Category: Nonrandom Craziness

Though this be madness, yet there’s method in it.

Pumpkin Drop 2007 Scrapbook, Part 1

Dark, fuzzy photos taken with a disposal camera, but they give a general idea of what it was like to be there. (Better ones are coming soon.)


Purple Panda and her father with the Team Muse pumpkin capsule: basically, a big cardboard box on the outside, a ten-pound pumpkin in a smaller cardboard box on the inside, and lots of popcorn in between.


Same shot, with Purple Panda and Robert.


After hours of waiting in cold wind and rain, the big moment arrived. On the roof of West Virginia University’s 11-story engineering building, Pan used a rake-like pusher to shove the capsule into free fall.


The capsule smacked down near the target intact, and the ground crew went to work extracting the pumpkin. For a few anxious seconds, we feared that our elaborate packaging would cause them to exceed the 30-second time limit, but they made it.


Alas, the news was bad: our pumpkin had not survived. The capsule wound up in the debris pile along with about 80 percent of the other entrants’ devices.


After a hot lunch at Applebee’s, we drove north to the fabled hamlet of Muse, Pennsylvania, where Pan filmed everything.

Muse Legendarium

An idea presented by Prarilius Canix.

Description: A world-building venture in the tradition of J. R. R. Tolkien and Larry Gonick. It is somewhat like an RRR, only with the tone of a scholarly text or a complete encyclopedia of this world.

More inside.

Description by Prarilius Canix:

“A world-building venture in the tradition of J. R. R. Tolkien and Larry Gonick. It is somewhat like an RRR, only with the tone of a scholarly text or a complete encyclopedia of this world.

“A note. While this is craziness, it is strictly nonrandom. If the first few posts set the tone for seriousness, do not attempt to make it silly. Conversely, if it is more in the comic vein, do not inject ill-suited seriousness. A universe of HPBs and pie throwing should not be intruded on by people with cosmic quests and pointy ears, or vice versa.
Another note: this is more like RRRiting an encyclopedic text than playing an RPG. Unlike the Musiverse threads, MBers have no participation in it as pwners, sea captains, prime musers or otherwise. And unlike most RRRs, as far as we’re using the Tolkien analogy, it’s more like the Silmarillion than LOTR and Hobbit, providing backstory instead of an actual story.”

Chronicles of Museica, Part the Sixth

If you don’t know what’s going on here, your only hope is to read Part the Fifth. Meanwhile, Red-tailed HAWK has drawn a new map of Muserland to keep us all on course:

If you don’t know what’s going on here, your only hope is to read Part the Fifth. Meanwhile, Red-tailed HAWK has drawn a new map of Muserland to keep us all on course:

Pumpkin Drop 2007, Part 2

New: ATTENTION! Purple Panda and Taiwan Hippo Fan’s mother is VERY eager to involve Musers in the Pumpkin Drop and would like to hear from other potentially interested parents. Details below.

There was a flurry of interest in this event at the Kokonvention.

The sponsor, West Virginia University, has finally posted information about the drop. As feared, it takes place on a Friday, which may limit Musers’ ability to take part. Anyone possibly interested can find out all about it here (remove spaces):

http:// www. mae.cemr.wvu.edu/ news/20pumpkindrop.php

Muse fielded a team a few years ago, with results recounted in the Koko Bomb Saga.

When They’re Not on the Blog…

MuseBloggers manage to find other things to do.

First up: photos of Ultimate Supreme Executive Chairman Grant O. at the National Student Leadership Conference.
Followed by: a couple of pages from Kagcomix‘s sketchbook.

Ultimate Supreme Executive Chairman Grant O. at the National Student Leadership Conference



A couple of pages from Kagcomix’s sketchbook


DC Kokonvention Scrapbook, Continued

First installment: We take over Barnes & Noble.
Slideshow: Day One (comment #47)
Purple Panda’s movie (comment #63)
Slideshow: Day Two (comment #64)

Warning: slow loading times ahead for some.

First installment: We take over Barnes & Noble.
Slideshow: Day One (comment #47)
Purple Panda’s movie (comment #63)
Slideshow: Day Two (comment #138878)





More pictures below. See comment #47.

DC Kokonvention Scrapbook

We will post more sights and sounds from the DC Kokonventions in the coming days. To give you a taste of what to expect, here is the first installment of video highlights sent to us by Purple Panda.

Now up: a group photo of DC Kokonvention, Day II.

We will post more sights and sounds from the DC Kokonventions in the coming days. To give you a taste of what to expect, here is the first installment of video highlights sent to us by Purple Panda.

Ships’ Logs: Beyond Museica, Part 8

I am the gate toward the sea: O sailor men, pass out from me!
I hear you high on Lebanon, singing the marvels of the sea.
The dragon-green, the luminous, the dark, the serpent-haunted sea, …

–James Elroy Flecker

Continued from part 7.

I am the gate toward the sea: O sailor men, pass out from me!
I hear you high on Lebanon, singing the marvels of the sea.
The dragon-green, the luminous, the dark, the serpent-haunted sea,
The snow-besprinkled wine of earth, the white-and-blue-flower foaming sea.

Beyond the sea are towns with towers, carved with lions and lily flowers,
And not a soul in all those lonely streets to while away the hours.
Beyond the towns, an isle where, bound, a naked giant bites the ground:
The shadow of a monstrous wing looms on his back: and still no sound.

Beyond the isle a rock that screams like madmen shouting in their dreams,
From whose dark issues night and day blood crashes in a thousand streams.
Beyond the rock is Restful Bay, where no wind breathes or ripple stirs,
And there on Roman ships, they say, stand rows of metal mariners.

Beyond the bay in utmost West old Solomon the Jewish King
Sits with his beard upon his breast, and grips and guards his magic ring:
And when that ring is stolen, he will rise in outraged majesty,
And take the World upon his back, and fling the World beyond the sea.

–James Elroy Flecker, “The Gates of Damascus,” from The Golden Journey to Samarkand