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You want to know what an awesome wedding looks like? Click here.

Now, we all know I’m one sour-pussed bastard, but this event warmed even my icy heart, and I am honored and grateful to have been a part of it. This slideshow displays the pictures from my camera which came out best — both the camera and my scanner are weak, so imagine them all a little better than they are. They show the seamy underbelly of the wedding, the iniquitous domain of college friends and other rapscallions. Oh, and I saw the note-passing, you sly dog.

I think I’m finally getting the swing of being in wedding parties. I leave this post as a reminder to my future groomsman selves.

#1 – You don’t need to get completely waffled at the rehearsal dinner. Stop doing this.
#2 – One extra handkerchief just isn’t enough; consider bringing one for each groomsman. Once the sweating starts, they’ll be a commodity.
#3 – Bring food, and lots of it. When people say “the limo is stocked” they don’t mean with cookies.
#4 – No red wine, unless you want to be “that purple-stained tux guy”.

Garv posted something that all you would-be writers should check out: the DFILM moviemaker. “In 1999, DFILM launched the MovieMaker, which let users create a short animated cartoon on a website and email it to their friends.” From a writer’s standpoint, it is extremely limiting, and that’s what makes it so intriguing. With a limit of three scenes of four different types, two characters and max six 100-character lines of dialogue per scene, how much story can you get across? The limitations force you to get to the bare bones of your story and work with the absolute basics of theater. As an example, here’s Hamlet in three scenes. Not high drama, but a good exercise in composition. Also, the art is all pretty funny.

For those of you (by which I mean all of you) B A Starters who don’t really do the whole “go to the doctor” thing, take a look at this site. Also known as “stuff to freak out about”. This site has got to be at least as dependable as asking med student friends for their medical advice over a beer and a smoke.

See? I care about you and your well-being.

In God of War, half the game is getting through a series of trials to prove yourself worthy of receiving the ultimate weapon. From time to time, as you do the impossible again and again, you come across recently deceased warriors who got to a specific point and didn’t hit the right switch in time to avoid being skewered (or whatever). How do the gods react to this?

Zeus: Looks like we’ve got a contender! He made it past the minotaur, figured out the underwater puzzle, survived the spinny blade thing…

Athena: I hope this is the guy. I’m getting tired of putting that rock back on the shoulders of the Atlas statue and rebuilding the stained glass window for every schmuck that makes it past the “endless” desert.

Zeus: Oh, this is the winner. I mean, look at him! You’d think I was his father! As a matter of fact, does he look a little like a swan to you?

Athena: Damn it! He didn’t catch that second rope! I told you they were too far apart!

Zeus: Only the one who proves himself worthy can wield…

Athena: Oh, come on! Did you see how fast he figured out the move-the-rocks puzzle? This was the guy, but no… the rope swing has to be at least the length of the mighty Zeus’s pinky toe! Only those who can swing the length of the Sky Father’s pinky toe deserve the blessing of the gods!

Zeus: Watch it, Athy…

Athena: Or you’re going to do what? Chain me to a rock and have a gecko nibble my appendix out for eternity? Who’s going to help you outwit that shrewish wife of yours while I’m being punished? Huh? Who? You going to have Hephaestos build a Robo-Zeus to sit in the throne while you’re chasing the mortal skirts? Think you can distract Apollo from harassing nymphs long enough to help you? Huh? Do ya?

Zeus: I’ll take your owl away.

Athena: Sure you will, tough guy. Sure you will. I’m going to go see if anyone sacrificed anything worth eating. Let me know if anyone passes your test — I’ll be holding my breath.

From the B A Start News Desk — An area man displayed signs of shock and awe last night upon hearing that Jon Stewart, host of the popular parody news program The Daily Show, was dead. The events transpired at a downtown bar and restaurant at the back table. A local businessman told a joke about movie star Tom Cruise in a P-51 Mustang, a World-War-II-era fighter plane, shooting at cinema legend Jimmy Stewart, and then corrected himself when he was reminded that Stewart is no longer living. Parts of this tall tale was overheard by a friend, who expressed extreme concern and surprise at the death of Jon Stewart. Once the misunderstanding was resolved, drinking continued unabated.

When the rest of the world is fixated on actual major, important, and awesome events in real life, you can count on B A Start to bring you back down to fantasy.

Saw a few mentions in a magazine about Okami, an upcoming PS2 title. I’m a sucker for any videogame where the visual style is new, and with its whole looks-like-a-silkscreen-painting thing, this game certainly meets that criteria. No idea how running around as a wolf will work out, but I’ll let you know.

Now, you could go to the usual suspects for screenshots, movies, et cetera, but why would you when you can go right to the developer’s website? Sure it’s in Japanese — that just makes it cooler!

Not four hours after Sarah points out this story to me, I run across this one. There’s only one logical explanation: The Playstation 2 attracts lightning bolts.

Oh man are you guys lucky. You were this close to getting an eyeful of my opinions on last night’s premiere of the ABC mini-series Empire, replete with ill-founded statements along the lines of “Octavius wasn’t a good-guy” and “but he just killed Pompey” and smattered with my standard list of likes/dislikes. I’ll sum it up for you: I liked it, the departures from the history are well-handled and more than understandable, and if Caesar had the people’s best interests in mind then I’m Jay-Z.

Fortunately for you, I saw this before I started typing and the following rant ensues: $400 for a Playstation 3? Forget it. We all know I’m mad cheap when it comes to videogames. I don’t need a damn media center — call me crazy, but I buy videogame consoles to play videogames. I don’t need online play; I play videogames to get away from jackasses. Why would I add jackassery to my gaming by going online? Yeah, sure the graphics will be great, but just how damn realistic do we want games to be? So, you’re going to make assloads of titles about zombies, magic ninjas, aliens and whatnot and tell me how realistic the games are? And I do mean assloads — several iterations of the number of games an ass can carry. Maybe if I played Madden I’d give a couple shits about how well-rendered the chest-hair of that fat dude with a ramhead painted on his beergut is, but I don’t so I don’t.

Stories all o’er the nets* telling us that the code on cover of X&Y has been cracked, that it’s based on an old telegraph code. What they don’t say often is that the key was included in the liner notes. I say the following:

#1: To Coldplay’s label: Weak. Let the geeks go all geek on it. Let the legend grow, all mysterious-like. Better press that way.
#2: To the news sites: More weak. That’s not news, that’s a cryptoquip.
#3: To Coldplay:

*The best story I’ve seen on it is here, if you’re that bored.