Our Daily Dead

The Graveyard

2008-03-24T15:19:17Z

By way of Wired:

Tale of Tales, the Belgian indie developers currently hard at work on the very intriguing experimental game The Path, released a brief but very interesting little game today.

Called The Graveyard, it’s a ten-minute scene that they describe as “more like an explorable painting than an actual game.”

The gameplay, if you can call it that, is simple: You walk an old woman up a graveyard path to a bench in the distance. She sits. A scene takes place. When it’s over, you lead her out of the graveyard.

The value here isn’t the gameplay, it’s the carefully crafted aesthetic experience and its (successful, in my case) attempt to draw an emotional response from the player.

Get your copy here: Tale of Tales: The Graveyard

~~The ODDones for OurDailyDead.com

Technorati tags: Wired, Tale of Tales, The Graveyard

Role No More - Gary Gygax, co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons

2008-03-04T19:49:18Z

By way of the ubiquitous AP comes news that Gary Gygax, who co-created the fantasy game Dungeons & Dragons and helped start the role-playing phenomenon, died Tuesday morning at his home in Lake Geneva. He was 69.

Young Gary had been suffering from health problems for several years, including an abdominal aneurysm, said his wife, Gail Gygax.

Gygax and Dave Arneson developed Dungeons & Dragons in 1974 using medieval characters and mythical creatures. The game known for its oddly shaped dice became a hit, particularly among teenage boys, and eventually was turned into video games, books and movies.

The founding of Dungeons & Dragons is considered to be the beginning of all modern role-playing games and thus, according to Wikipedia anyway, the beginning of the entire role-playing game industry.

An interesting predecessor to D & D was originated by one Jeff Perren and then expanded by Gary Gygax. Chainmail was a set of medieval minature rules with fantasy supplements. Chainmail players controlled armies rather than single characters as is done in D & D.

~~The ODDones for OurDailyDead.com

Technorati tags: Gary Gygax, Dungeons & Dragons, Dave Arneson, Jeff Perren, Chainmail

Steve Gerber, Creator of Howard the Duck, Decked

2008-02-17T20:36:26Z

Steve Gerber, the comic book writer and creator whose signature character was the alienated, cigar-chomping Howard the Duck, has died at the young age of 60. Gerber, who also co-created Marvel’s “Omega the Unknown” and created the 1980s animated series “Thundarr the Barbarian,” suffered from pulmonary fibrosis.

He died Sunday in a Las Vegas hospital from complications related to the disease, said Mary Skrenes, a friend and writing partner on “Omega” and other comics.

The “Howard the Duck” series became a fast hit after its January 1976 debut on Marvel and remains a cult favorite. Its lead, a disgruntled duck from another universe with a bombshell sidekick named Beverly “Thunder-Thighs” Switzler, was hailed as both smart and subversive.

Smart and subversive. Perfect.

You might want to read the Howard the Duck movie review over at BadMovies.org. (Hint - they rate the movie a sure fire must see.) We aren’t sure if its Back to the Future Lea Thompson in her underwear at the 42 minute mark or the line “Hey, if I had some place to go I certainly wouldn’t be in Cleve-Land”, but something just screams RENT ME about this flick. Or you could buy it below of course. Nudge, nudge…

~~The ODDones for OurDailyDead.com

Technorati tags: Steve Gerber, Howard the Duck, Omega the Unknown, Thundarr the Barbarian, Thunder-Thighs, Back to the Future

Not Quite The Happy Ending - Suzanne Pleshette Dead At 70

2008-01-22T02:11:07Z

From the kids at RTE Entertainment is their obit version for Suzanne Pleshette. The husky-voiced star best known for her role as Bob Newhart’s sardonic wife on TV’s ‘The Bob Newhart Show’ has died at the young age of 70 of respiratory failure.

The Irish folks go on to say that dear Suzanne was often picked for roles because of her beauty and her throaty voice. “When I was four,” she told an interviewer in 1994, “I was answering the phone, and (the callers) thought I was my father. So I often got quirky roles because I was never the conventional ingénue.”

Ok so let’s end this on a happy note, eh what? Suzanne, according to TV Fodder, starred in one of the top 6 TV Happy Endings. True. True.

~~The ODDones for OurDailyDead.com

Technorati tags: Suzanne Pleshette, Bob Newhart, The Bob Newhart Show, respiratory failure, ingénue, TV Fodder, Happy Ending

Checkmate - Bobby Fischer Dead at 64

2008-01-18T17:28:11Z

American chess grandmaster Bobby Fischer passed away Friday at a Reyjavik hospital at the age of 64. Fischer’s spokesman Gardar Sverrisson confirmed the chess genius’ death, but did not provide the cause of the death, although Fischer has been ill for some time.

Fischer is best know for beating world chess champion Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union in 1972. His victory occurred at the height of the Cold War. The chess matches were ironically held in Reyjavik, which led to Fischer being proclaimed the U.S. first world chess champion in over 100 years.

The chess prodigy was born in Chicago, raised in Brooklyn and became a U.S. chess champion at 14 and grandmaster at 15. You can try your skills using this Chess Grandmaster Game or at the Grand Master Corner if you are so inclined.

Controversy hounded the American chess champion over the years. Fischer lost his title when he refused to defend it versus Anatoly Karpov of the Soviet Union. He became a recluse afterward and was only heard whenever he made political statements, centered on anti-Semitism.

In 1992 Fischer reemerged by wining an exhibition match against Spassky at Sveti Stefan, a resort island in Yugoslavia. But he violated an international sanction to punish then Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. He became wanted in the U.S. for violation of the sanction, renounced his American citizenship and was naturalized by Iceland in 2005 to avoid deportation to the U.S.

Before he moved to Iceland, Fischer lived undetected for several years in Japan.

If you are thinking about a pilgrimage perhaps stop in at Travel Iceland - “…not only closer than you think, but far different than you ever imagined.” Or maybe you should read through the Iceland forum over at the ODD friend Trip Advisor.

~~The ODDones for OurDailyDead.com

Technorati tags: chess grandmaster, Bobby Fischer, chess, Boris Spassky, Reyjavik

Lady Bird Graduates

2007-07-19T21:57:32Z

We suppose that having played Pomp and Circumstance for the Rev. Jerry why then shouldn’t we offer up the same for on-Decker Lady Bird Johnson?

And here is an interesting snippet from Marianne Means via the Seattle PI:

“I thought she was terrific, and always will. Just imagine abruptly coming onto the national stage sandwiched between Jackie Kennedy, the most elegant first lady of our time — 17 years younger and prettier, to boot — and an emotional, complicated president baffled by a strange foreign war not of his making that he could not control.”

Perhaps President Johnson’s bafflement with the Vietnam war was just too close to home for President Bush and his daddy. Thus instead of attending Lady Bird’s memorial, they chickened out and stayed home sending their wives where they themselves feared to tread.

~~The ODDones for OurDailyDead.com

Technorati tags: Pomp and Circumstance, Rev. Jerry, Lady Bird Johnson, Marianne Means, Jackie Kennedy, President Johnson, Vietnam, President Bush

Jerry Falwell Graduates

2007-05-15T20:06:24Z

Leading U.S. television evangelist, The Rev. Jerry Falwell, collapsed and died Tuesday in his Lynchburg, Va., office. He was 73.

Falwell, recently added to the exhaulted locale of ODD’s On Deck circle, was found unresponsive after missing a morning appointment, Ron Godwin, the executive vice president of Liberty University was quoted as saying in the Lynchburg News & Advance.

Falwell lived in an impressive white house with a swimming pool when he was not traveling the world in a jet paid for by his followers. He had some wealthy supporters but his followers in Lynchburg were mainly working families. He apparently also never missed a meal.

~~The ODDones for OurDailyDead.com

Technorati tags: Jerry Falwell, died, Lynchburg, On Deck, Liberty University

Only To Be Malachi Constant

2007-05-15T20:08:00Z

Rented a tent, Rented a tent. Rented a, Rented a tent…

“I was drawn by the sirens of Titan
Carried along by their call
Seeking for a way to enlighten
Searching for the sense of it all
Like a kiss on the wind I was thrown to the stars
Captured and oredered in the army of Mars
Marching to the sound of the drum in my head
I followed the call

Only to be Malachi Constant
I thought I came to this earth
Living in the heart of the moment
With the riches I gained at my birth
But here in the yellow and blue of my days
I wander the endless Mercurian caves
Watching for the signs the harmoniums make
The words on the walls

I was drawn by the sirens of Titan
And so I came in the end
Under the shadow of Saturn
With statues and birds for my friends
Finding a home at the end of my days
Looking around I’ve only to say
I was the victim of a series of accidents
As are we all”

~~ “Sirens of Titan”, Modern Times, Al Stewart

See also: Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut

~~The ODDones for OurDailyDead.com

Technorati tags: Rented a tent, sirens of Titan, Malachi Constant, harmoniums, Al Stewart, Kurt Vonnegut

Emergency

2007-02-14T21:03:11Z

A blonde’s car gets a flat tire on the Interstate one day
So she eases it over onto the shoulder of the road.

She carefully steps out of the car and opens the trunk.
Takes out two cardboard men, unfolds them and stands them
at the rear of the vehicle facing oncoming traffic. The lifelike
cardboard men are in trenchcoats exposing their nude bodies
to approaching drivers…

Not surprisingly, the traffic became snarled and backed up.
It wasn’t very long before a police car arrives.
The Officer, clearly enraged, approaches her yelling,
“What is going on here?”

“My car broke down, Officer” says the woman, calmly.

“Well, what the heck are these obscene cardboard pictures
doing here by the road?!” asks the Officer…

“They are my emergency flashers”, she replied.

Anna Nichole Smith: solving the mystery of her death

2007-02-12T02:33:17Z

Differential diagnosis of sudden death in 39 year-old person is fairly limited (but look for Hollywood, Florida CSI to come up with, “Indeterminate.”) Considerations include heart (primary disturbance of heartbeat or myocardial infarction), blood vessels (blood clot to lungs or brain, rupture of blood vessel), or toxic (drugs or alcohol or drugs and alcohol). Leading cause of death in the “indeterminate” category is “The Cosmic Flyswatter.”

Why our obsession with Vickie Lynn Hogan (aka “Anna Nichole Smith”)? Was it her brains, artistic creativity, tireless work in solving the plight of the downtrodden, taste in clothing, social activism, political brilliance, efforts as a nutritional role model, or dedication saving William Jefferson Clinton from the deep dark pit of lechery and wankerhood? Nope, none of that, although the last possibility certainly has its own form of merit. Vickie Lynn Anna Nichole’s talent was exuding the very weird, hideously hyperbolic macromastic, image of womanhood, thus sending a monumental negative nebulistic message to women of realistic proportions (i.e. those in the 95% of the bell-shaped curve–oh god, was that an ODDpun?), and at the same time providing a two dimensional sexual aid to men. Distortion caries a heavy burden.

All this brings us to a few ODDthoughts. Forget all the theistic differences between Muslims and the Western world. One likes their women covered up, the other with their clothes off. Different method, same message. Here’s another thoughts for the day. Follow closely now. Anna Vickie Nichole Lynn recently had a baby, the father of whom is up for debate. The Prophet Abu al-Qasim Muhammad married his second (or possibly third) wife Ayescha when she was six years old (although he waited until he considered her to be a proper age before consummating the marriage–Ayescha was nine when the Prophet did the deed.) Hold on, don’t go P.C. quite yet. Most would say bedding a nine-year old is a reasonable candidate for the type of behavior that got John Mark Karr into a whole lot of trouble, a business class ticket to Boulder, Colorado and a lot of press re. the Jon Benet Ramsey case.

Okay, time for an interim summary. Death, sex, children, and…

everyone thus far associated with this story seems to have three names. But wait, there’s more… Prince Frederic Von Halt claims he’s the father of Anna Lynn Hogan’s child, Dinnelynn (that’s two names in our ODDbook). And to whom is the good Prince married? Ah hah–Zsa Zsa Gabor! The way we see it, we need a crack investigator brought in on the Anna Nichole Smith case, one with a sterling history of solving tough problems related to death, small children, and pediophiles. We ODDones say, bring in the Boulder, Colorado District Attorney, MARY LACY KEENAN!

~~The ODDones for OurDailyDead.com

Technorati tags: CSI, Vickie Lynn Hogan, Anna Nichole Smith, Abu al-Qasim Muhammad, Ayescha, John Mark Karr, Boulder, Jon Benet, Frederic Von Halt, Dinnelynn, Zsa Zsa Gabor, MARY LACY KEENAN