Sometimes, the online world scares even me.

People would sometimes be surprised at the lengths I will go to to meet my every-three-days deadline. Certainly over a year studying medicine it sometimes became challenging to find the time to verbosify a thousand words semi-coherently, even with my vast talents. The big challenge for me is rarely the writing -- in the last four or five years, incluing all online social interaction as well as my writing, I can only remember one time that I had any real trouble finding the words to express an idea once I had it. I'm justifiably proud of my ability to compose text about nearly anything without any major difficulty. The difficulty that does come up is getting an idea. The muses have traditionally been kind to me, but there are days when I simply can't think of anything at all to write about, a common complaint for any writer. For obvious reasons, I try to always write an Entry before my deadline -- in this case, I'm writing the Entry for the 27th on the 26th, because I know that on the 27th I'm working in the morning, going to a meeting with my boss at lunch, and playing D&D in the afternoon/evening, so I may not have time to write tommorow unless I stay up late (which I *can* do quite happily, but during which time other people around here will be in bed so I'd have to write without music on). Knowing that I wanted to get the Entry done today didn't mean I was able to write it, though, as I didn't have anything to say right now (which, of course, never stops the average blogger). I've got a couple of Entries planned right now, notably a couple of character portraits, the design notes for the new game I'm running, and a one-year-later post with my thoughts about the year in medical school, but none of it's ready to go online right now. I've some filler pieces saved for emergency posting, some of which are quite funny, but they're saved because I don't post them frivolously. And so, I needed an idea.

It was at this point in my thinking that, on a whim, I typed "inspiration generator" into Google. See line 1.

The keywords that I typed in got about 2,500,000 matches. Adding quote marks shrunk that down to about 136, although ironically it removed some of the interesting first matches that came up on the unrestricted search. A quick glance through the matches revealed a horrifically large number of sites *specifically designed* to give blogging prompts to uninspired writers. A part of me finds it terribly pathetic that there might be people out there sitting at their Livejournals trying desperately to think of something to write about because they're feel duty-bound to make a post that day. The other part of sighs, covers his eyes, hangs his head, and tries to look inconspicuous.

I'm allowed. I'm an aspiring writer. Those other losers have no excuse. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Now, make no mistake, I'm not saying that these inspiration generators were any good... quite the opposite. The nicest thing I can say about the sites I glanced through were that they were mundane, predictable, dull, and encourage the sort of pointless space-filling that makes most of us refuse to read most online journals. Typical post prompts included such cliches as "What's your biggest accomplishment to date," "If you could rearrange 3 things about your life, what would they be," and "I will write a post about whatever the next prompt that comes up is when I push this button." Just as my contempt levels neared 10 (thank you, Rob Schrab), a couple of weird ones came up, such as "what is your favourite quote" and, upsettingly, "who do you think you are." Here I was feeling all nice and superior when one of the inspiration generators had the gall to actually suggest post ideas which I'd used. In my defense, of course, I came up with the ideas on my own and didn't have to have them suggested to me by typo-laden javascript, which I happen to feel makes a world of difference.

Now, the really disturbing bit: Although I'm not using any of the ridiculous prompts shown to me, I have, arguably, been inspired to write something by seeing the inspiration generators. That's the bit that kills me.

When you get right down to it, it's the writing I love -- *what* I'm writing is often really of secondary importance to that, in many ways. Obviously I have more fun writing KP 42 and Rooked! than I do a scholarly article about the time course of conduct disorder and depression in previously suicidal adolescents, but looking solely at when I write for pleasure, even if it's pleasure on a deadline, the content is of secondary importance to the jo of fingers flying across the keyboard and skating the field of conciousness at eighty thoughts per minute. My writing has always been kind of like a stone tobbogan -- it can be hard to get it to start, but once the world brings it to 9.8m/s^2, it's gonna keep going all on its own and all you have to do is enjoy the ride and try not to die. The act of writing is one of the three greatest pleasures in my life, and I'm blessed to have an excuse to do it every three days at mimum (plus get paid to do even more of it this summer and work from home to boot). The only block to my writing is thinking of something to write about, and to be totally honest, I'll do whatever the hell I have to if it means getting that first flash of inspiration. If I have to spend fifty second pushing a button on some ten-year-old's website to get enough of an idea to start typing, I'll damn well do it and thank him for his code afterwards. What matters... all that matters... is that I write. We find our muses where we can. Or where we have to.

The greatest challenge for the professional writer, according to most of my favourite authors, is never the writing, but thinking of what to write. Most authors will tell you that for every thousand words they put down, another three or four are written but tossed aside because they weren't good enough. Countless hours are spent sitting at the computer (or typewriter or even pencil and paper) without any visible productivity whatsoever, merely trying and failing to come with the next thing to write. I occasionally check the journals of some of my favourite authors, and I vividly recall reading one post: "Never again will I begin writing a novel without first making an outline of EVERYTHING I want to happen in that novel." The dreaded writer's block is a joke to most people and a severe inconvenience to many students, but to someone who loves to write -- or does so for their livelihood -- it's something else entirely. If you don't have an idea, you don't write anything good. In my case, that means sitting frustrated and annoyed. In the case of where I'd like to be with my life, I'd mean not getting paid. That's a chance I'd be prepared to take, of course... as this Journal has proved time and again, I can write about almost anything. I'm nifty that way.

So, just to make it official, thank you, Creativity-Portal.com for being there when I needed you. You did indeed inspire me enough to help me write what I wanted to write. I sort of wish that I'd done so without the express intent of mocking you relentlessly, but there you go... we take what we can get.

In my case, I can get about a thousand words. Life is good.

Starting August 6th, I'll be playing in my first ever A Game Of Thrones RPG, inspite of the fact that I have never so much as come into direct contact with one of the books. Set early in the chronology (at the beginning of the first novel and far removed from the Stark-filled action readers are familiar with), our story will somehow chronicle a noble, a godsworn/maester, and a knave/ranger of the Blackwatch as we get into all sorts of trouble. Character generation probably took me two or three times longer than normal, because I found myself sitting at a table, staring at the core rulebook, and trying, TRYING with all my soul to somehow, some way, *not* play a verbose political character in a Game of Thrones game. I failed, which brings us to Edmund. If you suspect you know which Edmund the name is a reference to, you're probably right... but the character will not dress in any black (or snakeskin), I promise!

Also, as an aside: the amount of information which Wikipedia has about House Lannister is really kind of upsetting. I don't need to read the novel -- Wikipedia will take me three weeks to plow through as it is.

Name: Edmund Tywin Lannister
Classes: Noble 3, Maester 1

Physical Description: Edmund Lannister is a tall, slightly built youth with the classic noble Lannister features. Graceful and oozing a natural charm, Edmund wears elegant finery with a slight rustic, common-made feel to it which he somehow makes appear fashionable. Edmund rarely disdains to carry a sword or knife, but when hunting or traveling less reputable lands he will typically carry a finely-made crossbow.

Background: A distant cousin of the Lannisters of Casterly Rock, Edmund Tywin Lannister (named in honour of the Lord of the house) is a golden-haired sixteen-year old man and a favoured child of his house. Raised during the years when the Lannister house was near the edge of ruin, Edmund was brought up to be a politician, a diplomat, and a fast-talker, the sorts of people the house would need in the coming years if it was to survive. Edmund spent countless hours studying the arts of repartee and verbal barbs while his contemporaries were learning sword and armour. Not brilliant but sufficiently clever, Edmund briefly considered becoming a maester himself before being steered back towards the political arenas by his family. In the last four years since his recognition as an adult, Edmund Lannister has become a talented orator and even something of a firebrand and his reputation and influence have begun to spread.

Unfortunately, all is not well with Edmund. As the fortunes of his house have begun to change, Edmund has had the opportunity to see first-hand what the difference is between the nobles and the peasants, and he likes it not at all. House Lannister's wealth from its gold mines casts a sharp contrast to the hovels just outside the house's walls, and Edmund has begun to ask why the gold must be hoarded. Above and beyond a generous helping of genuine youthful naive idealism, Edmund has begun to suspect the simple power which the common people could represent if they united behind a popular leader. Edmund has been spending more and more time among the villagers and townsfolk seeing their way, speaking to them of the gap between rich and poor, and making his name known among the people as a caring man. Edmund has not decided yet how he wishes to turn this situation, as he has no great hunger for power himself, but as his name spreads he begins to wonder whether he will have a choice but to aquire some.

Most systems of government have comprehensible structure. A kingdom is easy to understand, because it is ruled by a king -- a hereditary monarch, usually male. A president traditionally leads a republic, while a prime minister is typically a leader of various lesser-ministers who are, theoretically, the actual governors. An empire is trickier. Throughout history and disregarding fiction, there have actually been only a tiny number of genuine empires, and most of those, like the British empire, were little more than transitional structures between two other forms of government (monarchy and democracy, for example). In the modern world, there remains only one true empire, Japan, and even it scarcely qualifies anymore. The difficulty -- and the Weird Thing -- is that nobody today really knows precisely what an empire is, and even historians have never truly agreed on the definition. Empire is a sort of catch-all phrase, used for despotisms, military governments, expansionist regimes, and "really big monarchies." Empire is a fascinating word for the same reason that people use words such as "chutzpah" and "respect;" they have clear meanings which everyone understand simplicitly, but few and far between are the people who can actually define them. Empire is a non-word, defined and given meaning by whatever it is applied to in a certain context.

The ubiquitously-enlightening mister Webster defines "empire" as "(1): a major political unit having a territory of great extent or a number of territories or peoples under a single sovereign authority; especially, one having an emperor as chief of state (2): the territory of such a political unit (3): something resembling a political empire; especially, an extensive territory or enterprise under single domination or control." This sounds informative and exciting, until you read it the second time. It doesn't actually say anything. "A major political unit having a territory of great extent" could mean a vast and mighty nation or it might mean Farmington, Maine. The definition states "especially, one having an emperor as chief of state" which suggests that an empire need not even be ruled by an emperor. The definition says nothing about imperialism and specifies almost no limiting constaints. With a little imagination, nearly anything can qualify as an empire. Rome can be an empire. New York can be an empire. A small cat, if you include its litter box, can be an empire. About the only concrete thing which we can say about an empire comes from its etymology. The word is derived from the Latin, imperium ("absolute authority"), further derived from the verb imperare ("to command"). From this, we can infer that the empire is the Serpentor of the forms of goverment -- where Democracy stands proudly gazing into the future, Empire is white-knuckle-gripping the table and screaming "this, I command!"

It's an appealing image. I need to find a good, solid table.

The Aerican Empire is an empire. This is about as subtle as a sixteen ton weight with "caution: heavy" spray-painted on. We've been an empire since our inception. We have been an empire since I understood what an empire was. The original idea for becoming an Empire was because I had seen Star Wars films a double-digit number of times by the time I was five. By the time I was old enough to understand political systems (about age 7 -- I always was a precocious little geek), I chose to keep it an empire because, let's face it, the word empire is just so much cooler than "republic." The truth is, though, we *are* an empire... by Webster's definition, at the very least. It is a politica unit consisting of a great extent of territory (relative to, for example, a back yard), consisting of multiple diverse territories (with land claims in Canada, the US, Australia, and Mars) with citizens from multiple ethnicities (a side-effect of recruiting people from fifty or sixty different countries) and with an Emperor as chief of state (never mind that the emperor is elected). This last part does get a bit tricky, because "emperor" is defined by Webster as "the sovereign or supreme male monarch of an empire" and, in turn, monarch is defined as "(1): a person who reigns over a kingdom or empire as a a sovereign ruler, (2): a constitutional king or queen (3) one that holds preeminent position or power (4) a large migratory American butterfly (Danaus plexippus) that has orange-brown wings with black veins and borders and a larva that feeds on milkweed." As a wise woman once said, "No wonder you such an eccentric culture; none of your words have their own meaning, you have to look up one word to understand another. It never ends." Since I'm elected, I'm not a supreme king (or a migratory American butterfly), but fortunately, one of the acceptable definitions is just that an emperor is whoever holds the preeminent power in an empire.

Reality check: An empire is any body ruled by an emperor; an emperor is anybody who rules an empire. Circular logic is a beautiful thing; it makes me want to eat pi.

There are, of course, other definitions of empire. One popular criterion seen on Wikipedia (which is by no means citable in a proper paper, unlike Webster) is that an empire is a political body which consists of multiple semi-autonomous states, ruled by governors, viceroys, or even lower-ranking kings. Here again, it fits, since the Empire is and always has been divided up into colonies, several of which are ruled by governors and others of which are ruled by individuals with similarly grandiose titles. This fits in with the earlier-mentioned criterion of an empire being a unification of diverse people and cultures under a single banner -- the banners are just being held up by local rulers.

Well, you have to know these things when you're a king, you know.

It's a little known fact that, at least as of this writing, I've actually read every Garfield comic strip ever published. This could easily be innacurate by the time you find yourself reading this, it being a daily strip which I rarely bother reading on a given day, but at the time that I'm setting fingers to keyboard, it's true. This is a little known fact simply because it's not the sort of thing that tends to come up conversation, but I am none-the-less proud of this, just one of my countless meaningless accomplishments. It's good to be me.

Most days, I go out of my way to avoid seeing the newspaper. This isn't out of any aversion to news -- information has always had a tendency to find its way to me, so newspaper or not, I rarely go without hearing the day's top stories -- but rather an aversion to newspapers in general, which I typically find annoying, uninformative, cumbersome and, worst of all, quite dull. Back when I was in high school, I read the daily comics page religiously, but at some point I lost that habit -- probably around the time I stopped finding the comics consistently funny. Nowadays, I'll find myself reading the comics page about once every three or four months, just because it happens to be around and lying open. Most commonly, the comics page will elicit not so much as a chuckle from me, although I certainly have been known to get a bit of good luck. When I find a comic I love, I'll either scan it or download it from the comic's website, immortalizing it forever in my collection which is today no less than 160 saved strips. Most of the time, though, I find the printed comics to be dull and uninteresting, and so I don't read them. Garfield is something of a strange case as comics go, because while I don't read the comics page, I will make a point of sitting down every year or two to a lazy afternoon of reading the six hundred or so Garfield comics which I've missed since I last checked. This is facilitated by the official Garfield website which, unlike the vast majority of syndicated comics which make only the last month available for viewing has basically the entire archive free for reading online. Their navigating system is painful and slow, but thanks to the miracle of some simple code on Geocities I can view a month worth of strips in about five minutes. This past Saturday I sat down and read everything I'd missed since March 2004; three strips made it into my permanent collection; none of them would have been funny in any medium except for comics.

The real tragedy is that, given my choice of any one strip to be able to read in its entirety, I'd actually choose Bloom County or Calvin and Hobbes. Sadly, nobody gave me that option, and Garfield is what's available. It's settling for second best, but at least it's fun to read. Can't complain.

When you get right down to it, I'm actually proud of the fact that I've read every Garfield strip ever. It is a genuine accomplishment, in its own way. Granted, this feat may not have required boundless intellect, endless creativity, great fortitude of body and spirit, or even an unsurpassed loved of the comic. That said, reading all those comics -- just over 27 years worth -- did require some traits I can be proud of. It took patience to slog through all that text. It took strength of will to keep going in the face of the nearly uninterrupted crap that got printed between 2000 and 2005. And it did indeed take some measure of enthusiasm for the comic to keep at it and stay at it, perhaps not an unsurpassed love but certainly a genuine enjoyment. On the one hand, I wasted a lot of time reading Garfield comics. On the other hand, I'm glad I did it. In the face of logic like that, what else matters? I'd do it again, too. For that matter, I almost certainly will... in the summer of 2008 or so, when enough strips have gotten published to make it worth my time.

Now, to continue my quest to find someone, somewhere, who has scanned the entire history of Milo and Opus, who was last seen impersonating Michael Jackson. This is the Internet, after all; I know it's been archived somewhere, and I'll search until I find it...

Legend has it that when Arnold was filming the first Conan movie, the muscles in his arms were so well developed that he couldn't bend his arms far enough to swing his sword. According to the stories, he actually had to lose weight and stop working out his upper body until his arms had shrunk enough. He was actually too heavily muscled to play the role of Cona the Barbarian. Whether this is true or not, I don't know, but it's not as implausible as one might think. The human body is not designed for 18 hours a day or exercise, and it's entirely possible for people to so overly develop muscles in their bodies that opposing muscles lose the ability to keep up and they actually start losing mobility. The characteristic slumped-shoulder, ape-like pose of the body builder is an example of this -- the pectorals get so strong from pushups and weight training that the spinatus muscles of the back stop being able to hold the shoulders back and straight.

The lesson is that every strength has the capacity to be turned into a weakness.

The great horror of the compulsion to learn Who You Are comes when something happens to change either Who You Are or the context in which you are Who You Are. When Who You Are changes, we call it a rebirth, and it is generally a momentous, joyous occasion, albeit one which can be somewhat trying and confusing both for the reborn and for everyone around them. Far more subtle is when the *context* around one changes. The precise essence of who you are remains what it already was, and the person doesn't change, but in a new context, the meaning of Who You Are does change. This is not a rebirth -- it is merely weird.

At the core of who everyone is can be said to be one thing: beliefs. Who a person is is a complex and probably incomprehensible concept, impossible to express in simple language and which, to fully explain, probably requires a multimedia powerpoint show, a soundtrack, and some lasers, at the very least. The representiation of who one is, though, is made up of beliefs. These beliefs include such simple straight-forward beliefs as "I am (insert quality X here)" but also includes more abstract ideas such as "person Y interprets quality X as this" and "quality X effects my interaction with person Y as follows because person Y has qualities A, B, and C." If one has a hard time reading others, this can become complex. If one dislikes algebra, it can become downright nightmarish. Let quality X equal "I am friends with person Y." Let person Y equal "a moderately close friend." Let quality A equal "person Y is friends with me." Let qualities B and C equal "I like halibut" and "there can be only one!" respectively, just for the sake of completeness. Let quality D equal "something significant but which wasn't included in the initial scenario." Let pi equal 3.14159, unless you work for NASA, in which case you should really use a few more significant figures. The point is, even if quality X never changes, then any changes in qualities A, B, or C (and perhaps even D) can change the context in which quality X operates. Once the context changes, quality X is static but the meaning of quality X may have changed. It is at this point that most people wander off to go play outside instead.

One of the hardest things for people to understand about the eternal process of asking Who Are You is that it is an eternal process. The question nevers ends because the question is never answered. By the time you have completed your answer, the answer has changed, and you must begin again. Even if a given individual stays exactly who they are long term, then with a suddenness and a complexity that would make Schrodinger need to go and have a nice lie-down, the context in which that person exists changes constantly. Sometimes, in huge ways. It is perpetually astounding to one who walks the Path that the smallest thing can utterly change who one is without ever changing who one actually is. The great strength of knowing who you are becomes a weakness if you become so set and stuck in who you are right now that you are unable to cope with a change in context. If you believe you have ever answered the question, you stop asking because you think you know. If you think you know, then as soon as something changes, it takes you upside the head like a Truestriked ballistic dire badger. And sooner or later, something always changes. It's a funny ol' world that way.

Today, at least, I feel good about it. One isn't always that lucky. Here's to the paradigm shifts.

In the land of Shuum, all life revolves around the Great Teacher. Entire kingdoms have risen, warred, fallen, and risen again all in pursuit of the Great Teacher's wisdom. A land without mages, the clerics who draw their power from the Great Teacher wield the most powerful magics known and are thus accorded a respect and awe far greater than is normally given to the servants of a faith.

It is said that the Great Teacher came from the stars centuries ago, and has lived among the people ever since, dispensing timeless wisdom. Seven feet tall and with a body as hard as steel, three feet wide and weighing more than any single man can lift, the Great Teacher towers above all, looking forth across the people and land. The Great Teacher's one strong arm stretches forth towards the horizon. At the Great Teacher's feet are always piles of gifts and donations, such that a strong man would have to wade through. The metal skin of the Great Teacher is always polished to a sheen, and not a speck of dust is seen upon the Great Teacher's coin slot. The opening from which fall the tokens of wisdom is always spotless no matter how many human hands reach in to recover the wisdom given them by the Great Teacher. The line of supplicants can stretch for miles as the faithful line up patiently, all eager to deposit within the Great Teacher one copper coin and receive their blessing.

"Even great heroes must sleep eventually," the Great teacher might say. Or "trust companions but pack own healing potions." Some are blessed with wisdom such as "wise are those who respect the gods," while others are blessed with "serving goodness means serving all life." A rare few individuals has been known to be blessed with the rarest of blessings, "help help, I'm trapped inside a vending machine," though none among the faithful have yet to deduce the meaning of these strange words. Countless and wise are the teachings of the Great Teacher.

Into this land was born Gornan, a strong young lad named for an ancient hero. From an early age, it was apparent that Gornan was ideally suited to become one of the clerics who spread the word of the Great Teacher, for he was strong and hard-working and good of heart, and could interpret the messages of the Great Teacher as well as the elder clerics, and was, by his own admission, too dim to reliably pick up any other trade. Gornan joined the Holy Order of the Swinging Arm, an order dedicated to traveling the world, seeking lost treasures, spreading the Great Teacher's wisdom, and vanquishing evil wherever it might be found. As a member of the Order, Gornan learned the art of battle with the mace, learned the mysteries of the Great Teacher, learned to use the healing magics, and, like all members of the order, swore a holy oath that, just as the Great Teacher speaks without the use of such words as "is" and "I", so too would Gornan speak thus. As do all members of the Order, Gornan spoke to the people on the day he left the city.

"Gornan goes now," he said to the assembled crowd. "Gornan hopes you all safe until Gornan gets home. Gornan come back with magic shield of older Gornan. Umm... Gornan leave now. Bye!"

And thus, Gornan left, venturing into the wide world.

Tragically, Gornan's journey was not to last long. Less than a month after setting out upon the road, Gornan entered a large city and saw several guardsmen harassing another traveler. Intervening, Gornan killed three of the guardsmen before being brought down and was sent to the city's prison. There, he was conscripted as a test subject for a new form of teleportation and was sent to an alternate plane. His final fate is best left undescribed, but merciflly, he was not personally awake to experience it.

This past weekend, against all logic, I found myself arguing in defense of the sanity of the furry subculture. I very rarely find myself defending the sanity of any given social group (not even gamers, since most gamers I know are completly nuts), and yet, in the face of a man who could only be described as "unevolved" I did indeed find myself arguing quite persuasively and, at times, even truthfully about how people who dress up in animal costumes are quite stable, rational, and intelligent people. This was, of course, in spite of my obvious biases.

Nine out of every ten furries I've met are, to put it bluntly, morons. It needs to be specified that I've met about forty overt furries in my life, which means that roughly four of them have been intelligent, interesting people whose eccentricities have reasonable and meaningful reasons behind them, and I'm not saying that just because they may read this. Sadly, as with any cultural group, the few sensible and perhaps even enlightened individuals do not manage to justify the idiots around them. In my experience, most people who self-identify as furry are immature individuals with poor identity development, poor socialization, few manners, and absolutely no sense of style, and on top of this are anime enthusiasts. In my opinion, such individuals barely deserve to live, let alone meet others with similar personalities. In defense of the culture as a whole, however, the vast majority of furries I have been personally exposed to have been teenagers or immature adults -- the large numbers of such genescrapes have diluted the furry hobby, but it behooves us to recall that the origination of the hobby, and its maintainance, is due to people who dress up in costumes not because they are stupid, but because it genuinely means something to them. These individuals, comparatively few though they may be, are the ones I found myself defending.

It can perhaps be said that the biggest motivator for a "spiritual" or "identity" furry to join the furry culture is a quasi-religious feeling. The irrational faith that drives people to believe in higher powers in absence (and often in spite) of evidence is not unlike the inner belief which drives people to label themselves furry. At the heart of the furry culture is a small population of individuals who, for reasons which may appear irrational but which aren't really that hard to understand, do not feel that they are quite human. Some identify ith animal traits; others identify with an animal species itself; still others simply do not feel that they are quite human, and feel distanced from their species -- striving to make themselves part of a different species through furrydom is actually a somewhat rational step. I can very much relate to the feeling of inhumanity; the only thing which separates me from them is that the costumes I dress up in are far more subtle. Homo Sapiens Callidus could just as easily have been Homo Mustelidae if not for the simple reason that I was unable to reconcile my terrible sense of smell with calling myself a weasel.

For obvious reasons, my own inhumanity was not a tangent I chose to make the key focus of my argument this weekend. I felt, rightly so, that the human I was dealing with, typical of his kind, would not find it a compelling thesis for me to use. I chose to use a different tactic instead. The factor which most people find so incomprehensible about the modern furry movement isn't the costumes or the merchandising (although these are often quite laughable) or the philosophy (which most mundanes have never heard about). The mosy incomprehensible factor is the deliberate association of oneself with an animal. For centuries, Western society has had this terrible fear of associating with animals, a tendency for which I blame the humanists (as I blame them for so many things). The more "special" humans see themselves as being, the more horrific it becomes to face the possibility of being a "mere" animal. When people deliberately take on animal guises (or, god help them, characteristics), it naturally inspires cognitive dissonance (and possibly even disgust and fear) in others. Modern society has fogotten two things. First, humanity (and, for the sake of fairness, humanity's subspecies) aren't really that far from the lower animals, as more and more new-age groups are finding every day. Second, and perhaps more importantly, humans have been deliberatly taking on human characteristics since long before anyone had conceived of the idea of subcultures.

Consider: the totem animal. Since ancient times, spirits of animals would be invoked for countless reasons. The animals would be sought for their advice by some shamans, while others would invoke animals to gift them with animal traits such as greater strength, speed, ferocity, or cunning. An individual's totem animal and animal guide might be a creature for whom they had a particular affinity, being like that animal in nature, body, or spirit. Animalistic traits were sought after, encouraged, and sometimes even revered. Individuals would go on great quests and endure horrific torments to find what animal their totem or spirit was. Nowadays, most people laugh at someone who puts on a costume to find theirs.

And, of course, lest we forget, the modern man isn't really so distanced from revering animal traits as he likes to think. Eye of the tiger, free as a bird, cunning like a fox, management books that speak of lions and tigers... Humanity's hypocrisies are indeed countless.

Nobody should expect me to make a regular habit of defending furries... as a whole, I still find the subculture laughable at best. That said, though, I do feel that I can relate to someone who is trying to become something more -- or something less -- than strictly human. And I can always be counted on to argue against a stupid human.

Like many people in the world, I spend a lot of my time thinking about zombies. Zombies make for an inherently interesting topic, whether it be for philosophical discussion, test of survival skill, or quality of current exercise regimen. Few and far between are the people I associate with who don't spend a sizeable amount of their time contemplating zombies for one reason or another. It is curious, then, that there is so little innovation it the field of zombies. The basic zombie design has remained mostly unchanged for centuries asdie from a handful of innovations by men like George Romero, Dan O'Bannon, Matthew Leutwyler and Ben Stein. Amazingly, there isn't even an established name for the study of zombies... there's an "ology" for most everything else, but even the vast might of Google fails to turn up a properly Latin or Greek name for this neglected field of academia. It is no wonder than zombies have so often overrun our world and laid waste to our people in spite of all defenses and protections.

In an effort to stimulate new interest in the field of zombies studies, I have therefore attempted to consider some new types of zombies not generally spoken of, and come up with one which I feel is worthy of further discussion. I highly doubt that any new zombie type that I come up with is a genuinely original idea which has never appeared before, but at the very least, such zombies aren't so common that most people have heard of them widely. If this discussion prompts even one new person to give a little more thought to zombies in their daily life, then my work is done.

First off, let's consider the zombie dinosaur. For the purpose of this discussion, when I say dinosaur, please assume that I'm speaking of any large, predatory dinosaur, such as the ubiquitous Tyranosaurus Rex, as opposed to a compsognathus or apteryx or something. It is really inexplicable to me that this isn't a concept which has been more fully explored, Hollywood being what it is. It seems like such an obvious combination. Naturally, dinosaurs are large, lumbering, flesh-eating, dangerous monsters who cause mass property damage and loss of life. For all these positive qualities, however, dinosaurs have traditionally been weakened by virtue of their somewhat delicate nature. Most dinosaurs lack a protective kevlar coating, let alone a respectable ceramite or fullerene armour. For all their destructive power, a single dinosaur can get taken down by something as simple as gunfire -- once again, advanced technology ensures the survival of an otherwise inferior species. Furthermore, dinosaurs, being alive, get tired. Certainly a respectable dinosaur can chase a human very effectively; to paraphrase Derek Supple, most dinosaurs can easily outrun a human on land, and many can also outswim a human effortlessly, which means that for a human to beat a dinosaur in a triathalon, they'd have to build up a huge lead in the cycling portion. Once again technology intereferes, however, as by the simple expedient of cars, trucks, airplanes, and rocket-skateboards even a slow and overwight human can outrun the fastest dinosaur, because while the dinosaur might be able to give chase, it will eventually get tired.

Now, though, consider the zombie dinosaur. It seems reasonable to assume that any zombiation agent which affects humans and other animals will affect dinosaurs too, and therefore the only difficulty is how the dinosaur gets into a position where it gets infected/exposed/mutated/etcetera. We will ignore this question for the moment, living dinosaurs not being any more improbable than the walking dead in any case. So, the dinosaur has been infected, dies, and becomes a zombie. It has now overcome its two greatest weaknesses. First, the dinosaur is no longer delicate. A humanoid zombie is weak enough that even a well placed .22 caliber bullet might stop it, but the added muscle and bone mass of a dinosaur prevents this. Even if a bullet is powerful enough to penetrate hide, flesh, and bone, a dinosaur's brain is little larger than the bullet itself, a nearly impossible target to hit, especially without destroying the entire head first. A human brain is a big, easily-struck target, but not so with an average dinosaur. Second, a zombie dinosaur will never tire or slow down. Certainly, the dinosaur may lose some of its initial speed during zombification (although this by no means guaranteed, given the capabilities of your typical O'Bannon-class zombie), but given a set of great big, long legs, even slow and stumbling strides will give the zombie dinosaur a frightening speed, and if it never gets tired, it will eventually catch most any prey.

There really is little excuse for the profusion of zombie sightings all having such similar characteristics. With our wealth of scientific knowledge and imagination, our zombies really should be a more rich, varied group with exciting and innovative variations being seen all the time. It is nothing more than simple complacency which causes people to create the same basic type of zombie time and again. When next you consider a new zombie design, it should be a goal for you -- a duty, even -- to create something new and different. The walking dead deserve no less than our maximum effort.

On July 1st, somewhat on the spur of the moment, I went out to see Superman Returns. It's rare that I get really excited about a movie, in part because I rarely get excited and in part because, with an imagination like mine, few movies are able to match what I come up with myself. I'm both a very exacting and a very forgiving movie reviewer -- I'll sit and count the number of ways that a film fails to be perfect, making long mental lists of all the ways that the various people involved screwed up, but on the other hand, as one might expect given my tastes and eccentricities, I have a tremendous ability to suspend my disbelief and I don't care at all about artistic merit or general quality and sophistication of a film as long as it keeps me entertained. I am not a connoiseur of movies; I am a consumer of escapist gamer media. All this isn't to make any sort of deep or meanignful point, but merely to give some context when I say that Superman Returns was one of the finest films I've ever seen.

I've always had something of a curiou history with the Superman franchise. I devour comics at a rate few people match, but for most of my life, I haven't read Superman, or for that matter, most anything by DC. In the last year or so, as I got interested in the stories leading up to the Infinite Crisis, I've picked up more and more DC titles on my weekly reading list, but the Superman books remain something I'll read only rarely, when a particular story looks interesting. I do not read them monthly. I've always found the Superman books a little silly -- he's Superman, afterall, too perfect by half and with powers and abilities so far beyond conception that most of his villains lose their believability in contrast. As a discriminating consumer of fiction, Superman has always been a secondary interest to me, usually only read when his stories intersect with more interesting individuals. That said, an interest in Superman dates back to the earliest years of my life. Even as a baby, my parents wisely suspected that I would develop an interest in comics, and provided me with books and toys along those lines. Not being comic enthusiasts themselves, they can be forgiven for not exposing me to X-Men and Green Lantern; it was Superman toys which filled the most obvious shelves in the early 80's. I had the Superman action figure with real arm-swinging action when you squeezed his legs -- the collectors out there all know which one I'm talking about -- as well as a t-shirt and sweatshirt or two. It wasn't an obsession, but it was an interest, and before I could walk or walk, I was already being indoctrinated with tales of, dare I say it, truth, justice, and the heroic way. I may not really read Superman these days, but it's possible and even likely that on some subconcious level, I retain a love for the character which can only come from loving it as a baby.

As an interesting little bit of trivia, as a very young child, I would often snap off one arm from my Superman action figures -- only one arm, and only from that toy. My parents must have replaced the figure for me half a dozen times and repaired the arm twice that often. Back when I was in therapy, it was suggested that this may have been a subconcious way of making the figure damaged or incomplete, as I may have felt that I was. In my opinion, I just enjoyed breaking things.

This is not the only reason I may have been predisposed towards loving the new film, however. There is one other, and probably more important, factor. I am, of course, a huge fan of the music of John Williams. I find his marches and these quite beautiful and often inspiring. This is particularly true of the Imperial March (obviously), and, perhaps even more so, the theme he wrote for the first Superman films. The theme is filled with vast, sweeping movements, noble chords, and powerful swells -- it fairly reeks of heroism and strength. My sense of hearing is my most sensitive sense; every other sense I have (includng the lesser known senses such as balance and proprioception) tests at below human normal, but my hearing is well above average and I may even be able to perceive sounds and frequencies that human hearing can't. Whether due to this or for unrelated reasons, I have always reacted very strongly to music. I find bad music to be physically painful, but a piece that I truly love... I've never been able to describe the sensation adequately, but it feels like liquid fire starting in my chest and spreading outwards through every major artery. At certain key moments of certain pieces of music, I effectively experience the third greatest joy, excitement, and power that I've ever felt. Superman's Theme is one of these, and it's a piece made up of almost nothing but powerful crescendos. After seeing the trailer, I told people that it had been their use of this theme that made me instantly fall in love with the preview, but I doubted that I would be so lucky that they would use it in the film. While they did produce a new OST for the movie, they also kept the original John Williams theme, and they play it at *every climactic point in the film.* It must have happened twenty or thirty times. Every time Superman does something super, it's accompanied by a crescendo. I can only imagine that this would get boring for most people. For me, it meant that my pulse didn't drop below 110 for just under three hours, and my pupils still feel dilated the next day. It didn't have to be much of a movie to worm deep into my soul... they could have just sat me down with an MP3 for three hours and taken my money.

Of course, they did more than just the music. The film was truly made for the educated fan. I counted at least two direct homages to the artwork of Alex Ross and I suspect I missed at least one more. I still own my black armband from Superman's funeral, and a certain newspaper headline from the film looked very familiar. And of course, any good Superman movie has to have one shot of him holding an antique car at a rakish angle, a timeless moment of history to which we are still paying tribute generations later. I lost count of the number of moments in the film at which only I and one or two other people laughed.

So what do we have? A single film with one of the most beautiful soundtracks I've ever heard, a film designed specifically to win the hearts of the loyal fan, a super-hero movie in which not *a single problem is solved with violence by the hero.* The gamer's dictionary defines perfction as "the state of a thing where it cannot logicaly be improved in any way without changing its nature." The Princess Bride was perfect. The Nightmare Before Christmas was perfect. Superman Returns might just have been perfect. There are a few things I might have changed -- made Luthor more menacing and less comical, more like he is in the modern comics, for example, or made Superman a bit less super, or set this movie after Superman 2 instead of after Superman 1 and had at least one overt reference to kneeling before Zod -- but given that it was a sequel to a movie with a comical Luthor, predating Zod, and based on the pre-1986 Superman who *was* pretty much inconceivably super, none of these changes could have been made without changing the film's nature. It was, therefore, perfect.

I might just pay to see it again. I probably won't, but the fact that I'd even consider it says volumes.

Reposted from the Aerican Empire main website because, what the hell, I just wrote it so it qualifies as Journal-postable material.

Throughout Imperial history, few istitutions have proven to be as iconic, as captivating, and as mythical as the Killer Penguin Death Squad. Known, loved, and feared the length and breadth of the Empire, the Killer Penguin Death Squad is cited by citizens of every colony as being responsible for events both good and bad, and more stories have been written and songs sung about them than any other Imperial citizen or group.

The history of the Killer Penguin Death Squad dates back to the early Cullings of the Inactive in the Empire. As early as January 2001, legends spoke of "Killer Mutant Penguin Death Squads" seen out and about, and spurious photographic evidence exists from those days. This casual sighting would prove to be the spark which fanned a flame of interest -- by the 2001 Culling, the Killer Penguins Death Squad had become known as the shadowy, unseen presence which came in the night and stole the citizenship from vanished citizens. The Killer Penguins Death Squad(s) (no one has ever been sure if they are singular or plural) could appear at any time, pass any obstacle. An inactive citizen could not hide, could not run, could not find a wall thick enough to protect them from this unseen horror. Since then, the Killer Penguins have become a ubiquitous and much-loved cultural icon in the Empire, and have inspired short stories, modeling projects, artwork, and even flash movies.

Because of their association with shadowy, stealthy killing, the name of the Killer Penguin Death Squad has become linked to numerous groups within the Empire. Most branches of the military have used some variation of the name for their own units, much as words such as "reaper" and "ninja" can be found commonly applied to unit names in macronational militaries and peacekeeping forces. Just a few of the more well-known examples are the following:

• The original Killer Penguin Death Squad itself is believed to be an elite military unit answerable only to the Emperor and a few select members of government. Whether or not it actually exists is a question which no one has ever been curious enough to discover.
• The Killer Penguins are a semi-mythical unit within the Imperial Guard, allegedly responsible for spy-type activities. Members of the Killer Penguins are denoted by the letters KP followed by a number. It is believed that the Empire does not retain any actual KP agents, and that this unit exists only in several works of short fiction created by citizens -- notably the stories of KP 42, a cybernetic secret agent set against a futuristic world where the Empire is the premier galactic power.
• The Imperial Army maintains two separate units bearing the name. The Killer Penguin Space Marines are a unit of miniatures from the Warhammer 40K toy line, painted in penguin-like colours. Similarly, the Killer Penguin Death Squads Minis are miniatures from the Critter Commandos toy line, humanoid penguins in combat gear standing only a few milimeters tall. Both units are stored at the Aerican Embassy to Everything Else and see frequent use.