Riding a Squirrel like it was a Taun-Taun

(I don't really want to do too many of these as they are, very much, Cleolinda's thing. But it's been a while since she updated and I had an urge so.... yeah...)

Oh man, where do I even begin with the drama?

When last we left the dynamic duo, Edward Sparklepants Cullen had been grounded and was back in his box while I removed anything flammable from McCoy's reach. It was not surprising at all that Edward and McCoy would not get along - those two don't get along with anyone in canon, why would I expect different in real life? Because I am an eternal optimist that really really wants things to go well, that's why.

Yeah, I'm an idiot.

So, Christmas was a bad season here in the Heroine household. Lots of new toys, no time to mess with the old one. Most of my stuff is still packed from my not-move back in October, but I have a half dozen dolls and whatnot who are mostly capable of keeping themselves occupied. McCoy has spent most of the winter engaging in outside adventures; once I swear I saw him riding a squirrel across the snow like it was a Taun-Taun. He took a lot of shit for that from me. Mostly because how do you explain that to the neighbors?

Edward... let's just say that Edward is so far up Shit Creek by the time I'm writing this that I've considered setting him on fire myself. It all started one Thursday afternoon about three weeks ago....


"He's eating my squirrels."



I put down my pencil. Even crazy is a welcome break from Calculus. "Who is doing what in with the what now?"

"Sparklepants, he's been eating my squirrels."



"Your squirrels? And how do you know this?" Oh my god... "Do we have vampire squirrels? Tell me we don't have vampire squirrels." I went and threw the door open, "DOG! Get in here now."

"No, he's not turning them, but haven't you noticed there are less of them about?"


What does less squirrels look like? They still seemed to be everywhere, but McCoy wasn't prone to carrying tales... well, there was the one time Boromir got into it with Snape but that was ages ago. Three whole months at least.

"I'll talk with him."

Easier said than done. Edward no longer spent much time in the bedroom, or the study for that matter. Even a 104 year old virgin knows when he is not wanted. Or maybe, especially a 104 year old virgin knows when he is not wanted. I found him that night, perched in a hanging planter outside.

"What are you doing?

"Watching for rabbits."

"Rabbits? Why are you-" I stopped, I knew the answer. I neither needed nor wanted to hear it from him. He obliged me anyway.

"They are fluffy and delicious, like kittens with big puffy tails."



"The hell man? When did you eat a kitten?"

His butter-amber-golden-topaz eyes met mine, "Do you really want to know?"



No. In fact. I really don't. I don't want to know any of this. "Have you been eating McCoy's squirrels?"

"Not as good as rabbit, but not all that bad. More fun certainly."

"Stop it. Leave the squirrels in our yard alone. In fact, leave the squirrels for the next three or four houses alone. Actually, no squirrels. No rabbits. There are some mice out in the shed, eat those."

He pouted. "You understand that that's no fun at all?"

"I don't care. You're pissing McCoy off and I like him better than you." Yeah, I know, it was a terrible thing to say but you haven't been here, you have no idea what he's been like these past few months.

Tangential to all of this, let me bring you up to date on some other things. For Christmas, as a sort of impulse present for myself from Entertainment Earth, I got a mini-bust of Samwise Gamgee in his orc armor as well as a couple of other Black Friday deal things. Come on, they were like 80% off! I am the reason stores have sales, I really am. Anyway, Sam has been sitting on the edge of my desk, helping me with my homeworks and in general being a voice of reason in my ever maddening world.

"He only wants yer love, Mistress Heroine."

"Who? Edward?"

"Ay, he just wants you to like him."

"Well if he quits killing small, adorable animals I'd like him quite well."

Sam just harrumphed to himself and went back to polishing his sword. Not that way, you sicko. His actual giant orc swor.... oh I give up. Yes, he decided to do very naughty things. Are you happy?

The next few days went by in a blur of snow and tests, Valentine's came and went... all seemed to be going well. I was in the bedroom, reading a book Jessica sent me (I love you.) and generally trying to veg out a bit after my hard week.

Have you ever heard a horse scream? A pony? It is the most terrifying and heart-rending noise you could ever imagine. Now imagine it on the tiniest and most adorable scale your mind can comprehend.

I flew from my repose, gentle reader, but I didn't know where to go. The noise could have come from anywhere. I glanced about helplessly until I heard a muttering voice: "What have I done? Like candy? Delicious wrong candy? Melted in my mouth... what have I done?"

"Oh. My. God! What happened?"

From his vantage on the desk, Sam filled me in. McCoy was busy tending his patient and Edward... well, Edward was pretty far gone. "He bit her. Ate her all up."

"WHAT!?"

"Edward. He ate Moonshine. Tore into her like she was a nothing."

"EDWARD!"

"Like a bag of skittles, sweet sweet skittles. Oh god, oh god."

Well he was going to be useless. I knelt down next to McCoy where he had set up a triage table with Moonshine on it. "Is she...?"

"She's dead Heroine. I don't know how it worked, but it's like he sucked the life force right out of her." He glared over at the killer, "I told you he was dangerous."

I sat back and groaned. Moonshine was a gorgeous, bright pony with her whole life ahead of her. "Can't you- can't you do anything for her?"

"I'm a doctor, not a tinker. Whatever it was that made her... alive is gone now." He stood up, grabbing his phaser and I knew what was going to come next. I grabbed Edward quickly and went back to the bedroom.

I shut the door and set him on the bed. "What is the matter with you?"

"So hungry. Can't eat squirrels. Can't eat rabbits. Mice all gone... what to eat. Pretty pony, prancing pony. Tastes like rainbows..."


You are kidding me right? This is my fault? I didn't know! I swear it. I mean, yeah I knew mice were small and that after a while they'd probably run out - but I figured he'd come back and, I don't know, tell me when this happened. We would have found something for him. Maybe I'd have let up my squirrel ban.

Edward was in no condition to speak for himself, and not knowing what else to do I wrapped him back up in his box. We discovered last time this puts him into a kind of sleep mode. I went back into the study.

"You should just get rid of him. He's a damn menace."



"I know," I said, sitting down on the floor near the remains of poor Moonshine. "I know."

That happened last weekend, Edward has been in the closet since then (I'm resiting the urge to make an "In the closet" joke because these are grief-filled and trying times) awaiting my final decision on his fate. I think I might have to put him in his box for good. I don't know what else to do, honestly. McCoy keeps threatening to rip his head off and.... SWEET MARY MOTHER OF GOD.


Oh Jesus, a Vampony? Really? Is this what my life has come to? Red-eyed, tiny-fanged vamponies?

I don't even... I can't... I'm going to just go be elsewhere for awhile, okay?

The Lord of the Green Lantern

Have I ever told you my theory that the Rings of Power are in fact copies of the Green Lantern Power Ring - and that the Dark Lord Sauron was for some time a Green Lantern?

No? Oh, this story is awesome.

Also, I know that the true Lord of the Rings and Green Lantern fanboys (and girls) out there are going to vilify me for this and point out a dozen inconsistencies, but I do not care. Shuddup.

Also awesome, this picture. Look at how awesome it is. I made this (okay, I gimped this).

One ring to rule them in brightest day
One ring to bind them in blackest night
Beware my power... in the darkness where the shadows lie!

After the fall of Morgoth (I’ve already lost a few of you haven’t I?) Sauron at first tried to make good with the Valar on Eä but they wanted him to redeem himself and he wasn’t really up for that. Instead, he went into the lands of Middle-Earth to set himself up as a kind of god-king. He won over the humans and dwarfs pretty easily, but the elves still had a bee in their bonnet about the whole Island of Werewolves incident and those sisters don’t ever let nothin’ go, you follow?

Please keep in mind this is a simplified version of events and if you want the long version go read the Silmarillion and may the Lords of Valar have mercy on your soul because I sure as hell am not doing that again.

Now the annals of Middle-Earth history say that at this point Sauron disguised himself and went to the elves so that they would forge the nineteen rings of power, then forged his own in secret to have dominion over the others.

I'm not buyin' it. For all his bluster and might, Sauron was not the brightest bulb on the porch. Here’s my theory: after conquering the lands of men as a (seemingly) beneficial god, Sauron fell under the attention of the Guardians. Who were, in fact, the Valar who had chosen not to journey to Eä and instead stayed on Oa. I note here the similarity of the two names. Noted? Good.

The Guardians had, in their time, seen that the universe needed protectors and they – unwisely it turns out – offered the job of policing sector 2814 to Sauron who they knew to have been involved in the War of Wrath; even if they did not fully understand his involvement as it turns out. So they give him a Green Lantern Ring.

What an alarmingly bad idea.

Sauron goes to town, turns the men and dwarfs to his rule, but the elves possess their own strong magic and resist. This is shit up with which Sauron will not put. He spends years studying the ring, trying to figure out how he can use it to turn the elves to him. Eventually, he hits on the idea of seducing the elves to him with their own rings of power. Since they will be, in truth, mere copies of his he will ultimately have dominion over them through their own rings. The Guardians or Valar or whatever you want to call them handed Sauron control of Middle-Earth on a platter. As we know, the elves are not as dumb as their blonde hair would suggest and this goes very badly.

Sauron's ring is taken from him, but it will not bend to the will of its new owner. Sauron has invested so much of himself in his Ring of Power that he becomes little more than the energy contained in it, shining atop Barad-dûr as the embodiment of his own lantern until he can be reunited with his ring.

So yeah, to recap here: the One Ring was actually a Ring of Power, and Sauron was Earth’s first Green Lantern.

Thoughts?


*Note: Sauron's original name was Mairon, which if you're like me you'll read as Marion. Congratulations, the Dark Lord is 115% less terrifying. Also, lantern doesn't look like a word anymore.

T-Shirt Wars

Another Video? Feel the love y'all.

T-Shirt War.

The T-Shirt War from Ibrahim Nergiz on Vimeo.

Think Geek

I'm a pretty big fan of Think Geek, I want a Taun-Taun sleeping bag like nobody's business, and a samurai umbrella, and oh, a hundred other things.

But I never realised how cool they were. Here we have the amazing people of Think Geek playing The Who's Baba O'Reilly on products from their store.



Did I mention I want the guitar shirt? 'Cause I do.

Tattoo!

I got a new tattoo yesterday - and it is a product of how subsumed I am in twitter that it has taken me a whole day to get around to posting about it on my blog. So, sorry about that?

I have been holding on to this idea for a while, mainly because money has been (and still is) very tight. However, my birthday was Sunday and I got some moneys and I decided, What the Hell, let's do this.

The idea for the tattoo comes from The Lord of the Rings:

All that is gold does not glitter,

Not all those who wander are lost;

The old that is strong does not wither,

Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,

A light from the shadows shall spring;

Renewed shall be blade that was broken,

The crownless again shall be king

I did debate with myself on whether to get "Deep roots are not touched by the frost," but ultimately decided that other parts of the poem spoke to me more. So away I went to Skinworks - your place for fine tattooing, and the lovely people who did my first four.

The man was responsible for the process (and yes, that is me he's working on) was named Phil, and if you know him, tell him I said Hi and that it's healing better than he expected - even if it's still kind of early to tell.


And the final result was this

written in Bilbo Baggins' handwriting.

Please ignore how scary pale my foot is. It always looks like that.

I know for a fact I am not the only person to have this phrase tattooed on them, but I am the only person I know of to have it tattooed across their foot. Which is, coincidentally, the only place I would want to have it. It just made the most sense.

For those of you curious, the arch of the foot did not hurt that much. In fact, I'd say it was the least painful of the tats I've gotten. Anyone keeping score at home, wrist was by far the worst.

A very Hobbity Birthday Part II

Hi! It's been a great week, thank you so much to everyone who's taken time out to tell me Happy Birthday. I do really appreciate it, my track record with birthdays is really not all that great.

So you want to know how the winning of stuff went? I know, I know, but I just wanted to get gushy for a bit.

I was going to pull names out of something, like I did when for the twitter secret santa. Then I thought about it some more and that simply does not reach the level of awesomeness my birthday should aspire to.

So I did this instead....


Everybody got a paper airplane with their name on it. This is @J3551C4's...


The airplanes went into a box....


And the box got thrown into the air, and this was the result...




So here are the winners, there was a tie for fourth, but it was okay! They didn't want the same thing, so it was all good.


1st: @badvillemojo - Star Trek DVD
2nd: @steelwoolwookie - Box of Mystery and Excitement
3rd: @corpzombie - Star Trek DVD
4th: @KatAKlism - Chew Volume 1
4th: @angryfatgeek - Darwin Poster

(Edited to add who chose what...)

All gifts were, given, everything will be mailed tomorrow, and the Heroine saw that it was good.

A big thank you to everyone who wished me a Happy Birthday, and congrats to the winners! If you want to know what your place was, just ask!

A very Hobbity Birthday to you!

It is a time-honored tradition here in the Shire that one gives birthday presents on one's birthday, rather than receive them. In that spirit, I am going to give out some gifts to my online friends who may or may not want them.

Simply comment on this post or @nerdheroine a 'Happy Birthday' before midnight (CST) on February 20th and I will spend part of my birthday (the 21st) handing out presents. I'll send you a DM or email as applicable to arrange shipping. Sound good?

This is ONLY open to people currently following me on twitter and people who read my blog. Please don't RT this, I know exactly who my last follower was (because I just wrote it down) and I have a fair idea of who reads this blog. This is a just a thank you for being around and being funny/interesting folk these past six months or so.

So what are the prizes? Mostly things I have around the house I somehow manage to have two of. All are brand new, I just have two (or more) of them due to a series of bizarre circumstances. Did you know I got four copies of Star Trek for Christmas? Yeah, like that. Let's see...





Star Trek (2009)










Chew "Taster's Choice" - includes Chew Issues #1-5









Darwin's "I think" journal entry from the Museum of Natural History, London (poster/print, approx 50x70cm)

One box of mystery and excitement. A miscellany things too small to offer on their own. Includes but is not limited to cards, comics, pins, figurines and/or books.



So if you think you might like to have any of the above drop me a tweet on twitter, or a comment below.

Happy Birthday to me!

I luff you internets

Dear internet,

I love you. Making friends in real life is super hard. People are difficult and they give me funny looks when I start talking about my Green Lantern theories and why Adama and Roslin are the greatest TV couple of all time. If I do manage to contain my geekery long enough to make friends with normal people, I then have to try and contain myself when in their company. I repeat, it's hard work.

But not you internet. You filter the crazy/geeky/nerdy people right to me. Whether it's on twitter or some forum, you have a way of sending the people my way who understand and appreciate me for being the absolute loon that I am. Who get the Lost references and come back at me with Star Wars trivia. I mean, where else am I going to find someone to mail me a high fantasy series?

My real life friends call me nerd - a badge I wear proudly, but they're not saying it proudly. They're saying it in that way you do when you sneer a little. It is, in short, a slur. Internet friends call me nerd and you can hear (read, whatever) the smile in their voices when they do. It's nice.

I love you internets, but people of the internets, I love you more.

Hugs and Kisses,
The Heroine

Science, BA (Hons)

These were brought to my attention through the Bad Astronomer himself, and are more than worth a read. I've been known to write my fair share of 'Open letters to...' various organizations, but these are far better done than anything I could come up with.

Dear Media, from Science

Dear Homeopathy, from Science

Dear Astrology, from Science

Edited on 4Feb to add: Ok, so I only followed the links provided by Dr. Plait, but there are several more of the Science letters, find them here... I highly recommend Dear Advertising, from Science

Shakespeare Sonnet 116

Ack! I missed my 'Speeches that make me cry' in February 1st. My bad.

In honor of this month of love, I'm going to forgo the actual tearjerker and stick with something that simply speaks to me. Printed in full

Shakespeare Sonnet 116

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

Dallas Comic Con

On Saturday I drove the 180+ miles to Dallas so that I could attend ComicCon. It took me just shy of three hours. I then drove the 180+ miles back that night, making for a total of six hours on the road.

It was so worth it.

This was my first Comic Con, although not my first convention. That honor belongs to a Hercules/Xena Convention I went to when I was... 14? I'm not exactly sure although I do clearly remember cosplaying in a toga that became my go-to Halloween costume for the next ten years. Good times, man, good times.

Anyway, my first Comic Con, yes. It was exactly the amount of people I was expecting crammed into about 1/3 the space. The place was a fire hazard waiting to happen.

I went with Kali and Mike Kunkle, the good people of Dreamworthy Gifts, who I met on twitter. No, it turned out they were not in fact serial killers. My TV has been lying to me for years. They were sweet enough to bring me a present...


It's an outdoor plaque, the quarter is included for scale. It's really nice and was totally sweet of them. Which I may or may not have said about fifty times. And they didn't even know I'm studying astronomy! Spooky....

So the con? Man, I keep getting sidetracked. Well, after having lunch we went down to the Richardson Convention Center where I gave up on finding a parking spot and parked like a half mile away. Whatever. Little known fact about me, I don't shop for a space. I'd rather just park in the boonies and walk.

We walk in and are at one end of the artist's hall. There is barely enough room to slide your way through the crowd, and all of the artists I am interested in have hoardes of people between me and them. I'm doing an initial walk-through where I add up prices in my head so I can be sure I have enough money for the stuff I really want. Also, wishing I had some sort of drawing talent at all. Cause like whoa and damn, some of the art was spectacular.

I did get a chance to talk to Joel Watson of Hijink Ensue, one of my favorite webcomics and proud member of my Morning Coffee. He is as funny in real life as in his comic. ( Strangely, a lot of writer's are not.) Also, kind of cute. Just throwin' that out there.

I did end up picking up some pretty neat stuff, chief amongst them being a Godzilla shirt, a Wonder Woman print and 'Godspeed you fancy bastard' (which happens to be the Hijinks Ensue first collection; so, you know, go buy it).


But really it was just a fun time with some really good people. I will definitely go back next year.

(Also, I went to Whole Foods in North Dallas and lamented that I don't actually live near one. That place is amazing.)