Greatest Comic Strip Ever: Pearls Before Swine

I've come to love many comics like Fox Trot, Calvin and Hobbes, and Dilbert, but Pearls Before Swine is by far my favorite. It looks dark and depressing on the outside, but subtle wit, humor, and insight makes it a great strip! (Also one of the only strips whose characters know they're in a comic strip and act accordingly.)

The Four Original Main Characters

Rat is a representation of Stephan Pastis, the strip's creator. His dark personality, sarcasm, skepticism and horrible attitude make him the star of the strip! He stands about a foot and a half tall, has gray fur, a tail that can range from 6 inches to a mile long if the joke depends on it. Some quotes are, "I'm deciding who to sue next", "The lawyers assured me that was sufficient", and, "*%$#@!"

Pig is a representation of all that is good and innocent (though some just call it being a dumb***) and because of this is frequently taken advantage of by Rat. After all, they live together and split the rent! Pig stands about as tall as Rat, has pink skin and a curly tail the same length as Rat's. Some quotes are, "I'm imagining my happy place", "That's just silly", and, "Call me Nadia".

Zebra is like Pig, a loving friend of nature and all that is good, except he knows when he's being taken advantage of and easily outsmarts the totally incompetent predators (the most mentionable being the Crocs) who're constantly plotting ways to catch and eat him. He stands about as tall as Rat and Pig, is striped and has a tail about six inches long. Some quotes are, "I ran over a squirrel and I feel terrible...", "Just because I'm sleeping doesn't mean I'm dead", and "I'm afraid of dying".

Goat is a misunderstood genius, out of place in the chaos of the comic strip in which he lives. He tries to share his insights with the world on his blog, but is shot down by the ever-skeptical Rat. He stands the same as all the other characters (how'd you guess?), has short horns, and stubby tail and brown fur. Some quotes are, "Why do I even--", "It scares me when you make sense", and, "Oooooh lord..."

Other Characters

Guard Duck started out as a secondary character bought by Pig to safeguard the house because guard dogs were to expensive. After ripping a few neighbors to shreds, robbing a bank, going to jail, busting out single-handedly and coming back to work for Pig, he donned a helmet, equipped a rocket-launcher and became a much-loved character in the strip. Notable deeds (and misdeeds) are rescuing Zebra as he was about to be eaten by the Crocs and invading Cuba. Some quotes are, "You and I are rarely on the same page, are we, sir?", "And I didn't even get to say 'make my day'", and "Big screw up, mon".

The Crocs, totally incompetent predators including Bob (who has died and un-died at least five times), Larry (the "mastermind" behind all the Crocs' plans), Fred (A miscellaneous character occasionally used as cannon-fodder), Junior (Larry's genius son, the Croc vegetarian in love with one of Zebra's relatives), and "Woomun", Larry's wife. Some quotes of the Crocs' are, "Oh for love of...will you PEESE shut big fat mouf?", "Huuullooo Zeeba neighbor...", and, "Hullo, Bacon Butt".

Well this sucks!

I treated myself to a $25 hundred 40-inch flat screen T.V. because I've been putting it off for years and I could finally afford it. I was also able to afford a blue-ray player and surround-sound. Unfortunately, It's going to be hard to afford another car after mine (which happened to be newly upgraded) was totaled the next day in an accident that was completely not my fault. This sucks!

Strange and Disturbing Facts (Installment I)

So begins the Strange and Disturbing Facts series. (Great for use at parties!) Go to Installment II

1. I'll start the series off with something you'll not soon forget...3% of all seagulls are gay!

2. Don't try this at home, but...It's safer to be shocked by a 220 volt current than a 110! The former will throw you across the room (just watch Sherlock Holmes for proof) while the latter will get a grip on you a fry you like a piece of chicken. (Or a frog...just watch Sherlock Holmes for proof.)

3. Feeding seagulls alka-seltzer is illegal in Washington state. I'm sure there's a very interesting story behind that one but I'm not the one to ask about it.

4. Male platypuses have venomous spurs on their hind legs which are used in mating. You don't want to know.

5. It's a Class C misdemeanor to fart in public for emitting noxious odors. Don't quote me on this. I just heard it somewhere.

6. Adolf Hitler was voted Time Magazine's man of the year in 1938. This is where Strange and Disturbing really comes into play.

7. Even more horrid than the last...Gertrude Stein proposed Hitler receive the Nobel Peace Prize.

8. Salt+frog legs=THIS. Strange, disturbing, but really, really awesome!

9. A seagull once stole and ate a whole piece of pizza right out of my cousin's hands. True story.

10. Saving the best for last...there are four hundred times more germs on the average office desk than a toilet! For those of you who haven't already guessed, I possess a healthy awareness of humanity's natural enemies. (My friends call it "germ freak".)

Warp Ten Movie Reviews on Avatar and Sherlock Holmes

I recently saw Avatar (twice) and Sherlock Holmes. Both brilliant movies, though of quite different genres so I'm not going to compare them. Well, maybe I will, just a little bit.

Avatar

You're dropped right into the plot and quickly caught up to speed in about fifteen minutes. From there on it's non-stop action, romance, tragedy and finally, justice. Very popular, most likely not only due to the film's quality but also because it's been declared the "most expensive movie ever made". Though the climax feels a bit like Terminator and the science behind the aliens and their planet leave something to be desired, I enjoyed the movie overall. It was a great stand-alone story but would be ruined by a sequel, in my opinion. Avatar gets 3.5/5 stars.

Sherlock Holmes

A dramatic, old-style yet somehow modern atmosphere (loved the music) combined with witty characters and plenty of action made this one of my favorite movies. Ever. Dropping you right into the plot (more cleverly and with more interest than Avatar) the action never stops...it seems Holmes is never safe. And neither are those around him. If you watch Sherlock Holmes you'll never know who to trust and you'll definitely never know what's going on 'till Holmes or Watson explains it (one of its few faults). With a dramatic finish this movie sets itself right up for a much-deserved sequel. And I can't wait! My only disappointments were that it wasn't quite long enough and it was hard to hear Holmes and Watson when they were always mumbling things to each other that probably would've been funny if the audience could hear them. Sherlock Holmes gets 4/5 stars.

Star Trek Online

This is one game I can't wait for. I'll be joining in glorious battle as Korvoth son of Kolth come January as I'm all set with my pre-ordered Collector's Edition. Though the majority of my time will be spent ridding the universe of the Federation and Romulan petaQ some of you may also run into a mysterious starship named the USS Silver Ghost from time to time...Oh and Cryptic I'd really like a beta key, and as one of your most dedicated fans I can't think of anyone more worthy. I mean it's not like I'm going to put subliminal messages in my blog (I mean like who does that?) but please...just consider it.

Cryyyptiiic....give me beeetaaa keeeyy....

Impossible word verification

Word verification, the bane of my existence, even finds me on my own blog! How many times did I have to re-type my ridiculously long password and press "continue" to create Warp Ten last night? Seven. Taking into account the length of my password, the fact I had to type it in again to verify it, and the fact I had to do all that seven times...I had to type 224 characters instead of 32 (And that's just for my password, of course. Take into account all the image verifications I failed to type correctly and that's about 50 more!). All because of that stupid "safe-proof" built to protect websites from bots. And it's not just Blogger, of course...Facebook actually has you verify every email you send for the first few weeks of use! Here's a few from around the internet to give you an example...



WTF?! Blogger expects me to know what this is??



Whoever wrote this one must've been referring to whatever sadist created the hell that is "word verification".


OK, I really don't want to know.

All I'm saying is there are way better ways of checking if your loyal customer/member is a malevolent unit of artificial intelligence without treating them like a felon! Here's a few suggestions:

• Have them look at a picture of a number and then check the correct number out of a list of possibilities. I've seen this done and it works very well.
• Give them instructions to do something that a computer couldn't comprehend and do. Like, "Spell 'genius' backward in all uppercase".
• Ask a very easy question like, "Why did the chicken cross the road?"
  

Hailing frequencies open!

Welcome to Warp Ten! Some of the more educated among you will surely recognize my namesake as the transwarp threshold. The rest of you probably either...a) brain exploded b) navigated away from this blog upon hearing a Star Trek reference or c) actually followed the link to find out what the hell I'm talking about. For those of you still reading and consciously understanding what I'm saying to you, bear with me. I should be sleeping right now, but instead I'm creating a blog...

I'll be known as Darth Fail on this site (OK, those of you who caught that reference really need to find a hobby) though I may develop other names once people start reading my blog (ranging from the "D.F. Man" to "***hole" depending on whether people like it...or not). But now that introductions are out of the way, and assuming anyone is still left enduring my rantings, you're probably wondering what the point of this blog is. With so many (albeit pretty random and obscure) references to Star Trek, it appears I've just created another site dedicated to the King of all Geekdom, the phaser-totin' red-shirt-killin' sci-fi T.V. show which no one cares about. Nope! Star Trek was only my inspiration! I blog about whatever interests me, which is to say stuff most of the world doesn't care about: D&D, the Cthulhu Mythos, ME, and other totally dorky, geeky stuff. (I know you were thinking about pressing the "back" button just now!)

Standby for (hopefully) many more transmissions! This is Darth Fail signing off. (And saying good night. Time to go get about three hours of sleep.)