May I present: A poem. About Creepers. Because.
Not actually crazy about how this one turned out. (Rhythm is off in places.) The rhyme scheme is just a little more complicated than I should have taken on at that point. To put it in context, your average poem with a rhyme scheme of A A B B C C D D is about ten times easier than A B A B C D C D. I don’t know. Maybe it’s just me. I was hammering this out at the last minute and perhaps bit off more than was wise, given the coming deadline.
Ah well. It’s not bad. There’s not enough poetry in webcomics, anyway.
Object-Disoriented Programming
C++ is a wonderful language for making horrible code.
Starcraft 2: Rush Analysis
I write a program to simulate different strategies in Starcraft 2, to see how they compare.
Project Frontier
A programming project where I set out to make a gigantic and complex world from simple data.
Control
A wild game filled with wild ideas that features fun puzzles and mind-blowing environments. It has a great atmosphere, and one REALLY annoying flaw with its gameplay.
Lost Laughs in Leisure Suit Larry
Why was this classic adventure game so funny in the 80's, and why did it stop being funny?
Nice try, ain’t bad. You have added some poetry to the world (at least to the webcomics’ world)
On the one hand: yay for poetic words. On the other hand: your poetry sucks. But I still love ya because not many poets laureate are tackling such heady subjects (no pun intended) as green phallic dudes who mess yo *$%& up, yo.
Better to go for A B C B – you won’t win any points for style, but it’ll still rhyme, and you can use C to dump an expositional line.
Is it just me, or does that “ka-boom” font look like it came from Champions Online?
If it were, we could only hope that the creeper has blown up Champions Online as well. I loved City of Heroes, I even enjoyed DCUO… but Champions Online was so awful (in my own opinion) that I uninstalled it within minutes of beginning play.
In fact, creepers might have made that game better!
“I think they’re all men”
I’m pretty sure I can find some fanart showing otherwise!
Please no, MineCraft Rule 34: Do not want! I’ll never be able to look at a Zombie Pigman the same way again…
Dammit, now I just know I’m gonna have to google this!
you had to bring up the pigmen in this context didn’t you?
Pretty good poem but, needs more cowbell.
Other than that it’s okay. It’s actually quite nice.
Kudos for a poem that ends with “Ka-Boom!”
Great poem, now all we need to do is put it to the tune of “Don’t fear the Reaper” by Blue Oyster Cult.
I actually read the poem to the tune of the song (in my head, at least). It ended up with really odd pacing at some parts, but it still kind of worked.
I am in support of this.
Fortunately this comic caught me out of a MineCraft-Playing stupor, when the world was finally starting to look curvy and not made up of blocks enough to read it. And now I want to play MineCraft again.
Good Poem though, better than my random cry of “d**k-monsters!” every 15 seconds.
Um, Shamus. “Sure” and “more” don’t rhyme.
Sore they do!
They do if you use certain American accents.
EDIT: DAMN NINJAS!
It’s called slant rhyme, my friend. You can pronounce “sure” like “shore” (as some people do) or you can accept that “sure” and “more are almost close enough to be a rhyming pair, either way works. Writers do this a lot, and sometimes too much (just ask Emily Dickenson…).
And I’m pretty sure it’s poor form to have words than end in the same stem, i.e. -less or -est, and he did that at least once. *shrug*
At least he can WRITE a poem. I almost got a B one semester because I hate writing poems with a fiery passion.
They do where I’m from (Melbourne).
At least in my sortofnotreally New Zealand accent, they rhyme perfectly.
Many times in Tolkien’s poetry you’ll have a line that doesn’t rhyme with the others. I don’t know much about poetry, but it seems to me to be in a certain style?
“…No spawning of young.
Theyd on’t hatch from a den.
They Don’t eat. (or make dung.)
And I think they’re all men…”
And:
“…Do not disrespect them,
Double-check your bedroom.
When you least expect it:
Oh **** NO! KA-BOOM!”
What you use he in a couple lines doesn’t exactly rhyme, but it works–I think anway. These verses kinda reminded me of that. Not in a specific ABCB meter, it just reminded me of that particular style.
“From gnashing of the Narrow Ice
where shadow lies on frozen hills,
from nether heats and burning wastes
he turned in haste, and roving still
on starless waters from astray
at last he came to Night of Naught,
and passed, and never sight he saw
of shining shore nor light he sought.“
Whoops, I wanted to mention the “Sure/More” line, not really the “KA-BOOM” one, when I was talking about the above.
So, you went with a variation of the Italian sonnet’s ABBA ABBA CDCDCD? Or as my English teacher taught us, “Father, Father, give me money!”
Well now. This poems appeals to the two most prominent parts of my personality: My lazy bohemian side enjoys watching the creativity of others, and my obsessive neurotic side immediately starts thinking about alternative wordings so the poem could flow better.
Well played.
Shamus, I want to see you try to write a sestina now! Those are good times for all.
I don’t know. I feel like I’m overqualified to comment on this topic, and that if I say anything it’ll come across as being a dick. Hurray, liberal arts majors!
Actually, given that the lines don’t actually end for some of those line-breaks, it ends up reading more like AABBCC and so on.
Regarding creepers, I think Clive Owen said it best:
“Fuck you, you fucking fuckers.”
Shoot ‘Em Up…now THAT movie was poetry! ^_^
Well played.
Minecraft…ugh. Trying to build a railroad, transcon. Found obsidian, made gate to nether, made mad dash through nether (just go go go), made another gate in the nether, warped back. Wandered transcon until I found my home again, dropping markers on the way. Built rail lines to two “randomly appearing” nether gates (didnt know they could spawn). Built rail line to a “lost fort” – meaning, I was exploring, got low on supplies, got chased by monsters, built a small fort to protect myself with what I had, then found home again. Set a forest on fire to get rid of monsters chasing me (surprisingly effective). About 1/3 the way to my out-lying gate. Lots of track laid. Lots (ugh, lots) of mining done.
Three rules accompany this nonsense:
1) I must play on normal (no peaceful). This means, on occasion, rebuilding something an idiot creeper blew up once or fourteen times.
2) All supplies I need (iron, gold, coal, etc) must be mined. They cannot be added with an inventory editor. Yes, I am apparently a gaming masochist. Yes, it is taking a long time. Yes, I am having fun building the train to nowhere.
3) Creepers suck. Don’t fear the creeper.
I don’t know that it’s masochism. Honestly I enjoy mining stuff. I’ve made all kinds of cool stuff the hard way. My most recent project is huge pyramid spanning from sea level to “the top” made entirely of iron blocks (not ore blocks, but the extra shiny kind) that I’ve mined myself. It’s 117 blocks to a side and 117 blocks high. And yet, I only had to go find 6 more blocks after I got the idea and started building. I’d been mining for months and trying to figure out what the heck to do with all those chests full of iron blocks I was forging. Next up, I think I’m going to try the same with gold blocks though that’ll take more work.
Oddly enough, for some reason, it didn’t seem that long when I “walked” back – though walking you can use diagonals. When I built the original gate to the Nether, my intent was to just “dig for a good ways”, build a second gate to pop back, and explore. Somewhere along the line I got the idea that it would be fun to connect my home with the faraway gate by rail – in addition to the modest rail network I already had.
I do find myself wishing at times Notch would add a locomotive (a real one, that you could “attach” to other mine carts). I am finding the new powered tracks lacking sometimes.
Still fun, though.
Shamus, as a poet myself and an aspiring professor of English literature, I tend to have rather high standards for poetry. Nevertheless, I could not help but love the ending to the sixth stanza:
They don’t seem to grow.
They don’t dig an abode.
Their life cycle runs so:
They are born, then explode.
Bravo, my good man; I am always happy to see fellow anglophones trying their hands at the most wondrous art of poetry.
My favorite as well. Very Dr. Seuss.
As soon as I saw the words creeper and poetry together I had to make a haiku.
Why sneak up on me?
Why the big frown, my green friend?
“Well, it’s just-” TISS BOOM
Also, like Supernatural Clarity, I enjoyed the sixth stanza the most. Nice effort, Shamus.
Someone posted this to the minecraft subreddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/Minecraft/comments/hdzt9/stolen_pixels_259_dont_fear_the_creeper/
They didn’t credit you so I added a link to your blog and the escapist in the comments.
They are born; they explode.
Best line ever.
I agree, the life cycle line is awesome.