Baltimore Squirrels

I’ve decided I need to make a video game, probably for the iPhone, of my little bumble bee. I’m going to call it Clumsy Bumble and gameplay will consist of tilting the phone around to navigate a bumble bee through a series of poorly drawn obstacles. There will be a faint but constant buzzing sound, not real buzzing mind you, more of a little buzzy song, something along the lines of “buzz buzzy buzz buzz buzzzzzzzz buzzy buzzy” (lyrics not finalized). The buzzing will stop when the bumble hits something, replaced by a pathetic shriek and the end of the bumble.

That’s one option. Another is to have a side-scroller (also with a buzz song and pathetic bumble bee shrieks) that requires tapping on enemies (creepy bugs, drawn by Jess on a napkin some booze-inspired evening a while back) at which point the bumble will destroy the target with laser beams from it’s eyes. As targets are destroyed, the bumble will emit a little giggle or if something goes wrong, a sad sound of disappointment.

I think the bumble will be named Claude, Claude the Clumsy Bumble. There will be merchandise too, plush Claudes, coffee mugs and toddler onesies.

That’s the plan anyway…

Jon Stewart held an informal breakfast chat with some of the biggest names in journalism a few days ago, the theme more-or-less summed up in the title of this post. The Indecision 2008 blog has it covered in three parts (click, click and click). Pity the event wasn’t recorded…

An interesting project from Mozilla Labs. Reminds me of Quicksilver (and I’m not the only one). Most impressive.

Mikayla won’t leave me alone at the moment. She gets in these moods now and again where she just sits by my chair looking at me expectantly, squeezing out the occasional “mew”. She does the same thing when I go to bed, once I’ve put my head on the pillow and started to close my eyes I’m quickly greeted by a cat in my face, looking at me, squeezing out more pleas for attention. If I roll the other way she follows around, persistently…

Freddie works in a more shark-like manner. He usually circles me a bit first, getting a feel for the terrain and potential angles of approach until he decides on a way in. Maybe he’ll lay down on the far side of the desk where it’s too much of a hassle for me to remove him. Then he slowly twists and slinks his way towards me until one outstretched paw can just rest on my hand, at which point the claws come out just a tiny bit, just so I know he’s there. If I even acknowledge that he’s touching me in any positive way, say by petting him or making eye contact, he pops up and starts trying to rub on my face. It’s cute, but damn if it’s not annoying. Like an Ewok with a spear, or a child Jonathan Taylor Thomas.

Note the reckless sprawling and complete disregard for the things around him. Textbook Freddie maneuver.

Mikayla when she isn’t being chatty

From today’s Running woman and madman:

The whole thing is unconscious. It has the visual semantics, but not the intention, of cheesecake. She is simply late, happens to be beautiful, and isn’t dressed like an Anabaptist. Nevertheless, her passage fractures the Matrix.

Mmmmm, cheesecake.

An excerpt from Dexter Filkins’ account of his time in Iraq as a reporter for the NY Times:

Our leader that day was Sgt. Sam Williams, a 24-year-old from northern Michigan. Sam pointed to the top of the tower and told his men to fire. And so they did, guns singing, grenade launchers, machine guns, boom-boom-boom-boom. Horrendous and loud.

What if Miller is still alive? I thought. There was so much firing and so much stuff flying, bricks, shrapnel, bullets. Two marines were wounded. One of them was Lance Cpl. Demarkus Brown, a kid from Martinsville, Va., 22. The marines were raking the minaret, Demarkus was, too, and then he dropped his rifle and grabbed his right cheek. “I’m hit – I’m hit!” he said, panic in his eyes, real panic as if he was going to die. But the wound was small, and Demarkus was so young, he seemed like one of those kids on the playground who gets hurt every time. He seemed so frightened. He was killed a week later.

The young age of the soldiers struck me, as did the portrayal as Demarkus just before you find out he gets killed.

Seriously, what the hell?

My Zooey Deschanel crush just got a little bit bigger: