Bear's Den

Guest posting

2009-05-31T14:25:43Z

Oh hey--just FYI, I've had a couple guest posts over on Robin McKinley's blog recently. If you're curious, they're here and here. She's trying to get a book done, and blogging 7 days a week is becoming difficult--so some of her mods and a few others are pitching in to keep her sane. So there may be a few more from me at various points.

Trying to get back in the swing of posting on my main blog, but it's tough, I keep going in fits and starts. But I do have a new post over there at the moment, telling the joys of this year's Wiscon--in particular, Beef-a-Roo.

Annnnnnd We're Back.

2009-01-02T02:19:34Z

At least briefly, because it's time for the now-becoming-annual Movie List!
What did I see in 2008?

Earth
The Creeping Terror
The Brain that Wouldn't Die
The Skydivers
Attack of the Giant Leeches
Plan 9 From Outer Space (because that NEVER gets old)
Children of Heaven
Word Wars
Bonjour, Monsieur Schlomi
The Color of Paradise
Blind Spot
Persepolis
Murderball
Imagine Me and You
Broken Wings
Ten
The Syrian Bride
James' Journey to Jeruselem
Offside
Walk on Water
Spine Tingler: The William Castle Story
Star Wars: The Clone Wars
Iron Man
X-Men 3 (and god, I wish I hadn't.)
The Chorus
The Dinner Game
Bread and Tulips
Into the Arms of Strangers
Chained for Life
The Kommediant
Passover Fever
This is Spinal Tap
Twilight (Why, god, why?)
Bollywood/Hollywood
The Lady Eve
Tarzan and His Mate (for about the 14th time)
Princess Mononoke

Thank god for Netflix; it has CHANGED MY LIFE. :) Though more than half were IFS film series films. Next year I may fall off a bit, since I'm teaching Tuesdays I won't be at film nights for most of the spring series.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

2008-03-17T03:21:42Z

When I first started working at the game store in high school, there were a couple of guys about my age who were regular customers and occasional employees. One was named Brad, and one was named G.J. Brad had a fairly sunny disposition, was smart, had a good sense of humor, and I enjoyed his company. G.J. was kind of a dick; he took a long time to grow up, occasionally treated his friends badly, and was generally obnoxious. I didn't dislike him, he could be a nice guy when he wanted to--but he was difficult. Brad went on to work at the store for a few years back when I was the assistant manager, then moved on to other things. G.J. disappeared for a while, then reappeared looking for work one Xmas; I hired him to help in our seasonal puzzle store, he helped for a week or two, and then--as I remember it--quit. Later on I heard that G.J. had joined the military. Good for him, I thought--he's the sort that will be improved by a stint of enforced respect, organization, and responsibility. That was about 10 years ago.

In January, I unexpectedly ran into Brad. It was great to see him--he's managing a restaurant now. We caught up, and I told him that a few of our older coworkers had died in the last couple years. "Wow, that sucks," he said. "Did you hear about G.J.?"

Your premonition upon reading that sentence is probably correct. G.J. suffered a Traumatic Brain Injury in Iraq--but he didn't die in Iraq. It was a minor injury, he served out his deployment with increasingly bad migraine headaches. Then he came back to the states for treatment. He died in the Fort Knox "Warrior Transition Unit" in September of last year. He didn't die from his injury--the injury took place a full year before his death. He died from an accidental overdose of prescribed medications for his continuing pain and depression. He died in his bedroom at Fort Knox; no one checked on him for three days despite his failure to show up for mandatory roll-calls. He was apparently unconscious for a full day before he went into respiratory failure and died--during which 24 hours he could have been given treatment which probably would have saved him. They finally found his body because his increasingly frantic wife called the fort to find out why he wasn't returning her calls or picking up his messages. If you have a desire to read the full story of G.J.'s death and his family's fight to get answers from the military about how it happened, you can read it here.

This has been big news in the local paper. Our governor is demanding answers from Ft. Knox, Ft. Knox is blaming his doctor, his doctor is blaming the military, the military is complaining that they're shorthanded. For myself, I don't know if the military made G.J. a better person; from some things I'd heard here and there over the last decade, it probably didn't. Once a kind-of-a-dick, always a kind-of-a-dick. Still, it was his career of choice, and if he had died on a battlefield in Iraq or Afghanistan, I could have been glad that he'd died doing something he personally believed in and cared about. But the military--that band of brothers that promises never to leave a man behind--lied to G.J. They left him behind, when a 10 minute walk to his room by the platoon sergeant who noticed his absence at roll call could have saved his stupid life. Fuckers.

(crossposted to my other blog.)

Because everyone else is...

2008-03-05T04:31:48Z

I figured I should post something about E. Gary Gygax's passing. But I'm not a D&D player--I never really was, to be honest, I owned the basic red box set as a kid but plunged straight into Cthulhu in high school and soon after, Runequest and the Morrow Project all rolled into one. I met him once--which is to say we literally bumped into one another on the dealer floor at GenCon, and I kid you not my first thought was "dear god who let that dude in here?" He looked kind of filthy, had a noticable odor, and there was dried mustard in his beard. When I caught a glimpse of his nametag as we both recovered and parted ways, I was stunned and repulsed. *

But I do realize this was not all there was to E. Gary Gygax. :) I saw him at a subsequent Gencon and he seemed to have pulled himself together--I think he must have just gone through a rough patch sometime around 1997 or so. And while D&D is not "my game," I know that his creative energy, plus that of Greg Stafford and Sandy Petersen, has had a profound influence on my life. I did read the hell out of Keep on the Borderlands when I was 12, even though I never did play it. The pioneers of roleplaying games in the 1970's made my life a richer place in the 80's, 90's, and now, and I was sorry to hear of Gygax's passing. Gencon will be a little dimmer without him there.

* To be fair, I've met my own RPG idol, Greg Stafford, a couple of times at Gencon and he always smells like a combination of pot and B.O.

Tagged.... I'm It.

2008-02-22T03:00:23Z

erink tagged me for a meme... 7 Weird Things About Me. Let's see here.

I. I love Roman Numerals and use them frequently when taking notes in meetings, or whatever.

II. I write with my right hand, eat with my left, and can throw or catch a ball with either one.

III. I have a thing for fountain pens; I wrote my bachelor's thesis with my first one, and was OCD enough that when I misplaced the pen my work ground to a halt til I found it.

IV. Like Erink, I love to play physical sports despite being terrible at them. (And I'll swear I'm a lot worse than she is.... She at least stays in shape.)

V. I hate spicy food. But I love horseradish.

VI. I have never seen a full episode of: American Idol, Survivor, Project Runway, The Apprentice, or any reality show that involves making a bunch of people live or work together under trying circumstances.

VII. My nickname in my office is "The Ninja." Yes, really.

I usually don't tag people for memes, so really, if you're reading this and you'd like to do it, consider yourself tagged!

Formative Matter

2008-01-19T18:54:39Z

So I've been having an interesting conversation on robinmckinley's LJ about books that shape us in our early reading years--not just books you enjoyed when you were a pre-teen, but books that genuinely changed or helped form how you write (if you're a writer) or how you think or view the world at large. Her own talking about the books that shaped her writing--and the lack of a large body of YA fantasy when she was at that age--prompted me to think about what authors and what books I was reading as a pre-teen and what that meant to me further down the line. I don't remember reading a lot of sci-fi or fantasy before age 14 or so... But I did read Lloyd Alexander when I was 9, Tolkien when I was 10, Watership Down when I was 11, and Robert C. O'Brien at 12. Ellen Raskin's puzzle-novels (Westing Game, The Mysterious Disappearance of Leon) also had a huge impact on my psyche, I think. I wouldn't say they influence my writing style--frankly, my informal writing style derives pretty strongly from TV influences like Monty Python, and humor essayists such as Dave Barry. But those authors did influence how I tend to think about everything I've read since to some extent, and everything I'm likely to read and enjoy in the future.

What are your formative books from those years? What did you read before you were 13 that affected you so deeply that you still find yourself thinking about it now and then?

An interesting meme...

2008-01-14T01:50:58Z

Got this off a friend's MySpace post:

Here's how it works... go to Google, type in your name and the word needs. . and whatever is the 1st result to come back is what you post.

By that reckoning, Cathy needs... a panda!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/somesay/147281670/

FollyBard's Fault

2008-01-02T04:39:08Z

She got me thinking about movies... I don't often see movies in the theatre these days, and when I watch TV it's 99.9% of the time documentary type stuff anymore. Looking at her impressive list, I got to wondering just how many movies I've seen in the last year...

On my own:
The Lost Skeleton of Cadavera (again and again and again.)
Jesus Camp
Tarzan the Ape Man
Tarzan and His Mate
Tarzan Finds a Son
Tarzan Escapes
Tarzan's Secret Treasure
Tarzan Ties His Shoes (just kidding!)
Tarzan Triumphs
Trail of the Screaming Forehead
Dead at the Box Office
Resident Evil
Deathproof
Knocked Up
MST3K Catalina Caper (ow)
MST3K Bloodlust (ow ow ow)
Harry Potter: Hooked on Phoenix
Beowulf (augh! my eyes!)
Golden Compass x2

Indiana Film Society Films
Schlock!
Devil's Playground
Double Dare (call me, Zoe Bell!)
Theramin
American Movie
Trembling Before G-D
Paris is Burning
League of Ordinary Gentlemen
Isaac Newton and Me
Central do Brasil
Elsa y Fred
Deus e Brasileiro (God is Brazilian)
Sol de Otuno (Autumn Sun)
Children of Men
The Indy Awards Short Films (12 of them, varying degrees of quality)

At the Indy LGBT Film Fest
The Gendercator (short)
Family Reunion (also a short)
Nina's Heavenly Delights

There were probably a few more. But that's a total of 27 31 33 (I forgot Deathproof and Knocked Up)--plus the shorts, which really is more than I'd have guessed. It's the film society that does it. This Spring's series is "Bridging the Gap: Films of Iran and Israel," and I think I'm going to try to catch most of them if I can.

Holiday Joy

2007-12-25T04:34:24Z

As I'm too stingy to pay for photo hosting on LJ, please feel free to check out The Best Nativity Ever HERE.
Yes, those are my toys. Galactic heroes are courtesy my coworker Eric; photoshopping is courtesy coworker Jay. No, we didn't do this on company time. :)

1. And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Jabba the Hutt, that all the galaxy should be taxed...
3. And all went to be taxed, every one unto his own planet.
4. And Darth Vader also went up from Coruscant, unto Tatooine, into the city of Mos Eisley, which is called a wretched hive of scum and villainy
5. To be taxed with Padme, his GFFL, being great with child...
7. And she brought forth her first born, twins, and wrapped them in Jedi robes, and laid them in a manger, because there was no room at the Cantina.
8. And there were in that same country jawas abiding in the field, keeping watch over their droids by night.
9. And Lo, Master Yoda came upon them, and the glory of the Force shone round about them, and they were sore afraid.
10. And Yoda said unto them, "Fear Not! Tidings of great joy I bring you!
11. For this day born in the city of Mos Eisley a Jedi, he is! Hmmmm?"
12. "And a SIGN unto you this shall be; find him, you will, wrapped in Jedi robes, lying in a manger. And he has....a sister! Yesss.... there is another!"
13. And suddenly there was with Master Yoda a multitude of rocking alien band members, jamming and saying,
14. "Glory to the Force in the highest, and in the galaxy peace, and goodwill toward all beings, men and otherwise!"

Hippity happity holiday, everyone!

The Day I Broke the Water Line

2007-12-08T16:44:34Z

Yet another by popular demand (and by popular, I mean Carl and Robin.) It was my first week as a seasonal gardener, and I was assigned to work with the guy in charge of the zoo perimeter plantings, who we'll call D. D was possibly one of the laziest, most annoying people I've ever worked with; a large part of his job consisted of trying to find ways to avoid working. He eventually showed me all his boltholes where he'd take naps in the afternoons--seriously, the man had a nest behind an 8' high cotoneaster hedge where he'd hide on nice days. So not surprising that at the end of my first week working for him, he decided he'd leave a little early in the afternoon and left me to water the rosebushes out by the zoo entrance. He showed me the irrigation hookup, which is set below ground level with a lid covering it; you attach the hose to the hookup, then turn a valve which is also set down inside the hole in the ground, and you get a high pressure stream for watering. Fine. Off he goes. And I water, and water, and eventually get to the point where the very long hose doesn't want to reach because it's looped back a bit, and it's too heavy to just drag smoothly along. So I give it a good hard jerk.

Aaaannnnd... the torque effect of my jerking against the hose coupling down below ground level causes the pvc pipe at the hookup to snap. A spectacular fountain of water goes shooting up into the air about 4' high. I yell, "Holy shit!" and go diving onto it like I'm covering a grenade, completely drenching myself in about .2 seconds. Groping around down in the now completely flooded hookup box, I find the piece of the pipe and thinking maybe it just came unstuck, I try to muscle it back onto the valve. The water flow stops, I gasp with relief, and let go of the pipe... only to have it pop off and another jet of high-pressure water go shooting up, this time straight into my face (because of course I was leaning over the thing at the time.)

This happens twice more--without the straight in the face bit--before I decide that it really is BROKEN broken, and since I don't have a radio of my own I can't call for help. So I leave the fountain, which is rapidly flooding the entire entry to the zoo and roaring down the storm drain, and I squish my way over to the administrative building. I'm covered in mud, water, and bits of grass as I walk past some very nicely dressed people from the marketing and development department to get to the security desk and ask them to call the Curator of Horticulture so I can get some help. "What do you want us to tell her?" "Tell her that I... That there's water... look, just tell her to get over here asap, ok?" She finally arrived, surveyed the damage, and said, "The Waters staff told me about your penguin thing, you know." :) Anyway, they had to turn off the main water supply for half the zoo for several hours to fix it, and while I didn't get fired, I cemented my reputation for being accident prone and I believe they still tell stories about me.

Eel story to follow, later.

The Penguin Story, Long Play Dance Version

2007-11-24T18:59:48Z

Many of y'all have heard this one in person, but by request I'm posting it here for the world to see. Every single word of it is true, I swear upon my life. I couldn't make up something this good if I tried.

So once upon a time, I volunteer to work at the zoo. I tell them I wanted to work in Animal Care, and they have very limited slots available--lions and tigers and bears being so popular with the volunteers, despite their dangerous nature. They do, however, have a slot open in the Amazon exhibit. "Cool," sez I, for I'm quite fond of snakes, and figured I might get to handle the Emerald Tree Boa or something. So I sign up.

Unfortunately, when I start work the next Thursday morning, I find that the information at the Volunteer office was a little out of date, and they already have a volunteer for Amazon on Thursday mornings. We join forces; but there's really not enough work for 2, and I'm done a little before 10 am.
So one of the keepers says, do you want to help feed the penguins? Sure, says I. (cue dramatic music here.)

I get a bucket of fish and follow her to the penguin exhibit. Our penguins live in a sort of fake-ice-floe terrain thing, two halves split by a walkway where the patrons can watch the penguins dive--the water comes partway up the window, and the penguins can swim under the walkway to a depth of about 10 feet.

Herein lies the first problem: Keeper does not tell me to put on anti-penguin knee boots. She also doesn't tell me to put on a parka. Being new, it doesn't occur to me to ask. So I'm on the exhibit in my tennis shoes and my Croc Hunter style khaki shirt, shivering my ass off because it's about 35 degrees in there.

What she DOES remember to tell me is, if the penguins drop a fish on the floor, don't pick it up, because it's contaminated with penguin crap. This will be important later in the story.

So I'm feeding the king penguins, which are about 2 feet tall and difficult. They don't know me. They don't trust me. And to get them to open their beaks for the fish, I have to kind of bonk them on the beak with the herring while saying "please open up? please? eat the fish?" When they do open up, you put the fish in headfirst, and if all goes well, the little teeth on their tongues (yes, their tongues have teeth) kind of catch hold of the fish and pull it down their gullet. So I'm doing this, and I'm nervous because I've never done it before, and the penguins are waddling around the exhibit making little "splip splap" noises with their feet, and I finally get one to open his beak.

I cram a fish in there, and he stands there for a moment, and then he tilts his head sideways and goes "Pleh." and the fish falls out of his mouth and onto the floor. So I start to bend over to pick it up.

What was the one thing she told me? DON'T PICK UP THE FISH!

So as I'm bending over to get the fish, I remember this, and I straighten back up. And because I am graceful in all situations, I immediately lose my balance and one of my legs goes shoooooting down the little ramp the penguins use to get out of the water. The rest of me follows.

My yell of "FUUUUUCKKKK!!!" is conveniently covered by the splash.

My first thought is, I'm going to die. Because the water is really cold, and deep, and I can't swim for shit. Fortunately, I manage to grab hold of the ramp, and so I only get wet up to my waist. The keeper looks down at me from where she's serenely feeding the small penguins, and says, "Wow. Are you ok?"

I say "Well, not really, in that I can't get out." So she puts down her fish and hauls my ass back up out of the water. She says, "Are you hurt?" I say, "No, I don't think so." And she says "OK, well keep feeding them then."

So I'm standing there, now soaking wet in filthy penguin-tainted water, in 35 degree air, and hypothermia is setting in.

And I would have been utterly miserable, except that within 5 seconds it had occurred to me that this was the funniest thing that will ever happen to me in my whole life. So I start snickering helplessly while trying to coax the penguins (who scattered like popcorn when I fell) back toward the fish bucket. My efforts are met with limited success; many penguins opt for hunger over coming up to the crazy lady and getting slapped in the beak with a fish.

The feed is finally over and I go back to the office (now turning slightly blue, and I notice also that my leg was bleeding where it had gone down the ramp.) All the other keepers--the ones who DIDN'T suck--are horrified and run around getting towels and offering to put my socks in the dryer and apologizing that my first day had been so traumatic. "We'll never make you feed penguins again," they tell me.

The next week, I come in, and they say, "We have a new job for you. How would you like to feed the sharks?"

I figured they were trying to kill me.

blackbear88 @ 2007-09-28T20:27:00

2007-09-29T00:33:22Z

OK, I admit it. This is purely a placeholder for my other blogs. But LOOK! A MONKEY! James Turner, of Beaver and Steve, has an LJ with an awesome sketchcast on it. Go look. And Zack, at Animals Have Problems Too has a great new T-shirt depicting the love of an octopus for a bear. Don't worry--it's nature's way. I love his oyster shirt, too, but he picked a really gross font for the text and I just don't think I can stand to order it. Dammit.

Woot!

2007-08-05T15:37:44Z

Golden Compass Bear
Originally uploaded by blackbear88

The Golden Compass movie is coming. I can't wait.

I'm Tagging, Paul, I'm Tagging!

2007-01-22T04:36:13Z

I've not been officially tagged for this meme, but then again, most people I know don't go in for direct meme tagging. This is an easy one, 6 things about yourself that most folks might not know. And I'm officially tagging anyone who wants to be tagged!

1. I went to college fully intending to be a theatre major; theatre was all I did in high school. I wanted to be a famous set or lighting designer. That went by the wayside fairly quickly, and although I was very active in drama throughout college, I became the medieval studies scholar you see before you today instead. (as a corollary to that, from ages 6-13 I wanted to be a naturalist. Then I had one bad science teacher who told me I was bad at science, and I gave up on that. Now, needless to say, I really wish I hadn't. moral of the story=bad teachers suck.)
2. I have a horrible fear of calling people I don't know on the telephone. I can get past it--working in retail does wonders for reducing social phobias--but it still makes me cringe.
3. I have poor circulation in my hands, to the point that putting on gloves makes my hands colder in winter. Because my fingers need each other to help stay warm, see? It's mittens or nothing, I literally can't wear gloves when it's below freezing.
4. My favorite vegetable is peas, followed by spinich. Both require vinegar as a condiment.
5. I was captain of my college's varsity fencing team when I was a senior, and I won the Milligan Fencing Award for all my hard work and good sportsmanship. This did NOT mean I was a particularly good fencer, mind you--but I did try.
6. While I'm very good at most types of puzzles, I utterly stink at anagrams; this is why, despite being a good speller and having a large vocabulary, I am one of the world's WORST Scrabble players. I can't look at a jumble of letters and make sense of it in my head--my only salvation is to work it out on paper using trial and much error. Conversely, I'm very very good at cryptograms and crosswords.

So, friends--if you'd like to be, consider thyself meme-tagged! And a special prize for the first person to correctly ID the source of my post title.... :)

Yaaarrrr!

2007-01-17T04:09:45Z

You scored as Captain Jack Sparrow. Roguish,quick-witted, and incredibly lucky, Jack Sparrow is a pirate who sometimes ends up being a hero, against his better judgement. Captain Jack looks out for #1, but he can be counted on (usually) to do the right thing. He has an incredibly persuasive tongue, a mind that borders on genius or insanity, and an incredible talent for getting into trouble and getting out of it. Maybe its brains, maybe its genius, or maybe its just plain luck. Or maybe a mixture of all three.

Which Action Hero Would You Be? v. 2.0
created with QuizFarm.com

And I swear to god I wasn't even trying to skew it this way! I thought I was going to come up Indiana Jones, because I admitted to being nerdy and liking archaeology... Maybe my swordfighting skillz were what pushed me over into piratey goodness!

Welcome to the Quiz Dumping Ground

2007-01-09T02:49:52Z

....where quiz results go to die. I wish it had told me which ones I got wrong!

You are 88% Try-Lingual!!

You are quite the Linguist! I suppose you wouldn't be trying to show off to your friends, would you. Splendid job. Time to put the quiz on a blog or email a link to your friends. Check out some of the good quizzes here, but be sure to avoid the bad ones. Auf Wiedersehen! Adieu.

Foreign Words and Phrases
Create MySpace Quizzes

I'm watching hours of Tarzan films this week. Strangely, the word "Ungawa" was not on the language quiz.

Well, this is reassuring....

2006-11-03T17:43:44Z

You paid attention during 100% of high school!

85-100% You must be an autodidact, because American high schools don't get scores that high! Good show, old chap!

Do you deserve your high school diploma?
Create a Quiz

Of course, knowing where Columbus landed doesn't help me land a job! :) Well, it might eventually....

Swing Blade

2006-11-02T03:50:28Z

More Youtube brilliance....

The Music Makes It...

2006-09-23T01:15:50Z

It's a good thing turtles have hard little skulls...

Why yes, I AM neurotic, thanks!

2006-09-08T22:09:01Z

My Personality


Neuroticism	32
Extraversion	43
Openness To Experience	81
Agreeableness	68
Conscientiousness	51

Test Yourself Compare Yourself View Full Report

MySpace Surveys, Bebo and hi5 by Pulseware Survey Software

I promised myself I wouldn't do this, but....

2006-08-31T03:34:02Z

The whole "Snakes on a Plane" thing lost its humor for me after it became clear that the filmmakers were going to take the buzz seriously and make the film even stupider than it was already destined to be. To me, the inherant humor was the fact that they were making this film in the first place; when it went so viral that people were actually looking forward to the film itself rather than the sheer idea of a film called "snakes on a plane" then it lost most of the shine for me.

That said.... Some of these posters made me laugh damn hard. The walrus one's the best tho--the way he's almost rolled right out of the frame makes it all the more hilarious. Thanks to Gollumgollum for the link.

Cthulego Rising

2006-08-01T15:17:46Z

Over the course of the years, I've saved a lot of bookmarks for things people sent me that looked cool, but took too $#@&*% long to load on my dial-up. Now that I have DSL, I'm revisiting those bookmarks with great joy (those that are still active sites, that is.)

I give you.....CTHULEGO!!!!

This is awesome on so many levels. A lot of the photos duplicate each other; make sure you check out one or two of the high angle shots that show the whole thing, then go for some of the detail shots of the monsters and zombies.

In particular, check out this one: http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=1604617 (I especially like the spray of lego gore from the unfortunate dude on the right)

And this is a nice shot as well:
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=1604620

Winner, Best Use of Lego Tentacles...
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=1604632

Star Trek TOS - Knights of the Round Table

2006-07-25T00:50:35Z

I can't help it, I'm a Youtube junkie. Upyernoz put me onto this one.

Begging for the Sweet Release of Death

2006-07-22T00:07:38Z

OK, so it's the wrong season for this--but it's still rather brilliant.

The Life and Death of a Pumpkin

(looks like LJ doesn't support embedding YouTube movies. How sad.)

Well It's About Time

2006-07-17T00:46:46Z

I'm glad to see that at least one leader of a major world power is taking the Mythos threat seriously.

Vladimir Putin Addresses Cthulhu Issue

Apparently Putin answered a series of questions submitted by email to a Russian webcast; the chosen questions included queries on the use of giant war robots as border defense, and the possibility of Great Cthulhu rising from the depths of Ry'leh with his spawn to destroy the earth as we know it. Wonder if he needs a copy of that Chick pamphlet...