The Bones Blog Syndication Wed, 09 Jan 2013 06:52:11 +0000 forum@bzpower.com (BZP Forums) IP.Blog 60
 
LINK
 
Yes, I still plan to finish up the loose ends and post a new version. It's proving harder to get around to than I thought, sorry. But the whole main plot is in this version.]]> Wed, 09 Jan 2013 04:01:00 +0000  
Hiccups are essentially muscle spasms in the diaphragm -- the muscle that forms the "floor" of the lungs and is one of two ways we breathe. Now, when spasms occur in normal muscles, the standard advice is simply to stretch them for a few seconds.
 
So the easy solution to hiccups is to stretch the diaphragm for a few seconds. The trick is knowing how to do so.
 
The key is that the muscles that surround our rib cage form the second method of breathing, and when used in combination with holding your breath, can increase pressure on the diaphragm, forcing it to expand downwards, stretching like a balloon under pressure.
 
So, if you get hiccups, simply take a breath, and compress your lungs via the rib muscles.
 
It's basically the opposite of sucking your stomach in; your diaphragm should move down, so your stomach should puff out (yes, it'll make you look fat lol). No need to be extreme; just hold it for a few seconds, and release. Now breathe normally. The hiccups should be cured; if not, try taking a deeper breath and holding it longer.
 
The key is that using the rib muscles to compress stretches the diaphragm more than your control over the diaphragm itself makes possible. It's the equivalent of many types of exercise warmup maneuvers which will typically also bend the muscle more than its own inherent control can do.
 
The partial version of this is fairly well known, but it's usually just explained as "holding your breath." (As cited on the Wikipedia page.) Just holding your breath is one possible indirect way of causing this, as some people when holding their breath will "accidentally" apply stretching pressure. But this explanation tends not to work because not everybody will habitually stretch their diaphragm when they hold their breath, so these people are left with the impression that holding your breath is just another urban myth akin to "scare me" nonsense.
 
Actually, sucking in a lot of breath is really not necessary most of the time. Just hold whatever breath you have and compress downward, although the more air inside the better. A normal breathing in is usually enough.
 
Incidentally, "scare me" sometimes works for the same reason; it will sometimes cause people to suck in their breath, accidentally stretching the diaphragm, but you may as well save yourself the trouble (and the sillyness) by just stretching it intentionally.
 
To be clear, don't make a big deal about it. It's actually extremely easy.
 
Sometimes when I've briefly tried to explain this to people, they look all dramatic and try to puff themselves up like, well, a pufferfish, and then think they have to hold their breath until they're blue in the face. (Probably because people are so used to the myth that hiccups are hard to cure, that they think all solutions must be used with gusto.) No, no. Generally just a few seconds will do, and if not, there's no real harm in pausing to take a breath and then stretch it again. It seems to work "cumulatively"; the time spent stretching adds up, rather than the whole thing collapsing so you'd have to start over (though this is hard to quantify just from personal experimentation, so I can't be sure of this part).
 
NOTE: Wikipedia states on the hiccup page that some forms of hiccups are caused by more serious medical issues, so it's possible this method will not cure all hiccups. Basically, try it, and if it doesn't work, then try something else -- but I find that unlike most "home remedies" that carry that same advice, this one actually works every time I try it.
 
Drinking water may work as a more long-term fix if water deficiency is causing the original problem, but to me the idea of drinking while your breathing is violently spasmodic seems dangerous, as you might easily take it in the wrong way and have to cough it up. If eating or drinking I try to hold whatever breath I have already and be sure to swallow before trying this.]]> Tue, 04 Dec 2012 00:45:00 +0000

]]> Tue, 13 Nov 2012 22:56:00 +0000
Don't forget to enter the S&T contest, everybody!

Sorry I've been a bit slow in proofreading the ones some of you PMed to me, but don't hesitate to do that if you want. I will try to be very thorough and check as many details as I can, so it can take a while, but I usually do catch some things to fix.

Has everybody seen LDD's latest version? The pieces are finally split up into more logical and numerous categories. Previously a lot of the minifig-related pieces were all dumped into two categories, which made finding the right part very tricky, but now they've got categories for bodies, head, hats, armor, weapons, animals, and more. Plus, I may be crazy, but it seems like there's a couple more Bionicle parts than I remember. And there's even more great HF parts and others.

This past month I have started taking all my collecting-dust MOCs and making LDD versions of them, instead of worrying about getting an expensive camera, and taking the less masterful ones apart. Finally clearing up shelf space this way, and ironically it's got me wanting to buy more LEGO finally. LDD, having the opposite effect I worried it might, once again.

I'm also categorizing my real plastic pieces by LDD-ify-able and non, so future MOCs can be guaranteed to be easily turned into digital form.

Anywho, as usual there's plenty on here that's still on the to-do list. My next project is to put up the polls of the Matoran traits -- this is just for curiosity, but it's been on my list for a while and shouldn't be too hard, so I plan to do that quickly this week. After that I'll worry about the Shards contest polls, which will take more work to collect and sort everything, and when that's done, start on the EM Season 1 finale and the like.

The first General Art contest on the new forums was very fun, and although we didn't get a ton of turnout, did get some great winning pieces out off it. So, this would probably be a good time to start throwing theme ideas at me for the next one. (Maybe to run around December-January or thereabouts.)]]> Tue, 23 Oct 2012 05:02:00 +0000 Today the Bones Blog brings you a spoofish attempt to combine punny versions of Bionicle names with their trope functions in-story, summarizing the entire Bionicle storyline in a way that might help you remember Bionicle, might make you laugh, or might make you long for pie jokes. Enjoy!

In the Time Before Microwaves, the Giant Sprite Bottle descended from the sky. His name was Matthew Dewey. Inside the Giant Sprite Bottle, many bionic Matthewians lived, working to keep Matthew healthy.

But Matthew had been lulled into a false sense of security, and many other bionic beings inside turned against him.

There were the fearsome “Zee-weapon-eez-ready!” beings, or Zee-ans for short. There were the violent Spikebackies, also sometimes mistakenly called by the name of a splinter group of them, the Pyraspikes. There were the bruteish Stuffedshirtians, one of whom led an army of the spidery Visual-rocks, so named because the brown ones could camouflage themselves as stones. And many areas were conquered by warlords called the Bad-wisecrackers.

But the worst of all were a group of scientists who had many powers, especially Shadiness and Freaky Costumes – the Make-huge-toxic-beasts. They lived up to their name by creating the Raaaaaaring beasts. The worst of all went by the title Make-you-think-you-won. His name was Terrorbats.

He made Matthew sick, and fall asleep as he was flying through space.

Now, long, long ago, in the same galaxy, before the Giant Sprite Bottle had been made, many other bionic people named the Gladiators and the A-gory-sport-watchers lived happily on their green world, Big Ball. They had their own troubles – they had bestial cousins named the Voracious Eaters, and cunningly evil cousins called the Screw-yalls. There were also the Elementary Lord-it-overs.

But their worst trouble came when they discovered an Energy Drink filling inside the Big Ball. They all squabbled over who should control the filling, and totally missed noticing they'd left the cork to the nozzle open, so the Energy Drink leaked out. Thus began the Cork War.

Some secretive, clever scientists used incomprehensible magical science to figure out that the Big Ball would soon break into three big pieces if it kept leaking. Their actual name wasn't known, nor was anything else, so everybody just called them the Grandiose Let-Them-Be. They decided they must do whatever it took to stand up for what was right.

So naturally they made murderous invisible robots called the Batty-terrors (some say Terrorbats was inspired by them).

When that failed miserably, they decided to build the Giant Sprite Bottle instead, and.... send him off to study alien planets for a long, long time. Yeah.

The planet split apart right on schedule, and Matthew Dewey left without doing anything about it.

Most of the Big Ball became the Big Brown Olive, where most of the inhabitants remained. Its water was all lost to one of two other big fragments, the uninhabited Big Blue. And its trees somehow all ended up on the Big Side Salad, which was mostly populated by more Voracious Eaters.

The Grandiose Let-Them-Be were too shamed by their apparent failures to stick around, so they disappeared for the most part, except for three. One was serving out a Life Sentence in prison. Another named And-they're-gone stayed behind. And a third disguised himself as a Matthewian inside the Bottle, named Vell-I-like-ya! It is thought that he was responsible for the Zee-weapon-eez-ready! beings.

Matthew got so lulled into a sense that nothing was wrong by his adventures that he almost forgot he was supposed to put the Big Ball back together again, until one day he happened to look inside himself – no, he didn't pay attention to the actually intelligent bionic beings struggling against evil inside him, but he did notice a pattern in the ground made by the Sharp Moles that reminded him of the Big Brown Olive, Big Blue, and Big Side Salad.

So, he was on his way back, when Terrorbats' sickness hit.

He fell onto the Big Blue.

A camouflage system inside him, that used some of the Energy Drink, leaked out, and created a crust over the bottle that made him appear to be a giant island.

Just moments before this, in a big city inside the Bottle called the Big City (its Matthewians weren't very imaginative), Terrorbats attacked and imprisoned its leader, an elder who went by the title Too-old-to-be-wrong-guy, named Doom-and-gloom. Terrorbats put on a disguise that made him look like the elder, and began ruling the island.

First he sent some of its elemental heroes off to their deaths. These were called the Toe-wahs, because they had a tendency to stub their toes and cry. Earlier one of the Big City's Toe-Wahs had fallen into evil – he was called Knee-deepey because he used to wade in water to try to make the pain in his toes go down. But an evil female Zee-an named Rude-awakener transformed him so he had four legs and stubbed his toes even more.

Another Toe-wah, named Lee Candle, wielded fire, and remained alive in the Big City. He realized something was wrong with the Too-old-to-be-wrong-guy and sought out six Matthewians to become heroes as well. In return, he stopped stubbing his toes so much and became another Too-old-to-be-wrong-guy.

These new City Heroes were:

Vacuumer, a clean-freak forger who wore the Canola Mask, Who's-not-there?, which made him invisible. He also specialized in making more Canola Masks, and had practiced whining a lot so he would make a good Toe-wah. He wielded fire too.

No-comma, a teacher whose mask was the Wow-your-grammar-sux mask, which enabled her to mark up her students' papers for even the slightest infraction, but she preferred blue ink over red so she wouldn't scare kids. She wielded water.

When-you-were-little, a gruff historian who loved mudslinging, and used his Read-at-night mask to learn as many embarrassing facts about his friends' childhoods as he could find time for.

A-new-one, a carver who was even better than When-you-were-little at insulting people, and would always come up with new slights for every occasion. He controlled stone and manipulated people with his Come-now mask.

Math-pow, a clever prankster and vehicle tester who loved to use technical know-how to come up with fast vehicles that often crashed, and also to concoct elaborate hoaxes and pranks that usually involved objects carefully balanced on the edges of half-open doors. He controlled wind, and his mask, the Mirage-key, enabled him to create illusions.

And finally, Nudge-you, a scholar who didn't like to talk, and would rather get your attention by nudging and pointing at whatever he wanted you to notice. He also could move objects telekinetically with the Move-that-for-you mask. He wielded ice.

Terrorbats first sent the evil Morbidstalk plant against the City Heroes, but they defeated it by collecting the six Wonderful Frisbees to slice it to bits. Then he sent out the robotic police of the Big City, the Vacuumies, but Vacuumer knew too much about them and was able to help the Toe-wahs dodge them. He also sent the mutated Knee-deepey and a brute named Creaky against them, both of whom now worked for the Shady Poachers organization, but they were outsmarted.

Sadly, Terrorbats was able to fool the Matthewians long enough to command them to get inside little Psychodelic Cages, which made them forget their past lives. The cages also weakened them into Toe-bunglers, diminutive beings with big toes, so they would stub their toes a lot even without having elemental powers.

Terrorbats had earlier hired Vacuumer to make a powerful Mask of Boredom, the Canola Yawney, which he believed would enable time to seem to flow very slowly for the Toe-bunglers so he could tell them a fake version of history that painted Terrorbats as the good guy. But Vacuumer didn't give Terrorbats the mask – so the villain tried to steal it, but Lee Candle blocked his attack, and was killed, giving the City Heroes a chance to trap him in an Ice Cube.

It was at this time that Matthew fell asleep, and the bottle crashed, causing the Bad Shake. The bottle's lid cracked as the carbonated pop expanded for a while.

The Toe-wah knew it was only a matter of time before the ice melted, so they traveled through one of these cracks to the crusted outer surface of the Giant Sprite Bottle, and named the land there Matthew Dewey Island after their fallen leader. Then they returned to the Big City to bring the Toe-bunglers up to this new land.

But Terrorbats called out mentally to summon an army of the Visual-rock spiders, led by Rude-awakener and by a Stuffshirtian named Sillydoormat. The spiders' bites mutated the Toe-wah into Horrible bestial versions of themselves, but with the help of mysterious but wise Aha-guys and the powerful cyclops Keep-an-eye-on-you, eventually overcame the enemies and brought the Toe-bunglers to the new land. In the process, the Toe-wah became Too-old-to-be-wrong-guys and divided their people into six villages, each elder leading one.

There was the icy Frozen Coca-Cola village, led by Nudge-you.

The jungle village of Leaky-Rooves, led by Math-pow.

The desert fortress of Poke-Aura, led A-new-one.

The underground realm of A-new-kind-o'-Oreo, led by When-you-were-little.

The all-female Gal Corner, led by No-comma.

And finally the volcanic castle village of Talk-or-roast, led by Vacuumer.

Terrorbats used Infectious Canola to control many Raaaaring beasts and send them against the Toe-bunglers, especially the Man-that's-big crabs, the Tail-jabber scorpions, the What-are-ya-called-again? dino-lizard-snake... things... the My-neck-can-reach-ya tigers and oxen, and the Buzzy-drama dragonflies.

For a thousand years they warred against these beasts, until one strange Talk-or-roastian (who was really an Average Matthewian in disguise – that is, the original type of Matthewian who all the others were based on, of the element of light – but had forgotten this) Had An Adventure There And Back Again, and was shunned for it. His name was Take-you-along, because he was fated to bring an overcurious Toe-bungler named Tap-dance-happy along to his near doom.

But on that first adventure, he brought six special stones to a Super-Value shrine, which had many mystical powers. This one summoned six more Toe-wah to the island.

This special hero team was named the Matthew Heroes because it was their job to heal and reawaken the Giant Bottle.

They were:

Talk-huge, the tempermental hero of fire, who wore the How'd-ya-hit-me? mask that shielded him from any harm except surprise attacks.

Golly, the friendly female hero of water, who could breathe water with her Kow-tow-to-fish mask.

Poe-hah-too, the hero of stone who could make a joke even out of Edgar-Allen-Poe type horrific situations. His Car-Comet mask enabled him to zoom zoom.

A-new-wah, the hero of earth who could make enemies find new reasons to cry with his Pack-a-real-punch mask.

Cold-puck, the aloof hero of ice whose I-can-see-through-you mask enabled him to see even the most cunningly hidden enemies and artifacts. He also loved hockey.

And then there was Louie, the airhead hero of air, whose grin-shaped mask, the Me-truefly, enabled him to hover, which when combined with his power over air enabled him to fly.

After these heroes arrived, Take-you-along had other Adventures.

At one point, in Poke-Aura, he encountered a sneaky salesman named Achoo, who sold special “No comment” balls for a popular sport of that town, Goalie. Later he met the ill-fated Tap-dance-happy, took him along, and lost him to the enemy – so he had to rescue him from a hive of Buzzy-drama, as well as Math-pow. He earned some respect from the elders and was assigned the honored job of Secretary, which he found boring, but tried to keep up with writing historical records anyways.

Most importantly, he formed the Secretary's Cooperation, a group of Toe-bunglers that helped the Toe-wah fight Terrorbats's beasts. The Matthew Heroes fought their way past the Raaarings, and even turned into two fused beings of three each, forcing the Raaarings to give them the name Can't-eat-ya. Finally, Terrorbats Made Them Think They Beat Him. They all celebrated, but Terrorbats released a new threat onto the island.

These were the Bugborg, unstoppable but very cute round robots that were tasked with cleaning off the crust from the surface of the Giant Bottle. The robots' secret power was their Brainyucks, living creatures in their heads that could clamp onto a face to mind-control them. They were led by the Bah-Humbug-Hags.

The Toe-wah Matthew defeated the Bugborg by trapping the Hags in another Ice Cube, but they fell into a secret collection of Energy Drink, and were transformed into the Toe-Wah New Forms.

Elite Bugborg Whoyagonnacall? were released, and stole the New Heroes' elemental powers, and made them share their mask powers too. They did this by stealing the heroes' Symbolism. And then they went to a Rubik's cube and started to try to solve it.

But Vacuumer had given Talk-huge the Yawney, and he bored the Whoyagonnacall so that they fell apart before they could solve it. Only their Brainyucks remained, and these were thrown into a deep hole.

Around this time, the Toe-bunglers were rebuilt into as close to the original Matthewian forms as the Too-old-to-be-wrong-guys could manage, and took on the old species name again. Take-you-along took along a fire villager named Jolly, and his pet Us-yall-ride-it crab, Peekaboo, on a quest to follow the Flashlight Beam cast by the Mask of Light, the Canola Average-okeydokey. It was believed they were looking for a Seventh Toe-wah.

By then Terrorbats had healed, and sent out his Rockstars to hunt down Take-you-along with their Electric Guitars.

But this plan backfired when one of the Rockstars killed Jolly, and Take-you-along realized the error of his ways. He decided to change his name to Taking-you-back-home, and transformed into the hero of light.

He defeated the Rockstars, and Terrorbats Made Him Think He Won – and in the process revived Jolly, who finally learned to live up to his own name. Taking-you-back-home helped take everybody back home to the Big City, so the New Heroes could start the process of reawakening the Giant Sprite Bottle.

Meanwhile, the Too-old-to-be-wrong-guys told everybody of their history.

They arrived at the city to learn from Doom-and-gloom that Matthew Dewey wasn't just asleep, he was dying – and they had to go on a big voyage, to an island named Big Voyage (its inhabitants had the same imagination problem), and retrieve the powerful Canola Ignoble-geekdom, the mask of Get A Life. It had the ability to give people rude awakenings, but of a more well-intentioned sort that could shake people out of their indifference... and revive them if they had just died, due to a pun-based glitch in its coding.

So, the New Heroes went there, only to be promptly thwomped to utter defeat by the Pyraspikes, who wanted the Ignoble-geekdom for themselves – though they didn't seem to understand what would happen if they actually got it.

Then Jolly, Taking-you-back-home, and five other Mathewians set out to try to find out what happened. But Taking-you-back-home was turned away by a special barrier, and had to take himself back home.

Jolly's group went through a scary land ruled by the corrupt Cars-and-knees, a repairman who was supposed to fix cars and damaged bionic beings, but did a lousy job of it. They managed to find one car that still worked, and took it to the Big Voyage island.

When they got there, a red star in the sky, imaginatively called the Red Star, blasted them with mysterious lightning, and turned them into the powerful Toe-wah I-need-geekdom, who could use electronics really well.

They were:

Jolly, hero of Fire whose mask was the Cool-luck-skill, enabling him to pull off really cool moves that took a lot of luck and skill.

Hah-hah-hah, female hero of water, who was really good at friendly jokes, but had a nervous breakdown when the Red Star accidentally gave her a moustache and chronic headaches thanks to her Elderly-imitation mask, which was supposed to help her find the mask of Get A Life, but all it did was make her see ghosts.

King-Kong-dude, whose You-tell-us mask let him read minds. He wielded air.

Hulky, the athletic sharpshooter who wore the Sand-knock mask, which let him hit even a particle of sand with a projectile at long range accurately. Wielded stone.

New-pair-o-boots, the earth hero, an inventor who could make new shoes out of anything. He was also famous for making Boxerboot robots, which could be worn like boots to control their feet, and also had punching arms to fight Bugborgs. He tried for a long time to make Spockflight boots, but gladly gave up the many disastrous attempts when as a hero he gained the Canola Glidin', which enabled him to fly.

Most importantly, there was the hero of ice, who was purest at heart and most devoted to doing what was right, even if it would cost him his life – Made-oreos. He could turn snow into the most delicious cookies, making him highly popular. The only person who had a problem with him was Hah-hah-hah, because his mask enabled him to seem to be a ghost, the Canola I-dunno-if-I-saw-a-ghost-or-not.

These Toe-wah tracked down the Ignoble-geekdom, defeating the Pyraspikes and the end of the 7,700,007-stair tunnel underneath the volcanic My-valor mountain. They had help from six Matthewians of the island – one of them being the disguised Grandiose Let-Them-Be, Vell-I-like-ya, as well as the powerful titan Ax-on-steroids. The Pyraspikes were aided by Brutalguy.

But just as they collected the mask, it fled from them, diving beneath the water to a big marine place called Big Marine Place. The Toe-wuh I-need-geekdom chased, becoming the Toe-wuh Marine.

They got six new mask powers:

Jolly got the Get-yer-Arthur-on, which enabled him to resemble a medieval dragon... oh, and had a sonar power too.

Hah-hah-hah got the Facts-on-animals mask, which enabled her to learn to imitate sea creatures and even copy any powers or abilities they had. It also had the wonderful benefits of not having a moustache, giving her headaches, or making her see ghosts. Plus, she got wings just to look cool.

King-Kong-Dude got stuck with a Canola Splat, a mask that could enable random sea monsters to go all king kong on anyone nearby, including himself. He carried two projectile launchers to help defend himself against his own summoned creatures if need be.

Hulky got a Get-real-heavy mask, making him even hulkier.

New-pair-o-boots got a Volt-cloak mask, which projected a forcefield that made him partially invisible, and dampened sound as well.

And finally, poor Made-oreos got stuck with a disturbing If-all-else-fails-try-necromancy, which enabled him to control corpses.

Here the Marine Heroes ran into heavily mutated forms of the Bad-wisecrackers, the ancient warlords who had been cast into a prison but had escaped. After everybody ran around, grabbing the mask and trying in vain to Get A Life, Made-oreos finally captured the mask, and sacrificed his life. Matthew Dewey's life was saved. And in his last action, the hero of ice teleported his friends back to the Big City.

Meanwhile, the New Heroes were busy working on various steps to awakening Matthew. They melted the Ice Cube that had trapped the Bah-Humbug-Hags, allowing the Bugborg to clean the crust off the Giant Sprite Bottle. Then they headed to the giant's most vital organ, the Big Heart.

Here they fought several villains called Make-you-think-we-want-to-stop-yous, and were aided by Average Matthewians, and Ignoble-geekdom, who turned himself into a Toe-wah and then awoke Matthew. The Make-you-think-we-want-to-stop-yous were betrayed by Terrorbats, who allowed a Fizz Eruption to destroy them. But the Toe-wah and their allies escaped with powerful vehicles.

But suddenly, horrible news came – Terrorbats had taken over the Bottle, and exiled Matthew from his own body, in the Mask of Get a Life, sending it to the Big Brown Olive planet!

The good guys fought Terrorbats from within, as Matthew tried to organize the Gladiators and A-gory-sport-watchers to stop the Screw-yalls and take over an Empty Bottle. Several important characters at this time were:

Ackbar – whose favorite expression was, “Itsh a trap!”... oh wait, wrong story...

Greenish – a green Gladiator good guy.

Can-ya-take-me-to-da-alienz? – a blue female.

Malcontent – a red exile who was able to do a Crocodile Dundee mind-control trick on the Voracious Eaters.

Meanstreak – a white gladiator that was willing to cheat.

Certificate-of-death – a historical figure who is now dead.

Terrific-skill – a blue gladiator who is good at fighting.

Tumor-worthy-skill – a giant leader of Skrew-yall, famous for his pitiful one-on-one fight against Matthew Dewey.

Click-here – a beetle that Matthew befriended, and awarded by turning into a lifeless shield that enemy swords would hit over and over again... and then occasionally back into a beetle, but inexplicably the beetle seemed to love him all the more for it.

Run-you – the red leader of the A-gory-sport-watchers, who could honestly say to everybody else that he runs their country. He also led the village of Vulcans-R-us.

Very-fix – blue junk scavenger.

Attack-us-please? – rock tribe helper of the Screw-yall.

Tardy-luck – a green adventurer who tends to find useful things but also tends not to show up for work on time.

So-mad – the only known survivor of the disease-inflicted iron tribe. He's not happy about it.

Met-us-halfway – a traitor who later got turned into a snake by the Mask of Get A Life.

Eventually, Terrorbats came to the Big Brown Olive and fought Matthew, who had taken over the Empty Bottle. An army of villains also came out onto the desert world to attack, including Looks-can-kill Rockstars and a hunchback Spikebackie named Neckgone who also led many other Spikebackies who looked like clones of him for some reason. The Screw-yall also joined the fight, too embarrassed by the easy defeat of Tumor-worthy-skill to do anything else.

Talk-huge escaped the Giant Sprite Bottle and used the Glinty Armor to destroy all the Rockstars. The Spikebackies and Screw-yalls surrendered.

Meanwhile, Matthew started the process of re-forming the Big Ball, and a piece of Big Blue broke off and hit Terrorbats, killing him. The Giant Sprite Bottle broke open, and its inhabitants fled. Then Matthew used the Empty Bottle to finish the process, and the Big Ball was re-formed. Yay, celebrations, and stuff.

Later Vell-I-like-ya started killing people, like the gelatinous Tryin'-not-to-seem-crummy, and Cars-and-knees. Cold-puck and Poe-hah-too traveled to the Red Star and Saw Dead People, including a Matthewian named Maverick, but were almost killed by beings who lived on the star called Can't-send-or-keep-ya. A new, highly mysterious being called Goldiflocks waved a hand and made a castle. Meanwhile, a team of people led by a Toe-wah, Order-in-the-court, went on a mission to the Big Side Salad region to try to find the Grandiose Let-Them-Be, and ran into trouble with the Voracious Eaters.

As for Matthew Dewey, he stayed inside the Mask of Get a Life and left. Some said that he was lulled into a false sense that the bionic beings didn't need his help... others that he had learned not to be lulled into false senses of stuff and was actually going on an important mission. Still others think he was just trying to Get A Life, but the world may never know...

Whatever the future may hold, such has been the Legend of the Bionic Lull.]]> Tue, 02 Oct 2012 04:17:00 +0000

]]> Thu, 21 Jun 2012 17:22:00 +0000

Read! Enjoy! Review! =D]]> Tue, 15 May 2012 03:29:00 +0000 Firstly, the General Art contest, LEGO Battlescapes, had been extended by two weeks, to Tuesday May 8, at 11:59 PM EST.

Enter!


Second, still writing The Perfect Cage. The end is in sight now.

Third, now that taxes are done I hope to start getting some Expanded Multiverse stuff back up later this week. Watch the discussion topic in S&T for updates. Not sure how much I'll be able to get to this week but what is needed includes putting up a saved copy of the wiki in downloadable format (a temporary solution), redoing the fanon collection topic, continuing the Shards contest, art for the next (finished) Cipher Chronicles episode, figuring out if I'll be posting that or the guest author, posting it, and working on the Season One finale.

Big list lol, and I've probably forgotten something.

Fourthly, I've been writing, off and on, a blog series I've been thinking of doing for over a year, basically expanding on my "variety is good for society" theory that I've summed up before. Obviously geared towards forum discussion, but a lot of it is applicable in many other situations. Because I've had trouble keeping up blog series that I wrote as I went before, I'm instead writing this whole series before I start launching, just as I do with fanfics, so it'll be easy to continue posting it until it's all up. So it might be a while before I launch it. And yes, I'll try (try ) to keep it more concise than my older entries.

Fifthly, LOST still rocks.

Sixthly, speaking of LOST, I think I've come up with a theory that explains what was really going on in the Season Five finale, which in my observation is the single most confusing part of LOST to most fans. Basically, I think the Lostaways really had to be at the Swan site to be teleported back to the future. In all the other time-jumps, energy was seen building up (due to the Orchid wheel being off its axle) before they "time-ported". Well, energy was building up at the Swan site too.

So I think the nuke did NOT go off, but that finale tap of the bomb just happened to be at the same time as enough energy had built up, and they were timeported to the future. But the bomb DID need delivered, so Juliet didn't die for nothing; bear with me on this. As soon as the energy was channeled into the timeportation, the Incident's charge was released just like what would happen later with the pushing of the button in the Hatch. This gave Dharma the idea and bought them some time to build the hatch before it built up again. But they also built the safeguard system to actually set off the nuke.

If I'm right, then when Desmond turned the key in the Season 2 finale, he actually set off the nuke then. And survived because he was farther away -- and he, Locke, and Eko were time-ported to safety too just before it went off, after the key was turned. This would seem to explain just about everything related to the Swan. But the bomb probably couldn't have gone off in the S5 finale, because Juliet was right next to it but she did survive for a while. Other theories are possible but they seem like more of a stretch to me.

Also there's some loose evidence for this in the flash sideways, that the island was sunk but Ben and his father moved off the island, hinting that if the nuke had gone off in the S5 finale, Juliet and company probably would have died, or at least Juliet, instantly, but the island would NOT have been destroyed as Kate thought; the same thing would have happened as when Desmond turned the key. But perhaps the early destruction of the Swan site would somehow let the Man in Black destroy the island by some other means, before Oceanic 815 flew by.

Of course, this is all an artificial construct in the afterlife made by the Lostaways to find each other, so it doesn't necessarily need to be accurate to what would have happened if the bomb went off, but it seems to fit.]]> Sun, 22 Apr 2012 19:47:00 +0000

I HAD NO IDEA THESE THINGS EXISTED!!!

They're awesome!

Look them up. Cool.

But how is it possible these things aren't all over Shark Week and school textbooks and the like, unlike Hammerheads whose alien awesomeness is all over the place?

This must be corrected at once.



In Other News:

--Working half on taxes right now, and ten halves on writing the next Paracosmos story, The Perfect Cage. I almost have the theory that I write better when I'm supposed to be doing something else lol.

--Yeah, I know, I know. EM is being neglected. I'll get to it.

--Yeah, I know, I know, my RPG still needs uploaded / updated. I'll get to it.

--Everybody who's even slightly interested should enter the art contest. Even if you don't think you can do a good job. You might surprise yourself.

See below. ]]> Tue, 27 Mar 2012 18:52:00 +0000
Are there people out there working on entries?

Should I extend the deadline?

What?

?

Thoughts? I went for the contest after several people expressed interest in entering that theme, so... a little confused. ]]> Fri, 23 Mar 2012 14:53:00 +0000