hen
t h e e r
the blender at last
I felt bad I couldnt get anything together after such a warm invitation.
Just nothing left in the tank after doing all the IRL stuff for the day.
Not that Im a spectacular artist or anything, but lots of people honed craft
and learned from compos back in the day, so keeping that going in some form
is maybe a bigger resource for new artists than it may appear to be.
n e w s
So... we hosted the first new Blender IRC competition in 16 years!
Would anyone care? Would anyone turn up? I hadnt heard a peep of interest
after announcing it albeit dropped inconspicuously and tres casually in the
midst of enormous infofiles that any other human being may or may not have
actually read all the way through in the BLNDR048-060.ZIP omnibus released
last month, but I was heartened by a report the day before the compo that
there were already five people waiting in blender. As the day approached, I
had hyped a webpage version of the Blender rules on social media, kindly
signal-boosted by the other oldschool elites left standing, and I can report
that my specific tracking URL used to access the page has been viewed over 150
times!
spinsane ok, so the topic here, will that webpage hopefully have like
submission info in it?
cthulu here, let me elaborate privately
spinsane cthulu long story short, you have no chance to win - just give up
and go to bed old man
spinsane THATS A HORRIBLY HURTFUL PRIVATE MESSAGE
Like chrono-refugees fallen through a time hole, as the hour of the
compo approached, we gathered in the IRC as though AOL was still a titan, we
were still connected via dialup, and nobody could yet ascertain the full
extent of the vast devastation the Y2K bug would unleash upon society.
cthulu Tick tick tick...
spinsane are there participants?
cthulu Thats an excellent question.
spinsane or is this a ANOTHER mistigris sponsored prank
Sure, wed gathered a little crowd of rubberneckers -- if youre still
hanging out on IRC in 2015, you find your way to the extraordinary pretty
quickly, because there hasnt been anything new under the sun there for quite
a while, and eventually you get tired of playing Acromania.
cthulu Compo starts in 5 minutes!
melfarr i felt pretty nostalgic when i saw the ad
spinsane ad where?
spinsane billboard i hope
melfarr nytimes
spinsane full page i assume
melfarr yeah. it looked like a real article thats how it got me
melfarr but cthulu promoted this pretty heavily on fb
spinsane i hope it featured one of those mind blowing pictures where the guy
in the picture is looking at the newspaper, and the newpaper hes
looking at has HIS picture on it, etc, ad infinity
spinsane speaking of which: that should be the blender theme
melfarr it was a picture of hennifer and warpus and it was designed to look
like an op-ed in favor of gay marriage
o l d f r i e n d s
Because the Blender wasnt entirely MINE to revive unilaterally, I had
recruited the assistance of two celebrity cameo guests of honour -- its
founders, who if not sufficiently motivated to revive the series themselves,
were ultimately content enough to at least oversee this exhuming of their
offsprings bones after its time, made to caper and cavort for my strange
jollies.
* rambo is now known as warpus
warpus hey bitches
things hi rambo
spinsane whoa
melfarr oh man
warpus surprise, im not reallly rambo
melfarr you win first blood tho
* things is now known as hennifer
melfarr whoah
spinsane omg it is canadian bacon
spinsane jeff something or other
hennifer thats right, jeff something or other
hennifer hi
melfarr !!
spinsane :D
spinsane i have the weirdest, least useful specific memory in the world :
hennifer not at all, i remember both of you guys
spinsane oh okzie
spinsane 18 years is a long time
spinsane bam
hennifer impressive
melfarr its good to be back
As though anyone had somehow ended up in that particular obscure
corner of cyberspace at that specific moment by accident, we fulfilled the
protocols and discussed how the event was going to go down:
spinsane hopefully lit is an accepted format for the compo
spinsane and .xm
melfarr i was kind of banking on lit
cthulu Skrubly dominated Blender for months with lit!
cthulu and music can also be a good fit. Haquisaq proved that!
melfarr i havent drawn in 18 yrs
spinsane i was just gonna steal something from doomed to obscurity and say
it was my entry
warpus i havent drawn an ansi since nam
spinsane out of charlies ears
melfarr when i was your age, we had to use thedraw to draw ansis
melfarr so if everyone just does lit is this just a glorified poetry slam
spinsane black birds of war / 747 / feel my soaring hatred / velvet nooses
and bubblegum cigarettes
spinsane AND IM OUT
melfarr Im probly going to submit a batch file for this
hennifer my entry is going to be interpretive dance
warpus im ready for it
cthulu henn, I would like to see the dance
hennifer cthulu: dont be so sure of that
Having grown dulled to the simultaneous group-performative nature of
IRC, we all got a little drunk on past memories and mature wit. But finally
we could procrastinate no longer...
cthulu OK, hands up who is here for Blenderizing and not just for
socializing!
nailfire o/
melfarr o/
cthulu OK, were going to need at least 3 people, cause were going to need
three suggestions and a first, second and third place.
* hennifer tentatively raises hand
melfarr Do it do it
nailfire wasnt this supposed to be tag-team? heh
cthulu BYO team
cthulu Where is fire?
nailfire o/
nailfire Ive never done this by myself 8D
melfarr nail, when you teamed w/ tetanus for 24, was it bcuz ppl usually
get tetanus from nails or is that just a weird coincidence
I officially got things off to a start with some Figlet art, invoked
some illustrious fictitious history and a bit of potted drama that was never
actually scripted. People were getting restless:
warpus cthulu: shouldnt you be collecting words?
warpus im going to go downstairs and grab some brie cheese, brb
spinsane helluva euphemistic sentence there
hennifer when does word collection start?
cthulu Warpus, very true, inconveniently after 90 minutes of nobody being
here, all of my party guests have just arrived simultaneously
cthulu and Im politely saying oh gosh, Im multitasking, please go play
some games
Spurred on by the Sweet Sixteen Colors compo, I had foolishly opted to host
Blender 2015 during my own birthday party, celebrated with an on-site
installation of 9 or 10 vintage video game consoles for my friends to visit,
play and reminisce with. Traditionally these parties are quite thin at the
beginning, so I thought I could pull it off without a hitch, but inconveniently
this time around they chose to be a little more punctual. Warpus was also
hosting a gathering of some old Blender-era friends at the same time.
hennifer irc is a clear priority over party guests
melfarr the words are Warpus, Grabbing Brie Cheese, Downstairs
spinsane i already have several pictures for that theme
cthulu OK, Im going to flood the channel now
spinsane helluva euphemistic sentence there
cthulu
cthulu
cthulu -
cthulu -
cthulu /
cthulu
hennifer 1st place!
cthulu This is the part where I talk about how I invented the Blender back
in 1995
cthulu No one else was capable of such a wonderful and amazing idea
hennifer i dont remember 1995 at all
cthulu It needed to exist and so I caveated it into existence
cthulu And then this would be the part where warpus says hey, you only
started running it after I dropped out
hennifer i think warpus is paying attention to party guests or something
cthulu setting me straight on a number of salient points such as the fact
that it didnt exist at all until well after 1995, thanks to his
supreme intellect and benign guidance
cthulu Then Hennifer reveals himself and says something like WHO DISTURBS MY
SLEEP OF A THOUSAND YEARS WITH THESE FALSEHOODS
hennifer its ok im senile now
cthulu It would have been a little more competently scripted and acted if
Id been more prepared, but here we are.
For the benefit of folks who had grown a little rusty, we had to go over
the rules one more time:
cthulu OK, so everyone should be reasonably clear on the rules
cthulu Im going to solicit topics for artworks
cthulu youre going to send them to The Blender Administrators
cthulu We will pick the topics, and by golly, art will be made making some
use of the three topics
cthulu I will happily compile and rate any artwork I have in my inbox when
I wake up tomorrow morning
cthulu its been 16 years, Im not going to quibble over a matter of hours.
This is where the rubber met the road: would we get enough word-
submissions to get three good topics together?
cthulu OK, Warpus guests are secretly submitting words to me, art topics.
cthulu Are you going to allow these anonymous cowards to set the agenda for
us and issue us our marching orders?
warpus hey these are blender veterans
cthulu cowardly veterans!
spinsane are we supposed to msg words? or are these NON-PARTICIPANTS
CONTROLLING THE THEME?!
melfarr are they not going to participate?
spinsane if only three people compete, im guaranteed third place
spinsane ill take it
To get three good topics, you need to receive a bit more than three
topic-submissions. This took a while...
warpus i want more brie
warpus and i forgot my beer downstairs too
hennifer i think warpus fell down the stairs
hennifer RIP warpus
warpus walked up some stairs
warpus the opposite of what you are suggesting!
melfarr back from the dead like..lazarus?
hennifer it all depends on your vertical orientation
cthulu If you moonwalk up the stairs, are you going up the stairs or down
the stairs, up?
hennifer i think you just end up falling down the stairs either way
hennifer falling down the stairs - theres a good action
w e p i c k e d w o r d s
BLNDR2015 party guests / time traveling / stadium
Eventually we ended up with a few to pick from:
locations:
shit street
in the timestream
IRC
stadium
subjects:
socks
dogs actually these were originally one: dogs loving socks
cool dads
screwdriver
bitcoin
party guests
activities:
slapping around
loving
looking for love
time travelling
Mulling them over was ... a slow exercise in consensus-building among
the three veteran Blender admins. In a private channel, there were debates
and tie-breaking votes. Theres a gentle art to getting a good Blender topic
together, and its a fine line distinguishing whether cool dads or party
guests will make for better illustration subjects. This issue cropped up
while playing Eat Poop You Cat, with some subjects -- eg. kings, cats, fish --
being drawable and understandable by anyone even at the stickman level.
Conversely, an example of an un-drawable subject was provided: something like
indigenous epistemology. But I digress.
In truth, mel farr suppastars full suggestion was cool dads /
looking for love / in the timestream, which is basically the perfect Blender
topic, but we didnt want to make all the suggestions from one person. In
the timestream was reinterpreted as time travelling, as the love
activities were dismissed as easily leading down an unwanted pornographic
slippery slope.
cthulu There are topics that admins are unlikely to approve
cthulu so dont feel obligated to tell us that you want to see art made
about gynecologists / wanking / in a strip club
cthulu weve heard these jokes before
* hennifer scratches words off his list
cthulu unless you can find a new, fresh and genuinely funny take on them
hennifer new, fresh and genuinely funny gynecologists wanking in a strip
club
cthulu for instance, my anecdote about my old roommates
cthulu one of whom met me in the kitchen and attempted to tell me the joke
about the prostitute and the leper
cthulu interrupted by the other roommate in the other room who overheard and
bellowed THAT JOKES WRONG!
cthulu THATS NOT HOW LEPROSY WORKS!
cthulu And I said... of all the grounds on which to object to that joke...
cthulu its scientific rationale is probably its least offensive
transgression.
cthulu Really the only acceptable punchline to it is We are both human
beings with inherent dignity and self-worth and hence are worthy of
your respect.
cthulu But then it wouldnt be funny.
Finally, we could procrastinate no longer I know, I said that before,
but the thing is that every step of the process can be procrastinated on! And
if you really need to draw it out, you can always add in a few further steps
to help winnow down the ranks through attrition!
spinsane im getting tired tho so i hope this happens before the shadow of
death completes its slow creep across my empty walls
cthulu if you want it faster next time, submit better words!
nailfire are you hammering the words into shape, or how does the perceived
quality of the words influence the time it takes?
cthulu nail, there were extensive debates. we only got there by virtue of
there being three for a tie-breaker
cthulu THE ELDERS OF BLENDER HAVE ACHIEVED CONSENSUS
cthulu PARTY GUESTS / TIME TRAVELLING / STADIUM
melfarr i am so ready to roq.
nailfire oi
hennifer yayyy
nailfire I dont have enough characters in a line to do a stadium
hennifer ok now to smoke weed
melfarr time limit to submit?
warpus 5 minutes to smoke weed everyone, I REPEAT FOR THE NEXT 5 MINUTES
WERE ALL SMOKING
WEED
warpus then you can start drawing
warpus those are the rules.
nailfire ok, unfortunately Im out then
warpus DISQUALIFIED
nailfire *sigh*
hennifer you can smoke crack if you have an objection to weed
warpus just kiidding, PROMOTED
hennifer we are flexible
lordSCRLT Right on
melfarr im excited
melfarr and inspired
hennifer im baked
hennifer and inspired
During the comp, we had some visitors drop in:
* haquisaq bryface@69.172.172.99 has joined blender
haquisaq eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
cthulu tremble in your booties, haquisaq is in effect!
cthulu he has probably won more blenders than all of you combined
cthulu fortunately for you, he is here at my party
cthulu and probably will be playing video games instead of blenderizing
haquisaq aaaaaay warpus / hen
haquisaq glad you guys didnt get killed over the last 15 yrs
melfarr aint that the truth
nailfire its sad when thats the kinda thing to be happy about
melfarr i think we can also be happy abt the first blender in 15 yrs
cthulu 16 years, Im pretty sure!
nailfire I wouldve thought some of those Blocktronics newcomer people would
show up
Haquisaq didnt participate in the Blender as he was sitting in my
living room playing Gorf on the Atari 2600 I had received for my birthday.
a n d t h e s c o r e s ?
To make a long story short, I eventually collected the art, then judged
it, then ran out of distracting side-business to throw at you before finally
announcing the results!
hennifer-v2.txt
In 3rd place, a short story by Hennifer of Lazarus, earning the group
1 point and preventing Hen from helping me judge objectively! With a time-
travel story you can basically have anything happen, but this story has the
broad fingerprints of an artist all over it. By which I mean, its full of
odd, arbitrary details.
n-blnd61.ans
Silver on the podium, the long-suffering Nail earning 2 points for
Fire, finally pulling them out in front of CiA who had been tied with them for
2nd in the all-time rankings since 1998 I was kidding about the score-
settling grudge match. I felt bad not giving him the gold, as the only
participant who contributed in his trademark medium and style instead of
having allowed it to wither entirely from neglect, but I liked it second-best.
MFSB2015.txt
Can you blame the scenes preeminent poet for giving first place to
writing? Mel Farr Suppastar, the second-most-Blender-participating non-
Blender-adminsitrator ever, brings home the gold and 3 points for Project
301. Like all the entries, it satisfies the conditions, but what pushed it
over the top was the free ride it gets on strategically nostalgic use of IRC
lore.
tada.jpg
As for the other entries -- theres one other non-lit, Spinsanes VGA
that, being submitted as a 6 meg PNG, kept proving difficult to receive. As
judges we are called upon to rate the overall technical capability of the
artist also were looking at good use of the themes. By these metrics this
piece passes. It was just all a little too weird for me! Kind of like an
additional layer of offputting weirdness on top of the strangeness of
Hennifers entry.
bizzyfunk.log.txt
And be kind to bizzyfunk -- hia bit of IRC whimsy wasnt officially
submitted, I just captured it in a faithless moment of desperation when it
looked like we might not receive three entries to award gold, silver and
bronze placement to.
melfarr i dont know if they stopped doing this but i remember in the
beginning there was like a write up on each submission
melfarr the write ups on mine were always some polite version of wtf?
warpus it wasnt easy to figure out what to say about your entries melfarr
melfarr great art is often confounding.
cthulu ALWAYS confounding, mel.
melfarr i was confounding while hennifer warpus were co-founding
That done, I had no remaining option but to release the pack! Sure,
it was a little underwhelming, but like a dog walking on its hind legs, its
more remarkable that it was being done at all than that it was being done
well. And to be sure, I ran several Blender compos in 1998 which had lower
turnouts and produced less art than this one, and they didnt even have the
excuse of the artscene having withered away, turned black and fallen off. No
matter, Ill write it a glorious infofile like it was the motherfucking Iliad
to help impress on viewers just how significant the context, if not
necessarily the text, was. Maybe next time I can bring a bit less rigor to
the table when the events Im describing only elapsed last weekend, and not
16 years ago.
nailfire this wont end well
hennifer of course not, its the blender
b y e
if there ever is another blender, it will most likely be held:
tag team blender!
saturday, april 2nd, 2016
7:30pm - 9:30pm est
4:30pm - 7:30pm pst
blender on EFnet
please join us. - cthulu
Nobody who is even remotely sane reads chat logs. - Mogel, The Obloid Sphere,
c. 2000