The World's Tiniest Football Player...

...on a video game.

The latest update to the popular EA Sports video game, Madden 2006, accidentally had a bug in it that made N.Y. Jets offensive lineman, Michael King, a mere 7 inches.



Excerpts from the CNET News.com story:

Due to a bug in a recent update to Electronic Arts' best-selling football title, "Madden 2006," King can be seen in the game as a tiny, 7-inch-tall version of himself.

According to Phil Frazier, a "Madden" producer, the bug was the result of a typo in the spreadsheet that lists player attributes such as weight, height and team affiliation. Frazier explained that the spreadsheet is designed to accept players' heights in inches, and therefore expects a two-digit entry.

"You can barely see him on the field, unless you go into replay (mode)," Frazier said. "He's a tiny little guy."

In any case, Frazier said the bug didn't change the way "Madden" played, despite King's diminutive stature. But he did acknowledge the humor of the situation.

"It wouldn't affect play," Frazier said. "He would literally look like a little speck. If he was the running back, the ball would be so big he would literally be inside the ball, and the ball would (look like) it was moving around on the ground (on its own)."

The Search for the Plagioclase Feldspar

As Redan leaned his weary body against his steely saber, he peered upwards over the horizon at the glorious zenith that his quest had taken him. He could not fathom the years of toil it took him to finally arrive at this heaven on Earth. As the sun loomed over the valley, he saw the glistening sparks of light that gleamed from the holy gem. Here lies the plagioclase feldspar, this panacea of all ills. Its sheer pulchritude alone, brings hope to all.

As Redan reflected on his long journey, he remembered his trial before the great Jabberwocky, where he successfully answered three riddles. Where is Carmen Sandiego? Who is Carmen Sandiego? Why are you asking me these stupid questions? He recollected his immense battle with the odious Beast of Tuurkhu, his crossing of the Seas of Armageddon, his seduction of the Wicked Fairy of the West, and how he ate the bitter root of justice and seared the forbidden steak. His long crusade was finally over.

Every corpuscle in his body tinged with trepidation as he held the angelic rock in his worn and parched hands. As Redan lifted the lustrous jewel to the sky, he noticed something was strangely wrong. As Redan’s eyes squinted along the intertwining angles of the stone, he began to realize that it wasn’t the plagioclase feldspar after all. It was its distant cousin – the orthoclase feldspar. Redan fell to his knees and crouched in pain, as he began to weep years of sorrow on that lonely hill.

Dungeons and DragonCon

To add to my popular blog on Gary Gygax and Dungeons and Dragons (32 comments! Thanks Big Crunch!), I attended DragonCon last weekend, North America's largest science, fantasy, and gaming convention held in Atlanta. No, I didn't pay to get in, I just snuck into one of the hotels to gawk and take pictures of what I dubbed "Dork Fest '05."

DragonCon is highly entertaining, mainly for the fact that people dress up like it's early Halloween and in some really awesome and detailed costumes. And over the past few years, more girls (and hotter looking ones I might add) have been attending. We also brought a video camera to film a going away present for a friend of ours who is heading to the African Congo. I asked a passing Klingon to look into the camera and say "Hey Lauren" in Klingon. He responded with "Ahgthaarrg, Lauren."

A guy I know, Gary, attended the convention with a gigantic life-size penis, complete with hairy scrotum and a tube connected to whip cream that would shoot out of the tip. The beauty of his creation was that he could wear it on his head. The shouts of "Hey, Dickhead" got old pretty fast. We toured around the hotel with Gary and his phallic hat, and it's amazing the reactions that people give towards male genitalia. I mean c'mon people, it's just 'El Wiener Gigante!' About half of the people loved it, including a hot Storm Troopette:


A bunch of nuns:


And this metrosexual:


And the others were either completely scared by it or were made very uncomfortable.
Like Jesus for example:


And a pissed off monkey:


For the people that didn't care for the life-size penis, I would take the humongous tube steak and "accidentally" run into them with it or put it on their shoulder when they weren't looking. We went on to have more hours of fun with Gary's dildo sombrero by filming him in a drum circle (takes a little while to download):


And then hacky-sacking with some hippies (takes a little while to download):


Overall, DragonCon was alot of fun and although I didn't see an Elvis stormtrooper this time around, I'll still probably attend next year.

Do you remember the name Gary Gygax?

Doesn't ring a bell? Well, how about these four words:
DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS, BITCH!
Looks like they had their 30th Anniversary back on August 16, 2004. What, you were barbecuing on that day or taking a dump in the bathroom? Well, so was I!



This reminded me, however, of my frolicking youthful days when I tried to get into D&D. For better or worse, I never was able to "get into" it. The first time I played, it was with some friends at one of our parents' parties. After spending an hour just creating our characters and figuring out what a Dexterity of 30 was, we were finally off in some ancient forest, walking down a dirt trail, when lo and behold, we came across our first monster to fight. I was thinking to myself, "Hoo-yeah! It's finally dragon-whomping time! Or maybe we'll face some beastly Orc-hulk, where I could use my special Elf dagger to flail him." Instead, I was sorely disappointed to be standing face-to-face with a Gelatinous Cube. My first reaction was, "What the hell is a gelatinous cube?" My friend next to me explained, "Well, it looks something like this," as he drew it out:



I can't even remember if we defeated the gelatinous cube or if we even finished the game. Recollection tells me, we probably stopped and went back to the living room to do something else.

My sister bought the Dungeons and Dragons game for me for X-mas once, but my dad made her return it, because he just read in the news about a boy who played the game, and then threw a homemade fireball at his dad.



I was definitely pissed at my dad, but for his sake, I didn't know how to make a homemade fireball. Instead of the D&D game, I had to settle for some "Choose Your Own Adventure Books." Yawn.



One of the last times I played D&D, I figured out how to use the political lobbyist approach in befriending the dungeon master and getting him to give me a special bow and arrow that shot out electrified arrows or something. There was also this kid who kept wanting to use his "Change Someone Into an Animal" spell. He became so annoying in asking if he could use the spell over and over again that the dungeon master finally gave in, but made it backfire, and the guy ended up turning himself into an anteater, for which he had to play the rest of the game as.

Oh, such were the joyful and innocent days of my youth...

I'm such a geek.

Caveman Blog

Me Caveman. Me write blog. Me no like bath. Me breath stink furious. Me can't find club. Me hungry. Me ride Wooly Mammoth.

http://snltranscripts.jt.org/91/91gcaveman.phtml
http://snltranscripts.jt.org/95/95pcavemanlawyer.phtml

Squirrels Must Like to Hibernate in July

Sorry about the lack of posts lately. Seems like July is not a "blog month." I guess "work" has finally caught up with me, not like some of you work slackers who just surf the net every day. To keep you entertained till August (which is probably when the next post will be), here's some random mess culled from e-mails and websites.

Paul Brians has put out a book called "Common Errors in English Usage." For you literati, it is fairly amusing to see typical mistakes made in our "center-of-the-universe" language. However, I couldn't find the word "cumin" in his book, which is actually pronounced "cuh-min."

Here's a funny picture of a Mississippi State University bass boat. I wouldn't want to hit a wake in this thing.



Here's a complaint written to Continental Airlines. You can download it here. What is really funny about this complaint are the pictures that he draws.

Do we really need anymore reality TV shows?

Looks like the latest abomination from the TV garbage dump is a reality show starring Hulk Hogan's family titled Hogan Knows Best. Hulk Hogan "wrestles with the everday struggles" of raising a family.



But my question is, does anybody remember "Thunder in Paradise?" Now that was an awesome show and a movie. A la Knight Rider, Hulk Hogan is an ex-Navy SEAL who solves crimes with a superboat christened "Thunder."



One TV episode involves animal poachers who catch a wild boy in their net. The boy was apparently raised by wolves. Hulk Hogan finds the boy, takes him home, and attempts to protect him from the scientists who want to study him.

Visit this site for some great thoughts and insight on "Thunder in Paradise."