Tuesday, April 19, 2011

I'm Still In Love With Horus, Baby

I've been enjoying Lady Gaga's new song Judas and, at the same time, rereading the first few books in the Horus Heresy. This has caused, shall we say, odd thoughts.

I can't sing worth a damn (my only "D" in middle school was in Chorus), so if any musically-inclined fans of Warhammer 40,000 want to do something with this, I'd love to hear about it. Keep in mind that the original song lyrics are not mine, none of the characters are mine, and any attempt to profit off this will make powerful people very angry at you.



Oh-oh-oh-ohoo
I'm in love with Hor-us, Hor-us

Oh-oh-oh-ohoo
I'm in love with Hor-us, Hor-us

Horus Hor-a-a, Horus Hor-a-a, Horus Hor-a-a, Horus Chaos
Horus Hor-a-a, Horus Hor-a-a, Horus Hor-a-a, Horus Chaos

[Verse 1]
When he comes to me, I am ready
I'll burn the galaxy if he needs
Stand with him when his Legions march to slay
The Master of Mankind that he betrays

I'll burn it down, burn it down, down
Imperium with no crown, with no crown

[Chorus]
I'm just a loyal fool, oh baby he's so cruel
But I'm still in love with Horus, baby

I'm just a loyal fool, oh baby he's so cruel
But I'm still in love with Horus, baby

Oh-oh-oh-ohoo
I'm in love with Hor-us, Hor-us

Oh-oh-oh-ohoo
I'm in love with Hor-us, Hor-us

Horus Hor-a-a, Horus Hor-a-a, Horus Hor-a-a, Horus Chaos

[Verse 2]
I couldn't serve a man so purely
His soldiers all embraced his prideful way
The Emperor abandoned us to die,
Chaos has given us a new way

I'll burn it down, burn it down, down
Imperium with no crown, with no crown

[Chorus]
I'm just a loyal fool, oh baby he's so cruel
But I'm still in love with Horus, baby

I'm just a loyal fool, oh baby he's so cruel
But I'm still in love with Horus, baby

Oh-oh-oh-ohoo
I'm in love with Hor-us, Hor-us

Oh-oh-oh-ohoo
I'm in love with Hor-us, Hor-us

EW

[Bridge]
In the Imperial sense,
I am beyond repentance
Sworn traitor, heretic wretch, corrupted mind
But to the warp-sighted sense
I just speak in future tense
Horus kill me if offensed,
Or close your mind next time

I wanna serve you,
But something's pulling me away from you
The Emperor is my virtue,
And Chaos is the daemon I cling to
I cling to

[Chorus]
I'm just a loyal fool, oh baby he's so cruel
But I'm still in love with Horus, baby

I'm just a loyal fool, oh baby he's so cruel
But I'm still in love with Horus, baby

Oh-oh-oh-ohoo
I'm in love with Hor-us, Hor-us

Oh-oh-oh-ohoo
I'm in love with Hor-us, Hor-us

Horus Hor-a-a, Horus Hor-a-a, Horus Hor-a-a, Horus Chaos
Horus Hor-a-a, Horus Hor-a-a, Horus Hor-a-a, Horus Chaos

Saturday, April 16, 2011

Links of Interest - Thunderstorm Edition

My apologies for the lack of blog updates recently. Work continues to intrude on my writing time (which, let's all remember, is no excuse), and when I do write I'm trying to focus on fiction instead of blog posts.

And now I guess I should apologize for apologizing. At this rate I'll never make it into the Evil League of Evil Writers. (Agh, God, another apology! It's like some horrible, infinite, melancholic loop of sad-sackery. Screw it, I'm blaming the rain and moving on.)

A few links well worth reading:
Now back to... apparently petting the dog so she'll stop growling at me. Maybe she'll let me jot a few notes down with my spare hand...

Saturday, April 2, 2011

No April Fool

I had intended to post something yesterday for April Fool's Day, but every idea I could come up with on short notice would A. get me fired, B. get me sued for libel, or C. get me blacklisted by Black Library. So you are going to have to wait to hear me celebrate acceptance of the first book in my three-novel Squat series.

Instead, I figure I'll tell you a little story. Sit down, my lovelies, and gather around the fire...

When I was a kid I lived in downtown Annapolis, in easy walking distance of a novelty store called A.L. Goodies. It's still on Main Street if you want to check it out sometime. The store was a treasure trove of cheap gags, bizarre novelties, occasional comic books (when the comic shop wasn't out of business), and tourist amusements. For a kid, it was a great place to pick up the occasional practical joke. I would end up working there for a few years in high school, and remember the store's fart sprays being justly feared. That stuff stuck around.

Anyway, one April Fool's Day well before that, I decided I was going to play the best gag ever on my mom. To wit: I bought a pack of exploding cigarette inserts from A.L. Goodies and slipped them into my mom's pack of Newports.

Now, every smoker reading this is probably drawing back from their monitor and hissing. Please remember, I was a kid at the time, and all I could think of was the laugh I was going to have when my mom's cigarette blew up in her face. (It is painful to type that sentence.) Besides, D.A.R.E. had explained to me at length that smoking was a bad thing, so I figured if I could scare my mom out of the habit I'd be doing her a favor. Oh, the self-justifications of youth...

The exploding inserts, if you're not familiar with them, were little white pellets about the size of an ant. I have no idea what they were made out of. It may have been C-4. Being an explosive designed for use by children, they were easy to use. I just jammed one into the end of each cigarette in my mom's pack that I could reach, deep enough that the tobacco covered them over. And then, being a kid, I forgot all about it.

Fast forward a few days. It's not April Fool's Day anymore. My sister and I are in the back seat of my mom's car, driving back from the grocery store. My mom has just lit up a cigarette. Nobody, including me, realizes that I've booby-trapped the cigarette. Nobody understands that we are mere seconds away from death.

Suddenly the cigarette explodes. It's not a proper explosion, really just a loud bang and a sudden expansion of the end of the cigarette. It's enough. My mom swerves to the right, then back to the left to try to avoid slamming into the cars around her. My sister and I are bouncing around in the back seat and freaking out because we don't know what's happening. I may be wrong, but I'm pretty sure somebody laid on the horn behind us.

My mom brings the car to a stop on the side of the road and glares at us. She doesn't know who the idiot is, but she has a very short list of suspects. At which point I remember exactly what I did.

Now, I wasn't always an honest kid, but I also don't remember being stupid enough to try and get anything past my mom. So I fessed up pretty quickly, and ended up getting chewed out at length. I remember the phrase "We could have been killed!" coming up more than once. The pack of Newports went directly into the trash.

Looking back on it now, the whole thing was idiotic on my part, but I can't help laughing. Which, honestly, is probably a true statement for any number of stupid things kids get up to. Case in point.