Month: April 2007

Categories
Gaming Home Base Music Television & Movies

A brief, and yet still boring, look at my day

The past 24 hours or so are really supposed to have constituted my “day off,” a concept which increasingly is fading from the realm of the real and being relegated to the realm of the mythological. (I know, I know – just wait until the baby arrives and “8 hours of sleep” also fades into myth.)

I spent a good chunk of my day mowing the front yard – as much of it as I could – with a weed eater whose battery goes kersplat after about 45 minutes. We have yet to pick up the push mower that I lusted after a while back, as Jan’s vehicle had another breakdown Friday. If the vehicle’s not a lemon, then the place in Rogers we’ve had to keep taking it to is, at least in my mind, highly suspect. I can’t come up with words to express how much we don’t need this go-in-for-one-repair-and-three-other-things-that-were-fine-suddenly-fall-apart-the-next-week crap right now. It’s just getting extremely suspicious. If I do find out they’ve been screwing us, I’m not going to walk in there and kick their asses. I’m going to let her do it – and trust me, that’s gonna hurt a hell of a lot more. (I know of what I speak here.)

Anyway, I also sprayed some weed-killer along our fence rows, tried rather not-at-all-successfully to install a screen on yet another window, and got some fallen limbs and hedge clippings out of the yard. I even remembered to wear something on my head – which is now a crispy golden-brown – during most of this activity.

Late last night, I got a bit of gaming in, trying out a few old friends and testing out some new ones I hadn’t played before, and I’m working on the reviews of those games right now. I set up a new video segment to render on the Avid today every time I came inside to get a drink, go to the bathroom, install some new weed-eater cord, etc., so it was digesting all that raw footage and farting up video segments while I was working outside. (On second thought, there has simply got to be a better way to put that.)

During the height of the mid-day heat, I came inside for a bit to wash, dry and fold clothes, and watched the Doctor Who Keeper Of Traken DVD with the commentary on. It’s funny how art imitates life (I’m one of the few folks out there who openly admits to enjoying Matthew Waterhouse and his portrayal of Adric, but by the beginning of part 3 I was mentally willing him to shut the heck up and let the other folks get a word in edgewise) and how it doesn’t (it’s incredibly sad that Anthony Ainley only got to do this one DVD commentary before his death a few years ago, because he seems like such a nice fellow, a real old-school British showbiz gentleman). There’s a nice dedication to him at the end of part 4. I’ll have a full review up, maybe as soon as next weekend, time permitting.

Jan and I watched the Olivia de Havilland / Errol Flynn Robin Hood tonight. Man, I love that movie. Flynn’s just the quintessential cocky-bastard-with-a-heart-of-gold in that one, and everyone from Harrison Ford on down who’s essayed some variation on that basic archetype owes him at least a nod. For the record, I have yet to see a movie or TV take on the Robin Hood legend that I like better than this. Seriously. And let’s not get started on Korngold’s put-the-whole-brass-section-right-in-your-face score.

I’m so looking forward to the push mower – I could actually listen to something on my minidisc player while I’m mowing the yard. And hear it. I was trying to listen to the score from The Incredibles today while doing my weed-whacking (hey, you have to afford me at least one big beefy delusion of grandeur a day), and that music is not quiet and it is not subtle, and I could barely hear it.… Read more

Categories
Funny Stuff

Job Blog Blob Jog

I didn’t even realize until yesterday that Robert Parson, sometimes contributor to theLogBook.com, not only has a blog of his own, but it’s a Blog On A Mission. He’s looking for a good, decent, high-paying job. And it doesn’t really matter if he’s actually got anything approaching credible qualifications for it on paper or not – he’s applying anyway, and with all sincerity. There are only a few entries so far, but I’ve found them all very amusing so far. If you’ve ever wondered if that piece of paper will really get you in the door, regardless of whether it’s in any way connected to the job you’re applied for, this is a truly interesting exercise. Visit Bob’s Job Blog here.… Read more

Categories
Critters Music Should We Talk About The Weather?

Another day, another tornado watch

Ahhh, April and May. I look forward each year to April and May…being over. We seemed to escape the worst of the dastardly weather last night, only to have another shot at it tonight – and on Lost night of all nights! Bastards. Still, last night was a fine night to gather all of the living creatures that comprise our family under one roof. Xena had to go in for her annual shots yesterday, and she apparently handled it like an old pro – mainly because it was Jan who took her, and all I had to do was hoist her into the back of Happy Wagon Of Death 2K3. I remember thinking at the time that she’s actually managed to get heavier, and lo and behold, we now have at least 90 pounds of dog guarding our home. Must be all the chicken I’ve cooked for her since her last round of shots. The cats loved having Xena inside, and once the rain was pouring down in not just buckets but large wheelbarrows, I think Xena loved having Xena inside too. These bad-weather family gatherings will become very interesting when the baby arrives…

It’s also raining music…and I’m coming up dry. In one of those cruel twists of fate, there’s a sudden glut of music that I’d love to get my paws on, and here I am in one of those increasingly familiar situations where I consider the change in my pockets my life savings. There’s a new Jason Falkner out (with an eyebrow-raising price tag since it’s a Japan-only import – why in the world can’t this guy get a U.S. label deal!?), the entire Idle Race catalog has been reissued in a 2-CD set (they had quite the career), and the first Alan Parsons Project album has been remastered and reissued. Argh. Add that at least two of these are going to be imports, and the fact that American currency isn’t so much falling as plummeting against, well, just about every form of legal tender that exists on the planet. Except maybe whatever penguins use for currency. If penguins sold CDs that I really wanted, I could so get a sweet deal. In the meantime, I guess I’ll leave a (increasingly worthless) quarter under my pillow and hope for a visit from the Amazon Wish List fairy. 😆

Anyway, those are my musings for right now. There are a lot worse problems in the world to have than the “can’t afford a few CDs” variety, so I’m really not complaining. It’s just one of those funny feast-or-famine things. 😛… Read more

Categories
Critters Should We Talk About The Weather?

Sleeplessnesslessness

I guess that would mean that I’m actually managing to get some sleep, wouldn’t it? Okay, scratch that subject header from the official record.

Oberon gave me a big scare today, taking off out the door when I got home this evening and zipping off into the countryside. Then he slowly started looping back toward the house and then just stayed still and started crying pitifully – he lost his house! Bearing in mind that a house is a rather big item for a little fuzzy guy to lose, I think we’ve got a pretty good idea of how he came to us in the first place: he ran outside and kept wandering until he spotted the 50-foot tall “SUCKER FOR CATS” neon sign affixed firmly to the top of my house. I went out into my pasture and showed Oberon how he could get back to me, and the little guy wasted no time doing precisely that. These little unexpected excursions scare me because we’ve had him neutered and front declawed – he’s completely defenseless if he takes off out there and gets lost. I’m starting to harbor ideas about screening in at least part of the front porch to serve as an “airlock” of sorts for cat containment purposes. That it could later be used to keep a baby from straying away is just the icing on the cake. Now that he’s back in, he’s just fine and dandy – it’s not that he wants to leave us, he just has absolutely no sense of direction.

Tuesday and Wednesday are supposed to be packed with really nasty weather for us. Somehow it always manages to happen around the anniversary of the ’96 tornado. The SPC has already accorded this one humdinger status, so it may – or may not – be a doozy. Generally speaking, I don’t like being inside the pink bubble inside the red bubble inside the light blue cross-hatched bubble inside the dark blue bubble on an SPC map. It’s not a healthy place to be, and it just doesn’t fit in with my not-getting-pelted-by-hail plans that I’ve made for today.… Read more

Categories
Funny Stuff Television & Movies

Opening the pod bay doors…OF LOVE.

HAL 9000Another silent movie concoction for you (because what it’s spoofing is also silent), it’s time for a True ad spoof that’s maybe, just maybe, a little more universal than Burchuss. 😆 (I’d say Burchuss is something only my friends get, but I’d put good money on the table and bet that at least a third of my friends are like “What? Little orange stuffed animal from space? What!?“) With that in mind, here’s a new one shot late Sunday night at my own desk in near-total darkness. Hey, admit it, if you owned a HAL 9000 prop, you’d do this too. Click here to see.

Couple of shout-outs: thanks to the folks behind the alarmingly accurate 2001 screen saver (free download from The Hal Project) and the simply astounding Celestia (free download here), which are what you see on the screens, giving the whole thing as much 2001 authenticity as I can muster on zero budget at 11:30pm on a Sunday night. If anyone’s really interested, I can do a little piece later on just how crappily I threw the whole thing together. 😛

Enjoy!… Read more

Categories
Home Base

IT BURRRRRRRNNNNSSSS

Tomato Boy!Yep, that’s me over there. Tomato Boy. Mr. Burns. From bald to redhead in just hours. Today wasn’t exactly a stellar day in my world – unless you happened to be a big honkin’ yellow star hanging over my head, then you definitely got to have your fun with me. One of these days I’m going to remember that there are these things called hats, and I actually own a decent number of them. I’m not talking baseball caps – hats. For someone who’s as big a fan of hats as I am, you’d think that I’d actually wear ’em outside on these occasions when I’m just going to step outside and trim the hedge in front of the game room window.

But wait! There’s more. Among my other staggering non-accomplishments today: … Read more