Saw Return of the King today with Jim and Art. Made for a very
relaxing and enjoyable day. The movie was fantastic.
I'll have to admit I've only been feeling luke-warm about the trilogy up
till now. I recognized that I was seeing great movies, and proper
adaptations of the books, IMHO, at least a proper as you could expect from
a movie, but was never excited about them in the same way others were.
They aren't movies I could watch over and over and over again like I could
with other favorites. I was always entertained, but never fanatic
about them. Good Swords & Sorcery movies are very rare.
You kind of usually have to make due with pretty cheesy ones. I'll
shamelessly admit to having been very entertained by Krull and Willow.
Still need to get copies of those ones at some point. Also liked
Conan the Barbarian even though it was campy and very bad, and not really
true to the orginal Robert E. Howard stories. But Return of the King
has greatly improved my opinion of the whole trilogy. It was a fitting
ending that only enhanced my appreciation and enjoyment of the first two.
I was captivated from beginning to end. At this point I am
seriously hoping that Peter Jackson will agree to do The Hobbit and I hear
they are already talking about it.
Posted early Thursday Morning,
December 18, 2003
No Gnus like Good Gnus.
No, I'm not talking about African wildlife. I have just always
loved that pun. Go figure. I have noticed over the last couple
of weeks, that when I take a few moments to surf the web for news, whether
it be at home, or during a break a work, there has been many a story that
brought a smile to my face. The biggest of which of course
was the capture of Saddam. I had faith that they would find him eventually,
but it was a "the sooner the better" situation, and now they have him.
I also smile at the news that the economy has had it's fastest growth
rate in ten years. This hasn't translated into more jobs yet, but
I have faith that it will. Things take time to get going, and
I have to laugh at how many Bush critics are trying to downplay this news.
What has made me the most cheerful of all though, is when I
was looking at the various candidates positions on gun control. It
would appear that Democratic front runner Howard Dean, being from Vermont
and all, has an A rating from the National Rifle Association and is even
more anti-gun control than Bush is. So if he wins the nomination,
then it is a win, win situation as far as guns go. Dean wants no more
gun control at the Federal level. This is very good news.
Few people realize that the assault weapon ban of 1994 has a sunset clause,
and that in September of 2004, it will expire completely and totally.
No repeal is necessary. Bush did state that if a new one
passed, he would sign it. Dean obviously won't. Dean
fought it tooth and nail the first time around. But passing
a renewal will be problematic at best. In the current Senate it probably
could with enough wrangling, but the House is now loaded down with members
who remember what happened in the 94 elections and are afraid to touch the
issue. 94 taught them the hard way that gun owners vote, and
if you piss them off enough, they will, as they did in 94, even get the
Speaker of the House voted out of office. No where was this fear more
apparent than during the DC sniper spree, when the liberals were screaming
for national licensing and ballistic fingerprinting, and no one would touch
it. So a renewal will probably not pass in the House, regardless of
who wins next November. On the miracle that it does pass, it
faces other hurdles. Even the existing one could have been struck
down had the proper legal case been filed in the right court. The
two attempts got waylaid through back channel politics. But
the people, like Charles Fucking Schumer, who want to renew it, want to
renew it with an even stricter ban, and on the miracle that it passes, chances
are it will be struck down in short order by the courts. Even
during the peak of the gun control hype in the mid 90s every single one of
the four new gun laws that made it to the Supreme Court were struck down,
including provisions of the Brady Bill. So things are looking
very good for gun rights in the forseeable future. About the
only thing that will remain in place are some of the import bans, but I'm
not worried about those. Enough of the weapons that I want
to own someday are already in the country. FN-FALs are now made domestically,
brand new, by D.S. Arms, and over 48,000 Heckler & Koch Model 91s were
imported before their importation was restricted. AR-15s of
course are American made, and I will finally be able to get a brand new
one with all the pre-ban features again. It won't matter than they
can't import high capacity magazines anymore, because they will be able to
legally produce them domestically, and that means I am going to get some
drop-free 12 shot capacity mags for my Glock 21. The idea of having
12+1 rounds of .45 ACP over 10+1 makes me very happy.
Today was payday. I left work early, and ran around paying bills
and doing a little bit of shopping. Then, as per payday tradition,
I went to eat at McDonald's. I do not have enough money left
to properly Christmas shop, but I had an idea I may do in lieu of buying
presents. I may get a pack of Christmas cards, and in each
one I am going to write a long letter of thanks and appreciation to the person
I am giving it to, to let them know how much they mean to me, and how much
their friendship and support has helped me get through this horrific year.
But as horrific as this year has been, I am only one step away
from getting my life back on track again, and I think that if everyone that
has been there for me continues to be there for me, I can and will take
this step in the very near future. So I think this Christmas
I am going to let these people know how much they mean to me.
It was my father, during a rather heated arguement about a month ago, who
told me, "You have a gold plated ticket to your future. You now have
training in the one field that is, and will be completely immune to the
slump in the economy. Everywhere, in virtually every workplace,
there are computers, and people who don't know how to use them, and need
someone to show them." My father is pretty smart. *g*. I didn't
debate this particular point with him, the crux of my end of the arguement
was that I had decided to stay on in my current job until our project was
finished. But regardless, I don't know what I would have done
this year without him. He's one of the people I think, that's
going to get a fairly lengthy letter.
But at any rate, I've babbled enough for now. Ciao.
Posted very early Tuesday Morning,
December 16, 2003
Starlight, Starbright, the things I see when I'm too amped to sit still
. . .
Was another perfect New Mexico sky tonight when I went for my long
walk. Saw not one, not two, but three shooting stars.
I think I couple of them had to at least be meteors. I'll have to
ask my father about this.
Posted early Monday Morning,
December 15, 2003
Okay, so I decided to backslide for an evening and have some fun. . .
.sue me.
Oh wow. I can see through time. I forgot how much fun
this was. I'm going to go out. I'm too hopped up to sit still.
Posted Sunday Night,
December 14, 2003
As if I didn't have enough to do . . . .
. . . . or at least enough things I should be doing, I took another
step in a project I've been toying with and thinking about for a few years
now. I was looking into creating a Trixie computer game.
It will be text style, like the classic Zork or Adventure. I
found some great online resources by a club in New Zealand. They've
created a new programming language to ease the creation of text adventure
games. I downloaded their compiler and free tools, and am reading
through the tutorial. This looks like it could be easy, and fun.
If this stuff works, it will make this project almost as easy as writing
stories. I'm eager to try it out. I think I lost the maps I
made of the Glen Road area, but I'm sure I can recreate them with minimal
effort. I look forward to seeing what I come up with.
Posted early Sunday Morning,
December 14, 2003
Happy Birthday to DOOM, Happy Birthday to DOOM, Happy Birthday dear
DOOM, Happy Birthday to you!
Ten years ago, today, or I guess yesterday by now, a group of talented
programmers including John Carmack and John Romero at a company named
Id software released a game that would change the way people looked at
video games and computers. It was supposed to be a farewell
game for the tiny company. A few years before, they had released
the revolutionary Wolfenstien 3D, which had made waves in the computer
game community as the very first, first person shooter. Doom
was to take it to it's next level as a thank you to the crowd that had
bought Id games over the years.
Although few remember the game for it's story, it told the tale of
a mishap on a Martian colony run jointly by the Space Marines and the
Union Aerospace Corporation. Researchers on the colony are
trying to invent a transporter machine, but only managing to mangle bodies
in the process. During an extreme mishap, the experimenters accidently
open a portal to Hell, and the whole colony is overrun with demons and
monsters. It starts as you wake up. You are the only
survivor. Everyone else is now zombies, running around the facility
along with all the demons and monsters. It's up to you to blast your
way through the hordes of zombies and demons and stop the invasion from the
source. The name of the game came from a inside joke. When
people would ask John Romero what he was doing on his laptop, he always
said, "Doom!" in an ominous voice.
The game was such a hit, that Doom outsold Windows, and made the chief
coders at Id overnight millionaires. Whereas Wolfenstien 3D was
known to computer geeks, Doom soon became known to the general public.
It took the world by storm. It's good graphics, realism,
and fast action finally made the public realize how far video games had
come since Pac-Man and Space Invaders. Not all of Doom's
noteriety was positive. Many Senators and critics were quick to
label it as a 'murder simulator' and feared what was to come.
But love it or hate it, it was here to stay, and spurred a revolution in
computer games that is still going today, and revitalized an industry that
had existed in the shadows ever since the popularity of the Nintendo had
eclipsed old classic gaming machines like the Commodore 64 and Apple II.
Video games on all systems from arcade to console to PC now make
more money each year than all of Hollywood.
Offices networks were slammed and crashing, as the new concept of multi-player
made Doom even more fans. And in a streak of marketing genius,
Doom ushered in the notion of a demo. A free set of playable levels
from the beginning of the game to wet everyone's appetite. Doom
also ushered in the notion of mods. Fans who could create their
own levels and music and conversions to give the game even more longevity.
The game seemed so realistic that the Marine Corps developed a training
version to teach the Marines how to fight in the various embassies throughout
the world.
I still remember the first time I saw Doom. Ten seconds of watching
other people play, and I was hooked. I knew I wanted to play it
through, and people couldn't stop telling me how cool it was. I
finally got my chance many years later to play it on my roommate's computer.
By this time the shooter revolution was underway, and I was
in for the duration. I have my love of Doom and shooters to
thank for owning a PC in the first place. I saved for years and started
buying games long before my Gateway was ever delivered. I now
have more than 80 and have played through most of them, and I eagerly await
the chance to get a new computer to play the latest generation that this
machine is simply too obsolete to run.
Now ten years later, there are literally hundreds of shooters.
Doom was followed by Doom 2: Hell on Earth, and then Quake, Quake II and
Quake III. Other companies jumped in to create such classics as
Unreal, Unreal Tournament, Duke Nukem 3D, Blood, Serious Sam, Soldier of
Fortune, Aliens vs. Predator, and the immortal Half-Life.
For Doom's birthday, I played through some more of Unreal 2: The Awakening
at Jared's house, and played some Medal of Honor: Allied Assault at home.
Last night we played some Battlefield 1942. The only
thing that made me even give pause to my shooter addiction was discovering
the Trixie community and the joys of writing fan fiction. But not
a day passes when I don't at least play a level or two, or read an article
in PC Gamer or think about when I will get a chance to play the latest
games.
But after all these years, I still have Doom sitting on my hard drive.
I still go back and play it now and again for nostaligia and despite
the fact that there have been five generations of shooters and more advanced
graphics engines, it still brings a smile to my face. And it's
with extra special anticipation that I watch the adds and previews for the
upcoming Doom III. The boys at Id are ready to stun the world again,
and I can't fucking wait.
So to the game that started it all. To the game that gave me
countless hours of entertainment. To the game that still brings
a smile to my face with it's blood, mayhem and graphic violence, I thank
you. Happy tenth birthday. Here's to thousands of frags, and
many more to come.
Posted early Thursday Morning,
December 11, 2003
Psycho Survery: What do you call?
I am once again feeling inspired by a survery that has appeared
on Aleta's blog, as well as numerous others. Decided to do it,
PSYCHO style. (I know. There's a shocker).
What do you call. . . .
Any alcoholic beverage containing Gin.
Nasty filth
Elevator music.
Pure evil
Cold pizza found in the fridge the next morning.
Breakfast is served.
A large hamburger with melted cheddar, barbecue sauce, bacon bits
and an egg, over easy.
My patented Sparky McMuffin.:)
Small yappy dogs like Chihuahuas that bark at you and chase you
while snapping at your ankles.
4th and 20 and the PUNT!!!!!!!
A snowboarder who is not a screaming asshole.
A freak of nature.
5000 Lawyers at the bottom of the ocean.
A good start.
Non-alcoholic beer.
Someone missing the point.
"Try counting sheep".
The last thing I would want to hear from an anesthesiologist.
Politically correct "Straight Edge" Punk.
People unclear on the concept.
These are just the ones that come to the top of my head. Feel
free to invent more.:) Ciao.
Posted early Monday night
December 8, 2003
While I am on the subject of cover tunes. . . .
For those of you very, very, very, very, very brave souls.
For those of you who get bored and surf the web to find the most disturbing
thing you can find. For those of you who feel you haven't
been sufficiently upset and disturbed by anything recently, I bring you
this:
Listen to some of the samples. Just DON'T say I didn't warn
you.:)
Posted late Wednesday Night
December 3, 2003
Psycho Survey
Can't get motivated to write tonight, so I thought I would do
another psycho survery. Had a very enjoyable Thanksgiving,
which I will blog about later. But tonight, I was talking
to Anna about some songs I downloaded when I thought of another idea for
a psycho survey.
This weeks survey theme is COVER TUNES! This is something
everyone loves to hate, but something through which many still get guilty
pleasure. As I will probably do, feel free to get lenghthy
in your answers.
1) What is your favorite cover tune.
Tough call. I'm very very fond of Machinehead's version of
Message in a Bottle by the Police. I also have a special place
in my heart for Stabbing Westward's version of the old New Order classic
Bizarre Love Triangle. A lot of the Iron Maiden B sides of
things like old Thin Lizzy songs are absolutely fantastic, my favorite being
their version of Thin Lizzy's song Massacre. Ministry's cover
of Bob Dylan's Lay Lady Lay is also a good one. Apoptygma Berzerk's
cover of Metallica's Fade to Black is probably my absolute favorite at the
moment. That is probably my favorite song ever, and they really,
really, really did it justice.
2) What in your opinion is the worst cover tune ever?
This is another tough call. I'm tempted to nomiate Limp Bizkit's
version of Behind Blue Eyes, but I can't fairly judge a song I have refused
to listen to on general principal. P. Diddy's , or whatever he's
calling himself this week, version of Led Zeppelin's Kashmir is way up
on my shit list for being just wrong. Hearing it during the
credits of Godzilla was like rubbing salt in the wounds that movie inflicted.
The group of grunge artists from Alice in Chains, Soundgarden and
Pearl Jam that got together to do Pink Floyd's Another Brick in the Wall
Part 2 need to be lined up and shot. But I won't shoot them.
No sense going to jail for doing something heroin will do for me.
Winger gets a spot in the hall of shame for their hair metal version of
Purple Haze.
3) What is the most genre bending cover tune that you still
really like?
Norweigan speed metal gods In Flames have done versions of Depeche
Mode's Everything Counts and Genesis's Land of Confusion that I really
really dig. Probably my favorite though was when this old
80s speed metal band Realm did the Beatles song Elanor Rigby. That
ROCKED. Black metal icons Type O Negative did the old Seals &
Croft song Summer Breeze. That always brings a smile to my face
when I hear it.
4) What cover tune would you consider to be the most bizarre/wrong?
Sonic Youth got together with famous punk icon Mike Watts do an
industrial cover of Madonna's Into the Groove that always cracks me up
when I hear it. But the winner in this category for me,
by a landslide, would be Marilyn Manson for his version of Suicide is
Painless (yes, he really did the MASH theme song.)
5) What cover tune would you consider to be the most unintentionally
funny?
This would have to hearing Judas Priest's version of Johnny B. Goode.
Hearing Rob Halford sing this timeless classic with his
British drawl always cracks me up, as much as I like this version.
6) No survey on cover tunes would be complete without asking
this. If you are a fan of his work, what Weird Al Yankovic cover/parody
is your favorite?
Tough call. I like so many of his. Way up on the list
would be "I think I'm a clone now". "Eat It" will always have
a special place in my heart, because that's the first of his I ever heard.
And I take "Smells Like Nirvana" more seriously than I ever took
grunge.:)
7) For those of you who will admit in public to reading
my fan fiction, which song would you like to see Desecrated Septic Tank
Human Remains murder in a future story with a death metal parody?
If I could answer this, I would have to ask other survey takers.:)
8) What cover tune do you consider to be better than or
a serious improvement over the original?
The one that really pops into mind for me is the Red Hot Chili Peppers
cover of Stevie Wonder's Higher Ground.
That's all for tonight folks. Ciao.
Posted very early Monday morning
December 1st, 2003
I FUCKING DID IT!!
By this I mean, I started my book. I was talking to
my friend Candi tonight, and we were discussing my dilemna as I blogged
about in the post below. I was waffling, as usual on my decision
(I know, there's a shocker), when something came over me, and I realized
something. Generally speaking, my darkest moods have led to my
very best writing. Nightmares over my ex Jeanne led to the
writing of the infamous Scriptiamus Sanamus. Looking back
at the waking nightmare that has been my life this year, I thought, I
need to harness all this negative energy and get this damn thing written.
It's not going to write itself, and if the past is any indicator,
with the amount of darkness I have to purge from my soul, this will be
far and away my best writing yet. I sat down and hammered out
the first 2500 words or so in the last three hours, so if I can produce
like that every time inspiration strikes, I should have this bad boy done
in no time. Just need to stay away from the computer games.
. .This book is pretty much completely written in my head. It
has been for a while. Now it's demanding to be committed to
disk. And if tonight is any indicator, I am more than ready
to do so. I'm very excited. Took the first step.
Now I just need to stay at it. But I'm not worried. If I can
stay at something like studying for MCSE tests, I can write a fucking book.
I've paid my dues. It's time to stop talking about it
and do it. But right now I need a nap. Since none of
my aunts or other female guests will be with us for Thanksgiving dinner today,
my mother informed me tonight that I am on dish and clean up detail.
As long as I am given enough time to take a nap after dinner, I have
no problem with this. But if I don't get some sleep before hand, I'm
going to be very cross.
At any rate, have a Happy Thanksgiving everybody.
Posted early Thursday Morning
Thanksgiving
Survey
No, this isn't a psycho survery. Just something that
I've been pondering. As most of you know, I love to write.
Writing is what first drew me to the Trixie community in the first
place. I was intrigued and overjoyed at the opportunity to write
fan fiction, and that there was a medium in which to share it.
But by no means was this the first time I've written for nothing
more than my own entertainment. As a kid, the whole notion
of regulated, interactive story telling is what turned me into a gaming
junkie. But above and beyond that, I loved being able to tell
or hear a good story. To this day, I still like being read to.
It was something I never grew out of, and it was something I shared
with my ex-girlfriend Jeannie. We often read to each other,
and when we would go jogging, I was often asked to tell her a story.
I often recounted adventures of the Three Investigators or
the Mad Scientists club or some other childhood book I had read so many
times I had virtually memorized it.
My parents hated gaming and hated Dungeons & Dragons, and
nothing would have made them happier than if I had simply given it up.
They made many attempt to get me to do so, but when it became
apparent to them that they were fighting a lost cause, they simply instituted
a number of very heavy handed rules to curb how much time I spent on it.
The most dreaded one was the rule that I couldn't do anything
gaming related or draw (yes, draw. As in draw pictures) on a school
night. With the two biggest vehicles for my always active
imagination gone, I decided for the first time to sit down and try my hand
at fiction. I cracked out my mother's old typewriter and played
with it until I figured it out, and started hammering away on a series of
very, very, painfully bad stories (No, I don't have them anymore, and no,
I wouldn't post them if I did).
Once I started high school, I didn't have much time to indulge
in pure fiction, as I spent most of my free time and creative energy towards
running what turned into a seven year long Dungeons & Dragons campaign,
that saw the likes of over sixty players and a 120 characters.
It wasn't till college when I had my MacIntosh Plus and a new easy to
use word processor at my disposal (As much as I liked it, the old
WP Easy Script on the Commodore 64 was a bit clunky to use for causal writing)
I suddenly found myself tinkering again. Separated from
my players and my game until the summers and holidays, I began to write
for fun again. It culminated in a novel I started working
on the last year I was at the University of Rochester. It was
a painfully bad rip-off of the movie Robocop 2, but I was very serious
about it (more serious about it than I was my schoolwork. But that's
not saying much. <g>). When I finally dropped out of
Rochester for good, I remember setting up my good old Mac in my room where
I lived, and cracked out the disk ready to plod ahead. It was
much to my horror that I discovered the disk had been damaged. I
saved the disk for years, waiting to see if someone could ever save it.
It finally came to light a few years later when a friend of
mine got it open with a utility called Can-Opener. Going back and
re-reading it, I had lost a lot of enthusiasm for it, and realized how bad
it was. A lot of the ideas I had been exploring I had gotten out
through my two Cyberpunk 2020 campaigns. But once again, I soon found
myself tinkering and screwing around with new ideas.
It was about 94 I guess when I discovered the world wide web,
and with my account at NM Tech would set aside an evening or afternoon
every now then to do nothing more than surf and explore the web.
It was when the movie crew for the movie Contact were in Socorro
that a friend of mine got serious about doing his own little student film
project and asked me if I wanted to participate. Now I know
I cannot act, and have never had any aspirations along those lines, but
I told him I could write him a script. So I sat down and hammered
one out, and the whole notion of screenwriting intrigued me, so on another
trip to campus to net surf, I read all I could about screenwriting.
This only whetted my appetite even more and soon as I could, I was
hammering away on screenplays and looking into screenwriting contests.
I pursued the project obsessively for a few years before I
finally decided to take a break. But this didn't stop me from
writing. I often just started little stories every now and
then to just write. I remember the stories I wrote as fan fiction
to the computer game Sin.
I think part of the reason I leapt into Trixie fan fiction is
that for the first time in 20 years, I didn't have a regular gaming
campaign going, and wanted and needed another outlet very badly.
And here I sit almost four years later, with over 50 stories under
my belt. I'm very proud of what I have accomplished.
But to be perfectly honest, I'm feeling a bit burned on fan fiction.
There are stories I still intend on finishing, and I do have a few more
ideas, but by and large I feel spent on the ETBC. I feel
like I've shot my load. I can't cut it off completely.
I've left one of my main characters in a coma, and have some other loose
ends to tie up. But another writing project is calling
to me write now, and if I decide to tackle it, I'll probably have to drop
off the face of the earth to focus on it exclusively. I want
to tackle a book.
I've wanted to for some time now, but always made excuses as to
why to put off starting it. I still want to put it off, at least
until I get my life on an even keel, but right now, it's speaking to me
louder than any other project. The book is written.
It's all in my head. All that's left to do is the not insignificant
task of getting it written down and hammered out.
So I put to you, the readers of this blog, what would you rather
see me do:
A) Put ETBC to bed and write this bad boy
B) Keep going with ETBC and worry about the book later.
C) Give up my delusions of having any skill or talent whatsoever
and quit while I'm ahead.
I've been a movie junkie for a while now. I've always
liked a good flick, but about the time I moved out on my own, and didn't
have much money for entertainment, I would always rent movies.
It was a cheap treat for payday, and it was during the first two years
I lived on my own that I really went back and saw tons and tons of movies
that other people had seen, but that I had missed as I grew up.
As the promotions and raises started coming, I rediscovered the
joy of going to the theater. Whereas the music scene
took a giant dump, I'd have to say, on the whole the 90s were very, very
good for movies, and it seemed like every year I was making it up to see
at least one movie that ended up being one of my favorites. More
than any other time period, the mid to late 90s has yielded more classics
that I ended up loving. It was about this same time that I
also started collecting videos, and it didn't take me long to amass a collection
that started to rival my music collection. Up until I was able to
afford a computer, nothing was more fun than picking out one of my favorites,
or a movie I was in the mood for to watch after my roommate went to sleep
in a dark living room. It was my way of exploring another
world and sending my mind away from my normal dreary existence.
Movies took a backseat to my computer when I finally got one,
and as the quality of movies seemed to go back down again, there were
less and less that seemed to inspire the same sort of excitement to
see like so many had before. I still go to the theater
every chance I get, and this has been a very good year for movies, but
I don't make is much as I used to.
Periodicially however, when I'm frustrated with my games, don't
feel like writing, no one is online to bullshit with, and I don't feel
like going out, I periodically go stare at my shelf until a title pops
out at me, and throw it, even if I just have it on in the background.
This week, even as I write or play games however, I have
been throwing movies in and going through some of my old favorites.
It got me to thinking. (Watch out!):)
Entertainment Weekly once did a study of who was the most popular
actor or actress ever. Their criteria was simple. They
made their judgement based on which actor had been in the most successful
movies. They did one list based on how much money successful
movies made and another based on how many people had actually seen a
movie. In either case, the winner, hands down was Harrison
Ford. And it wasn't just the Star Wars movies and Indianna
Jones movies that sealed the deal. He had been in quite a few
other official blockbusters (100 million made at the domestic box office),
such as Clear and Present Danger, Fugitive, and Air Force One. I
couldn't help but notice, in my own viewing habits that certain actors
were turning up quite a bit. So I decided to do my own version
of this survey to see which actors I like.
Now for purposes of this survey, I discounted several factors.
I discounted instances were I went out and watched or bought
every movie by a particular actor or actress when I was in a phase.
This is rather frequent when I get a celebrity crush, and
I remember various times when I was tracking down and watching every
movie just because it had Jodie Foster, Madeleine Stowe, Claire Danes
or Jennifer Love Hewitt. Didn't necessarily consider movies with
said actress as my favorites, but I would enjoy them simply because the
star/starlet was nice to look at. Rather I just counted movies I consider
amongst my favorites or just really like, that I think about in terms of
the movie rather than the star. So I decided to make a list
of these stars and the movies they were in that I really liked.
My list looks something like this:
Harrison Ford: Star Wars, Empire Strikes Back, Return
of the Jedi, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones and the Temple of
Doom, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Clear and Present Danger, Blade
Runner, Air Force One. Of these, Blade Runner is probably
my favorite. This is a no brainer.:)
Tom Sizemore: Heat, Strange Days, Natural Born
Killers, Saving Private Ryan, Black Hawk Down. I would be very
hard pressed to pick which of these is my favorite, but Heat, Strange
Days and Black Hawk Down are three of my favorite movies ever.
William Fichtner: Heat, Strange Days, Black Hawk
Down, Contact. He seems to turn up with Tom Sizemore a
lot.:)
Hugo Weaving: The Matrix, Matrix Reloaded, Matrix
Revolutions, Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring, Lord of the
Rings: The Two Towers, Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (yes, I
already know I'm going to love it.;) ). First actor since
Harrison Ford to hit every movie in not one, but two giant blockbuster
trilogies.:)
Bruce Willis: Die Hard, The Last Boyscout, The
Jackal, Tears of the Sun, Fifth Element, Last Man Standing. I'll
give any big budget action movie a chance if it has Bruce. Of
all the old fashioned action heroes, Bruce is my favorite. Don't
necessary like everything he's done, but when he shines, he really shines.
Clint Eastwood: Dirty Harry, Sudden Impact, The Dead
Pool, the Enforcer, For a Few Dollars More, The Outlaw Josey Wales,
High Plains Drifter, In the Line of Fire, The Good, The Bad & The
Ugly, Unforgiven. I'm kind of guilty of doing with Clint
what I did with actresses and for a while was watching any Clint I could
get my hands on, but the above movies were good all the way around, and
not just good because they had Clint.
Chow Yun-Fat: The Killer, Hard Boiled, A Better
Tomorrow, A Better Tomorrow 2, The Replacement Killers, The Corrupter,
Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. Hard Boiled and The Killer
are two of the best action movies ever made. End period.
Robert DeNiro: Heat, The Untouchables, Ronin, Casino,
Cape Fear, The Score, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Taxi Driver.
With the exception of that last one, I don't seem to like the same Robert
DeNiro movies that other people do, but he's still the man.
Gary Oldman: Bram Stoker's Dracula, The Fifth Element,
Immortal Beloved, The Professional, Romeo is Bleeding, Air Force One,
True Romance. Any actor that can go from playing Sid
Vicious to Beethoven has got range.
Brad Pitt: Se7en, 12 Monkeys, Fight Club, Legends
of the Fall, Interview with a Vampire. Hate to say it, but when
he picks a role in a movie that interests me, I am always entertained.
Got dragged by an ex to see Legends of the Fall, but ended
up liking it enough to buy it.
Samuel L. Jackson: True Romance, Pulp Fiction,
Jackie Brown, Attack of the Clones, The Last Kiss Goodnight, Jurrasic
Park, Good Fellas, Deep Blue Sea. Sammy just brings attitude
to the screen that is easy to like and impossible to ignore.
Jackie Chan: Rumble in the Bronx, Police Story,
Supercop, Mr. Nice Guy, Jackie Chan's First Strike, Operation Condor,
Operation Condor 2: Armor of the Gods, Crime Story. Now
don't get me wrong. Jackie Chan has made a lot of really bad
movies, but he has made enough that I really liked to sail onto this
list.
I'm sure I'm forgetting someone. This list would endless
if I listed ones that were in two or three and could easily earn the
way onto the list by being in a single trilogy or franchise, but off
the top of my head I know the list would then include Bruce Campell, John
Cusack, Kurt Russel, Arnie, Dan Akroyd and Tom Berrenger.
If I am being *ahem* objective about actresses, I can say:
Sigourney Weaver: Alien, Aliens, Alien 3, Alien Ressurection,
Ghostbusters, Ghostbusters 2, Galaxy Quest and Deal of the Century (shut
up, I liked that movie).
Jodie Foster: Taxi Driver, The Accused, Silence
of the Lambs, Contact, Maverick.
Now of course, this list is just based on the number of movies
these people have made that I liked. If my opinion entered the
equation about their actual acting ability and other such things, the
list would probably morph a bit. But it's amusing to analyze
it this way.
I'm done rambling for now. Think I'm going to watch a
movie.:)
Posted Wednesday night
November 19, 2003
Happy Birthday Keith, and Up the Irons!!!!!!!
I still clearly remember being woken up at 5 A.M. on November
14th, 1974. Much to my surprise, it wasn't my father that was getting
me up. It was the neighbor Margarita Cruz. She got me dressed,
and told me that my father would be there soon to take me to the hospital
in Elkins to see my new baby brother. I walked into the lobby of the
hospital just as the sun was coming up and waited for maybe five minutes
before my father wandered out with my mother. She leaned down carefully
with the bundle in her arms, and I saw Keith for the very first time.
Keith and I were always more than just brothers. We were
friends who spent a great deal of time with each other as we grew
up. There was very little I did that I wasn't quick to include him
in, whether we were building with Tinker Toys or blocks, or running
around, or out in the sandbox. As we got older I taught him to play Dungeons
& Dragons, taught him bad language (boy was I in hot water for that
one. <g>), taught him how to play video games, and shared everything
I liked and was into with him. The only times in my life I was ever
ready to get into fights is when people picked on him or gave him a bad
time.
But now in hindsight, one of the biggest marks I left on
him was when I played him my music. I was always the rebel and
black sheep of the family. Keith always played it cool and went
out of his way to stay on our parents' good side. The one time though
that he put his foot down is when they tried to get him away from the music
they thought I was corrupting him with. Those are probably some of
the worst fights he ever had with them, is when he decided this was his
favorite music too, and no one was going to make him stop listening to
it.
Out of college when Keith found himself living in suburbia
with his good job admist shallow yuppies, he sat down one day and
realized how far apart we had drifted. He had stuck with college
and all of Mom and Dad's pre-packaged goals. I had already dropped
out of college and became a partying drunk. It was at that point in
time when he started to feel how empty his life felt, and he started
to understand why I had fought with him and my parents so much over
doing my own thing. When his yuppie friends and co-workers started
to give him a bad time about the one thing he truly loved and had fought
for the right to be into, that was the last straw. He was no longer
content to listen to heavy metal CDs at work and go to concerts. He
went out and bought a guitar, and decided that even if it killed him, he
was going to learn to play it and start a band.
To this day, his accomplishments and drive still fill me
with a sense of wonder and pride. But even more than his degree
or salary or even his band, what I admire the most about him is how
he woke up and decided to do something for himself. That he stopped
mindlessly chasing hollow goals and shallow ideals and did something
he loved and believed in.
Today he turns 29. Happy Birthday Keith. Here's to
29 great years, and many more to come.
Posted early Friday morning,
November 14th, 2003
Psycho Survery
Haven't done one of these in a while. Just read
an extremely amusing list on Aleta's Blog which gave me an idea
for a new one.
List 15 reasons why you are NOT a typical male/female
1. I love my cat. I love all cats. Don't ever want
the hassle or annoyance of owning a dog. Small, yappy, dogs make
me want to gun them down in the streets.
2. Watching sports on TV is a perfectly acceptable pastime
if there is absolutely nothing else to do, but is only a step above
things like a trip to the dentist. Now this does not apply to really
cool sports shows like Junkyard Wars.:)
3. I'm a Trixie Belden fanatic. <g>. <insecure
show of macho-ness and bravado impersonation> And if you have
a problem with that, I'll introduce you to the business end of my Glock.
</insecure show of macho-ness and bravado impersonation>
:)
4. Although I am only really good at the Vienese Waltz,
I love to ballroom dance. One of these days, I'll learn to tango.
Ballroom dance is about one of the ONLY activities I will consider
dressing up for. Prom didn't count, because all they played was hip-hop
garbage, country and soft rock until my best friend and I quite literally
threatened the DJ bodily harm if he didn't play Metallica.
5. I like new age music, including, but not limited to
Enya, Enigma, Sarah Brightman, Deep Forest, Dead Can Dance, and
Kitaro.
6. I'm not overly enamoured with the idea of going to
strip clubs. The women often look skanky, and it's entirely too much
money to pay to get blue balls.
7. I'm very not good at driving a stick shift. I have
to drive one for about two days before I figure out the clutch and
stop stalling it. Usually by this time, my passengers have kissed
their fillings good-bye and are ready to sue me for whiplash.
8. I find nothing really appealing or attractive about
Anna Nicole Smith, Pamela Anderson, Jenny McCarthy, Gwen Stefani,
Madonna, Christina Aguilera or dozens of other carbon copy blonde
bombshells that seem to have infested popular culture like roaches.
Maybe it's just me, but I'm not enamoured with women that look like
they were spawned in a plastic injection mold.
9. I find most porn repulsive. Especially hard core.
Late night Cinemax level is about the limit of what I can watch and
still be entertained.
10. Although I'm very good at pretending otherwise, I
always listen, and often surprise people talking to me with how much
I remember about what they said even if I seem a million miles away.
11. <TMI alert> Although I enjoy it, I
do not share most men's obsession with getting oral sex. Not a
priority for me. Now on the other hand, I LOVE going down on a woman.
I'll do that all day. I'm told that I'm pretty good at it, and most
women I get involved with seldom have a problem letting me practice. </TMI
alert>
12. I am not of a big believer in the whole men's code
of silence thing and that I should automatically keep any male secret
regardless of what kind of shit he is being. If a friend secretly
shits on or cheats on his girlfriend, and I know her and respect her,
I feel no need to keep my mouth shut. Trust is earned. End, period.
And being a guy in and of itself does not constitute earning trust.
Once you have earned my trust, I can and will keep my mouth shut. But
that's not the default behavior for me simply for being male.
13. When I get mixed up with a group of female friends,
I can get into gossiping like the best of them.:)
14. I do know how to properly clean a bathroom. (Actually
getting up enough energy to do so is quite another matter)
15. I have, on occassion, asked for directions.:)
Happy Veteran's Day.
Posted early Tuesday morning,
November 11, 2003
If I had categories, this post would go under: I am easily
amused.
As the week draws to a close, one of my highlights
was getting my email read on the radio. Every morning on the
local NM AM station that carries stuff like Imus in the Morning,
we listen to the Jim Rome show. It's a nationally syndicated show
that runs for three hours every morning from Los Angeles. Jim Rome
has established himself as the Howard Stern of sports radio. He
is very obnoxious and funny, and even if you aren't a huge sports fans,
he's very funny to listen to. Other sports shows bore me to tears
constantly talking about sports statistics and league standings in
a way which could be marketed as an over the counter sleep aid. The
Jim Rome show isn't like that. He does talk about sports stuff, but
in a way that doesn't alienate non-sports fanatics. More often than
not, he ends up talking about other things like sports celebrity scandals
and indiscretions and other acts of premeditated stupidity. And
often he'll end up just going off on a tangent about even non sports
related headlines. He's very funny.
A big part of his show is the calls he takes and the
emails that he reads on the air. Some of them are a serious, but
a lot of them are very funny, and he runs a daily contest to see which
is the most outrageous. I've emailed the show before, only getting
the standard, "thanks for emailing, but we get thousands of emails a
morning" response, and when I emailed on Thursday, I got it again, and
went about my work. Lance wandered into the room a few minutes later,
and I told him about my email. Rome had been carrying on about how sons
of third world dictators often became athletes, and were almost always
busted for cheating, and went on a very amusing tirade about what honest
and upstanding people sons of dictators must be. So I made a crack how
how fair and balanced the fight was between Saddam's sons and the 101st
Airborne Division. And low and behold, right after I get finished telling
Lance about it, it got read on the air. Needless to say, I was insufferably
pleased with myself for the remainder of the day, and we downloaded the broadcast
from the Jim Rome Show website to play for everyone else in the office.
In other news for this week, my copy of Silencer's
Found on the Sun, being sold in Europe on the Adrenaline/Steel
Heart Records label came in. I've been listening to it a lot, to say
the very least, and am keeping my fingers crossed that it opens doors
for them and does well. It's one of two things I have been listening
to obsessively this week, the other album being my old copy of Sonic
Temple, by The Cult that I dug out of one of my casette cases
under my bed. I forgot how much I loved that album, and when Lance
isn't listening to his new punk CDs at work, I often slip it into the
stereo in the back room. Lance is now stuck on this punk act he went
to see live in Albuqerque a few weeks ago called Q and not U.
It's okay, but sounds a lot to me like a rehash of old Sonic Youth
albums.
I always know the weather is starting to turn when Pinky
suddenly becomes fond of camping out in my lap, where it's warm.
Often during the summer, past her two trips a day to visit me in
my room for a few minutes of attention, she is content to camp out
on a chair or window sill and sleep all day. Now I have to shut the
door to keep her out of my room if I don't want her in here. Normally
when she decides to be in here with me, she is content to sit on the floor
behind me and keep my company. She has long since learned not to leave
her tail too close to the rollers on my chair, because I don't always hear
her come in or realize she's down there, and the yowl she makes when
I roll back nearly gives me a heart attack. But lately, she stalks around
to the side and waits for an opportunity to jump up. I really don't
mind most of the time, unless I need to move or do something, but even
when I do, she just wanders off for a few minutes, and then waits for
another opportunity to jump up.
This may end though. Tonight I finally turned on the
electric heater in my room, at least on low. Her new favorite
spot seems to be a few feet away from the heater.
There is another party tomorrow, as well as Microcosm
gig. I'm looking forward to it. Kind of hoping to run into my
friend Jesse. It would be fun to party with her again. And the
free beer will be a plus too.:)
Guess I've rambled enough for now. I'm off to find something
constructive to do. Ciao.
Posted late Friday Night
November 7, 2003
Just got back from Matrix Revolutions and all I have
to say is . . . .
WOW! This movie was great. This has been a
good year for movies for me. There have been all kinds of movies
out that I have loved and thoroughly enjoyed, and for the first time
in years, I've made it to the theater to see a lot of them. Didn't
make it to see SWAT or Pirates of the Caribbean, and I haven't made
it to see Kill Bill vol. 1 yet (all in good time), but even then, I've
been to see a lot of great flicks. There was Terminator 3: Rise of
the Machines. A lot of people were disappointed by this one, but
I loved it. Any movie that ends with a nuclear war is thumbs up in
my book. Then there was Matrix Reloaded. Another good one that
had us talking in the office about it for days. Don't know if I will
ever watch it again, but I was glad I saw Bad Boys 2 at least once.
Made for an entertaining, if not mindless night out. Then came
one I've had been looking forward to for a long time, ever since I heard
it was being filmed, and that was Once Upon A Time in Mexico. Another
classic action flick from Robert Rodriguez, in the spirit of Desperado.
It was great to have such a wide selection of good movies this summer
and be able to completely ignore all the garbage and crap that normally
fills summers like Hulk and X-Men 2. Saw trailers for Return of the
King, Troy and The Punisher. Looks like the good movies will keep
coming. But Return of the King nonwithstanding, I must say that when
I look back on this year of great movies, Matrix Revolutions will probably
be my favorite by a long shot.
As much as I loved Matrix Reloaded, aspects of it had
me disappointed (SPOILER ALERT). It lacked the great gunplay of
the first one, and substituted it with some very well done, but extremely
overbaked martial arts battles. The big freeway chase made up
for a lot of the early disappointments, but even as the movie ended,
I felt like there had been something missing.
This movie more than made up for it, and as a trilogy,
this has been the most action packed and though provoking one since
the first three Alien movies. The battle for Zion has now gone down
in my book as one of the most breathtaking and thrilling sci-fi battles
ever. It had me smiling from ear to ear from beginning to end, and
clutching at my seat. The only thing I can even think of that is even
remotely similar would be the final battle inside the volcano missile base
in the old James Bond flick You Only Live Twice. Throw into this mix
the carnage from the cyborg fight at the end of Robocop 2, and the nail
biting tension of the Battle of Hoth in the Empire Strikes back, and you
are only then starting to get a feel for what this battle was like.
The special effects were absolutely first rate. I've never seen better,
and when things kicked into gear, I was at the edge of my seat until the
very end. This is one of those movies like Twister, that is just born
for the theater, and can't be truly appreciated until you are watching it
on a giant screen and feeling the THX sound kick you in the gut. I
think back to all the great epic sci-fi and action flicks of the last decade,
and all the great final battle scenes, that I loved, such as the one in
Independence Day, and compared to this, Matrix Revolutions was just a
full cut above.
If you are in the mood for a thrilling, action-packed,
mind-bending finale to a great sci-fi action epic, go see this movie.
You won't be disappointed.
Posted early Thursday Morning
November 6, 2003
I've made another decision I'm already regretting.
. . . . AGAIN.
I agreed to something rather quickly and rashly
the other day without really thinking about it. Now it has me
PARANOID LIKE A MOTHER FUCKER. Where's my gun. . . . ? Seriously.
It may be nothing. When I manage to calm myself down, I come up
with much more rational theories as to what is going on. But still,
if what's going on is what I think it might be even in these rational
moments, I'm going to be PISSED.
In other unrelated news, the best Halloween costume
this year that I saw, by a long shot, was the gentlemen who showed
up to the bar dressed like a Mamogram machine. He got a box to wear
on his head, wrapped in aluminum foil to make it look metal, and right
in front of his face was an extended tray with two grooves on it
for breasts. On top of the box was a sign that read "Free Mamograms."
The only thing funnier than the costume itself were the drunk women
actually willing to put their rack onto the tray for 'examination'.
Posted Early Sunday Morning November 2, 2003
You SUFFER, but why?
The above title of this post is the entire set
of lyrics of a song that is precisely two seconds long, by the now
legendary grindcore/death metal band, Napalm Death. The song
is called You Suffer, and appears on their 1987 debut album Scum.
There. Don't you feel better that you know this now?:) For
some reason, I was in an inexplicably pissy mood today at work, and
felt this mood coming on even before I left this morning, so I grabbed
some CDs, and spent all of today's shift listening to death metal.
Now, even though I'm a metal head and live and die by metal, death
metal is a bit much for me on most occassions. I do like it, and listen
to it every now and again, but it's rare that I'm in a mood to listen
to nothing but death metal for four hours straight.
I started off with some CDs I have from local bands
that have played with Silencer including End to End and Insight.
Then I listened to a CD my brother gave me that was put out several
years ago to be a sampler of Denver area metal bands to get them
exposure. Silencer had yet to record a full song, so only a sampler
of Mourning Star was on it. The CD was packed with other great stuff
though like Corruption, Tread, Voltaire, Drudgery and Serberus. (Of
course I still need to track down Serberus's old drummer and have a
talk with him. He's in possession of a video tape of a very drunken
Eric swimming naked with half the girlfriends of the bands Serberus
and Silencer at an after show party we threw for both bands several years
ago right before Bill's wedding). Then, much to my surprise and delight,
Lance had brought in some ultra heavy metal to listen to, so I listened
to his Napalm Death CD, and his Amebix CD.
It's not secret that I have issues with literature
or fan fiction that is shocking, just for the sake of being shocking.
It's also no secret that I have similar views about movies. But
for some reason, there is just something about songs that are shamelessly
fucked up, that always has me smiling from ear to ear. I think I
may be long overdue to write a sequel to Song Fic of Death.
On that note, I'm off to listen to a Big Black song
I really dig, about a guy so bored that he sets himself on fire
to have something to do.:)
Posted early Thursday Morning
October 30, 2003
Did Someone say RAGER?
This weekend was the 49ers homecoming celebration
at NM Tech. Tech is officially known as the New Mexico Institute
of Mining and Technology, and it's departments in Geology, Petrolium
Engineering, and Mining Engineering are considered some of the best
in the world. Since Tech doesn't have much in the way of sports
compared to big schools, their whole homecoming celebration is themed
for the 1849 gold rush, and frontier mining culture, and often coincides
with Socorro High School's homecoming.
There are a number of traditions they faithfully
uphold every year. To involve the town, they have an old west
themed parade. They recruit a group of girls off campus to dress
up as "Bordello Girls" in period costumes, and the campus gun glub
dresses up as cowboys as stages fake gun fights with old west style weapons
loaded with blanks. On campus, the Cooney Mining Club stages gold panning
contests and stuff like that. They used to get into all kinds of trouble.
Once upon a time, before a lot of the campus was renovated, they actually
tunneled under one of the dorms, shored it up like a mineshaft, built a
bar in their mine and got a liquor license from the State of New Mexico
and ran it as a business. The building inspectors weren't too happy
with them, and eventually made them fill it in, and the school president
decided to yank their liquor license for use in another campus facility.
But the mine bar was the stuff of campus legend.
In the past, especially during the 80s, 49ers meant
one thing though, past all the activities and traditions: a continous
raging party. More than any other time in Socorro, 49ers is famous
for it's parties. In Socorro, Thanksgiving is for eating with your
family, Easter is for going to Church, Fourth of July is for watching
fireworks and having a picnic, Labor Day is for camping out down at the
Elephant Butte lake, Valentine's Day is about your significant other,
and 49ers is for getting really, really, really drunk. In the 80s,
the whole town came completely unglued. At any given night over the
49er weekend, there were at least 70 kegs on campus. NM Tech was the last
school in the country that officially provided alcohol to it's own students.
They would get a beer truck, and students over 21 paid three dollars
for a "tea card". With that card you could drink all you wanted from
the beer truck all weekend. Since it was all you can drink, it usually
took precisely five minutes for every underaged drinker to get passed
a cup. When the parties were getting so out of hand that the Socorro
police started complaining, they finally shut the whole beer truck, tea
card thing down. 49ers got very weak and lame for several years. Now
things are back to some semblance of what the were before. The big parties
are now off campus, and organized well in advance by popular students that
rent a big house in the residential neighborhood across from the main campus.
Word gets around, and everyone who doesn't go to the Capital Bar always
knows where the party is.
It all starts Thursday afternoon. Classes after
noon are cancelled, and the events begin. The first even to kick
off the whole weekend is the Powder Puff flag football game. It's
always the freshman girls vs. the upper classmen girls. The members
of the rugby team cross dress as cheerleaders, and by tradition, the
game get pretty rough. The Powder Puff game is legendary for brutal
cat fights and lost shirts. About midway through the game, the hotest
looking rugby player cheerleader is dogpiled by the rest of the team and
stripped naked. Then the bands and other parties start. They
get multiple bands to play Thursday, Friday and Saturday night.
Friday afternoon, Microcosm was booked to play, so
the whole shop closed down early, and we all went up to Tech to
watch them. The bands played and other activities went on while
the Rugby Team played UTEP, I think.
I've come to the conclusion that no concert of any
kind can occur in Socorro unless something very surreal happens.
I remember back to the metal festival they had at Tech last Spring
where Silencer played, when a bunch of girls out having their picture
taken at the duck pond before going to prom showed up to check out
the death metal band End to End, which was playing at the time.
This time the ante was upped.
Microcosm of course, is my friends and co-workers
new punk band. Ian sings, Lance plays guitar and Art is the drummer.
The bass player is a forty-something gaming geek who works at the
NRAO with my father, Steve Myers. I guess Steve spread the word
that his new band was playing 49ers and invited a lot of his coworkers
to check it out, even though NRAO is not known for its fans of hardcore
punk <g>. Usually, the only concerts you see NRAO people at,
at all, are the classical music performances that come every year as
part of Tech's Performing Arts Series. Senior NRAO scientists do
the whole snotty, upper crust impersonation very well. So it was
much to my amusement that in addition to all the mini-skirted groupies,
drunk Tech students, and campus punks that showed up to see Microcosm,
a very large crowd of middle aged scientist types started showing up
as well. And not just a few. The mind bender was when Barry Clark
showed up.
Barry Clark, in my strong opinion, is one of the
smartest human beings to walk the face the earth. People like
Carl Sagan, or Steven Hawking got no game compared to Barry.
Barry, for all intensive purposes is the mind behind the VLA,
and the inventor of interferometry technology. The very design of
the astronomical equipment and computer technology at VLA all came from
him. He's so smart he intimidates just about everyone he works with,
including the normally very arrogant other scientists that treat others
without letters behind their name like second class citizens. Barry
got his PhD in Astro Physics from Cal Tech. As the story goes, he
was so smart that he scared his instructors there too. When it came
time for him to defend his thesis, they couldn't find anyone willing
to sit on the panel, because they were all afraid that he was going
to publicly humiliate them with his brillance. So when they couldn't
find a panel to challenge him, they dediced to give him a written exam.
They got every brilliant mind they could lay their hands on in the
Cal Tech administration, both in and out of his field and they came
up with the nastiest test they could think of. It was supposed to
take him all day to do it. He aced it in three hours.
It's didn't take people at NRAO long to realize what
sort of super mind they were dealing with. He put more than
one computer scientist and engineer in their place, when they realized
he just knew their jobs better than they did. His code is so
advanced, they pretty much have to let him use it and deal with it,
because not even the best programmers at VLA understand it. They
just know it works well and doesn't waste so much as a single bit.
Barry is very soft spoken and easy going. He's
very quiet and unremarkable looking. He's in his sixites now
I think. He's very nice and easy to talk to. When I say people
are intimidated by him, it has nothing to do with how he actually is.
They just get all worked up and intimidated by his reputation,
and are afraid to talk to him. He's never condescending or full
of himself. He just does what he does, and usually this leaves the
people who see this in awe.
Needless to say, I was very, very surprised to see
him show up for a hardcore punk concert.:) There were a number
of attractive young Tech girls out in tank tops and mini skirts.
There were Tech's skate punks, in torn shirts, torn jeans, and
mohawks with flannel shirts tied around their waists. There were
all my friends from the shop. There were some people from the Tech
Student Association setting up a barbecue. In the parking lot behind
us, there were some students participating in another yearly 49ers
ritual, they use to blow off steam and testosterone, where they get
an old car, and pass out hammers and crowbars and let people destroy
it. There was me, in my steel toed boots, dressed head to toe in black,
flirting with a a very cute red head I've known for a long time, who
was trying to get me to go to her belly dancing club's exhibition that
night. Then there were middle aged NRAO staff, trying to act like
they were hip and with the program, and then there was Barry Clark.:)
Barry only ended up sticking around for about half
the show, but of the other NRAO geeks, they loved it, and bought
the most CDs.:)
The show was kind of a milestone for me. Of course,
I've known these guys ever since they were just fucking around
and jamming some seven years ago, and I've been to every single one
of their performances. Back in the day, when they played parties
at the rat trap, when I was drunk enough, I used to get up and sing
with them while they belted out Misfits covers. I still know the
words pretty well to Where Eagles Dare and I Turned Into a Martian.:)
They are much more serious about all this now, and largely stick
to original material. But they played a song for the first time
at this particular show. It was one I wrote for them, called Collusion.
They played it very, very well, and I was very happy with the way
it sounded. I couldn't erase the stupid grin off of my face after
they finished.
They only got to play an abbreviated set, because
the 49ers organizers didn't want the concert to interfere with
another big tradition. And this was the big rugby game were the
current Tech team plays against the alumni. So after the show, I
ate some burgers at the barbecue, the band packed up and we all went
home.
Rather than going in search of a kegger, I went to
a different kind of party that night. One I dreamed up some
eight months ago, and had planned for a long time.:) This of course
was Fright Night. Except for the two occasions where we crashed
the chat room with the crowds, it went off without a hitch, and we
have gotten overwhelming amounts of positive feedback from people on
how much they enjoyed it. We set a high standard for ourselves, and
it will be hard to top it next year, but we are certainly going to
try. This was all just TOO much fun.
Slept most of the day Saturday since I had been up
all night for Fright Night. In addition to officially playing
for 49ers, Microcosm was also asked to play at the big off campus
party Saturday night. So I went to the party, and it was especially
fun and filled with all kinds of surprises. The first big surprise
was running into my friend Brad Banks. I hadn't seen him in eight
years. He was one of my best friends in high school. He, Schlake,
Eric Heatwole and I were like the four musketeers in high school. The
crazy, gaming geek, psycho metal heads that no one wanted to mess with.
Brad lost touch with a lot of people after moving to Albuquerque to
go to ITT Tech and get a job drafting. He has been back in town for
a couple years, but I hadn't seen him yet, because he was still working
full time for an architecture firm in Belen and going to school full time
to get his degree. He and Schlake had been gaming, but I had never
managed to see him. I often wondered if he had been avoiding me or wanted
to see me at all, and when I first ran into him at the party, he didn't
seem to be too happy to see me. I was disappointed of course, but didn't
let it bother me. Of course, I had forgotten how Brad is, and can be.
I just had to let him come around, and it didn't take him long. He
and Schlake came in search of me while I was waiting for Microcosm to set
up, and once we got talking about gaming and the good old days, Brad opened
up, and we spent a large portion of the night catching up and swaping
stories.
Brad wasn't the only old friend I ran into that night.
Like any homecoming, lots of alumni showed up and I ran into
all kinds of past drinking buddies I hadn't seen for years.
It was great to catch up.
Microcosm played their finest performance to date,
in the garage of that house. I camped out behind the pool table
near the sink where the kegs were, and watched them play. But
as a kind of fun extra, the band decided to involve me in a little
bit of performance art. The song I wrote for them is about conspiracy
theories and such, so right before they played it, they had me walk up
to them with a large brown folder stamped TOP SECRET. I gave it to
Ian, and announced over the microphone to the crowd that the band had
secret orders to play this next song. Ian opened the envolope and it
had a printed lyric sheet with the words I wrote to Collusion. It was
a cheesy little show, but it was fun, and they finished their set with
my song again.
I've know all kinds of people at Tech, and multiple
generations of students who knew how to throw a really good party.
The owners of this house are no exception. The go all out.
In addition to Microcosm, they got me and Matt's old goth buddy Tino
to DJ. Tino is a very talented DJ that is very into techno and
industrial and back to the 80s new wave, and it's always a blast to
be at a party when he is responsible for the tunes. You never know
what you are going to hear, whether it's VNV Nation, My Life with the
Thrill Kill Kult or Peter Schilling's Major Tom. These particular party
throwers also believe in feeding their guests. And not just chips or
brownies or snack food, although they do do that too. They actually cook,
often several times over the course of the night. At the Mars party,
they cooked up bratwurst on the outdoor barbecue. This time they had a
giant pot of posole, and later on, had my friend Eric Beckstead cook
up some stir fry. And their hospitality doesn't end there. Even
if they hardly know you, if you don't see something you want, they tell
you to raid the fridge and find whatever you want. Because this was
a 49ers party, there was a much wider selection of alcohol. They had
two kegs of the Pick Axe Ale from the local brewpub and an astounding
assortment of fifths of hard liquor set out so that you could mix your
own drinks.
By midnight I was trashed. My friend Jessie, that
had been trying to get me to go to her belly dancing performance
the night before showed up. I was drunk enough to flirt. Unless
I really know a person very well, and know that a more casual attitude
in terms of flirting is permissible, I tend to be very formal and
proper about it. I think she was rather amused when I walked up
behind her and asked her very formally, "May I hold you?" She laughed
and said, "Sure. Thanks for asking." It was pretty cold outside, so
I think her favorite part about that whole encounter was the added body
heat.:) I decided not to push my luck by trying to get any further.
She ended up leaving not much later, because she was pretty tired, but
before I knew it, another very attractive young woman I've seen around town
quite a bit over the years came up and introduced herself, and soon we
were playing pool. I quickly decided against trying anything at
all with her, because it quickly became obvious that she had caught the
eye of more than one guy in the room, and it was quickly apparent that
some of them had decided to go full court press. But whatever. It's
rare that I get that sort of attention at all, so I enjoy it on the rare
occassions that it does happen.
To top it all off, we all got to party an extra hour
because of the time change <g>, but as the sun started to
come up, we all shuffled off to stumble home. Eric Beckstead was
nice enough to give me a ride, since he had sobered up, and it had gotten
pretty cold.
I have a bit of cold today. I'm not as young as
I used to be, and these days, drinking seems to really slam my immune
system. Especially when it's cold outside. But all in all,
I would have to say that it's been an extremely enjoyable weekend,
and I really needed it. I hope it's not too long before I get
to party like this again, but even if I don't for a while, there is
always 49ers next year.:)
Posted late Sunday afternoon
October 26th, 2003
Productive Weekend (For a change)
This Monday, I have something to show for my
weekend besides a hangover. Panic set in about my ghost story
for the challenge, so Saturday night I threw a horror movie into
the VCR and wrote. Three horror movies and a viewing of Ghostbusters
later, I was done, and very pleased with the results. But this was
not before another fun and exciting event. I went Saturday afternoon
to do something I've wanted to try for a very long time. I was invited
to a paintball match. We all went out to box canyon. I had my own
camouflage and combat boots, but I was hooked up with a nice paintball
gun and a mask. We divided into teams and went off down the canyon
to fight. It was a great deal of fun. I experienced some early technical
difficulties with my weapon, but once I got it working properly, I gave
my opponents a good run for their money. I came home sweaty and tired,
and with a few bruises, but it was fun. To top things off, I played
some Serious Sam 2, and got unstuck and to the next level.:)
This coming weekend is the New Mexico Tech 49ers
homecoming celebration. That will mean a long weekend of raging
parties, and Microcosm is playing a gig Friday afternoon. So I
think with very little effort I will be able to track down a good party
or seven. I'm even more excited about Fright Night however, and I
am very happy with how my story turned out. The entries keep coming
in, so we ought to have a great night.
My Maximum Frayne shirt showed up. It's SOOO
cool. I know what I'm going to be wearing at the next convention.:)
At any rate, now that I'm caught up and not stressing
about a bunch of things that I was before, I'm going to revel
in uselessness until tomrrow.
Posted late Monday night/early Tuesday morning
October 21st, 2003
Inspired by Anna: A hundred of my all time favorite
songs
In no particular order
1. Iron Maiden - Hallowed be thy Name
2. Metallica - Fade to Black
3. Pink Floyd - Comfortably Numb
4. Judas Priest - Breaking the Law
5. Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath
6. Silencer - Apollocide
7. Motorhead - Built for Speed
8. Slayer - Raining Blood
9. Bruce Dickinson - Darkside of Aquarius
10. Skinny Puppy - Worlock
11. Ministry - So What
12. Queensryche - I Don't Believe in Love
13. Metal Church - Mercilless Onslaught
14. Death Angel - Kill As One
15. In Flames - Dialog with the Stars
16. Saxon - Princess of the Night
17. Front Line Assembly - Provision
18. Ozzy Osbourne - You Can't Kill Rock-n-Roll
19. The Misfits - She
20. U2 - The Unforgettable Fire
21. Voivod - Tribal Convictions
22. Midnight Oil - Bullroarer
23. Pailhead - I Will Refuse
24. VNV Nation - Standing
25. Wumpscut - Wreath of Barbs
26. Nine Inch Nails - Heresey
27. Pantera - Cemetery Gates
28. Megadeth - Tornado of Souls
29. Armored Saint - Isolation
30. Fugazi - Ex - Spectator
31. Yngwie J. Malmsteen - Icarius Dream Suite
Opus 4
32. Testament - Apocalyptic City
33. ZZ Top - Stages
34. Pat Benatar - Invincible
35. KFMDM - Beast
36. Depeche Mode - Enjoy the Silence
37. The Scorpions - Coast to Coast
38. Erasure - Precious
39. Rush - Subdivisions
40. Dio - Don't Talk to Strangers
41. Velvet Acid Christ - Icon
42. Apoptygma Berzerk - Kathy's Song (Green Court
Remix)
43. The Cranberries - Dreams
44. Def Leppard - Another Hit and Run
45. Peter Schilling - The Different Story
46. When in Rome - The Promise
47. Enya - Boadicea
48. King Diamond - Dressed in White
49. The Ramones - Bonzo Goes to Bitburg
50. Helloween - Reptile
51. Dokken - Mr. Scary
52. Van Halen - Unchained
53. New Order - True Faith
54. Suicidal Tendencies - Institutionalized
55. Lords of Acid - I Sit on Acid
56. Alice Cooper - Bed of Nails
57. A-Ha - The Sun Always Shines on TV
58. Godflesh - Us and Them
59. Lard - Forkboy
60. Rolling Stones - Paint it Black
61. Soundgarden - Jesus Christ Pose
62. Iced Earth - Desert Rain
63. Stormtroopers of Death - Speak English or
Die
64. Method of Destruction - Get a Real Job
65. Anthrax - Indians
66. Fleetwood Mac - Isn't it Midnight
67. Blue Oyster Cult - Burnin' for You
68. Peter Gabriel w/ Deep Forest - While the Earth
Sleeps
69. Accept - Midnight Mover
70. Red Hot Chili Peppers - Nobody Weird Like
Me
71. Danzig - Mother
72. Deep Forest - Night Bird
73. BT - Godspeed
74. ABBA - Knowing Me, Knowing You
75. Lizzy Borden - Me Against the World
76. Pet Shop Boys - Opportunities
77. Tony MacApline - Autumn Lords
78. Leonard Cohen - Everybody Knows
79. Don Henley - New York Minute
80. Ministry - Unsung
81. Iron Maiden - Purgatory
82. Skinny Puppy - Grave Wisdom
83. Pink Floyd - One Slip
84. Metallica - Orion
85. Megadeth - In my Darkest Hour
86. Black Sabbath - Children of the Grave
87. Sarah Brightman - Deliver Me
88. Apoptygma Berzerk - Bitch
89. Stevie Nicks - Stand Back
90. Journey - Don't Stop Believing
91. Loverboy - Queen of the Broken Hearts
92. No Means No - Lost
93. Sepultura - Dead Embryonic Cells
94. Coroner - Son of Lilith
95. Death - Regurgitated Guts
96. Ministry - Kaif
97. Judas Priest - The Hellion/Electric Eye
98. Silencer - This Mythic Image
99. Silencer - The Error of Your Ways
100. Testament - The Legacy
Posted early Thursday evening
October 16, 2003
Random Update
Just got through a very enjoyable visit with
an old friend, Ian's little brother Lindsey. Lindsey is in the
Navy and has spent the last several years working in the armory
for the Navy SEALs in Coronado, California. He has a career
I feel I have had a big influence in. Unlike his older brothers,
after high school, Lindsey decided he needed to take some drastic
steps to avoid being a drunk or a stoner, stuck in Socorro, drifting
between minimum wages jobs and living arrangements. So he decided
to go the Navy and get GI Bill money to go to college, since his
grades were never stellar. We had had a very enjoyable spring
and summer that year. He, Bill and I did our best to turn it into
a continuous drunken blur and party with a few breaks for Cyberpunk or
Nuclear War games. We even made it to quite a few concerts that year
including Iron Maiden, Ministry, the Scorpions and Alice Cooper, and
Ozzy Osbourne for my birthday. We threw the infamous hot tub parties
where we bribed the night clerk at the local Super 8 with a few beers
for after hours access to the hot tub, and would relocate the party
there with as many drunken women as we could lure into coming with us.
But Lindsey knew he couldn't go on like this forever, and didn't want
to wash dishes for the rest of his life. So he enlisted.
It was during a Cyberpunk game that he asked me
what rating he should pursue. He knew he wasn't in enough shape
to be a SEAL, and most other enlisted ratings in the Navy are pretty
much glorified technician jobs of one kind or another unless you
get stuck with shit detail like scraping rust off of ships. But
he wanted some kind of interesting duty on the line. So I told him,
he should be a gunner's mate with a focus on cannons rather than missiles.
He ran with it, much to his family's dismay ("You should use the
Navy to learn a real trade!" <g>), and discovered how much
he liked it. He got to play with guns all day.
From the few times we had taken him to the gun
range, he was already a good enough shot to get his first ribbons
when it was time to qualify. And when he was on his first cruise
on the frigate the Ford, it suddenly became apparent that that
wasn't the only thing we had taught him. In addition to the 72mm
cannon and missiles, the frigates had some smaller weapons to engage
terrorists in small crafts and for boarding actions when they were
doing things like enforcing the oil embargoes in the middle east.
One of these weapons was a 25mm autocannon. They had an informal
contest with it, shooting balloons they threw out in the water. Lindsey
remembered back to what we had taught him about guns and combat over
the course of our Cyberpunk game, and remembered the old addage, "short,
controlled bursts". So he wins hands down and wins the privilege of
being the chief techinician an firer of that weapon.
After several tours at sea, he got an assignment
with the SEALs which he just completed. He has pretty much
decided to career it now, and is now off to Spain to teach marksmanship
to pilots in an ariel reconnasaince squadron. So before he
left, they gave him three weeks leave to visit family, and it's been
fun to see him and catch up with him. He took me to the El Camino
on several occassion to bullshit over dinner, and on most nights I
could find him at Jared's house with their ongoing LAN party.
We had many a night having hours of Unreal Tournament deathmatch.
One of the things thats most fun about hanging
out with him now is being able to talk guns with a professional,
instead of just other geeks. We spent many an hour where he
told me stories about all the hardware the Navy SEALs are using
these days, and how they are training. It's fun having insider
information on weapons which probably won't appear in Popular Mechanics
or Jane's Small Arms of the World for another five years, and won't
be common knowledge amongst geeks and computer game designers for another
ten years. And when these weapons are well known, I can say I know the
guy that got to test them out for the Navy before any SEAL got to fire
a single shot. I'm not just a gun geek anymore. I'm a very well connected
gun geek.:)
Last night we had a going away party for him.
In thanks for all the hours he spent gaming at Jared's he bought
them a copy of Battlefield 1942, which they installed across all
four machines so we could multi-player. I was invited of course,
and we had Band of Brothers going on the TV in the background for
the person who had to sit out of each match, for kind of a World War
II theme night. We had a blast, and I decided that game is entirely
too cool.
The Ghost Challenge Fright Night is but two weeks
away. I'm very excited, although I really need to buckle down
and finish my story. And my lurking friend informs me that
my Maximum Frayne tour shirt should show up Thursday. Due to
an ooops, the shirt had to be redesigned, but the whole line of Maximum
Frayne wear in now here: www.cafeshops.com/swagg.
This has just been too funny and too cool.
What was up with the Cubs tonight? I actually
sat down to watch the game, but after the eight run eighth inning,
I left in dismay. I hope they have their shit together tomorrow.
Don't know if I'll watch though, because my boss wants to have
us all over to watch his new Matrix Reloaded DVD on his 60 inch HDTV.
He said he was also going to drag me up to Albuquerque with him
one of these days so that I could see Kill Bill. It's supposed to
be a fantastic movie, and right up my alley. I enjoy trips like this
with him. On trips like this, he gets out of boss mode, and goes into
friend mode, which I find ten times more agreeable, although boss Jim
can still be cool sometimes. Today while Jared and I were trying to
update the drivers on his office desktop system, I was playing with his
CETME, and AR-15 assault rifles he just has laying around the office.
It's moments like that, that make me realize how much I love my job duties.:)
If it only paid better. . . . At any rate, I'm going to go write or something.
Ciao.
Posted late Tuesday Night
October 14, 2003
I'm dying, I'm dying . . . . .
Three years, fifty stories, two girlfriends,
and lots of close, dear friends later, I have come to the conclusion
that I have some measure of popularity in the Trixie community.
Now I nearly constantly do and say things, both to myself and to
others to keep my ego in check. I blow things I'm told off, or make
light of it, or even in some cases try to ignore it. Nine times out
of ten, when I do say something, it's self depreciating. It's an
old habit that predates my days in the Trixie community by quite some
time. Part of it stems from my low self esteem of course. Another
part, especially when my self depreciating comments get over the top,
are simply me keeping myself under control. Even when I know I'm
annoying people by being self-depreciating, it's really a lesser of
two evils situation. I haven't really done the arrogant thing since
I was eight, but even when I was, it didn't take me long to realize
that people have a much easier time handling someone who is down on
themselves than someone who is full of themselves. When you are full
of yourself, people don't take you seriously and blow you off. When
you are down on yourself, people still don't take you seriously, but they
don't cut you off or pay you no mind. They tend to just roll their
eyes and say, "Yeah, whatever Eric," and that's the end of that.
It's still very surreal to me sometimes when
I think back to all the things people have told me, both about
what they think about me, and what they think about my writing.
I look back at all the feedback I have gotten from fans, and all
the wonderful things people have told me about my writing, and it's
just so weird. It's weird to hear those kinds of things. It's
weird to have fans. It's weird to hear the kind of praise I sometimes
hear. There is still a part of me that takes it all with a grain
of salt and thinks, this can't be serious. This can't be for real.
This is my crap we are talking about here.
At any rate, just when I thought I had seen it
all, something happened tonight that both had me smiling in
awe, and laughing my ass off in disbelief. Since I've had my
own site, without fail, about every other months or so, a few
new readers or fans would delurk to ask for unposted stories. Some
fell silent after getting to the story formerly known as the Dreaded
Part 9. Many went on to become regulars, in that I could count
on them to delurk and ask for each new unposted story as I made it available.
Now only the story known as the Dreaded Part 9 needs to be asked
for, and me going password has brought in a new group of readers wanting
to read it. Some I hear from again, others I don't.
In particular, I have been enjoying exchanging
emails with two of them in particular. Since they are lurkers,
I will not divulge their names or whereabouts or anything like
that here. But it's been fun to talk to them when they email with
questions about various stuff. They have really enjoyed my universe
and they powered through it in very short order. A few days ago, one
of them asked if they could have a MAXIMUM FRAYNE t-shirt made. I gave
this endeavor my full blessing and told them, if they do, I would like
to get one too. I got a reply tonight saying she was going to make it,
and that she was also probably going to put DSTHR on the back of it to make
it look like a real tour shirt.
Now all of my efforts aside, I couldn't help
but feel somewhat full of myself. But that wasn't what slayed
me about this particular email though. Without divulging any
other details, I think this particular quote from the email, after
she was telling me where I could get a shirt, speaks for itself:
"You can also get a pair
of thong underwear that says Maximum Frayne too."
I politely replied saying I had no need for thong,
but that if a Maximum Frayne thong does get made, I would love
to see it.
Yep. It would appear I have fans. And it would
appear some of them are just as crazy as I am.:)
Posted early Friday morning
October 10, 2003
Psycho Creative Writing Project
Was getting a bit bored with normal surveys,
so I decided to try something a little new and different. Drum
roll please. <g>. Announcing the first psycho creative
writing project.
We've all seen the commericals on TV these days
for new medicines. One of the things I find the most amusing
about the new medicine commericals is how they have to announce
all the possible side effects. It often makes the drug sound
very horrific compared to it's benefits. Now, the other day I got
into a debate on drug legalization with a friend of mine. I was
polite, although my personal view on the matter is that they should
reopen Auschwitz for marijuana dealers. I've seen one too many friends
completely flush their lives down the toilet burning the herb, convinced
by stupid people going into the deal that it was harmless. But in
a moment of amusement, I wondered what the commercials would be like
if they did legalize.
So for today's Psycho Creative Writing Project,
everyone who wishes to participate should pick an illegal drug
or two, or other amusing substance and write a commercial for it.
I'll start off with a commerical for Marijuana.
"A new way to insure there are no more tears
in your life.
You may have had no more tears from our
shampoo as a kid, but now you can have no more tears as an adult
due to Glacoma or the pain
of Cancer. New, from Johnson &
Johnson is No More Tears Marijuana.
Smoke those tears away with our wide selection
of high grade at affordable prices.
Possible side effects include Lung Cancer,
acute paranoia, exponential increase in appetite, wracking cough,
inability to focus or concentrate
on anything, irrational fits of violence,
driving at speeds to make senior citizens behind you get impatient,
complete loss of short term
memory, sudden urges to listen to Bob
Marley, demonicaly red eyes, loss of interest in anything that
requires energy or excess motion, excess apathy,
and lengthy periods or inactivity to make a brain dead vegetable
in the hospital seem like an overachiever.
