An Emacs Meme Generator

I got an idea tonight: Emacs must have a meme generator.  Using a web browser seems so jejune.

After pondering a few minutes and then typing a few hours, here it is.  And here’s how it looks in action:

It basically just manipulates an SVG image, so it’s less work than you’d expect.

If you want to play around with it, you need a very fresh Emacs trunk; see this for easy installation instructions.  You also need the Impact font from the Microsoft font collection; in Debian it’s installed by saying

apt-get install ttf-mscorefonts-installer

Uhm…  I think that’s basically it.

useful

FF1995: Filibusting Comics

Filibusting Comics #1 by Dylan Sisson.

This book is a parody of Scott McCloud’s seminal “Understanding Comics” book. I mean, that’s a pretty sticky book.

McCloud’s career is an unusual one. He made a fondly remembered book back in the 80s, Zot, that wasn’t a major commercial success. It was sweet and fun, but not without flaws. Then he wrote the aforementioned glutinous theoretical work (about, er, understanding comics) which was a great success. It was discussed widely. Everybody bought a copy. Universities have it on their curriculae. And it’s a bit ridiculous.

Then not much happened until he created the smash hit graphic novel called The Sculptor the other year, which is awful. Aaawful. (The “Best American Comics” anthology he edited a few years back was great, though, so he obviously has good taste.)

So puzzle.

And I was a bit unfair up there about that viscous book. It formulated many thoughts about comics clearly and understandably. If a bit pendantically, as parodied above. The worst thing about the book, I think, was the way it seemed to beg for legitimacy throughout, for instance by making the ludicrous claim that comics had always been there, if we just squint a lot:

See skewering above.

This is a quite funny parody if you’re read the mucilaginous McCloud book, but will otherwise be a bit on the “eh?” side, I suspect.

This post is part of the Fantagraphics Floppies series.

WFC Japan: 宇宙海賊キャプテンハーロック

The Blu-Ray turns out not to have any languages that I understand, so I had to use the online Internet film caches to get a copy I could watch. (Well, actually two copies, since the first one (as can be seen in the first screenshots) was very artifacty.)

This is a vert un-nerdy un-science fictioney film, so almost every scene something is going on that makes me go “er… a scull and bones flag outside the space ship blowing in the… wind?” or the like.

Perhaps they designed this film to annoy pendants.

Great hair animation.

I liked bits of this film enormously, but there’s plenty of stuff that’s just… standard.

Space Captain Pirate Harlock. Shinji Aramaki. 2013. Japan.

Tatami Cocktail

  • 1 part pineapple juice
  • 1 part apricot brandy
  • a dash of lemon juice
  • 2 parts whiskey
  • 1 part simple syrup
  • 1 part Kahlua

Shake everything but the Kahlua in an ice filled shaker. Pour into a cocktail glass. Add the Kahlua to the top, but don’t stir. Burn some dried lemongrass and then add to the cocktail as a garnish.

This post is part of the World of Films and Cocktails series. Explore the map.

Useful Consumer Review

What with all these cocktails, I was getting tired of carrying bags of ice cubes from the store.  So I bought an ice cube machine today:  Logik L12IM14E.

It’s not connected to the water mains, so it can be placed anywhere, but it’s on the kitchen counter for now.  And it’s kinda noisy.  I guess it’s a compressor and a fan in there, so the noise is quite nice and steady, but it’s still more than what you’d want to have around you in the kitchen for hours.

I think it took about an hour and a half to fill the basket with frozen…  shapes. The ice cubes, as you can see, aren’t very cubic.

_1310601And as you can see from the milky look, they’re full of air bubbles.

_1310605

I popped the finished basket of ice…  bullets…  into the freezer, which made them even cloudier.  And they froze into a solid block.

_1310606

I put the block into a plastic bag and bashed it against the cutting board a few (OK, many) times, and they came unstuck, and you can see the final result above.

Not very impressive, but they taste OK.  The amount of air bubbles means that they’ll melt faster, and break up more when shaking.

Rating: Perhaps usable.

WFC Egypt: عمارة يعقوبيان

That’s a lot of comedy false beards.

I mean… That beard on the guy to the right…

*sigh*

That’s the most efficient way to drive police vans down the street, I’m sure.

…

!!!

I don’t think this is a very good film… but I may not be completely in the mood for this type of film. I mostly like the actors, but the script is very abrupt and schematic.

Like when that guy was applying for a police job. “What does your father do?” “He’s an employee.” “A janitor or an employee?” “Er… uhm… a janitor is in employee…” “Next.”

But an interview as abrupt and obviously discriminatory as that just wouldn’t happen. And many of the dialogues are like that: Way too much to the point. The thing at the university about the poor kids saying to each other “I’m sure we’ll find others like us to hang out with” with a jump cut to them being in a mosque gave me an eyeball roll sprain.

But there’s some of good stuff in this quite long film, so perhaps I just needed to be more drunk. Drunker. Great if you want a ridiculous film about sexual exploitation and corruption and torture and the inevitability of the Moslem Brotherhood, I guess.

The Yacoubian Building. Marwan Hamed. 2006. Egypt.

Egyptian Princess recipe

  • 2 parts vodka
  • 2 parts watermelon juice
  • 1 part pomegranate juice

Blend (in a blender) with ice until smooth. Pour into a martini glass.

It separated in the glass, so it doesn’t look very pretty, but it’s quite refreshing. I increased the amount of watermelon juice, though.

This post is part of the World of Films and Cocktails series. Explore the map.