[Barny Cusp] So we’re a day late today, having taken a day off for Australia Day. It was a strange day this year since we not only got flogged in the cricket but the Hottest 100 was full of songs I’ve never heard. Didn’t spend very much time driving around this year, so there was very little radio listenage going on. That just means that the highlights were the three Flight of the Conchords songs that made it in. Truly funny stuff.

Also, a comic was there.

[Barny Cusp] Not much to say to today. And no time. I’ve already had to write this twice due to some awful page crashing my browser and losing data.

Here’s the comic.

[Barny Cusp] Today (sort of - stupid rotating planet) the Yankistanis got a new president. Let’s hope he’s better than the last. Obviously he’d have to try pretty hard to do worse - but maybe he could go power mad, get kryptonite posioning and make a deal with Darkseid to keep the Empire off America’s back for ever. That’s obviously a worst-case scenario. In reality my main concern is his lack of combat training and therefore his inability to fight his way out of terrorist hijackings or alien invasion. These things keep me up at night*.

In the meantime we have struggled on and continue our epic comic storyline which is shaping up to have more stories and less robots than our last (not including the fridge robot and the cyborg dog).

Johnny was talking about writing today and we got onto the topic of Matthew Riley’s particular brand of insanity. I mocked up this helpful chart to make it easy to write scene in the Riley fashion! He’ll have to insert pointless italics himself.

“You need a random chart for scenes.

Scene Generator (Roll 2d6)
Location

                         Event

1. Military Base                                                 1. Explosion
2. Science Lab                                                   2. Gunfight with ‘World’s Best Commandos’ - Commandos lose.
3. Clifftop Highway                                           3. Explosion
4. Ancient Temple/Deathtrap                        4. Implausible Chase Scene Involving Awkward Vehicle (eg Double Decker Bus)
5. A Military Plane in Transit                         5. Explosion
6. Natural Terrain (Clifftop, Jungle,etc)        6. Roll again 4 times on this list and daisy-chain all explosions.”

I think there’s something in that for all of us. Except those who neither care nor know who Riley is

*Fortunately the beer counteracts that nicely.