Atomic Nerds

All right folks, I know you’re expecting some funny story or well researched post on $topic, but it’s 72F outside with a gentle breeze and all of the animals, even Zydeco, are doing their damndest to get us to play. So instead of what you really wanted, have some more stuff that appeals to our weird-assed tastes.

Sam and Max
How LabRat left this off the first list, when she introduced me to it in the first place, is beyond me. Sam & Max are Freelance Police, and theirs is a very strange world. “Sam! Sam! A seven-foot tall spectre of death appeared in the middle of the road, so I ran it over! It sounded like a bag of dirty laundry going under the wheels!” In Sam and Max’s world, violence most often is the answer. Originally a comic series (a reprint of their anthology “Sam & Max: Surfin’ the Highways” is availible), they moved into the world of video games with “Sam and Max Hit The Road,” wherein they visited bizarre locations across the US in search of escaped circus freaks. After a brief run as a fairly unsuccessful tv show, they faded into cult obscurity. Newly brought back from the dead by Telltale Games, they’re again starring in an episode-based series of adventure games that are Just. Plain. Awesome. Original creator Steve Purcell is on board, lending the project that wonderful authentic touch. Consider the following:

Monkeyfluids
Liked the Glen Baxter stuff? Same vein. Monkeyfluids is more willing to include profanity, and these images come from actual old illustrations and such.

Scud, The Disposable Assassin
This one isn’t quite as light-hearted as the first two. In this weird world, you can purchace robot assassins from vending machines, which will self destruct on successful termination of their target. Scud, in the course of an epic battle with a plug-headed pop-culture-quoting mutant named Jeff caught sight of the warning sign on his back explaining his disposable nature. Rather than finish Jeff off, he wounds her and puts her on life support and begins taking other assignments to pay her hospital bills. The series is a bit hard to find at the moment, but fortunatly it’s coming back. Creator Rob Schrab is going to wrap up the cliffhanger he left the series on, supposedly this year, along with an anthology of the first 20 issues.

Kitchen Confidential
This series is based on Anthony Bourdain’s book of the same title, and if you’ve any sense of humor is outright hilarious. Fox killed it with their usual schedule juggling and poor promotion. Depending on where you live, as few as four episodes originally aired, but there’s a full half season availible. I don’t want to say too much about it, lest LabRat and I turn into the type of people that make “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” less funny for having heard all the good lines 90000000 times, but trust me, it’s worth watching this show.

Jonathan Coulton
A musician with songs that are hit or miss, with the hits being utterly hilarious. One such song, “Re: Your Brains” he describes thusly:

If Hollywood has taught us anything, it’s that being trapped in a mall surrounded by a million zombies would be really troublesome. But how much more annoying would it be if the head zombie used to be your co-worker, and he was kind of a prick even before he got infected?

There’s a frickin’ hilarious music video to that song availible here using World of Warcraft for the video source. Other awesome songs: “Code Monkey” and “Skullcrusher Mountain”.

All right folks, that should keep you busy for a while. Time to go play with the dogs.

Posted japery, lookey here |