the effect that they would like to work here because they like to read and don't like dealing with people. Of course, in a customer intensive field like ours, that just doesn't cut it. Our patrons expect service, and we aim to please.

Because that's what being an Evil Overlord is all about.

Ironic Sidenote: On my first draft of this post I misspelled the word "misspellings" while complaining about people who misspell things. Go figure.

Monday Morning Movie Madness

2008-05-19T08:05:00.000-07:00

So yesterday I finally got to see Chasing Amy, the last of the View Askew movies that I hadn't seen.

For those who haven't seen the View Askew movies, also known as the New Jersey Movies, they are a series of films by director Kevin Smith which are linked by recurring characters, actors, themes, and locations. The six movies that make up the series are: Clerks, Mallrats, Chasing Amy, Dogma, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, and Clerks II. Some people include Jersey Girl in the series, although Kevin Smith has specifically stated that it is not part of the View Askew universe.

All of the View Askew movies are incredibly funny, and sometimes even a little bit profound. Personally, my favorite of the series is Dogma, the story of the last scion of Jesus, who is tasked with stopping two renegade angels from unmaking existence by re-entering heaven, although Clerks and Clerks II are pretty close behind it.

There have been an enormous amount of reviews and critiques of the View Askew movies and Kevin Smith, almost all of them positive, so I won't waste time going into each of the movies individually, but I will urge any of you who haven't seen the whole series to go out and rent them and make a day of it. It's worth it. Very few films today have the kind of incredible dialogue and interesting characters that these films muster. Even the more slapstick ones like Mallrats and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back are better than most of the stuff coming out of Hollywood these days.

I also got to go to the theater with some friends this weekend and check out Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay. Now, I won't go so far as saying that this was a "good" movie. It wasn't. In fact, most of it was downright bad. But at least it was funny. This is one of those movies where how good you think it is will depend greatly on what your expectations were upon entering the theater. If you go in expecting some sort of epic comedy, you'll be extremely disappointed, but if you go in (as I did) expecting it to be an excruciating experience similar to rolling around on a pile of thumbtacks, you'll probably be pleasantly surprised. There were a lot of really funny parts and a few clever lines, at least enough to keep me amused for an hour and a half, so all in all, I'd say it was worth the matinee price.

Oh yeah... and there's a pool party scene with about twenty women naked from the waist down. Can't forget that part. Definitely a plus.

One life or two?

2008-05-16T12:46:00.000-07:00

So, I promised several posts ago that I would devote a post or two sometime soon to the wonderful new virtual realm known as Second Life, and seeing as it's Friday and I'm too lazy to think of anything else to post about, I guess I'll go ahead and do that now. I may come back to it again in the future, just because it's so damn cool.

Second Life is an online project created by Linden Labs Inc, and intended for use as a social platform and learning tool. It came online in 2003 and has since gathered over 13 million user accounts from virtually every country in the world. Just to put that in perspective for you, World of Warcraft, the world's largest MMORPG, hosts a measly 10 million.

Of course, comparing it to WoW is not really fair. World of Warcraft may be a lot of things, but at it's core it's really just a game. That's not really true of second life, which is really more of a social network and tool, albeit an addicting and fun one. Basically, imagine a fully 3-D, completely customizable version of mIRC and you'll be getting a little bit closer to the feel of Second Life (abbreviated SL by people in the system, as distinguished from RL, or Real Life) although that still doesn't capture even a fraction of what is possible in this incredible virtual reality.

Basically, Second Life is an online world were you (or a virtual representation of you, known as an avatar), roam around, meet people, and do whatever the bloody heck you want to. There are bars and lounges for just hanging out, many in world games to play, and gatherings and lectures on every subject under the sun. Second Life even has it's own economy based on the $L or Linden, which is the basic unit of currency in the world. There are many ways to earn and spend money, and many leading economists are studying the system. Several theses and dissertations have already been writtten about the SL economy.

Many schools and Universities offer online courses in Second Life, and many, many more have virtual campuses where you can tour exhibits, libraries, class info, and more. I'm sad to say that Overlord University does not yet have an organized Second Life presence, but I'm happy to report that I am on the commitee tasked to evaluate Second Life and its prospective usefullness to our library.

On Second Life, you can pretty much do anything you want. The possibilities are limitless, and it would be a folly to try to come up with a comprehensive list ofthings to do. You'll just have to find out for yourself. Suffice to say, it's almost certainly worth your while to at least sign up for an account. Did I mention it's completely free? You can sign up for a basic account, which gets you an avatar and a basic set of clothing for free. Unfortunately, to be able to recieve a weekly stipend of money and the ability to purchase land parcels, you have to sign up for a gold account, but even this costs less than the price of a WoW membership.

So do yourself a favor and go try it out, at least for a little while. I guarantee you'll find it more addicting than crack filled chocolate truffles.

Oh... oh right. I almost forgot something.

Being a completely user-generated world with very few restrictions and almost complete freedom of development, Second Life is bound to have some... interesting... places. When I said that you could do anything in SL, I really did mean ANYTHING, and some people do things on the system that even I find weird.

The good news, however, is that every parcel of land, or "island", has a rating, so just stay clear of anything rated "mature" and you should be fine. Unless, you know, you're into that sort of thing. I mean, more power to ya'. Just be sure you enter the dungeon's Delousing and Decontamination chamber before climbing back on to any of the our torture equipment. I mean evil is evil but creepy is... well... creepy.

The Overlord is...

2008-05-15T06:38:00.000-07:00

Out.

Please take a number:

God, I love comics

2008-05-14T08:19:00.001-07:00

Well, it turns out that Pappy Overlord won't be coming out to help with the plumbing until Saturday, but I'll still be taking tomorrow afternoon off to get the house cleaned up and other such stuff, so still no post tomorrow.

Ever since I posted all those links to the web comics yesterday, I've been spending time going back over them and rereading some of my favorites. As many of you have realized by now, I'm a sucker for web comics, and for comics in general. Much like their cousin, the animated cartoon, comic books and comic strips have often been viewed by the masses as being the exclusive territory of young kids or escapist geeks who have no grounding in reality, and that view of the medium has always saddened me a little bit.

Comic books that appeal to grown ups have been around for many decades now, from the underground pornographic "Tijuana bibles" of the early twentieth century to the alternative titles of today like Sandman and Transmetropolitan. In many ways, comics and graphic novels (I find the two terms to be mostly interchangeable, although many people would want my head on a stake for saying that) are just as expressive, profound, and respectable as similar works in mainstream books and art, if not more so.

True, the worst comics can be nothing more than badly written word bubbles pasted on disproportionate anatomical monstrosities, and in fact, many of the more popular superhero comics tend to fall into this unfortunate quagmire (although their has been a recent trend in superhero comics to move away from this sad state of affairs, and many titles like Runaways, The Ultimates, and many others have begun to drag superhero comics kicking and screaming back into respectability). The best comics, however, can be flights of literary excellence unrivaled by any other modern literature. Comics like V for Vendetta (now an unfortunate motion picture bearing only passing resemblance to the book), Preacher, and the aforementioned Sandman and Transmetropolitan, are among my favorite literary works in any medium, and I feel they have every right to be ranked with the classics of modern literature.

And let's not forget the younger, sleeker, more tech savvy cousin of the tradition comic book: web comics. Ever since the advent of internet and scanning technology, budding artists and writers have found that self-publishing their work is much easier, and in many ways more rewarding, than traditional publishing methods. Now that the world of graphic arts has been opened to the masses, anyone with a good idea and some talent can create works of art that can be instantly accessed by millions of viewers. This has created a virtual renaissance of comic strips in a brand new medium. Of course, this easy access to publishing has also created an incredible amount of bad material as well, but it's usually easy enough to sift through the muck and mire to find the occasional gems like those I posted yesterday that make it all worthwhile.

Those who would like to learn more about the wonderful medium of comic books and comic strips should check out Understanding Comics, by Scott McCloud, the quintessential guide to the comic book genre. The book is something of a bible among comic book enthusiasts and goes into great detail on the inner workings of the comic medium. It explains in far more detail and clarity than I ever could why comics and graphic novels are not just a respectable form of entertainment, but why they may actually be the pinnacle of modern art and literature.

And for those who also appreciate how horribly bad comic books can be at times, check out the image galleries on Superdickery.com. I promise, you'll be laughing for weeks.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

New Reading Material Update:

Dr. McNinja - I can't believe I left this one off the list yesterday. This is an absurdly nonsensical comic about a scottish ninja doctor with a mexican bandito sidekick and a gorilla receptionist. And those are among the more logical parts of the story. This one is laugh-out-loud funny in ways that don't even begin to make sense, but just loosen up and roll with it; it's worth it.

Comics, comics everywhere...

2008-05-13T08:54:00.001-07:00

You may have noticed a new section to the left entitled "Things to Read While You Suffer". Please consider these complimentary links to some of the web's finest web-comics to be the dungeon equivalent of those mind-numbingly boring magazines that doctor's offices put in there waiting rooms. We here at the Dungeon feel it is our responsibility to keep up with emerging trends in torture to offer our customers the finest dungeon experience possible.

I'll be adding new comics to the list as I come across them, but for now these are the ones I check regularly and they are some of the best (in my not so humble opinion) that the interwebs has to offer. Hopefully, there is something here for everyone.

Sluggy Freelance - Probably the single best web comic around, and certainly one of the most prolific. The incredible cast of characters and hilarious yet sweet story lines have kept this one going daily for 11 years now. No one should be able to call themselves a web comic fan without having read Sluggy.

Sinfest* - A bitingly edgy comic with a surreal twist and more sexual tension than a catholic high school. The fact that it is consistently funny and is never afraid of the sacrilegious and profane has earned this comic a special place in my literary heart.

Wonderella - A wonderfully nonsensical comic about a super heroine without a clue and her many adventures. This is for anyone who's ever been a fan of superhero comics, or just anyone who's likes poking fun at the yuppie generation.

Something Positive - Another web classic. If you haven't heard of this one you've probably been living under a rock for the last several years. It's one of the first and one of the best, known for it's biting sarcasm and touchingly realistic characters.

Order of the Stick - The ultimate web comic for RPG fanatics, this is the story of a typical Dungeons and Dragons adventuring party on a quest to stop an evil lich lord. The surprisingly expressive stick figure artwork helps define the setting, and the incredible writing and hilarious dialogue make it unmissable for anyone who's ever played D&D.

XKCD - Perhaps the most consistently profound and funny comic on the net, XKCD is self described as "a webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language". Although for the most part it doesn't have a continuing plot or many recurring characters, this comic is responsible for what I feel are some of the best individual comic strips of all time.

Goblins - Another "gamer" comic, this one is as sweet and tragic as it is hilarious. The tale of a tribe of D&D goblins who become adventurers, it explores themes of prejudice, friendship, honor, and courage, as well as many other themes. The incredible story and well developed characters make this one a treat for gamers and non-gamers alike.

Minus - Perhaps the sweetest comic on the web, this one is perhaps lesser known than some others, but every bit as worthwhile. It explores the whimsical world of a girl with the extraordinary ability to bend reality around her however she wants. This comic has been able to touch my foul, rotting heart in ways very few stories have. If you don't cry at least once while reading this one, you don't have a soul.

Flipside* - A story of adventure, love, and companionship, set in a vaguely medieval world full of magic and strange creatures. This one has an incredible level of gorgeously detailed artwork rarely seen in the comic medium. Come for the incredible artwork and stay for the captivating story, interesting characters and intriguing commentary on sex, taboo, and the search for self.

El Goonish Shive* - another sweet comic that can be both hilariously funny, and incredibly sad at the same time. This is the story of a group of teenage friends living in a world of furries, weird science, and teenage angst. The plot covers many themes including gender, identity, sexual attraction, and love; although usually in an almost naively innocent manner. A solid cast of characters and a vividly weird story form the backbone of this one.

Rayne* - Drawn by a good friend of mine, this "furry" comic is about a guy and two girls sharing an apartment. Maybe not everyone's thing, but I personally find it funny and well-drawn. Anyone who's even mildly interested in the "furry" genre should check this one out.

*Contains partial or complete nudity at times. May not be appropriate for workplaces. Read at your own risk.

Random Babblings

2008-05-12T06:52:00.001-07:00

So once again I was stuck working on the weekend, this time it was Saturday morning and it was the Course Reserves desk. Now that finals are finished and Overlord University (Go, fighting Uruk-hai!) has emptied out for the summer break, the dungeon was quiet as... well as a tomb. We had a total of one person come to the desk while I was here, and they were looking for something in another part of the library.

Oh well. Nothing like getting paid to watch old Marx Brothers clips on Youtube.

In other news, my evil sanctum's plumbing is on the fritz again at home, and I still haven't been able to fix that stupid rusted hose on my washing machine, so it seems as though Pappy Overlord will be coming out from the Overlord Homestead to see if he can help me get it fixed on Thursday. As such, I may not have a chance to update on that day. Please try not to slash your wrists in despair. I hate wasting perfectly good blood.

On a final note, some friends and I watched Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom on Sunday as the first part of our preparation for the new Indiana Jones film opening on May 22nd. We're watching all three of the original movies in chronological order (That would be Temple of doom, Raiders of the Lost Arc, and then Last Crusade, for those of you who didn't know). Most of my friends are pretty psyched about the new film, but personally I'm withholding judgement. I hope to God I'm wrong, but it seems to me from the trailer that this movie may not be quite as good as the others. While the trailer seemed to be for a good old-fashioned swashbuckling tale of adventure just like the other three, there was something not quite right about it. Indie's punches were just a little bit slow. His trademark snide coments were just a little bit off in their timing. In short, Harrison Ford is getting old.

Like I said, I hope to God I'm wrong.

I came... I saw... I rocked.

2008-05-09T07:18:00.000-07:00

I have achieved the impossible. I have scored 100% on a song in expert mode on Rock Band. Granted, the song was "Roxanne", by the Police (quite possibly the easiest song available on the game for guitar), but you will still bow down and worship my almighty shredding skills! I command it!

In other news, I have once again been talked into working this weekend, this time on Saturday morning. Oh well. At least the hordes of hideous freaks have died down and I'll have the dungeon all to myself.

In one final note, it was pointed out to me by a friend of mine that I still have yet to mention my faithful hell-hound Hastur on this blog, so by popular demand, here are a few pictures. Yes, that's really his name. No, I'm not joking. If you don't get the joke, then shame on you. Go read some H.P. Lovecraft.

Anyway, that's all for today. I know this post isn't very exciting or profound, but hey, it's Friday. Anyways, who do you think I am, The Marx Brothers?

Nighthawks at the Diner

2008-05-08T07:14:00.000-07:00

Last night I ate a plate of bleu cheese and cheddar french fries the size of my head.

"But mighty overlord!" you say, "You've told us that you are on a diet!"

And indeed that's true, my horrible little pets, but as a great philosopher once said, "Everything in moderation, including moderation."

True it will set me back a few days on my diet, but the chance to practice the wonderful sin of gluttony on as massive a scale as this does not come along every day.

My friends and I discovered a diner here in our town that had been featured on The Food Network, and decided to try it out. So the five of us piled into our Deathmobile and met another friend of ours at the place. I partook of the aforementioned cheese fries, along with an incredible reuben sandwich and a vanilla shake. Truly there is no wonder in Heaven, Hell, or Earth to match a good diner. Suffice to say, there was much weeping (with joy) and gnashing of teeth, and everyone went home with full stomaches and leftovers.

When I got home I spent the rest of the evening lounging around on the computer playing Second Life (an incredible online virtual world to which I'll have to devote a post or two sometime soon) until it was time to retire to my coffin for the night.

All in all a wonderfully, horribly, sinfully indulgent evening.

Bored, bored, bored, bored, bored, bored...

2008-05-07T10:58:00.000-07:00

Well, it's another boring day here in the dungeon. Finals end today, which means the steady stream of student victims that normally floods our dark hallways has been reduced to a trickle and will stay so for the next few weeks until the summer semester starts. So while my loyal imps and goblins are twiddling their thumb-like claws at the desk, I've decided to recommend a few good ways to pass the time for any of you who likewise find yourself bored to tears and happen to share my love of comic books. These titles are a little more obscure than some other, more mainstream comics like Spider Man or X-men, but infinitely more worthwhile.

First up is the continuing series Runaways, a Marvel Comics title created by Brian K. Vaughan and Adrian Alphona, about a group of superpowered children who discover that their parents are super villains and decide to run away and become heroes. Actually, the plot is a lot more complicated and profound than that, but revealing any more of it would necessitate giving away key plot points that might spoil the reading experience of anyone as yet unfamiliar with this glorious comic about responsibility, friendship, and the trials and tribulations of childhood. Suffice it to say, it's one of the most consistently funny, innovative, and well-thought-out comic books on the market today, and any fan of the graphic novel medium would do well to look into it. In my opinion, it is the single best superhero comic on the market today. Those of you who are already superhero comic fans will also love this one becasue of the many cameos by other Marvel stars like Captain America and Cloak & Dagger.

For those of you with a more tragic bent, another recent find of mine is a book called Blankets, by Craig Thompson. This is the story of a young man growing up in a repressively religious household and the rewards and perils of his first love. This comic is breathtakingly written, and the tragedy and triumph evident throughout the very human story is enough to make even a foul-defiler-of-all-things-good-and-decent like me get choked up. It's a coming of age story with a tragic twist, and that tragedy is made all the more poignant by how absurdly normal it is.

Finally, there's the slightly more bizarre but incredibly profound graphic novel Black Hole, by Charles Burns. Another coming of age story, this one centers on a Seattle suburb where a mysterious sexually transmitted disease known only as "The Bug" is causing strange mutations among the areas teenagers. Although the effects of The Bug can be subtle or horrific, anyone with the disease soon finds themselves an outcast, rejected by their peers and sometimes even by society as a whole. The strength of this novel is in it's originality, presentation and depth of characters. It is a novel about hope among disaster and the search for acceptance and normalcy in an insane world, with a little bit of love and lust thrown in for good measure. With a strong cast of believable characters and beautiful artwork to compliment its visceral plot, this is truly a genuinely excellent comic.

Anyway, that should keep you occupied for a little while at least, while I go back to devising strange and horrible tortures to keep my minions occupied. Happy reading.

Tales From the Dungeon, Part I

2008-05-06T09:03:00.000-07:00

Well gather round, my precious little pets, it's story time again. Today Daddy Overlord is going to tell you all about some of the wonderfully wacky characters that have graced our library over the years.

This weekend I was sitting at the desk talking to Lord Evilton, ruler of the Loss Prevention Desk, since we were both stuck on Sunday morning desk duty because of finals. We had whiled away the morning checking out study/torture rooms to the plebeian masses when an odd thing happened.

One young lady walked in the entrance door, then immediately turned and walked back out the exit door right next to her. Normally, this would not be cause for comment, especially in a place as strange as The Dungeon, but upon exiting our fine establishment, she immediately turned and walked back in again, followed by another immediate exit. Then she simply walked off. down the walkway.

Naturally, I commented to Lord Evilton on the strange behavior, which lead to a long discussion about some of the many weird and wacky people that have come to the library over the years, the highlights of which I will now share with you. Bear in mind that I was not present for many of these, and some of them were long before my time and probably exaggerated over the years, but this is how the stories were told to me. As a great storyteller once said, "Trust the story, not the storyteller."

We'll begin with Johnny Wombat. This is the only one of our Rogues gallery I've had direct experience with. I call him Johnny Wombat because he looks a lot like a character by that name from the Preacher comic book series. If you look closely at the picture on the wikipedia page I linked to, he's the character with the bushy beard directly underneath the "ch" in "Preacher".

Johnny likes to come in in the evenings and weekends. I believe he's a retired professor here at Overlord University (Go, Fighting Things-That-Should-Not-Be-Named!). His MO is to come up to the desk under the pretense of asking for help or checking out an item, thus cornering his hapless prey before moving in for the kill by ceaselessly talking to them about Global Warming. Seriously. He's obsessed with it. He will literally stand at the desk, long after his issue has been resolved, and continue expounding on the problem and it's long and short term consequences, completely oblivious to any line of customers that might be forming behind him as he rambles. At least twice he's caught me, although I have since learned to deflect him off onto one of my more disposable minions so I can get back to other patrons. I personally have been trapped for over forty minutes. I've seen one poor minion sitting and literally falling asleep as he was being lectured for more than an hour. The worst thing is how he always steers everything onto the topic of global warming, no matter what you do.

*stamps book with due date*
"Here you go sir, they're due back in two weeks"
"You know, you shouldn't use paper stamp pads in the back of the books, because cutting down trees for paper can lead to an increase in global..."
"Hold that thought, sir."
*turns around*
"Minion!!!!"

Next up on our hit parade is the fruit man. This was apparently a guy who would come up to the desk every weekend with a large basket of fruit. And I don't mean like a fruit basket. I mean like a large woven wicker platter. Filled with apples, oranges, bananas, whatever. He would then leave the basket at the front counter with specific instructions not to let anyone touch any of it, under pain of death. He would then head up to the stacks and come down every fifteen minutes or so to grab a piece of fruit and head back up. And he would do this aaaaaaall day.

Well, at least he was getting his recommended daily allowances.

Finally, our last tale for today involves the mysterious Crazy-Asian-Bag-Lady, as Lord Evilton described her. Apparently, for a long while, before my time, a mysterious oriental woman dressed in dirty old clothes and carrying a bag would show up every once in a while right before closing. Before anyone could say or do anything, she would dart up the stairs of the building and disappear into the stacks of books.

Let me explain something about the dungeon really quickly. It is five stories tall, with dozens of collections and thousands of bookshelves containing tens of millions of books. There are also literally hundreds of study rooms, as well as many offices, supply rooms, bathrooms, corridors, break rooms, and study spaces. It's a veritable labyrinth.

Anyway, the night security guard would always chase behind her, trying to get her to stop, but he would always lose sight of her within a floor or two and no one would see her again. No one ever figured out where she was staying. No one ever figured out how she got out the next morning. No one ever even saw a trace of her except when she darted in at night and immediately disappeared.

Anyway, that's all the time we have for Story time today. There's always strange goings on around here', though, so I'm sure there will be many more to come. Until then, night night, and don't let the giant vampiric were-bedbugs bite.

I... am... IRONMAN

2008-05-05T07:01:00.000-07:00

I have died and gone to Nerdvana.
SAMUEL L. JACKSON!!!!!!!!
Warning: This post may contain spoilers for anyone who has not seen the movie Iron Man. I have written anything that might give stuff away in black. Read at your own risk.
SERIOUSLY!!!! SAMUEL F***ING L. F***ING JACKSON!!!!!
So yesterday my friends and I went to see the new Iron man movie, and it was incredible. I have to say that I went into the movie not expecting much at all. I figured it would be just another marvel attempt to cash in on an iconic figure without really putting any depth or imagination into it. I was happily mistaken.
AS NICK F***ING FURY!!!!!!!! OMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMG!!!!!!!!!!!
Having seen zodiac a few weeks ago, I new that Robert Downey Jr. would be perfect for the role of Tony Stark, but until yesterday I don't think I truly realized HOW perfect he is. I mean seriously, this is the casting equivalent of shooting fish in a barrel. Hell, it's like shooting dead fish in a barrel. He was so charismatic and sarcastic that I literally got goosebumps at several points.
AND THERE'S GONNA BE AN AVENGERS MOVIE!!!!!!!!!
And the rest of the movie was superbly done as well. Gwyneth Paltrow was the epitome of nerd-sexy as the always dependable "pepper" potts. The Iron Man suit was spot on. The CGI was believable and exciting. The bad guys were gleefully evil and wonderfully over the top at parts. And to top it all off, there's even a knock-down drag-out machine-man kaiju style brawl.
AND IT'S APPARENTLY GONNA BE BASED ON THE ULTIMATES!!!!!!!!!!
The only minor flaw I found in the movie's execution was that the song "Iron Man" by black Sabbath was not included in the actual movie, despite being in the previews, however even this is tempered by the fact the it was included during the credits and the films actual soundtrack was more than decent.
OMGOMGOMG!!!!!!! NERDGASM!!!!!!!!!
All in all, this movie represents something of a renaisance for superhero movies after the inexcusable tragedies that were Fantastic Four II, Spiderman III, and X-men III. And with the trailer for the new hulk movie preceding it (Starring Edward Norton and Tim Roth!) and Captain America and Thor in pre-production, as well as rumors of more things yet to come on the horizon, it's shaping up to be a damn fine next couple of years for super heroes in the cinema.
Aaaaaaaaaand I'm spent....

Weekend of Horrors

2008-05-02T09:47:00.000-07:00

Well, I just sent out my online request for registration for the fall semester. The degree I'm going for is a masters of Library Science with a specialization in henchman management. I must admit, even I, a hardened overlord with an iron fist and a horde of loyal minions, am terrified of the idea of continuing education. It's going to be a lot of work. It seems to me that the whole idea of being an evil overlord is to make other people do your work for you, and yet here I am heaping even more onto my plate which is already overflowing with the important business of RPGs and Rock Band.

But at least I don't have to worry about that until Fall semester.

For now I just have to concentrate on getting through the weekend. It's gonna be a busy one. Tonight or tomorrow I'll probably be helping one of my good friends and her husband move, which is a good thing, because the sooner they get settled in the sooner they can bring home their new Hellhound.

Then sometime tomorrow I need to work on fixing the hot water line to my washing machine that has basically rusted to the pipe in one solid mass. Despite being pleasant decor and a useful abrasive agent in many torture routines, rust is not generally conducive to good plumbing. So that means a trip to the hardware store to pick up rust remover, followed by an hour or so of cursing and sweating as I try to remove the stuck attachment.

Finally, to top it all off, It has been strenuously suggested by the Great Old Ones that I serve that I should volunteer to work Sunday morning to help cover the finals rush.

How evil.

Who knows, maybe it won't be all that bad, since Sunday mornings are ussually dead. Maybe I'll even get some actual work done.

Yeah right. And maybe I'll spontaneously start singing and cuddling kittens.

Time Sheet Day

2008-05-01T08:33:00.000-07:00

Oh goody, it's time sheet day.

Here in the dungeon we're very strict about our minions keeping track of their hours worked, and as overlord, part of my job is checking their submitted time sheets against their time clock stamps to make sure they're accurate. In theory it's all a very simple process where I run down the list, match up the times, and click the "submit" button to send the time sheets off into the bowels of the personnel department where the financial imps do whatever it is they do to make sure people get paid.

In practice, however, there's always something gumming up the cogs in the ever-grinding torture machine. With nineteen minions to keep track of, some of them invariably forget to record things on their sheets, forget to clock in and out, forget to NOT record times when they were sick or maimed, or simply forget to fill out their time sheets altogether, leaving me to try to piece it together detective-like from scant time clock stamps and the schedule. Some of them are really good about it, but others just make me shake my head and reach for the hot poker.

And to top it off, I'm feeling rather light-headed today on account of riding my bike to work and having forgotten to eat any breakfast. The bike ride itself was great, as always, but this is the third time this week I've simply forgotten to eat anything before leaving or after getting here, and now it's almost lunchtime so it's too late.

Anyways, I'm really looking forward to lunch today. Here at Overlord University (Go Fighting Things-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named!) they have a fruit stand set up near the student center every Thursday, so some of my fellow overlords and I like to go there to buy crunchy munchings and hang out by the blood fountain behind the building. Maybe not the most exciting lunchtime in the world, but I like it. Sometimes it's the simple pleasures in life that make it worth living. The feel of the sun on your face, the cool wind on your skin, the howling of the damned in the distance. The simple things.

Sweet as sin

2008-04-30T08:58:00.000-07:00

How evil.

Today is the circulation department's Sugar Fest to mark the end of the semester and let the student worker minions gorge themselves on sugar and caffeine in preparation for finals. All the supervisors bring in cakes and candies and cookies and stuff and leave it out all day to graze on. Sugar is consumed in massive quantities. Pancreases are fried. Neurons are bombarded with excess stimulation. A good time is had by all.

Of course, this time I'm on a diet.

So far I've lost 33 pounds since January (down to 317 from 350) through a modified form of Weight Watchers and riding my bike to and from work when I can. I actually enjoy riding my bike lately. Even Overlords like to be outside in the fresh air sometimes. I've also bought a set of dumbbells that I've been trying to set up a routine with. I'll probably be posting periodic diet updates on here to keep me honest and dedicated.

So I get to sit up here in my little corner of the dungeon and be very good about not going down there and gorging myself with the masses. I suppose no one told them all that it's bad form for the minions to enjoy themselves while the overlord suffers.

Testing, testing... 1, 2, 3... mic check...

2008-04-29T12:02:00.001-07:00

Welcome all to the wonderful world of chaos and terror that is my humble dungeon. Please note the designated smoldering areas and make sure you wipe down the torture equipment when you're through. I'm your host, The Library Overlord, and for the foreseeable future (or until I get bored) I'll be taking you on a bloodcurdling tour of the exciting world of libraries, role playing games, video games, comic books, web comics, movies, music, and much, much more.

As a brief intro, let me give you a few basic vital statistics about myself. I'm a 27 year old male librarian who works at a large university library in the USA (Henceforth known as The Dungeon). I'm not sure yet how much of this blog will focus on the weirder-than-you-think world of the library and how much will focus on other stuff.

My free time is generally divided between my weekly role playing group, video games, general laziness, and starting this next fall, grad school,nd somehow in there I try to squeeze in time for my wonderful loving wife, Mrs. Overlord. I'll be expounding at great length on these and many other topics on here for the foreseeable future.I'm also a confirmed Wikipedia-addict, so don't be surprised to randomly stumble on link-landmines to articles as well as other fun web pages every once in a while. Also, I'll be posting links to some of my friends blogs and other fun web pages, since they're certainly a lot more exciting than the god-awful drivel I'll be posting on this one.

Anyways, enough of the introductory stuff. I'm sure you can pick up the rest as you go. On to the fun stuff.

I just got Rock Band for the X-Box 360 a few days ago and it has since been consuming my brain. Not only is it one of the best video games to date, it also has a pretty good soundtrack of songs to play, many of which are horrifically catchy and can embed themselves firmly in your temporal lobe to the extent that not even The Macarena has a hope in Hell of dislodging them. I have to say, I've always been very sensitive to music and the emotional impact behind it, and the emotional high this game can give you is unlike anything else short of actually playing a real instrument. The feeling I got when I first rocked out to Boston's "Foreplay/Long Time" was incredible.

So I've beaten the solo tour on the guitar mode on medium difficulty, and I'm THIS close to getting five stars on all the songs. Only two songs have yet to fall before the awesome might of my stratocaster. One of them is the incredibly difficult "Timmy and the Lords of the Underworld", and the other I can't remember the title of right now, which is ridiculous because I must have played it about thirteen dozen times by now trying to 5-star it. Anyway, I'll get there. As soon as I can find the preserved hand of Jimmy Hendrix and attach it to my severed arm stump Vecna-style.