The Gimcrack Miscellany

I have been inspired by the 4th of July to post about fire-related phenomena, seeing as how millions of (probably drunk) people are about to shoot dangerous bombs into the sky. Remember the movie Backdraft? Can you believe that came out 17 years ago?!? I was pretty into that movie back in the 90s and I felt like revisiting the subject today.

Backdrafts were featured in the film by the same name. We all know what a backdraft is by now. All the oxygen is consumed and there are no longer flames but everything is still so hot that any new oxygen introduced to the fire will rapidly expand and splode real big. Lets turn to the video evidence.

I thought that was pretty cool. But then I learned of flashovers, which are indeed cooler - or hotter, depending on your preferred level of literalness. What happens is, in an enclosed room (similar conditions to a backdraft) a fire gives off hot smoke which radiates heat onto all the surfaces in the room. Once all of these surfaces get to around 1000 degrees, they expel flammable gases which ignite, along with every surface in the room. All at the same time. That’s tight.

Read more about flashovers and then feast on these yummy youtubez.

The flashover in this one happens at 1:15:

This one happens right away and the rest of the video is garbage:

But wait, let’s take it one step further. What happens when a flashover occurs OUTDOORS? An eff’n firestorm. That’s right. A storm made out of: fire. Is fire even a thing to be made out of? I’m starting to get confused and overwhelmed and scared.

Firestorms are rare as a dang two-headed kid. They happen usually in nature during wildfires. But we have managed to set buildings and stuff on fire in the past that are capable of producing them too. I want you to visit teh wicky on firestorms and think about them for a minute. Here is the first sentence: “A firestorm is a conflagration which attains such intensity that it creates and sustains its own wind system.”

!!!!!!!!11!!1!1one

Here are some firestorms that resulted from fires us humans made: The Great London Fire (1666), The Great Chicago Fire (1871), The Oakland Firestorm (1991), and the one created by the atomic bomb in Heroshima.

So we have this comparison: backdrafts < flashovers < firestorms < fire whirls -WAIT wha??? Fire whirls?!?

Yes, fire whirls. They exist. And they are coming to get you. According to Wikipedia, a fire whirl is a phenomenon in which a fire acquires a vertical vorticity and forms a whirl, or a tornado-like effect of a vertically oriented rotating column of air. You may wonder how this happens. Me too, but I figured it out on my own: Lucifer.

Just listen to the following sentence and then I’m done with my tirade on fire whirls:

“An extreme example is the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake in Japan which ignited a large city-sized firestorm and produced a gigantic fire whirl that killed 38,000 in fifteen minutes in the Hifukusho-Ato region of Tokyo.”

When you go to bed tonight I want you to think of “a gigantic fire whirl that killed 38,000 in 15 minutes” and I guarantee you will have dreams about fire, featuring scenes with Kurt Russell and Donald Sutherland.

I believe that was recorded in Mordor.

Wow, that looked really windy. And fiery angered evil.

So our final tally is backdrafts < flashovers < firestorms < fire whirls < flame hurricanes - WAIT, wha?!?

I know they exist. I have seen them with my mind.

No, I’m not getting sick of these, nor will I ever. I found the video below on Digg today, and it’s genius. I was motivated to post it in response to this equally amazing video I saw on LITS the other day.

This type of custom level requires no manual controlling, and it’s built to beat itself. This sort of reminds me of a sweet Line Rider video.

Speaking of amazing Line Rider videos, here’s one of my favorites with awesome music from Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves, so turn on your speakers!

If you can’t view that version because you don’t have the latest version of Flashplayer, here is the youtube version. Also, check out this guy’s channel - he’s a great artist and level designer: TechDawg’s Youtube Channel.

Baby Mama because I despised Tina Fey and Amy Poehler as the Weekend Update duo on SNL, and they’ll be up to all their old, tired antics again in this film.

10,000 B.C. because it looks terrible and it will dupe people into spending 10 bucks based solely on the played-out hype of Independence Day (amazing film).

Angels and Demons because even cute lil’ Naomi Watts can’t entice me to see a sequel to a horrible film.

Wolverine because even though I’ll spend my money to see this in the theaters I’m still not really looking forward to it. I figured out how to see through the hype of a franchise spin-off film when The Scorpion King came out.

The Brazillion Job because Ocean’s 12 was a complete waste of my time, and at least that was the sequel to a good film.

Sin City 2 because I’d rather them use their time and money creating a Max Payne movie.

Sin City 3 - make that two Max Payne movies*.

*I believe they already are BTW.

Jurassic Park 4 because no one else is looking forward to this movie either. Even if you think you are, you aren’t.

The Sims because even if it’s good it will have nothing to do with the game (it can’t possibly), which means it was only made to capitalize off an already existing, wildly popular franchise. That’s just not right.

Transformers 2 because upon further review I should have given Transformers 1 a higher B-Rating due to the fact that I watched it again in the privacy of my own home (where there were no throngs of uber-hyped college students) and was unimpressed.

Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li because video game movies have really bombed lately. Or always.

Tekken because this one will too - guaranteed.

And finally, one addition to my list of Movies I’m Looking Forward To:

The Legend of Zelda because they aren’t releasing any more Lord of the Rings films, and I have to get my epic fantasy fix somehow.

April fools.

This is 100% funny if you play WoW, and 0% funny if you don’t. OK maybe 1%.

10 Signs You Play World of Warcraft Too Much

10. You registered for an Agro-Science class because you thought it would help your warrior tank better.

9. You get on vent every day, and it’s not because you’re cold.

8. Your son’s first word was “LF PORT TO SHATT, PAYING 5g - PST!!!”

7. You frequently joke that your headphones give you plus 24 intellect.

6. You got a speeding ticket and told your wife the cop was a spawn camper.

5. You want twin daughters so you can name them Mara and Kara.

4. Your favorite color is purple and you’re straight.

3. Your least favorite day of the whole week isn’t Monday. It’s Tuesday.

2. A guy cut you off in traffic and you glanced down at your dashboard to see what level he was.

Number 1 is R-rated, so don’t read it if you are sensitive to sexual innuendo. Too bad though, cause it’s really funny.

It’s down there ↓

1. You mount your Netherdrake more often than you mount your wife.

I’ve been reminiscing about all the video games I’ve played in my many years of gaming (going on 21 years of conscious gaming). When I think about my favorite video games, three or four immediately come to mind. But when I sit down to write about it and access my mental catalog of titles, I realize that they barely fit in a top 10 favorites list.

It’s not too often that I have 10 favorites of anything. The problem with 10 favorites is it’s like having 10 winners in a race. No one cares that there are 10 winners. We want to know who was absolutely FIRST. The others just make up the first 9 to lose.

I get annoyed when people refuse to have a favorite of something, like how American Idol is secretly your favorite reality prime time TV show but you’re too afraid to admit it. It’s a cop-out when you say you don’t have a true favorite in a category, like how Backstreet Boys is your favorite pop cross-over hip hop all male dancing group but you’re ashamed to say it for some reason.

Not proclaiming your favorite of something is usually due to one (or all) of four possible reasons:

• 1) you are too lazy to put any effort into it
• 2) your opinions are too easily swayed to hold fast to any one thing for too long
• 3) you’re embarassed
• 4) you have trouble committing

That list sounds like it applies to relationships or something. Well take all that nonsense somewhere else because this is The Gimcrack Miscellany and we don’t like talking about things that make us feel vulnerable and/or pathetic.

So why am I saying all this on a top 10 list? Because I’m not talking favorites here, I’m talking ‘most played’ - read the title again. Aha! Yyyyyyyep. I’m not breaking any of my rules because these aren’t necessarily my top 10 favorites just because I played them the most.

Upon further thought, it just so happens that this list corresponds exactly with my top 10 favorites list…

Anyway, the number of hours you log playing a game has nothing to do with whether or not it’s your favorite game. Well, I guess it has to have something to do with it, but how else do you explain the huge numbers behind Tetris, Pacman, and Freecell? Those aren’t anyone’s favorite games, trust me. 85% of wives will say at least one of them is their favorite, but we know they’re lying. Brain Ninjas wins, hands down.

Oh, and one more thing, I realize this is a top 10 list instead of a top 5 list. What’s your point? Ye Old Top Fiver™ is just a marketing tool. It’s not meant to be taken literally - it’s a brand that people trust. Just ask our LOLheads™ or Reference Burst Theory™ divisions.

Honorable Mention

I could have made this a top 101 list, but it would’ve taken me several days and multiple posts to make a list of that caliber. So, before we get to the top 10, here is a list of honorable mentions that I wish I had time to talk about:

25. Donkey Kong Country
24. Scorched Earth
23. Wii Tennis
22. Quake II
21. Unreal
20. Return to Castle Wolfenstein
19. Quake
18. Roller Coaster Tycoon
17. Mario Kart 64
16. The Sims
15. Age of Empires II
14. Galaga
13. GTA Vice City
12. Goldeneye
11. The Dig

Awww, boo hoo - your game didn’t make it into the top 10. Write your own damn blog then. ON WITH THE TOP 10!

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