cybergum

[cybergum]

I’m actually more confused now than I was when I didn’t know anything about these sheep.

The Talllle of Glennnn and Daaaale

(and Gaiiiil and Marrrrsha)

(Note: some of the footage of the 2017 P4A was lost. This compilation was the best I could do from my memory and the footage available. If I made any mistakes or forgot any parts I apologize.) 

In the 2017 Project for Awesome the Missoula crew were hanging out the first night when Brit Garner brought a bunch of props from a local theatre. As Hank said, “Brit is here and she brought… something terrifying.” That terrifying thing was Glennnn the sheep. From one angle Glennnn looks like he smoked a bunch of weed and then killed someone. From another angle Glennnn looks like he’s very tired and knows a lot about you. From yet another angle Glennnn looks proud, like a spiritual teacher. Like a gentler Rafiki mentor. Apparently, Victoria looks at Hank like Glennnn a lot, especially when he has “ideas.” Glennnn reminds Hank of Undertale. At one point Glennnn was called the Merlin to Hank’s King Arthur. Hank quickly became so attached to Glennnn that he promised to work Glennnn into the sequel to his book.

Glennnn came to the stream with two hats: a green visor and a gold crown. When wearing the green visor, it seemed like he will do your shady taxes and launder your money for you. Or maybe play poker with his friends. Does he have a gambling problem? No, he’s just a CPA. When wearing the crown, he is King Glennnn. We will get to that later.

Soon a consensus was made on the spelling of Glennnn. Glennnn must have 4 n’s, three of which are silent. It does not matter which three are silent. Later we learned that Glennnn is pronounced “Glen” if the last three n’s are silent and “Gle-n” if one of the later n’s is the audible one. At this point chat was overtaken with sheep emojis, all from Glennnn the Sheep Father. Some chatters went overboard and were informed that Glennnn can’t have five n’s, we must keep it reasonable!

Quickly we learned more about Glennnn: he is a hollow shell full of wisdom … and MURDER. Hank claimed that NASA is hiding the fact that for years they have observed Glennnn through a powerful telescope. Someone claimed that Deadpool wishes he didn’t wear such a skin-tight suit and instead wore Glennnn’s hat… and nothing else. 

Meanwhile, the nerdfighters quickly made social media accounts for him. Glennnn The Sheep soon had an Instagram with a screenshot of the P4A stream as the profile picture. The bio read “Hi, my name is Glennnn, the last three n’s are silent. My favorite people are the Nerdfighters that are currently watching the livestream of the Project for Awesome!” A twitter account was also made for Glennnn, @GlennTheSheep. Later, when describing the discrepancy in n’s on social media, we were advised to type as many n’s as your heart tells you to find Glennnn on social media. 

Soon Matthew Gaydos joined the stream and was introduced to Glennnn. Matt found his legs “interesting” and when chat asked him how to buy the sheep Matt said “You can’t! Glennnn is a human! No, he’s not!” Hank questioned if Glennnn is 100% sheep and Matt clarified that he is 4% wood and 96% sheep. When Matt had to step away he left Glennnn in charge of the stream.

Somehow Glennnn lost his hat. Matt gave him the crown and declared him King Glennnn. King Glennnn of the Glen, Hank added. It is Glennnn’s Glen, he is not king of the forest. Daaaale is his brother, King of the Dale. And Marrrrsha, of the Marsh, is their sister. Clearly glens were named for Glennnn. As Hank said “If Glennnn can see you, you are in his Glen. You are turning into a sheep. Can you feel it?” 

Hank invented a new version of Instagram for Glennnn: Glennnnstagram. All pictures on it are of sheep and glens, except the one picture of a dale from when Glennnn visited Daaaale. Chat suggested a Glennnn theme park and Matt seemed confused about what that would entail. Hank suggested making a hat with Glennnn on it as a perk for P4A 2018 (as of the posting of this it has not been announced as a perk but Glennnn and Daaaale plushies are totally a thing!). Much of this conversation happened while Hank’s face was being painted to look like Pizza John. Hank then declared that Hank-Pizza John Green of the Glen is a subject of King Glennnn. Chat requested that someone kiss Glennnn and Matt promised that someone would at 1.4 million dollars. Hank offered to kiss Glennnn, although I am not sure if he ever did. 

Soon talk turned to a major event in Glennnn’s past. Apparently, a sheep’s hair is only shorn when he loses in battle. Glennnn’s hair is the longest in the Glen. Daaaale’s hair is slightly longer. Glennnn of the Glen is the hero of the Battle of Glen-Dale. The elves know him. Songs have been dedicated to Glennnn. It is proposed that Lin-Manuel Miranda or Al Roker should write a musical of the battle of Glen-Dale. 

Then Rodney appeared and it was confirmed that Glennnn has Rodney’s back because, of course he does. Rodney said, “the sheep is everything” and as Glennnn was passed from person to person we learned that holding Glennnn feels so right that you forget he’s there. For a time Glennnn wore the frog hat instead of his crown. We also learned that Glennnn plays the banjo just like Ed Helms and Ryan is his middle name. Maia and Valerie drew Glennnn eating corn in a timed competition.

The next day we learned that Glennnn is everyone’s baby. He belongs to the world. Unknowingly, Destin was encouraging donations by offering to write donors’ names on magnets and one was a sheep. The chat insisted that the sheep was Glennnn. Soon a donation came in from Glennnn but Destin rejected his name because he “is not a real person.” The chat declared that while other magnets were worth a certain donation amount the sheep should cost $1000 in honor of Glennnn. Ben donated $1000 and Destin insisted “but does he want the sheep?” He then offered that Ben could name the sheep whatever he wanted. When Destin wrote on the sheep he could feel how much it mattered to chat. “This is the most important thing I’m gonna write on a sheep, probably in my life.” Destin writes “Ben (Glenn)” and chat quickly corrected: Glennnn has four n’s. 

Back with the Missoula crew we learned that Glennnn is Tuna’s favorite quadruped. Since we had last seen the Missoula crew, Ashe had made a painting of Glennnn. The donations reached a milestone and Brit brought in a surprise. DAAAALE HAD ARRIVED! Daaaale bowed to Glennnn, for he was the hero of the Battle of Glen-Dale. 

“All hail Daaaale!” someone declared. “Disagree!” countered Hank. Soon it was questioned where Marrrrsha is and Brit clarified “I drive a Honda Civic, I can only do so much.” After a brief debate, it is confirmed that Daaaale has four a’s and can be pronounced as “Dale” or with a bleating sound in the middle (like a sheep). Soon the battle between Glennnn and Daaaale was sparking again, they began to tally a donation battle between the brothers. “Is the vote just a tally? I’ve made a spreadsheet!” someone said, proving how nerdy we all are. The spreadsheet was put to use as the tally was called the “popular vote” and the spreadsheet was used to count the amount donated to each sheep. Suddenly most of the Missoula crew was on Daaaale’s side. “We’re just excited by the new thing” said Caitlin (and seconded by Hank). 

The following was determined about the First Battle of Glen-Dale: 

-It took place in 1994 (Possibly 640? Possibly yesterday? It couldn’t have been yesterday!) 

-Different spellings are all accepted: Glen-Dale, Glennnndale, Glennnn-Daaaale 

-Hank’s recap of the Battle: “This is Glennnn, king of the Glen. This is Daaaale, king (queen?) of the Dale. The Dale and Glen were once one land until the Battle of Glennnndaaaale. Very sad for Gaiiiil, their mom. Their sister, Marrrrsha, inherited the Marsh that no one wanted, so it is a peaceful land.”

Now we are in the Second Battle of GlennnnDale! Accusations were thrown at the brothers and slogans were created: 

-Glennnn had cow pox and did not tell his lady-friends about it 

-A vote for Glennnn is a vote for cow pox for the entire flock 

-Tip the scale for Daaaale 

-Justice for Daaaale 

-A win for Glennnn is a fail for Daaaale

-Daaaale has kind eyes (contrasting the discussion of Glennnn’s eyes from the first day) 

-“If Daaaale fails I will wail”- Julie 

-Glennnn is such a good friend! 

-RiverDAAAALE! 

-What do we know about Daaaale? Nothing! 

-Daaaale is against Net Neutrality 

-We are feeling sheepish about Glennnn 

-Daaaale will prevail 

-Tip the scale for Daaaale 

-Glennnn and Daaaale have beef with each other 

-A vote for Daaaale is a vote for a world of snacks

The Battle paused to introduce and catch up the new guests. Brit explained everything as “Brit brings props from community theatre but they are now their own things and stories.” At this point Daaaale was wearing Shrek ears because Shrek lives in a swamp. (I’m still confused on this one since a dale is not a swamp.) The new guests were happy to jump into the Battle and insisted that cow pox gave us vaccines. As their connection to the stream went in and out it was commented that the Battle is causing wooly connections and shear brilliance of puns. I’m not sure you herd me. Chat declared the puns to be flocking awesome. 

As the Battle waged on and the donations continued to pour in Brit called for peace: “I need to take them back in the same vehicle.” Hank agreed, adding that Glennnn and Daaaale need to go sit in the same basement together. Soon donations were submitted for peace and were tallied under the joint ticket of Gaiiiil and Marrrrrsha. Unfortunately, this peace was short-lived as the debate was reignited by the question of if Glennnn or Daaaale is older. Eventually it was decided that they are twins but Glennnn is older. 

As is to be expected, Harry Potter was soon pulled into the battle. In the heat of anger Glennnn was declared a Slytherin but it was soon walked back. He is a Gryffindor. Daaaale is definitely a Hufflepuff. Both Glennnn and Daaaale love Harry Potter. The discussion of Harry Potter brought us back to Nerdfighteria and Brotherherd 2.0 was born, as were its fans the Herdfighters of Herdfighteria. Quietly Brit lamented, “Why do I feel like they are never going to be returned?”

“I’m for Daaaale, but when I look into Glennnn’s eyes I feel the need to vote for him” commented Hank. There is definitely something about Glennnn’s eyes. Ben (possibly the same Ben from before) made a big donation in Glennnn’s name. He was declared Glennnn’s SuperPAC which was soon replaced with SuperHERD (or SuperFLOCK). Since Glennnn was given larger donations than Daaaale, Glennnn was declared a puppet for Big Sheep. Soon the Second Battle of GlennnnDaaaale was ended due to the $5154 donation that did not vote for either sheep. The votes were tallied and Glennnn won the Second Battle of GlennnnDaaaale. 

As they were finishing up for the night Brit went to wash dishes and found a picture of Reed hugging a different sheep from the theatre… and also a large goat (which Brit did not bring to the stream because it was too big). 

You would think that would be the end of Glennnn and Daaaale for the evening BUT NO! They traveled to Synema Studios to visit that crew into the wee hours of the morning. Michael Aranda questioned why Glennnn gets to be the lord and savior (and wear the crown). He was then given a quick recap of the story. Soon it was discovered that Glennnn and Daaaale were in marching band together as drummers. As the stream continued the Synema crew gave Daaaale a lot more attention than Glennnn because Glennnn is a king and “Daaaale just lives in a swamp” (Note: a dale is not a swamp). At the end of their shift Michael declared that it was more of an honor to be in Daaaale’s presence than Glennnn’s and chat was offended. 

As the 2017 Project for Awesome came to a close Hank thanked Glennnn and Daaaale for their efforts. Glennnn appeared to celebrate the end of the livestream. After John and Hank said goodbye the last shot of the stream was Glennnn.

(Here’s a link to my Butfartman Lore Compliation.)

[cybergum]

Hey tumblr. A few weeks ago, I posted a video about depression. TL;DW: Things sucked, despite pretending otherwise, but things are getting better. 

[cybergum]

I’d submit again if I could. That Pizzamas box looks sweet.

CALLING ALL NERDFIGHTERS!

The Road to Nerdfighteria has another open call for #NFstories. We want to know:

1. How did you become a Nerdfighter?

2. What does Nerdfighteria mean to you?

Tell us your story, and we’ll share it on Tumblr, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook!

We’re accepting stories in the form of videos, blog posts, photos, artwork, and other forms of creative media.

Submit your text, photos, and artwork using this submission form.

To be featured on The Road to Nerdfighteria YouTube channel, send your video file (4 minutes or less!) as a shared Dropbox or Google Drive link to theroadtonerdfighteria[at]gmail[dot]com.

If you submit your story by May 30, you will be entered into a drawing to win all these exclusive Pizza John items from Pizzamas 2016!

For examples of the stories that we feature, head over to our Tumblr and YouTube channel.

Questions? Check out our FAQ.

We look forward to hearing your #NFstories!

[cybergum]

Hello, tumblr. I haven’t really posted anything in a while. I’ve started a new channel! It’s called lucency, and it’s about movies and games and media. Here’s a video I just posted on it. It’s about Star Wars and silly arguments.

[cybergum]

Not pictured: Maia throwing her arms up in (silent) victory celebration while I have to sit there pretending not to notice the PERFECT THROW.

I reveal the secret behind my favorite shot in the video, “How to Juggle.” Thanks to @cybergum for your patience and persistence! 

[cybergum]

I guess I could just use the wireless, but that’s lame.

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We proudly present EVERY NERDFIGHTER HAS A STORY, a collection of Nerdfighter stories from the last ten years. This film was originally screened at @nerdconnerdfighteria. 

[cybergum]

Every single time.

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I’m rather fond of this story, too.

Dave Green showed @cybergum what Nerdfighteria is capable of.

[cybergum]

Oh, hello tumblr. I forgot that you were a thing for a while. But here’s a thing for you! After (mostly by accident) taking the second half of 2016 off, We Are St Elmo’s Fire is coming back. After six months away from making videos, I got this up before the end of the year to let 2016 know that it got a bad rap.

[cybergum]

With all the ME:Andromeda hype, I’ve been wanting to replay the Mass Effect trilogy. Here are some thoughts from a few hours into my first reimpression from the first game:

The pacing is extremely solid. There’s a ton of background exposition, but it’s surprisingly efficient. The game opens with a little text to tell you that a) humans are in space now because of these Mass Relay things and b) space is pretty big and there are consequences. Then you’re on a ship. It’s the best in the human fleet, so now we know where humans are at in terms of tech. Here’s what we’re doing. This is Nihlus, he’s a turian, they’re aliens that we don’t get along with super well but we’re allies now. Things just keep moving forward, constantly feeding you more information about the world without feeling like you need to be spending the first hour buried in the Codex trying to figure everything out. You already have your squad basically assembled before you’re off the Citadel for the first time. Some games today haven’t even let you out of the tutorial by that point.

This game has KOTOR’s fingerprints all over it. The level design, the random containers containing upgrades, the layout of the Normandy with each crew member having their own spot where they hang out--it really does feel a bit like Bioware wanted to make another KOTOR game, and built a whole new universe just so they could.

The graphics hold up decently well, and the aliens still look fantastic. Maybe it’s because so much extra effort went into them, or maybe it’s because they were intentionally designed with the graphical limitations in mind. Humans, on the other hand, don’t look as great. They’re not terrible, but facial expressions are definitely on the wrong side of the uncanny valley, and it’s only when I replay ME1 that I remember how incredibly cheesy human armor looked. They didn’t really figure out how to make armor look cool until the later games.

I keep trying to reload my weapon even though I know that guns don’t work that way in ME1. I’ll likely adjust just in time to start ME2 and get re-annoyed by the lazy introduction of heat clips. That said, from a mechanics perspective, the overheating thing seems a lot more restrictive than it did the first times I played.

Combat got so much better in the later games. When someone gets up close in ME1, trying to actually hit them is painful.

The Mako is just terrible. I always defended the Mako because I really enjoyed getting to explore planets that way, but...man, it’s just so bad at doing things. Driving feels much worse than I remember.

Grenades are mapped to the back button on the 360 version? WHY.

That opening music. So nostalgic. 

The Citadel is great, but it feels very empty now that more games are able to populate spaces better. It’s a galactic hub. Where is everyone?

ME2 is probably my favorite of the series, and part of the reason I wanted to replay the trilogy was to play the DLC in 2 and 3 that I never got around to actually playing the first time around. I was a little worried that ME1 might feel clumsy and that it would feel more difficult to get through, but so far I am definitely enjoying my return to the Normandy SR-1.

[cybergum]

I’ve seen a lot of “how did this happen” type posts, and here’s my pet theory/unpopular opinion:

John Oliver’s “Drumpf” bit legitimized Trump’s candidacy and paved the way for the media storm that would carry him to the White House.

Here’s why: Early in Trump’s campaign, the Republican primary was a disaster. The GOP couldn’t figure out who to get behind, and Trump filled that vacuum with his confidence. He was the only one who actually seemed like he was going to handle things, and it took him a long way in the Republican primary.

But outside of the primary, the rest of the country didn’t seem to take his candidacy seriously. He was a brash reality TV star using his clout and notoriety to bully his way through an extremely weak roster of GOP primary opponents. He didn’t really have a chance.

And then the Drumpf bit happened. It mocked Trump, and it went viral because it demonstrated Trump’s inherent hypocrisy. Drumpf was practically a household name.

But it set a precedent. Trump was already a celebrity, but this was the first time he really got attention as a candidate. Everybody was talking about candidate Trump, and that’s exactly what he needed.

He went on to make lots of media appearances, chatting with the same talk show hosts who mocked him most nights. Hillary backed away from the spotlight; Trump leaped in.

 Trump irritated liberals, and a lot of conservatives and independents liked that. And every news source couldn’t stop talking about Trump’s latest gaffes. It was non-stop coverage for Trump, and he didn’t have to pay a dime for it. And when he did start putting out actual campaign ads, they were exactly what his campaign had been all along--bold claims that he could “fix” America.

Hillary’s ads, on the other hand, were just a plea: Please don’t vote Trump. Hell, more than one of her ads were people literally saying that they didn’t like Hillary, but they felt like voting for her was the only option.

That’s not how you win a campaign.

But if you want to know how it got this far, to me, it all starts with Drumpf. Every time liberals shared lazy articles about Trump’s latest dumb quote or joked about Drumpf, they were giving his campaign the attention it thrived on. The most powerful thing we could have done against Trump would have been to ignore him.

Who’s responsible for this? We are.

[cybergum]

why do people think bisexuality is confusing? it’s not. 

you know what is confusing? bi annual. does it mean every two years or twice a year? no one knows.

[cybergum]

Rimworld Problem: Your random scenario started with (among other things) several dozen tortoise eggs. Those eggs hatched in your refrigerator and the tortoises are eating all your food.

Rimworld Solution: Crank your cooler down to subzero temperatures, wait for the tortoises to freeze to death, and enjoy the next two weeks of tortoise stew.

[cybergum]

I spent most of a week making this video, and it’s the most complex thing I’ve made to date, featuring Star Wars clips, an Alanis Morissette parody, and fancy green screen hologram effects. It would be pretty cool if you checked it out.

Under the cut, I’m going to talk behind-the-scenes things. It’s mostly for me because I thought it was valuable to run through what I’d learned the last time I made a video that was (for me) pretty complicated and full of new things.

This whole song started as a shower thought. I was thinking about making a review video for The Force Awakens (which never happened) and I kept coming back to how iconic everything had become. And then: Isn’t it iconic? Don’t you think?

Then I came up with the first couple of lines of the song, and that was pretty much it. But for the next few months, those lines kept randomly popping into my head, and I started to wonder if I could actually complete them. Finally, even though I knew it would take more than the few days I had before my video was due, I decided it was time. I was going to write the damn thing and get the idea out of my head.

It’s not a complicated song on the guitar, so learning it wasn’t a big deal. Rewriting the lyrics was the hard part, although about half the song came very quickly. The rest was trickier, and involved researching how many suns Tatooine and Jakku had, the proper name of holochess, and whether “astromech” referred to the R2 line specifically, or if it was just a catch-all for droids that integrated with ships.

Recording is always a pain because I don’t have the greatest audio equipment or acoustics, and (maybe more importantly) I don’t really have the patience for adjusting audio settings. The best I can do is some compression and reverb and hope that “good enough” really is. It’s something that’s going to severely hold me back if I ever want to record something more complicated than an acoustic song, which is a bit disappointing. I don’t think I could do much better on my own without help or some serious research and practice, neither of which are likely to be priorities anytime soon.

I had originally planned on just filming it in the usual place and dropping the clips in the shot somewhere until I remembered that I was borrowing a green screen from @sixseasonsandamaia (despite not really having a plan for using it). So that led to a night of learning how to set up chromakey in Sony Movie Studio, which turned out to work pretty well. I also finally realized that you could set templates for effects and clip locations and hate myself for not looking into it sooner, because now end screens will take almost no time at all to make.

Then, when I had already committed to doing the song and learning how to green screen, I wondered if I could take it a step further. Since it’s a Star Wars video, what if I flickered into the shot as a hologram? I didn’t how much extra work it would be, but I figured I was in this deep already--may as well give it a shot.

It turned out to be not all that much extra work, surprisingly. Some fun with the effects already built in to Movie Studio pulled it off pretty well, and although it wasn’t perfect, it did the job and I had a good idea of what could have made it better (but I was only willing to put so many hours into this one video).

People have liked the video, and that makes me happy. I spent enough time on it that I sort of went numb--after some back and forth between thinking it was an amazing idea and thinking it was garbage, I legitimately couldn’t judge the quality anymore. 

But I also appreciated the fact that the things I mentioned in that other post about what I had learned actually paid off. This time, I did have my lighting sorted out, and it meant the green screen effect could work properly (though in fairness, the effects gave me some room to fudge things if needed). This time, I did do test shots first to get an idea of what I was doing, and it meant that when I was recording for real, I knew what my video would look like and what I would be doing with it. And this time, even though I was starting late, I gave myself enough time to finish it. Getting it as close to right as I could took priority over getting it up earlier.

It’s cool to come up with an ambitious idea and be able to make it, and it’s great to show it to somebody and have them wondering how you did it. I don’t have the energy to make videos like this often...but I’m glad I can make them sometimes.

[cybergum]

I thought that this question @edwardspoonhands posted to Twitter was really interesting. Banning users from commenting on or otherwise interacting with content is a pretty common feature, but stopping them from accessing it at all is something I hadn’t considered. The replies were mixed, with a seemingly larger portion feeling that it was okay to lock someone out of your content, and a smaller portion (but still a decent chunk) feeling that it was too permanent, or opened the door for too much abuse of power (blocking someone you disagree with from even seeing your side of things, which interestingly, is a thing on Tumblr now).

I liked the question because it’s something that only applies to the internet. In a physical space, access to a content and to a community tend to be one in the same. If you go to a theater, or an art gallery, or a convention (or etc.) and you’re disruptive, destructive, and otherwise an ass, you can be thrown out and banned from returning. You lose access to the community, the creators, and the content itself all at once.

But on Youtube, you don’t need to enter to get content. You can (and many do) just watch from the outside, consuming videos without participating. Being “thrown out” doesn’t carry the same consequences online. So then that’s the question--should it? 

I think it’s an interesting idea, but it’s also probably unenforceable. But if it was achievable, I’d be very curious to see what kind of an effect the ability to ban people from content entirely could have.

[cybergum]

yeah I love youtube and love HP, so why not combine it?