The Musings of Fish

Broken Dreams Barbie

2009-07-02T20:10:00.003-05:00

My sister-in-law just unearthed some of her old toys that have been in hiding for 20-some years. A couple nights ago, she was showing us these toys in a trip down memory lane. One of them is a little ballerina doll that spins around when you push down a plunger that comes out of her head (yes, a little odd, but it's a toy). Unfortunately, one of her legs (the one on which she's supposed to twirl) hyperextends at the knee. This is hilarious to me. I imagine the doll having little phrases, such as "Oh, my leg! I'll never dance again!" "The pain is unbearable!" and "I don't have health insurance!"

PLEASE NOTE THAT THE REST OF THIS POST IS PRETTY SICK HUMOR AND MAY NOT BE APPROPRIATE FOR MORE SENSITIVE READERS. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK.

Heidi and I have expanded this admittedly morbid joke to a line of dolls (Barbie is a good placeholder, but it could be a different line of toys) called the Broken Dreams Barbie line. Each would have its own playset, which would hook into the Boulevard of Broken Dreams playset (which comes with a "Street Corner"). Some of the dolls are a little too sick/mean/dirty for me to post here, but I'll give you a few ideas:

-"Ex-Child Actor Barbie" with McDonald's playset
-"Philosophy Major Barbie" with Telemarketing Call Center playset
-"Homeless Barbie" complete with 3-wheeled shopping cart (naturally, she wouldn't have a playset)
-"Pimp Ken" (who has the obvious counterpart that we're not going to discuss here)

There are numerous others that we're thinking of, but since many people who read this don't get my sense of humor sometimes, it's better to let this stand as is. Although this has become a common topic of conversation over the dinner table at Chez Fisher. Maybe we'll actually get these into production in time to traumatize Nola!

Obligatory New Father Post

2009-04-15T22:06:00.011-05:00

On Tuesday, April 14th at 3:54pm, Nola Mercy En-Ai Fisher was born. She was 6 lbs 2 oz and 21 inches. I have participated in the creation of another human being. Holy Crap.

I've heard numerous new fathers talking about how life-changing an experience, how unutterably wonderful it is, and I never understood it. I'm still getting there. When huge, monstrous events happen that have such intense amounts of emotion tied to them, I tend to process the information for many days (or weeks). I'm still processing, I think. Only just today have I been able to hold her and think of her in any way beyond just intellectual acknowledgement that she is actually my daughter. But I'm still chugging through the huge emotional impact. Over the past few days I noticed that when I'm not there, I couldn't wait to hear her plaintive little whiny cry/whimper again. Now (and I doubt this is going to last), crying is not an annoyance to me, but rather a signal of life. For the first time in my life, I've started singing little spontaneous songs as I'm holding her. I've also noticed that I'm much more open and accepting of other people, as if the world is a better place.

Let me tell you how everything happened:
WARNING: FROM HERE, THERE IS TOO MUCH INFORMATION. IF YOU'RE UNINTERESTED IN THE SOMEWHAT GRUESOME DETAILS, STOP READING NOW.
I had been up too late, playing a free trial of Age of Conan (which I recommend, by the way), so I got up a bit late that morning. As such, I was rushing around to get myself ready in time for work. Heidi had gone to the bathroom and taken a shower after I got done, and when she came out, she told me she thought her water might have broken. She lay down on the bed for a bit and nothing seemed out of the ordinary, so I decided to head to work. As I was walking to the bus stop, I saw the far-too-familiar sight of the bus driving by as I was two blocks away. I've gotten used to that, so I wasn't a huge deal to me. However, just before I got to the bus stop, Heidi calls me and said, "Yep, my water broke." I turned right around and headed back home as she called her doctor.

What followed next was a pretty quick labor. I should state right now that Prentice Women's Hospital is a very nice hospital in which there is one patient per delivery room and one patient per room in recovery. It's one of the few hospitals I've been in that wasn't depressing and scary. In any case, the hospital staff kept a pretty close eye on Heidi's blood pressure and the baby's heart rate during the labor. At each contraction, the baby's heart rate dipped a little bit, which is fairly common. However, at one point, the baby's heart rate dropped from it's usual 140 to the mid 50's, and didn't come back up. Immediately, there were a dozen people in the room and Heidi was rushed out to an operating room. They left me in the normal delivery room, alone and clueless. This was a pretty rough time for me. It was as if I walked off a cliff and fell into the sea, and didn't know when or if I would rise back to the surface. I called people to pray, and then sat there alone, praying on my own. After about 10 minutes, someone came in and told me that the baby's heart rate came back up and both mother and baby looked like they were doing OK. Then she left, asking me to stay where I was, and I was sitting there alone for another 20 minutes. Eventually, our nurse came into the delivery room and took me back to the OR. This wasn't something that any of the medical professionals thought of, but Heidi had asked them to go get me, as she knew I'd be panicked. I married a good woman.

When I got in the OR, Heidi was on a table, surrounded by a few doctors and nurses, who were discussing whether or not she should go back to the delivery room to finish up delivering normally. Heidi had dilated from 5 cm to 9 cm (10 cm is fully dilated) in the space of an hour, and the kid had had a hard time tolerating that. Evidently the motion of rushing her to the OR had worked it's magic, and the kid was in much better shape. They waited for two hours to see if she should go back to the delivery room and finish up. After that, the doctors realized that Heidi was not dilating any more despite some pretty intense contractions, and determined that the baby should come out via Caesarian. Since this wasn't an emergency C-Section, I was able to stay in the room with Heidi; they put a sheet up between us and the operation, so we could avoid the nastiness. Before I knew it (but what seemed like 30 years), the baby was out and shrieking her tiny little lungs out.

She tested almost perfectly on the Apgar test (a scale that measures the health of a newborn), but since she was still considered a preemie (she was 36 weeks, 6 days; 37 weeks is acceptably "full term"), they wanted to run some tests on her, and the test that measures her ability to regulate the glucose level in her blood came back a little weak. So they took her to the NICU, where she still is.

For a NICU, Prentice's is very nice. We're able to have an alcove to ourselves, and we have 24/7 visiting. They have a solid once-every-three-hours feeding schedule, which is convenient, because we know when to go down and be with her, and then at night we actually can get an adequate night's sleep. Still, Nola had to have a Dextrose IV for the first couple days of her life. she soon established her ability to maintain a good glucose level, but then the staff doctor noticed she was a little jaundiced. Jaundice is really common for Asian kids (Heidi had it much worse when she was freshly out of the oven), so this was nothing unusual, but still a bit annoying. Tomorrow, if all goes well (which the doctor is confident it will), she will be here in the room with us, as Heidi finishes up her recuperation.

So yeah, I am responisble for creating another human being. That human being is partially me. Blows my mind.

William Chen, 1939-2008

2009-01-04T06:13:00.002-06:00

My Father-in-law died on Sunday. The funeral was yesterday. It's been a busy week.

We originally were on a cruise to the Caribbean all week. The first couple days we had were freakin' glorious, but Sunday night we got the call, and the next day we were landing in the Dominican Republic. The ship had 24 passengers that didn't make it down in time for the launch from Miami, and instead went through Santo Domingo and took the 2 1/2 hour cab ride from the Santo Domingo airport to Samana, the port in which the ship was. We took the other way. We really felt the prayers of our friends & family on the way back, and all our flights (and the cab ride) not only left on time, but came in 20-30 minutes ahead of schedule. It was pretty cool, for being such an exhausting and difficult travel day.

The next few days were a busy time of making funeral arrangements. I never really realized how much work goes into a funeral; it's slightly more complex than a typical "party," but you're also mourning the loss of whoever it was.

I didn't know my father-in-law for a very long time; it was coming up on four years. In that time, I did realize that his motivation for the vast majority of his thoughts and actions was love. He was irascible, opinionated, and grumpy, but that was on the surface, whereas his love for God and his family was the deepest part of him. He was a brilliant, creative man, if a bit disorganized, who would frequently bite off more than he could chew, and then figure out how to finish whatever project as he went.

Heidi gets a lot of her personality from him: not so much with the grumpy aspect (and I hope that doesn't increase with age), but his stubbornness, creativity, sense of humor and attention span are hers.

I knew this was coming, but it still saddens me. For me, it's more of a regret that he won't get to meet his granddaughter (at least not for a long while), and an understanding that I'll miss him. I spent most of this week doing support work, and that will continue for months to come.

If he drank, I'd pour a forty for him. In lieu of that, I'll just say I loved him and miss him.

It's only a model

2008-11-22T21:26:00.001-06:00

Little Fishie

2008-11-01T20:00:00.002-05:00

Yes, I freely admit that I have been lax in the blogging department. My job has a super-tight internet blocking policy, and being that I work in computers, I don't spend so much time on the computer at home. Therefore, I don't write on the old blog so much anymore. Most of my latest updates are on Facebook (and it's likely that many of my friends are reading this off the facebook feed anyway). Yes, our super-tight internet block allows me to be on facebook, but doesn't allow me to hit blogger. If you can think of a rational explanation for that, I would welcome it.

In any case, for the few people who do have this on their feed (or, heaven forfend, actually visit the blog), we're adding to the population. Yes, I have spawned, and the Little Fishie is due in early May.

So, to answer the questions:
1. We don't know the gender of the kid yet.
2. Everything seems pretty normal in the ultrasounds.
3. Heidi is doing OK. She has pretty much all the standard symptoms of pregnancy, except that she has yet to actually puke.
4. Heidi has yet to experience "the quickening" (which sounds like something science fictiony, but in actuality just means when Heidi can feel the squirt moving).
5. The government has been notified, and they'll be checking into registering his/her superpowers once the election is over.

Kung Fu Panda

2008-06-10T07:20:00.002-05:00

I quietly dreaded Kung Fu Panda for quite a while. Here was a pretty clever idea, done by DreamWorks animation. DreamWorks doesn’t have a very good track record with animated movies. They typically have big-name stars voicing their movies, a weak story with lazy/sloppy writing, and then market the movies based off the star power (I remember a couple trailers of movies that did this, actually showing the stars in the recording studio instead of showing clips from the movie). Don’t get me wrong, they do make some pretty good movies, but for every Shrek, there are a couple Antz or Shrek the Third's.

And the star power they got for this show pretty much spanned the spectrum of voice talent. Jack Black, good choice. James Hong, excellent without resorting to the A-List. But Lucy Liu as a rather friendly snake? Seth Rogan as a kung fu bug? Jackie Chan doing voice work? In English?

And then there was the Kung Fu Panda licensed game demo on Xbox360. Now, movie-licensed games are typically bad games. You can’t judge a movie based on the game, but you can get some flavor of the movie. And yes, as a game, Kung Fu Panda is pretty ho-hum. Except for the intro. The intro pulled straight from the movie. The movie that instilled more joy in me and pulled more laughter out of me than any movie I’ve seen this year.

Yes, Kung Fu Panda is freakin’ wonderful. I don’t really know where to start. The writing was probably the best part. As Pixar demonstrates over and over again, you have to start with a good script before you make a good movie. The script here has a good, if formulaic story, and the “believe in yourself” message is a bit heavy-handed (although I personally think that this message is one that bears multiple repetitions), but the dialogue is snappy and witty and the story just works. And the acting both by the animators and in the voices, was excellent. The story does have The Furious Five (five “star” fighters) as supporting cast, with the aforementioned Seth Rogan, Lucy Liu, and Jackie Chan among the voices. And other than David Cross, their voices don’t add much (Angelina Jolie was the fifth, but also not that notable). But even with the weak voice acting, it’s less noticeable because the animation acting is so subtle and “real.” And, adding to the excellent animation acting, Jack Black, Dustin Hoffman, Ian McShane, and yes, James Hong, shine. They more than make up for the mediocre voice work of other people in the cast.

I’m a big fan of kung fu movies, and was a little concerned about how an animated film was going to handle it. Yes, with the recent trend in over-the-top action that the kung fu genre has become, animation is the way to go with it, but I was still a little concerned that the action would appear stiff and contrived. And another no. The action was really on par with most recent movies of its ilk. It’s obvious the action wasn’t choreographed by Woo-ping Yuen, but it’s still a graceful and artistic ballet of violence, one in which it’s easy to forget that the characters are animated (even despite them being animals).

I could go on, but it’s becoming a long post already. This is a must-purchase movie on my list. John’s recommendation: see it.

Wikipedia Challenge

2008-05-15T07:13:00.004-05:00

Here’s a challenge that I think is fun for no reason other than I think it is. Start at the Wikipedia homepage. Hit Random Article, and whatever comes up, try to drill down to a page for the following:
One real person (alive or dead)
One organization
One fictional person
One location
One thing related to a hobby of yours

I’ve found that in order to be fun, you need to be very specific. Instead of Computer, choose RAM or Red Hat. Instead of Beer, choose Ethanol Fermentation or Dogfish Head. Instead of Italy, choose the Piazza della Repubblica or Bolognese sauce. Being obscure can be fun, too, but it could take a while. Here’s what I chose:

Peter Gabriel
Monty Python
Skeletor
Rogers Park
Liberty City (the city in which GTA IV is set)

And so goes the search:

1. Brodow->Germany->European Union->United Kingdom->British Music->Genesis->Peter Gabriel

2. Cuisine of Cameroon->European Cuisine->English Cuisine->Cheese->List of Cheeses->Cheese Shop Sketch->Monty Python’s Flying Circus->Monty Python

3. Sanoodi->Wales->BBC Wales->Television->South Park->Animation->Filmation->He-Man and the Masters of the Universe->Skeletor

4. Constant Velocity Joint->1927->Repeal of Prohibition->Prohibition in the united States->Al Capone->Chicago->Neighborhoods of Chicago->Rogers Park

5. Leo Burnett Building->Chicago->List of People from Chicago->Robin Williams->Video Game->Video Game Controversy->Grand Theft Auto Series->Liberty City

Don’t bother with the searches that don’t bear fruit (these last two were really difficult, with me abandoning nearly a dozen searches total), just the ones that lead to your goal. And if you don’t do all five, no worries, just do what works for you (although I did have a lot of fun with this).

And y’know what? I’m going to tag a few people, because I want to see their searches: Mattox, Zach, and Hunahpu. Go forth, discover, proclaim!

And the band plays on

2008-05-10T15:16:00.002-05:00

One might think from the title, this is a post about Rock Band. One might be incorrect in that assumption, although that post will probably come soon. This is another one about the continuing fracas surrounding Grand Theft Auto IV. It’s a long one, so read at your own peril.

Wow, this is the story that doesn’t die. It’s not the first videogame issue that’s come up, but it has been one of the most widely touted, at least in recent memory. And it’s all about protecting the children. Think of the children!

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that Take Two Interactive sued the CTA for breach of contract when the CTA pulled GTA IV ads. I noticed Friday that the bus stop outside the Aon building has a GTA ad. Hooray for capitalism!

The rest of this post is inspired by this article in the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune. No, it’s not a paper I read regularly, but GamePolitics has been following the GTA thing extensively, and this was one of the articles they brought up. It’s a well-thought-through article, but wrong on a few points, and these are some points that have been bugging me for quite a while. And although the bulk of my regular readers have no real understanding of what I’m talking about, I’m still going to talk about it.

First, let me get this out of the way: this is a game kids should not play. Younger minds can be influenced by what they see and do, because they have yet to develop a thorough understanding of who they are, who they should be, and the difference between right and wrong. They have a less clearly defined separation between reality and fantasy. Which is why younger minds should not see R rated movies. This is why the term “adult themes” exists. And Grand Theft Auto IV, and many other quality games, are rated M, equivalent to an R rating in a movie.

But think of the children! You know they’re going to get their hands on it! Ask any 15 year old boy about whether his parents are the gatekeepers of their children’s play! And to that I agree, to some extent. In actuality, underage buyers of M-rated videogames have about a 20% success rate. Sounds like a lot, right? Not so much if you consider that an underage buyer can get an R-Rated DVD about 50% of the time, or get into an R-Rated movie 35% of the time. So in that sense, the videogame industry is clamping down pretty hard (at GameStop, the success rate is actually about 6%… makes me want to give them more business). And yes, parents sometime may get the game for their kids, not knowing about the content (that argument gets brought up all the time with games). Well then, I guess the parents are actually the gatekeepers of their children’s play. I could follow with a rant about good parenting, but I won’t.

But still, think of the children! They’re going to get their hands on it somehow! Think of the damage it can do to their fragile psyches! Yes, I agree, to some extent. And these children can also buy an R-Rated DVD, sneak into an R-Rated movie, look at things they shouldn’t on the internet, drink alcohol, smoke, possibly even get into drugs. I guess in the light of that, playing a videogame, even a very adult one like Grand Theft Auto IV, doesn’t seem as horrific. The idea that a game will influence them to do horrible things, when they have an almost limitless variety of other cultural influences, to say nothing of the influence of their peers, is foolish.

OK, well, think of the adults! These husbands and fathers can’t be any good if they spend their free time fantasizing about shooting hookers or running down pedestrians! And to that I agree. If someone spends their time fantasizing about these things, they have some pretty serious issues. However, not so many actually bring that away from the game. It has been my firm belief for a long time, that all of life is experienced through your own personal lenses. You bring out of any media that which is already inside you. I’ve known people who saw Star Wars, and they brought any number of things with them: some wanted to study film, others science, others music, others martial arts. Some parents refuse to let their children watch or read Harry Potter in case it influences them to get into witchcraft. That is more than a little ridiculous, and so is the concern about adults playing videogames.

I have seen myself be influenced by video games. After playing Burnout: Revenge, I find myself having to be careful while driving. After playing Katamari Damacy, I find myself influenced to clean up around the house, and thinking about what would roll up well wherever I go. I have gone to sleep and dreamt about matching gems after playing some games, and had music from other games floating through my head for days after. And I play Grand Theft Auto. In the game, I have driven a bus the wrong way down an expressway, plowing down cars as I see fit. I have stolen cars, mugged people, driven through crowded pedestrian areas, have gotten falling-down drunk (and once tried to drive that way… boy that didn’t last long), driven off "stunt ramps" so my car could fly dozens of yards, and done donuts on a baseball diamond and a beach. Am I influenced to do anything I have tried in game? No. Why? Because it is so far removed from who I am in real life that it's not a draw. At all. It is a game, not one in which I'm acting out my violent fantasies, but one in which I'm either trying to accomplish a goal or taking the opportunity to experiment and explore. And that right there is the kicker: games are blamed for corrupting people (much in the same way movies and television and comic books and rock & roll and cartoons and alcohol have in the past), while the truth is people don't need the help. Videogames have been blamed for the Columbine and Virginia Tech shootings. Some tried to pin the blame on games for the NIU shooting before any evidence was in, and it turned out that the guy hadn’t played a game for years. It is my belief that these people were seriously messed up to begin with, and would have gotten the desire to kill others and themselves had they watched TV, played videogames, listened to music, or read the newspaper. It wasn’t in the media, it was in them.

Video games are the nation's current hysteria. It seems every decade or so, something has to be demonized. The most extreme example is prohibition in the 1930's. Alcohol was the evil “flavor of the month”, and a constitutional amendment was passed (yes, they changed the Constitution of the United States for this) declaring that this evil must be abolished from society. Fewer than ten years later, people realized how silly they were being, and repealed the amendment. Videogames have been the most recent perpetrators of evil in our culture; as they have become more mainstream they have attracted more attention, and those that don’t understand the influence fear the change, just like television, rock music, and the Internet.

Children: don’t play the game. Parents: communicate with your kids. Society: relax.

Iron Man

2008-05-06T22:23:00.002-05:00

I had absolutely no expectations for Iron Man before it came out. I had seen the preview once or twice; since we don’t get TV, we don’t really get the media saturation that goes on for some movies. What I did know is that any superhero movie can make a spectacular trailer. Ooooo, big effects! Oooo, the superhero using his superpowers! Ooooo, cinematography! Oooooo, look at the actors! The trailer is usually spectacular, the movie, not so much. Therefore my expectations were pretty much nonexistent. I have a lot of bad superhero movies buried deep in my Netflix queue, and if I get to them in a year or two, they’ll be lucky. I was going to see what Rotten Tomatoes had to say about it, and if it was good, then I’d see it. On Wednesday, Rotten Tomatoes had it rated at 90%. On Thursday, it slipped a bit to 86%. Friday was a busy day, so I only had a few moments to see, but it went up to 95%. So I didn’t really get excited for it until Wednesday, but when I did get excited for it, I got really excited. So we saw it on Saturday morning, when the prices are cheap, and damn!

First off, this isn’t Batman Begins. Its initial reaction is definitely positive, but not as much for the fancy action or climactic battle. What really sticks with me is that it’s actually a good character piece, particularly strong considering it’s a flashy superhero movie. I’m not saying it’s Citizen Kane, but we see Robert Downey Jr (who’s a really good actor, despite his checkered personal life) developing from a playboy, care-free, self-centered genius, to someone who recognizes value in people after an attack, capture, and subsequent escape from Afghan terrorists. There are believable human moments, and moments of real, but not forced or excessive, comedy (which is something that isn’t in enough superhero movies). The action is nice and fancy, but nothing special. I like the power armor concept, and am kind of surprised that I never got into Iron Man when I wore a younger man’s clothes, so I was able to overlook the fact that some of the action really isn’t all that exciting (please note that I did say “some”). The climactic battle at the end is actually a little awkward, but I was able to give in to the moment and accept it. But what made the movie for me, what makes me want to see it again, what makes me want to own the DVD, is the fact that I really like how Tony Stark is played, and I really like who he becomes, and I really like the relationships that develop.

John’s recommendation: see it.

GTA IV

2008-05-02T07:30:00.004-05:00

Evidently, I plan to steal, kill, and destroy. I contribute to the end of all that is good and holy for our children. Look upon me, for I am the face of moral decline. I purchased Grand Theft Auto IV.

There has been a media circus regarding the release of this game. Admittedly, I follow news like this, but it seems that every day someone else (or several someone elses) have to put their two cents in about theage of darkness that will be ushered in by this game. One would think that the cover of this game is a little gate to hell, and opening it will unleash such evil that the western world will dissolve into anarchy.

This game has been called a murder simulator, a cop-killing trainingdevice, and pornography. And it’s a game. One that is played while sitting on the couch, looking at a TV. If this game had been a movie, nobody would have complained. If this game had been a book, nobody would have thought twice. But no, since it’s interactive, it will unravel the fabric of society.

This game is rated M by the ESRB, a rating that is equal to an R rating in a movie. And yes, it earns its rating, perhaps more so than any other videogame I have played. It is a game in which it is inevitable that you will be running from the police. It is a game in which it is very easy to run down pedestrians, and actually a little difficult to avoid it. It is a game in which your character has the option to do any number of illicit things, such as kill a cop, steal a car, pick up a hooker, drive drunk, or go to a strip club (and no, from what I understand, the naughty bits are not visible). It is also a game in which your character can go bowling, watch TV, buy clothes, play darts, or go to a comedy club (and yes, they actually have real comedians doing virtual performances). You have options, just like life.

I understand the concern of parents who don’t want their child exposed to the less virtuous aspects of the game. The language alone is pretty bad. However, several places (including the CTA) have pulled advertisements based off of the complaints of various concerned citizen groups. Is that going too far? To remove advertising because of the damage the product might do to someone that is not in its target audience? Will this advertising be replaced for ads for an R-rated movie? Alcohol? Is this media assault not giving the game tons of free advertising?

I’ve never been a parent, but I do know that if I don’t want my children exposed to something, one of the best ways to do so is to not bring it into my home. Yes, it would be naïve to think that children won’t get exposure to it outside the home, but I am led to believe that’s why parents are supposed to communicate with their children. I feel like the attacks on this game are reflected in the South Park movie. In that, the kids go see aCanadian movie that is far too adult for them, and it affects them negatively. The parents never asked what movie they were going to see, nor did they talk to their children about the effect it had on them. Instead, they chose to Blame Canada for their children’s new vocabulary.

This is a good game. It provides a hugely detailed city to explore, has adeep, engaging storyline, and gives you tons of leeway about how to live your new life in America (the main character is fresh-off-the-boat from Serbia). Yes, in my first few hours of playing I stole four cars (one of which I used to do donuts on the beach before I drove it into the river), ran from the police three times, beat up three people, and shot four more. I also went bowling on a date, ate a hotdog from a street vendor, and watched the sun come up while on a Coney-island-esque pier. Are kids going to buy this game? Not legally. Are kids going to play it? Yes, if their parents let them (through understanding of the kid, or through negligence).Would I let my young kids play it? Hell no. Will I play it? Hell yeah!

20 More things for which John is thankful

2008-04-10T07:23:00.003-05:00

OK, last post was good, but when I was writing it I kept thinking of man-made things for which I’m thankful. A handful of things that make me want to shake the hand of the person who first thought of them. Some of these are debatable that they are man-made instead of instituted by God; for the sake of argument, I’m attributing all these to mankind, even though I personally think a lot of them are God-given. Again, these are in no order whatsoever:

1. Varying languages
2. Varying cultures
3. Humor (and the subsequent laughter)
4. Food (please also note how this relates to #2 [and I mean the cultures thing, not poo])
5. Computers
6. The Internet (particularly Wikipedia)
7. Photography
8. Literacy
9. Dramatic structure (combine this with photography to make movies, literacy to make books)
10. The dividers that go between urinals in men’s bathrooms
11. Games
12. Music
13. Education
14. Denim
15. Automobiles
16. Beer
17. Wine
18. Toilets
19. Toilet Paper
20. Hugging

20 things for which John is thankful

2008-04-08T21:54:00.005-05:00

I've been kind of limited with the blogging thing as of late. There's a lot going on, but I have no desire to discuss it here.

Anyway, I’ve been thinking about things for a few days. There are a lot of things that are in this world that are really cool, that make me feel all warm and squishy for no reason other than that they exist. I’ll make this list about what God has designed into the universe; nothing man-made will appear on this list (and yes, I understand the conundrum of how much is us and how much is Him in great works). This is just a list of things that make me happy, in no order whatsoever:
1. Magnets
2. Waves
3. Clouds
4. Stars (the Sun is included in this)
5. The moon
6. Thunderstorms
7. Trees
8. Mountains
9. Desert
10. Large expanses of water (such as oceans and huge lakes where you can’t see the other side)
11. Volcanic islands
12. Cats
13. Dogs (particularly big ones)
14. Wind
15. The sky
16. Day
17. Night
18. Fresh air
19. New fallen snow
20. Fire

It's a trap!

2008-03-12T17:18:00.001-05:00

This one made me laugh out loud. I would be remiss if I didn't share.

The End of the Beginning

2008-03-04T20:14:00.002-06:00

And so it goes, one of the inspirations of my youth has gone the way of all flesh. Gary Gygax, the creator of Dungeons & Dragons, has died.

I'm not particularly moved. His influence changed the face of gaming; he introduced the concept of a role-playing game, and for that I will be forever grateful. A lot of concepts came from the tactical wargames from which they evolved, and these games became a cross between wargames and improvisational theatre. But still, gaming has moved on since his 1970's and early 80's influence. If he had not followed his muse, would something like role-playing games exist? It's a good question, and an interesting debate. Not sure if it matters, or if I would have missed it if it hadn't existed, but I'm glad it's a moot point.

In any case, I'm very glad Gygax lived, and in that sense he has achieved immortality. He had a good run. Pour a forty for him.

Gone Baby Gone

2008-02-23T21:52:00.003-06:00

We just saw Gone Baby Gone, Ben Affleck's directorial debut. He also cowrote the script, and really the best thing I can say about it is, "Go Ben!"

In it, Patrick Kenzie (palyed by Casey Affleck, yes, Ben's brother) is a private investigator charged with the task of looking into the abduction of a four year old girl. Yes, the police are working on the case as well, but the girl's aunt knows that some people won't talk to the police, which is why she hires Patrick. What follows is really heavy. There are a lot of obvious things that come to mind when the terms "child abduction" and "really heavy" are used to describe the same thing, and those things are obviously on a lot of people's minds during the film, but the movie doesn't go there, but to places I never expected.

It is a movie that explores the depth of humanity, not the depth of human depravity. Humanity is in a fallen state, and we see that clearly. Integrity has a price, and we see that clearly. This is ultimately a film about choices and the cost/benefit of them. It's a show in which morality is not particularly clear-cut, much like actual life.

I can't go into greater detail than that, other than to recommend the movie highly. This show is difficult to talk about without spoilers, and I would hate to spoil such a deep and powerful film. I will say that I can't recommend it very highly to parents. If I had children and watched this film, I wouldn't sleep well for a week. I still would have liked the movie, but it would havee left me much more uneasy than it already did. This is not a fun escapist movie; it is deep, it is powerful, it is disturbing, and it is freakin' wonderful.

Mass Effect

2008-01-24T13:39:00.000-06:00

Considering the media hooplah that's been going on lately with Mass Effect, I figured now was a good time to review it. My response to the media hooplah is moot. Other people have said it, and sometimes better. Fox News and other conservative publications are simply ridiculous, uninformed, insulting and wrong regarding this. Egad! Fox News distorting the truth for sensationalist purposes? Say it ain't so!

So anyway, Mass Effect. I've mentioned that Heavenly Sword had the best digital actors in any game to date, and after some thought, I'm reconsidering my opinion. I still am crazy impressed by Heavenly Sword, but the digital acting in Mass Effect is on equal footing, it's just that the characters aren't as over-the-top.

Let's start from the very beginning (it IS a very good place to start, isn't it?). When you start the game, you have the option to create your character from relative scratch, or choose one of the two default characters. All the advertising is based off the default male character, and that kind of confuses me. I created my own character, making him look vaguely like a badass version of myself. He had the acne scars, auburn hair, reddish unshaven look, big nose, that sort of thing. I remember going through the game as him. I see the advertising for the game with the default character and think, "Wait. That's not the same game I played. The guy is different. Who's this guy?" Then I get back to thinking that yes, I changed the default, and its someone else. It's akin to watching the TV show M*A*S*H for years, and then going back to the movie and wondering who this Elliot Gould guy is where Alan Alda should be. Or Michael Gambon as Dumbledore instead of Richard Harris. You get the picture.

So anyway, I went through the game with badass-me as the main character. And we start, and I'm already blown away. It's a movie, complete with recognizeable actors, but you're able to interact with the story. There is actual cinematography, actual acting in an interactive sequence. For those who are not as exposed to gaming, this is unusual. Yes, games have been getting more and more artistic as of late, but this raises the bar dramatically. These conversation sequences play to the viewer's emotions, unfolding according to how you respond, but portrayed in a very watchable style (there's even a rack-focus in one of the tense scenes). There were times when I was watching the story unfold in conversation sequence, and I thought, "Meh, I've seen movies like this before." And that's the thing. Games are still a relatively young art form, not nearly as advanced as film. And yet, I was comparing this game to a movie and favorably.

The story is moderately straightforward, but difficult to summarize. For that, I'll pull straight off the website:

The galaxy is trapped in an endless cycle of extinction. Every 50,000 years, an
ancient machine race invades the galaxy. With ruthless efficiency, the machines
wipe out all advanced organic civilization. They leave behind only the scattered
ruins of technology, destroying all evidence of their own existence. Few believe
this ancient legend. You, however, know it to be true. The fight to stop this
extinction event has become the most important mission in the galaxy. As
Commander Shepard of the SS Normandy, you will take your elite recon squad
across a galaxy in turmoil, in a desperate race to stop the return of an enemy
without mercy. To stop this enemy, you must act without remorse, without
hesitation, and outside the limits of the law. Your only imperative is to
preserve the safety of civilized life in the galaxy - at any cost. You must
become the tip of the spear of humanity, for you alone know the full extent of
what is at stake if you should fail.

Yes, it's something similar to what I've seen before: Ancient big nasty thing wants to destroy everything in your world, and you have to stop it (Babylon 5, anyone?). But the way it is told is what makes it magnificent.

The gameplay varies, depending on the style. In conversation sequences, as noted above, it's freakin wonderful. Each choice you make changes your path in the story. You can be a tough-but-good guy, or you can be a heartless bastard. It's all up to you. I understand that this changes how the story unfolds, but I have only played the game once. The action side of it, not as good. It works, and you learn it as you go, but in order to be proficient in combat, you really have to stop the action periodically so you can queue up your next ability. Not such a big fan of that. Ultimately, it didn't leave a bad taste in my mouth, but it did bring me out of the story.

This is a great game, and I recommend it highly. And yes, as the big hulabaloo is all about, there is a sex scene, if you choose to develop your relationships well. However, this game is rated M, and therefore has restrictions for sale placed on it, just like an R rated movie. The fact that the sex scene is about as tame as that which you would see in a PG-13 movie, or on TV after 9:00 doesn't seem to enter critics' minds, but it seems as though reporting impartially and factually doesn't either.

Red Ring of Death

2008-01-18T15:45:00.000-06:00

It was really just a matter of time. I knew the Red Fairy would eventually visit me and lay waste to the Xbox, as she has done for so many others. I could blame Microsoft for it, but the thing has served me very well for 21 months, and they would fix it for free. And besides, it's no fun to kick even the bully when he's (kind of) down.

So anyway, the ring of death manifests in several forms, almost always three lights around the power button. The one that is off signifies the actual error. Mine is the top right quadrant (like the one in the picture), which means a "general hardware fault," or "call Microsoft and they'll pay to have it shipped back to them, fixed in 3-4 weeks, and sent back to you."

As it happens, I got the Best Buy extended warrantee thing (which could inspire my "always buy the extended warrantee" speech, but I'll spare you that), and about ten minutes of chatting to some of the friendlier-than-Microsoft Best Buy customer service team leads me to be able to bring my Xbox back to Best Buy and get a gift card for the price I paid plus tax.

Now, I happen to have a few other Besy Buy gift cards, and I know they've dropped the price a bit since I made the original purchase, so maybe I can get something newer and prettier. I was thinking of using the cards for something else (like maybe a Wii), but really, I have a lot invested in the Xbox already, so I might as well stick with what I know.

So Best Buy made things easy, Microsoft met my moderately low expectations. Yay Best Buy! Meh Microsoft!

The Closing of the Year

2007-12-31T07:21:00.000-06:00

Wow, what a year 2007 has been. This year started out full of hope and promise, and then turned into reality. It didn't turn into a bad year, just didn't live up to the potential I had hoped. I would be remiss if I didn't even mention the lofty goals I had intended to be for this year, but I stopped tracking them around June-ish. Part of that was developing a new goal process, and part of that was knowing they were too lofty to be worthwhile. In any case, I didn't finish them for many reasons.

My job for the vast majority of the year was a good job for my skillset, and developed me in a good path for my career, but it was also insanely busy with constant multitasking, and I think it trained me to be mildly ADD. It also wore me out mentally, and made it very difficult to work on anything after work or on weekends. Now that job has ended (ah, the joy of being a contractor), and I'm looking for more.

We moved into the city in August, and also got rid of a car around that time. The move was huge, and it took months to clean the place up for Thanksgiving and our subsequent Christmas party. But now we live in a home, and a lovely home it is. Our office (third bedroom) is full of boxes that we need to take care of, but we have some time to do so; we can take care of one a weekend for the next several months, while still enjoying the home that we have.

Being a one-car family has its challenges, but it's a good transition for being in the city. Both of our jobs were close to public transportation, so Heidi could take the car or take the bus/train, depending on her mood that morning. I really couldn't take the car, as there's no way to cheaply park downtown. Parking in this neighborhood can be a challenge sometimes, but it's better than other places I've lived, and it's a lot better than trying to find space for two cars.

Our marriage hit a pretty rough spot this year, and I didn't write about that (not publicly, anyway), but we came through it and we're much stronger than we were before. I've had one friend say, "Marriage is the most difficult thing but the best thing that you can have." Although I think I would phrase it differently, I agree with it conceptually. In any case, that's a good thing. I've written about how we have grown stronger, and we keep going in that direction (admittedly, we're still kind of newlyweds). That fills me with hope for the future.

I didn't get much of a chance to see movies in the theatre this year, having had a gap between Stardust and National Treasure 2 (yes, I know... my brother wanted to see it). This has led me to be more of a gamer, and I've had a lot of that to keep me occupied. I've written about The Orange Box, which took up a large portion of my time, and I have yet to write about Mass Effect, which took up just as much time.

I got two voiceover gigs this year: one non-union and one union. I can see that being an actor is going to take a lot more work, and I've been doing a lot of work already. Sometimes, it's difficult to not get frustrated, but then I kind of put things in perspective: I'm making an adequate wage (at least I was), I have a good marriage, I have a lovely home, and I get to do what I love on the side (gaming, acting, whatever). Although I'd like to do what I love for a living, I'm pretty cool doing what works for right now.

I only brewed once this year. I'm disappointed with myself for that, but the beer turned out pretty well, and I've had a busy schedule, so I'm not going to kick myself too hard. For my birthday, Heidi got me two, count 'em, two kits. So that will change for next year.

So that be me. That be 2007. Bring on the new year!

Heavenly Sword

2007-12-30T19:12:00.000-06:00

My father-in-law recenly got a Playstation 3, in order to entice me and his biological son to come and spend time with the folks. Well, it worked.

In any case, it's been a difficult Christmas, and for various and sundry reasons, we haven't been able to see Heidi's parents for a few weeks, which was to end today. We got there early in the morning and, due to some poor planning and miscommunication, ended up sitting alone at their home for a good four hours.

Since I try to take advantage of situations as they arise, I chose to play one of the two games they happened to have: Heavenly Sword.

The game focuses around Nariko, a sort of supernatural sword-weilding Lara Croft. She has been charged with the protection of the Heavenly Sword, a magical sword of tremendous power, but which comes with a curse to take the life force of the one who weilds it. As it happens, King Bohan (played by Andy Serkis) wants the sword for himself and, since he's subjugating the known world anyway, comes to claim it. Nariko figures the best way to protect the sword is to use it to destroy everyone in her general vicinity, and hilarity ensues.

This is, as can be expected, a hack and slash game. And as a hack and slash game, it's really fun. The amount of damage you can dish out to the various enemies nearby is a lot of fun, as is the figuring out of the fighting combos. But as far as gameplay, there are some notable differences; the swordplay is a heck of a lot of fun, but when you get into playing with projectiles is where it gets to be a real kick in the pants.

There are a few times when you get to shoot stuff, many of which are when you're playing as Nariko's kid "sister," Kai. The gameplay in shooting can be pretty straighforward: you point, you shoot. But that's not all that interesting. When you hold down the fire button, you jump to a Sam Raimi follow-the-projectile shot and, using the PS3's sixaxis control (the motion sensitive controller), you can guide the arrow/cannonball/whatever to your target. It makes for a heck of a lot of fun, guiding your ammo to its destination, not by guiding a stick, but by actually moving the controller itself. It's sort of like when you watch a bowler try to psychically guide his bowling ball down the lane, but actually effective. And crazy fun.

Another huge note about this game is that it features digital actors. Convincing digital actors. I've seen this before (I have yet to write about Mass Effect... expect that to come soon), but this game has cutscenes that, with limited exceptions, could come from a movie. The actors are expressive enough to be considered actors, pulling facial expressions so real that you have to step back for a second and think if it's a game or a movie, if it's digital or actual. The characters are incredibly over-the-top, but the acting within those characters is stunningly real, and sometime freakin' hilarious.

This game is exclusively for the PS3, and I can see how it uses the hardware's capability to its fullest. The environments are huge, and there's no real transition between what's right in front of you or what's over that hill. A lot of games will have "filler" in the background to make it easier on the hardware. With a PS3, not so necessary. The visuals are also stunning. Ina lot of games, they make the cutscenes outsie of the game's engine, and they're beautiful, only to go back to the semi-bland game. These cutscenes use the game engine (with maybe a bit of polish) and are freakin' gorgeous!

So yeah, fun game. For the first time in my life, I have gamer's thumb. And I gotta say, I'm glad to have earned it.

DIY Messiah

2007-12-22T08:44:00.000-06:00

OK, first off, I haven't posted in a while. Nothing I wanted to discuss, no time in which to discuss it. But anyway...

Last night we went to the Do It Yourself Messiah at the Lyric Opera. Holy wow. In this, there is an orchestra, conductor and four opera singers. The professionals cover the solos, but the chorus, that's all the audience. And what a kick in the pants it was.

There are four parts to sing: Soprano, Alto, Tenor and Bass. You have a copy of the music (which you can buy there), and you read along, hoping you can read music and know what to sing. Here's the deal, though. I didn't know what to sing (I settled on Bass), and I can't read music. Completely. At first, I had to study the score to even figure out what was going on, but I found it quickly began to make sense. Reading the music felt a little like watching a subtitled movie. At first, you're reading, and not really being able to focus on the action so much, but after a few minutes, you're able to absorb both. Now, to be fair, I had a few years of piano when I was a wee lad, so I knew the basic premise of musical notation, but it has been nearly three decades since that. It helped that I was sitting near some other Bass folks, but I found myself able to adapt to the music before the intermission.

In any case, this was a wonderful experience, one that I can recommend to anyone that has even a passing interest in classical music. The conductor was witty and clever, the music was absolutely wonderful, and the sensation of singing this brilliant piece of music with hundreds of other people was powerful. That, and it was free.

Next year, go. I command thee.

Orange Box vs. Halo 3

2007-10-15T12:03:00.000-05:00

So here's my deal. I was in a debate with myself, a veritable spiritual wrestling match, over my next game purchase. Whether or not I was going to get a game was not in question. I had warned Heidi well ahead of time, and had discussed this in depth with her. However, which game would it be? Halo 3 recently came out, and was the reigning champion of game purchases. The Orange Box has three games in it, as well as two expansions for one of the games, and therefore was one of the best deals for a new game in history.

Half a dozen of my friends had Halo 3, and there were literally more than a million more people out there who had the game. I knew that if I got that, there would never be any shortage of online multiplayer partners. I knew that I would have a constant supply of friends with which I could play, as I could easily do a split screen multiplayer, even if I had a friend who didn't have the game. I knew the graphics would be incredible from screenshots I had seen. The reviews of Halo 3 were freakin' stellar. I hadn't played Halo 2, but I had played Halo. I don't remember enjoying Halo's single player all that much, but it would be multiplayer which would be the selling point.

Nobody I knew had The Orange Box, but it was still mouthwatering. One of the games on it is Half-Life 2. Half-Life 2 is widely considered the greatest single-player shooter ever made. Some even call it the greatest game ever made. I played it briefly on my old computer, but it kept crashing my system (like I-have-to-uninstall-the-whole-thing-t0-get-the-system-working-right crashing), so I couldn't get past a certain point. Still, I loved what I had played. The Orange Box also includes the subsequent two episodes of Half-Life 2, which I'd also heard were very good. Team Fortress 2 is another game on it. I have fond memories of playing the original Team Fortress for hours on end, and learning tricks which would serve me for years to come in various other games (as well as a few which would assist me in real life). Portal is the third game on it, and I knew very little about it, except the reviews I had read, which were generally very positive.

So that was my quandry: get the great game that several of my friends have, but which I really didn't know how much I'd enjoy the single player experience, or get the incredible deal that not many other people were getting, but which I knew would be good from previous experience. I knew I was getting one of them, just didn't know which.

Gamerankings.com is sort of the rottentomatoes of games. It aggregates all the reviews of all major review outlets and gives you an average of their opinions. Halo 3 ranked incredibly high, at 94.1% (it's since slipped a fraction of a percent, as it had one review that was only very good). Orange Box was too new to really rank, but it still had about ten reviews. I believe at the time the rating was 95.6% (it's currently 97.5%). That tore it. If the reviews were marginally more positive for the one that I already knew was going to be good, then I'll be antisocial and take the one that nobody else has.

So, I would have blogged about this before, but I was a little preoccupied. And Portal, the one I didn't know anything about, is absolutely wonderful, in addition to being laugh-out-loud funny. I finished it over the weekend, and want to play it again, even though I already know how to solve all the puzzles. Also, I might add, my friend Zach broke down and bought The Orange Box over the weekend.

Bioshock

2007-09-30T07:47:00.001-05:00

I just finished Bioshock, a relatively new game for the Xbox 360. I guess the best word to describe this game would be "creepy." Here's the story: you are some guy in 1960 whose plane goes down in the ocean, and you happen upon a small island with a lighthouse, in which is a bathysphere which takes you down to the great underwater city of Rapture. Andrew Ryan, a Howard Hughes/Charles Foster Kane type of individual thought it would be neat to create a magnificent city of intellectuals. A city of unlimited potential. A city beyond the reach of any earthly government. A city in which people could play with their genetics at their leisure. Since the substance required to play with genetics (called Adam) is found only in these slug-like things found under the sea, that's where this city should be. In one of the quotes of the game, he says, "It wasn't impossible to build Rapture under the sea, it would be impossible to build it anywhere else." With him, he brings some of the greatest minds of the late 50's, and they build an empire that swiftly goes terribly terribly wrong.

The story plays out primarily in radio communications and audio diaries, so you're only picking up snippets of the story at a time. Still, those snippets are enough to fill you in on the citizens of Rapture flirting with godhood, the subsequent need to exploit one another, and Ryan's desperate attempts to restore order. It's pretty twisted. But that's not really where the creepiness lies.

The nameless you enters the scene, and immediately you inject yourself with a "gene tonic" with which you can ignite things by snapping your fingers. And yes, it's a little odd that you immediately choose to inject yourself with a foreign substance, but that gets explained sufficiently later. Rapture is a mess. The people are all insane, the lighting is dark and flickery, there are leaks everywhere, and the groaning of metal under the sea or the crazed ramblings of the inhabitants can really freak you out. This game is built to freak you out, and it does a good job with that.

In order to "purchase" more gene upgrades (which you realize quickly you need in this madhouse), you require Adam. Adam is in these undersea slugs, which are implantd in little 10-year-old girls, called "Little Sisters" (later on it is explained why it has to be little girls). You have the choice of saving the little girls from the influence of these slugs and getting your Adam, or you can pull the slug out of them, killing them, but getting you twice the Adam. I chose to play the way that would let me sleep at night, and I ended the story on a happy note, having saved all these little girls. Later on I may play through, killing them all and seeing how it changes the ending. Maybe not. I know it's just a game, but that's just wrong.

One of the more interesting facets of the game are how you can use the environment to your advantage. You can hack the security cameras and security turrets to do your bidding, which makes it a lot easier to get around (if a security camera spots you, it'll send little gunbots after you... if you hack it, it sends those same gunbots after the badguys who wander into its gaze). Hacking is a fun little minigame in which you try to connect tubes from one end to another, only given a few different pieces to work with. It's challenging, but fun and rewarding. And that does lead to a lot of options: In other reviews I've read, the reviewers discuss the different ways they killed the first boss (one of the genetic surgeons who has gone all kinds of crazy). Some led him into the water in a lower level of his area and electrocuted him. Some shot the canisters of gas near him and blew him up. Some set him on fire. I personally used a hacked turret and camera and had robots do all my dirty work.

Between the mad ramblings of the lunatics down in Rapture, the creepy lighting and sound, and harvesting the Little Sisters, this is a really creepy game. After a while you get kind of used to it, and then things are built to creep you out more (like when the lunatics figure out it'll be easier to kill you if they pretend to be one of the many corpses lying around, and then jump up right when you walk up to them). Y'know, if I'm playing a first person shooter, and I'm killing aliens or robots or criminals or enemy military, I'm OK with that. Going through this place that looks like a riot happened in an underwater asylum, not so much. I like the tenseness and excitement that comes from just making it through the enemy onslaught, but being creeped out and feeling like I'm putting these people down because they're just too sick to live.

So it's a good game, with a lot of potential. It allows for a lot of replayability, since you can try different tactics on your enemies. It's got a deep and engaging story, with some pretty significant and dynamic and surprising twists. But it's really freaky.

So, this Halo 3 thing

2007-09-27T09:21:00.000-05:00

No, I haven't bought it yet. Although it appears as though I'm the only person in the world who owns an Xbox 360 that hasn't. I even have one friend who specifically bought an Xbox 360 for Halo 3. Fortunately, he bought at a good time, as there are a lot of cool games coming out for it in the next few months.

For those who are reading this through an RSS feed, pehaps the first link above isn't working as well as perhaps it could. Read this:

Microsoft today announced that Halo 3 has officially become the biggest entertainment launch in history, garnering an estimated $170 million in sales in the United States alone in the first 24 hours. The Xbox 360 title beat previous records set by blockbuster theatrical releases like Spider-Man 3 and novels such as Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Stores across the country were packed with Halo fans.

Halo 3 is the conclusion to the epic trilogy and picks up where Halo 2 left off, answering questions around the fates of the beloved protagonist Master Chief and his
artificial intelligence sidekick Cortana as they struggle to save humankind from
destruction at the hands of the alien coalition known as the Covenant. In
addition to the rich storyline, Halo 3 continues the franchise's grand tradition
of delivering innovative online multiplayer experiences via Xbox LIVE, the
world's largest social network on TV.

"Halo 3 has become a pop-culture phenomenon," said Shane Kim, corporate vice president of Microsoft Game Studios. "Not only is Halo 3 setting sales records, it's also redefining entertainment. Within the first 20 hours alone, we've seen more than
a million Xbox LIVE members come online to play Halo 3—that makes September 25
the most active Xbox LIVE gaming day in history."

Retailers have also expressed their excitement about the launch of Halo 3. Bob McKenzie, Senior Vice President of Merchandising for GameStop Corp commented that, "With consumer demand for Halo 3 and related products, we expect it to be the biggest video game title generator in GameStop's history."

"The initial demand we've seen for Halo 3 has been astounding, and the game is on track to become the number one gaming title of all time. Halo 3 is a genuine
entertainment phenomenon and our customers have responded very enthusiastically
to the release," said Jill Hamburger, vice president of movies and games at Best
Buy. More than 10,000 retailers hosted Midnight Madness events to
celebrate the launch of this third installment in the billion-dollar franchise.

More than 1.7 million copies of Halo 3 were preordered in the United States before a single store opened its doors at midnight on September 25, making this the fasting pre-selling game in history, surpassing the previous record-setting pre-sales of Halo 2. Well beyond just a U.S. phenomenon, the launch of Halo 3 was a worldwide celebration that released in 37 countries and available in 17 languages.

Now, admittedly, Halo 3 costs six or seven times the cost of a movie ticket, and three times the cost of a book. But still, the biggest entertainment day in history for a single-platform game. I'm having trouble wrapping my mind around the magnitude of this.

Excitement and Turmoil

2007-09-26T22:20:00.001-05:00

There was a fire next door tonight. Our building is fine, but one of the apartments next door is burned out.

We went to Evanston to enjoy the beautiful evening, and came home to get decent parking spot on a fairly unremarkable evening. As we were coming home, there were some people on the corner shouting. This really isn't anything unusual, so when the sirens came and stopped right near the intersection, I was thankful for Chicago Police coming to silence the loud people. We came in, and heard a three beep alarm out in the other building, and I was annoyed, thinking that it would stay that way all night. It wasn't long afterwards when the rest of the sirens started coming, and we realized that something was legitimately amiss.

After that, it was pretty much a brief and somewhat somber block party. The neighborhood was out, and we got to meet several of our neighbors while we watched the firefighters do their job. They blocked off our street and the cross street. There are still a lot of emergency vehicles outside, and the lights make me glad I don't have photosensitive seizures.

This was an interesting experience, but one that I'm very glad I'm seeing from this end. Several families have been displaced, and one guy (who wasn't home) completely lost his whole apartment. Fortunately no human died, but at least one dog did. This is a tragedy, plain and simple, but it doesn't stop me being fascinated about the process or about the reactions of the people dealing with it.

Happy Talk Like a Pirate Day!

2007-09-19T09:24:00.000-05:00

I don't have a lot to say today. I was going to put up a sign in my office stating,

"Avast me hearties! Today be International Talk Like a Pirate Day! Today I be hard of hearing if ye be talkin' like a landlubber! Yarr!"

But it takes a lot of energy to maintain that, and I'm kind of low on that today. In it's place, since I'm working with computers all day, I give you this, a pirate's keyboard:

On art and videogames

2007-09-18T20:50:00.000-05:00

There has been some talk as of late about videogames and whether or not they are art. Roger Ebert said in one of his reviews that he did not think videogames were art. Clive Barker refuted that and said that they were art. This is where I came in on the issue; here is Roger Ebert's response to that. This was also brought up in episode 19 of Battleship Pretension (a very good movie podcast done by two guys who really know film, but have limited exposure to games). I emailed the Battleship Pretension folks, but I did a really good write-up, and I think it warrants a wider audience.

First thing, I will admit my bias toward videogames (I include computer games in this, although there is a bit of a difference between the two; for this argument it is irrelevant). I am a proud gamer, and pretty much anybody who knows me well knows that about me. As a result, however, my opinion is biased. Still, I think my arguments are valid.

So I put it to you: What is the purpose of art? From my understanding, art's purpose on the surface is to elicit an emotional reaction from its audience, through the work of one or more artists. Ebert's argument that a bowel movement also elicits an emotional reaction is ridiculous, unless you actually are capable of crapping movies, games, or literature. I know, it seems as though Brett Rattner and his like simply poops out his work, but he actually does put effort into the creation of it. On a deeper level, art is intended to guide its audience on their own journey of self-discovery. The latter is what I think Ebert would call "great art."

On the deeper level (great art), there are very few games that achieve that, but they do exist. On the surface level (art), there are a LOT. There are also some that elicit the reaction of rage, simply because it's so freakin' bad. Much like film. Or theatre. Or literature. Or visual art. Or music.

The concept that video games cannot be great art, simply based off of the fact that the audience is a participant, is ridiculous. Does that mean that art appreciation must, by definition, be passive? Are you unable to absorb information or appreciation, is it impossible to change the entire paradigm of your life, simply because you are more involved in its outcome? Are characters any less impactful because you are interacting with them? Ebert mentions that having multiple storylines devalues them all. That makes no sense to me at all. How can it possibly devalue the story if it is indeed a well-written, well-acted, well-designed ending? If it sticks with you and leaves you feeling as though you've said goodbye to a good friend? This is similar to arguing that if there are several different artforms, that they are each less valuable than if there is a single "art." In this argument he mentions that he could make Romeo and Juliet with them naked and standing on their hands. Yes, he could, and that might be art, but would a game designer choose to do that? Only if he was a moron.

Presumably the arguments for videogames being art were primarily focused around stories and characters, and it has been postulated that they were only art when they lined up with other, "actual" art forms. So does this mean that a films with a deep, engaging plot and stirring characters who are brilliantly acted cannot possibly be art because it lines up with similar qualities of live theatre? Does the fact that a game pulls facets from media which preceded it invalidate the art of the medium in which it was created? It has also been mentioned that one's style of gameplay invalidates the art ("I'll save my game, and go through that door"). So does that mean that the style in which someone absorbs art makes the creator less of an artist? Would that mean that if a person flips around a book to absorb it, or reads the last page first, that the person who wrote it was not an artist?

In this particular episode of the podcast, Tyler and David both mentioned Castle Wolfenstein as an example of videogames-as-not-art. I don't think this is a valid argument, as Wolfenstein was very early in game development, and could be easily compared with The Great Train Robbery of videogames. Was The Great Train Robbery good art in comparison to other media of the time? No, it was crap. Was it groundbreaking film? Hell yeah!

Ebert says that most games are either point & shoot (Doom-esque) or scavenger hunts (Myst-esque). And yes, that point is semi-valid; as it happens, the "scavenger hunt" game is out of vogue, although he could easily have put in some derogatory euphemism for Real-Time Strategy games and made a similar valid point. It is also valid to note that none of the games I consider to be great art are either of these styles, and it is pretty difficult to do an artistic game in these styles (although First Person Shooters these days often do have compelling stories behind them, and are frequently highly regarded in the gaming community).

In order to determine if a video game is great art, let's think about what makes a film great art. Beautiful writing, done on multiple levels, is arguably the strongest sign of a great film. Sometimes, if it is written so nothing significant happens on the surface level, but there's huge depth on other levels, that makes for a great script. Perfect cinematography, on its own, will not make a great film, but it can enhance an otherwise good film to greatness. Brilliant acting on its own will make for a good film, but in the presence of a good script the film can become a great one. There are other factors, but it seems to me that a great film is primarily about how it's written, with the rest of the film backing up the script.

That said, we can see a lot of games that likely can be considered great art. The Fallout games can be applied to this, as they are written with individual stories that all lead to one big story, which not only is exciting and dynamic, but is also a telling story about the nature of humanity. The same can be said of Planescape: Torment. Both of these games had strong gameplay for the time (not directly an artform, although that could be argued, but important to the immersion necessary to be appreciated), good artwork for the time, good voice acting, and exceptional stories. These are widely considered (among gamers) the classics of gaming, the Citizen Kane of the computer. I actualy cried at the end of Planescape: Torment, and left with a sense of wanting more, but knowing that they had done their story, and there wouldn't be a sequel.

And these are not to say that they are the best or most fun games out there (although they are wonderful and are the favorites of many gamers). Half Life and Half-Life 2 are phenomenal games. Are they great art? No. TIE Fighter is one of my favorites of all time. Is it great art? No, but it is a helluva lot of fun. World of Warcraft is one of the most addictive games out there. It also is not great art, but it is fun.

Anyway, this is a post that comes almost directly from an email that was sent to the Battleship Pretension folks, and requires that you have read the link above and listened to that particular episode. In this I primarily focus on film vs. games, as that was my audience; I don't think this lessens the argument, but it could be expanded to argue other art forms as well. Maybe I'll do that later. Also, this is NOT intended to lessen the impact or power of any other artform, but rather to argue the merits of games. However, I do hold to the opinion that (A) games can be art, even great art, and (B) Roger Ebert's arguments to the contrary are based off of ignorance of the medium.

Mr. Taft, Mr. Hartley, meet Mr. Fisher

2007-09-17T19:03:00.000-05:00

So I have my first union gig tomorrow. Obviously a bit later in the year than I had hoped, but I'm not complaining. I didn't even audition for this one; I had sent out a ton of postcards to various ad agency folks, and one of them emailed me, asking who my agent was. Six days later, I'm on board for a commercial (a radio spot for a large hardware store chain in California).

So, this means I'm Taft-Hartleyed into AFTRA. What that means is that I'm eligible to join the union, but I'm not going to yet. In the next thirty days, I can do union, non-union, whatever work I can get. After those thirty days, I can still work non-union, but then I'm considered a "must-join." That means that if I get another AFTRA gig, I have to pay the initiation fee before I get the gig. Which means that a large portion of what I get from this gig goes straight to savings, pending the next AFTRA gig.

But yeah, I'm on my way.

1 down, Quite a lot more to go

2007-09-02T12:03:00.000-05:00

Happy Anniversary to my lovely wife! Of course, I get to celebrate too, for fairly obvious reasons.

This has been a good year for us, but a rough year. We've had a very close family member go through chemotherapy, we've moved (twice, if you're being a little lax about the timeframe), we both changed jobs, we got rid of one of our cars, and countless other little bits n pieces were harrowing us. All these externals could have shot our newlywededness in the foot, and yet it didn't. Our relationship is stronger than it was before, and we have vaulted over the hurdle of the first year of marriage. This gives me hope for the future.

This weekend we've been kind of kicking around, just relaxing and doing whatever comes to mind with no real schedule, other than that which we decide on the morning we're doing it. It's led to a lot of indecision this weekend, but it has been very relaxing, and we've been able to experience a lot that the city has to offer. I think the best thing though, is that we're understanding that our life together is and is going to be pretty good.

Go Team Fisher!

Sharing Experiences from the Chicago Monsoon

2007-08-23T19:56:00.001-05:00

Everybody will have their own stories about the storm we've been having. It's arguably the biggest rainstorm I've ever experienced, and it's really fun. Admittedly, I'm sure it would be less fun if I or someone I loved was involved in some property damage as a result of this, but right now, I'll accept that it's fun.

Some observations/experiences:

-The bus from the train station was leaking, as if it was a poorly constructed submarine. I kept feeling like I'd hear metal groaning under the weight of the depths.

-I've never been so happy to have Timberland work shoes. They're pretty much all waterproof, which makes for very pleasant walking experiences when walking through a park under an umbrella when the ground is flooded and thousands of gallons of water are coming down and there's lightning all around.

-Because of said lightning and walking though the park (from the bus stop to home) under an umbrella, I've never before thought I'd get hit by lightning. It was kinda scary, but I can't say that it wouldn't be interesting to experience.

-It's so freakin' cool to be standing at a bus depot and almost seeing where lightning struck (it was a few blocks away) when it struck. I felt the blast from the thunder.

-All we're hearing is sirens. They're not so common now, and the rain is dying down, but for a while there, if we heard a vehicle, it was an emergency vehicle.

-I'm happy that we had planned to be home anyway, and that we have leftovers in the fridge.

Excellence in Animation

2007-08-20T15:51:00.000-05:00

I've been thinking about this since I saw Ratatouille, and I'm not much closer to a solid conclusion or even a solid direction. However, writing is all about structuring your thoughts, so here ya go.

Ratatouille is arguably one of the worst concepts I've heard of for an animated movie. Yay. A rat who cooks. I really wasn't all that interested in seeing it, but Pixar had wowed me on another bad-concept-good-execution movie, Cars (Yay. Talking cars. What will they think of next, a cooking rat?). The only reason I saw this movie was that it was Pixar, and I trusted their work. And I was right to trust their work, as only a group of people as skilled as the folks at Pixar could make that concept work. See the movie. It's freakin' amazing, and includes one of the funniest moments I've seen in any Pixar film.

Hayao Miyazaki has been my vote for the greatest animation director of all time (even surpassing Walt Disney) since I understood what animation directing was. I clearly remember seeing Princess Mononoke in the theatres, and leaving with an altered perspective on life. That movie is, for lack of a better term, transcendent. The man has an uncanny knack for creating some of the most amazing scenes and/or animations for whichever genre he happens to be doing.

Brad Bird, however, has made me challenge my beliefs. His first film, The Iron Giant, started as The Iron Man, a novel written in 1968 by Ted Hughes. In 1989, Pete Townshend (of The Who) released an album based off of The Iron Man, one that I remember had a frequent spot in my car's cassette player at the time. In 1993, a stage musical was created based off of this album. This musical was optioned by Warner Brothers for a film. The final story of The Iron Giant is dramatically different than that of The Iron Man, but I think the changes made it a better movie (and I think it's cool that Pete Townshend was named an Executive Producer on the movie). In any case, when I saw The Iron Giant, I was torn. Was this the best animated movie I'd ever seen? Or did Princess Mononoke still hold that spot? They're very different movies, and based off of that, I chose to not make a decision at the time.

Life moved on (as it often does) and I watched more movies, some of them animated, some of them not. I saw Spirited Away, another of Miyazaki's films. This one was more subtle and ethereal than Princess Mononoke. I didn't care for it as much as the previous film, but I did find it fascinating.

Time passed and I saw more movies. The Incredibles, written by Brad Bird and him alone (he also directed, but animation is much more collaborative than any other style of filmmaking; directing isn't as auteur as it sounds in this context) was next on the list, and also added to the debate of my favorite animated movie of all time. This was his first jaunt with Pixar, and at the time, I just wanted to see the next Pixar film. I also loved the concept, and was excited about this film since I saw the teaser trailer the year before (it's the one where Mr. Incredible is trying to put on the belt of his supersuit over his fat gut, and the belt buckle pops off and ricochets around the room). I didn't know it was Brad Bird doing it; it wasn't until I was watching the first several credits that I realized, hey, that's the guy that did Iron Giant! Hmmm, the man is talented.

Brad Bird had done two of the movies I thought could be the best animated films of all time. Hayao Miyazaki did one, but I hadn't seen all of Miyazaki's work, and I pretty much had seen all of Bird's. Still, he was rapidly gaining ground.

I saw a few other Miyazaki films since then. My Neighbor Totoro is notable not so much for the story (although it is really cute), but more for the characterization of the younger two girls. I have never in my life seen a characterization in a movie as convincing as the portrayal of the youngest girl (about four or five years old); not even when it was played by a live action four or five year old. I was floored by how "real" that show was, especially when it was very much a fantasy.

Rataouille is actually my least favorite Brad Bird film. Not because it's not a fantastic film, but rather because it doesn't make me question whether or not this is the best animated film I've ever seen. But it did hit another home run for Bird.

So I've been thinking about this for nearly a month; who is the better of the two. I have a problem picking favorites. There are so many variables that it's very difficult to point out this one thing is better on all levels (or even enough to count) than anything else. They're both amazing, but for different reasons. They both have a mastery of not only the medium, but of whichever genre they choose to animate. I still ahven't seen a lot of Miyazaki, due to the fact that most of his work hasn't been translated to English. And I think that right there is what tears it. Miyazaki is Japanese. There's a cultural difference. I don't always "get" Miyazaki, in part because I haven't lived in the Japanese culture for any length of time. I know they're much more interested in ephemeral narratives, that don't necessarily make a lot of sense to Western minds. The denoument doesn't necessarily leave an American audience satisfied, as if something "more" should have ended the story. This generally doesn't apply to Miyazaki's work, but its influence is still there.

I think, therefore, that because I am American and Brad Bird is American, I will call him my favorite. On the whole, I think Miyazaki is actually (marginally) the better of the two, but I have a deeper understanding of the cuture from which Bird creates. That's why I feel as though I'm missing something with Miyazaki sometimes.

So there ya have it. Thanks for sticking with me through my somewhat self-indulgent ramblings.

The move

2007-08-14T18:37:00.000-05:00

So we moved. I'm right now sitting in my new living room, the only room that's in any sort of order right now. I didn't write about the move prior to today, as we were both zombies for quite some time, and I didn't have the internet hooked up. Lo and behold, my craving for living brains has subsided, and I hooked up the router, and here is a very post.

I've never moved with this much crap. I had some furniture last year, Heidi had her stuff, and we bought some more stuff together. Then the wedding presents came in. We have a lot of stuff.

After the move, we both slept like stone out of pure exhaustion. Then I thought, we really didn't move much. Sure we were coordinating, and I assisted with the destruction/construction of the bedframe, but we didn't do hardly any of the carrying. We hired movers to do the bulk of the dirty work, and I can't freakin' imagine doing that job on a regular basis. They spent nearly eight hours in 90+ degrees carrying our crap. They were hot, they were sweating like pigs, they were exhausted, and they were fine with it. They got compensated handsomely for it, but they earned every penny of it.

So anyway, the new place is currently a mess, and we need to get a lot of things organized, but it's our home for the next few years. And we're here. The worst part is over.

Stay tuned for the housewarming party.

Stardust

2007-08-13T15:29:00.001-05:00

I heard nothing about the movie Stardust prior to it coming out. I saw the placard in the movie theatre, and thought it looked interesting, but nothing beyond that. When I mentioned it to Heidi as looking interesting, she was thinking the same thing. To take a break from the car panic and the packing frenzy, we chose to go see a fun little happy movie. Indeed, it was fun, happy and a movie. Not so much on the little.

This is one of the grander adventures I've seen in a while. I loved Lord of the Rings, but it was an epic quest, not really an adventure. It's a story of a young English man by the name of Tristran (Charlie Cox) living in the 19th century from the village of Wall. Aptly named, the town is near a very long wall with one gap in it. Not many people know of it, but the wall separates England from Stormhold, a magical, mythical fantasy realm, ruled by a monarchy based almost entirely on fratricide. The king of Stormhold (Peter O'Toole) lies dying, somewhat passive aggressively chastising his four remaining living sons that they haven't killed one another off yet. Meanwhile, the dead sons' ghosts are providing a hilarious commentary on various situations as they follow the action along, waiting for the next king to be crowned before they can pass on to their actual afterlife. The king decrees that the next king will not only be the last living male heir of the line, but the one who restores his diadem/amulet/necklace. As he dies, the ruby flies from his castle into the sky. Menawhile, Tristram is trying to win Victoria's (his female obsession) heart by spending his entire savings on a champagne picnic under the stars. She mentions that his rival will return in a week with a ring for her, they see a star falling from the sky and Tristram promises he will bring that star back for her before the week is out, in return for her hand in marriage (and yes, it's even more pathetic in the movie). The star is on the other side of the wall, and Tristram makes it across. As it happens, the star is a lovely young woman named Yvaine (Claire Danes), who was knocked out of the sky by the king's diadem. Michelle Pfeiffer plays a hideous old witch who stays young and beautiful through easting the heart of a star. When she sees the falling star, she heads out to get her and her sisters Yvaine's heart. Sounds like a complex setup, doesn't it? It is, and it makes for a fantastic experience.

The princes are simultaneously trying to off their siblings while racing to find and restore the ruby. Lamia is desperately trying to find the star so she can cut out her heart. Tristram is, somewhat ineptly at first, trying to get Yvaine back across the wall to Victoria. Eventually the one remaining prince realizes that if he eats the star's heart, then he will live forever and establish a kingdom eternally under his rule. Through the various travels and misadventures, we meet fun and quirky characters (particularly Robert De Niro playing a sky pirate trying to hide his flamboyantly gay side from his rough-and-tumble priate crew) , see amazing sights, and are along for a great ride.

This is a wonderful movie. It's akin to The Princess Bride in that it's a fun and dynamic adventure, with a quirky sense of humor, but it's more complex and smarter than The Princess Bride. It inspires me to be a man, to be noble, to be an adventurer. It inspires me to love my wife and to be truthful to my heart. It makes me feel like a big kid again. It actually makes me beleive that a story can actually end "Happily Ever After." It's almost as if it's a two hour advertisement for an exciting life.

I'm not sure if this is going to be an all-time favorite (although it'll be in the short list for 2007), but it will be one of those films that I can see once a month for the rest of my life and have as much fun the 157th time as I did the first. Highly recommended.

Reconcilosec

2007-08-06T15:58:00.001-05:00

I saw this in church on Sunday. Frekin' beautiful (FYI, watch past the first minute or you'll miss a lot).

Did you see me waving?

2007-08-06T13:02:00.001-05:00

Hey, you know that Metra train that derailed? I was on that.

It was just the back two cars. Nobody was hurt, just a few people were annoyed, and we all got to work an hour later than anticipated. Here's what I know happened: we stopped, we started again, and we stopped again. The conductor got on the PA and told us we'd derailed the back two cars. Here's what I think happened. We stopped with the front five cars on one end of a switch, and the back two on another end. Somebody turned the switch, and we started moving, pulling the two back cars off.

Yay for an adventure on a Monday morning commute!

Gotham Ongoing

2007-08-01T22:27:00.000-05:00

The new Batman movie is using the Post Office Building for a lot of things. Set, staging area, all sorts of crap. For weeks, I've seen film trucks outside and signs pointing to the set. It's getting almost commonplace. I lived in LA, and worked in film (occasionally). This really isn't that big a deal, but (A) it's freakin' Batman and (B) it's freakin' Chicago!

Anyway, to share the love, here's a couple shots taken with my crappy camera phone. The Gotham Police department here was zoomed in about as far as my phone will go, and subsequently cropped, so it doesn't have much of the image, but doesn't really need much either.

The truck here is sort of a maybe. Don't know much about it, although I'm sure it'll all come together when I see the movie next summer. You can't quite tell, but it looks to me inside like there's a lot of pyrotechnic gear. And it's an upside down smashed truck on top of another truck that's supposed to cart it to its location.

That's all I got.

Through the wall

2007-07-29T16:44:00.000-05:00

Roughly half of the people who read this blog already know this, but I'm going to mention it anyway: we're moving.

We're going to Rogers Park, the northmost neighborhood in the ciy limits of Chicago. It's also one of the most (if not THE most) ethnically diverse neighborhoods in the country, which I think is cool. We're living just south of Devon street, frequently known as "Little India." It's a good neighborhood, and a lovely home. We're paying $40 less per month than we are in Schaumburg (in part because we're choosing to do some minor maintenance), and it's roughly 1.5 times the size. Admittedly, it's in a vintage building, and therefore doesn't have a lot of the amenities that a newer building has (like the one in which we currently live). But it will make a GREAT party place, even better than our current residence.

It'll be an adjustment, living in the city after a year in the suburbs. I'm not a big fan of Schaumburg, but parking is bountiful and traffic is not such an issue. There's a lot of space and it's quiet. You can see more than five stars at night. That said, it's kind of soulless and feels somewhat "corporate."

What I find interesting is the psychological barrier between the suburbs and the city. I've commented on this before, but a lot of people actually fear going through "the wall." It seems the transition from suburb to city is easier than the other direction, and few people will admit the fear, but it's evident. We actually had friends say, "but then we won't be able to see you anymore," when we mentioned we were moving back into the city. There was less commentary about moving into the suburbs when we did, simply because it was almost beyond a Chicagoan's comprehension. Heidi's father is particularly noteworthy (and kind of funny) in the fear of the "other side;" he actually told us "you don't want to live in a neighborhood where you hear gunshots at night." And whereas that is a true statement, the underlying assumption was that it's dramatically more common than it really is (no matter that in the one year I've lived in Schaumburg, I've heard more gunshots at night than I'd heard in two years in Chicago and seven years in LA).

I look forward to feasibly taking public transportation on an entire journey (as opposed to driving to a public transportation parking lot). I look forward to going to a show on a whim (or even auditioning for some). I'll miss Pita House and Asian Noodle House, but we'll be able to find ethic dining in neighborhoods where it's really not all that ethnic for the inhabitants. We'll be able to hit the Hopleaf or go to the lakefront at will.

I'll still go into the 'burbs, as now that I'm aware of the wall, I will intentionally defy it. Heidi's folks are out there, as are many of my Mensa friends, and I've started gaming with Heidi's brother's group (all of which are suburbanites), so I'll need to be out there on a regular basis anyway.

It's a good move. I look forward to seeing what it will bring us.

Doggy Poo

2007-07-20T20:09:00.001-05:00

Netflix has a feature in which you can watch on demand programming, as many hours a month as you're paying in dollars. We're right now on the $4.99 plan, for other reasons which I'll get into later.

Anyway, it's Friday night after a long difficult week for both of us, and we wanted to do a whole lot of nothing tonight. My plan was to eat Chinese food and watch anime, a great thing to do on a whim. I was looking through the list for Akira (wonderful dinnertime viewing), and happened upon something very very different: Doggy Poo.

It's a story of a Doggy Poo trying to find its purpose in life. It is laid unceremoniously by the side of a road, and shunned for being the most worthless kind of poo. It discusses its lot in life with a clump of dirt and a leaf, until finally finding purpose in fertilizing a dandelion.

Sounds bizarre enough? But wait, there's more! It's very slow paced, as if it's aimed at kids in their very early years (like before five years old). Kids who like poo. Kids who might not understand the concepts that are being spouted, were it not for the fact that the characters are fun little pieces of the environment. Such is the parable nature of the show.

That's right, it just wasn't bizarre enough! It's a children's animation about poo that's actually a Christian parable. It reminds me a bit of Davey and Goliath in the animation style, the pace and the ultimate message (it's not so overt as Davey and Goliath were, but they also were never about excrement). The poo is born feeling worthless and dirty, abandoned by the dog who shat it. Nobody wants the poo, evidenced by the birds who refuse to eat it. The clump of dirt has sinned egregiously in his past, and all he wants to do is go back and make it right (which is called "works based salvation," and is not part of the evangelistic tradition). The leaf is blown wherever the wind sends her, and is not grounded like the poo (meaning in some metaphorical sense that she cannot be of one opinion about anything). The poo only finds its purpose in giving its entire self to the beautiful flower. I'm sure it makes a lot more sense in a Sunday School classroom, when the teacher (the teacher who shows her kids scatological movies) tells her kids what it all means.

So there ya have it: A children's Christian parable animation about a dog turd. Certainly wasn't planning on THAT for our dinner viewing.

Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix

2007-07-20T09:20:00.000-05:00

A lot of people have been reviewing this movie. The biggest Harry Potter fan I know didn't like it. Other people did. We saw it Monday, I haven't had a chance to say anything for a while, but I was one of the latter.

I didn't much care for this book. At the time I was working in a suicide-inducingly bad job, having just come back from LA after having failed miserably, and was now living with my mother. I read to get away from my life. In the fifth book, Harry was depressed and annoyed the bulk of the book, and it just didn't work for me. Perhaps if I read it today, it would be a better book. In any case, the movie made me want to read it again.

Whereas it's difficult to fit a huge book into a single movie without it being 3+ hours long, this one did a good job of it. I thought the Goblet of Fire a good movie, but too cramped and crowded, and could have used another 20-30 minutes (I have to say, though, that I am haunted to this day by the acting of Cedric's father when Cedric died). This movie brushed over a lot of elements that I did want to see, but it was for the sake of the larger narrative, and it worked really well.

In this one, the war is brewing between most of Wizarding society, and Lord Voldemort and his cronies. Both sides are recruiting, although the "good" side is hindered by the government's refusal to believe there's a problem. Enter the Order of the Phoenix. These are a handful of freedom fighters who had formed during Voldemort's first "reign of terror." As it happens, the vast majority of the adults Harry likes are part of the Order of the Phoenix.

The show introduces a couple new characters to the field: Luna Lovegood (played by Evanna Lynch) and Dolores Umbridge (played by Imelda Staunton). Both are freakin' amazing and steal the show. The story is more about Mrs. Umbridge than Dumbledore, more about Luna than Ron or Hermione. Umbridge is the Ministry of Magic's plant inside Hogwarts, and subsequently starts to take over the school with Ministry agenda. Among the Ministry rules is that there is to be no practical teaching of Defense against the Dark Arts, as that would indicate that there is a problem. Harry, being the proactive rebel he usually is, starts an illegal school club where the kids learn how to defend themselves. This makes for some of the most fun scenes in the show.

I won't mention how the show ends. You've probably read the books by now, and know it all, but I'm not going to spoil anything. I will mention that there is a wizard battle at the end, and it's arguably the best bettle between two great wizards that I've ever seen on film.

This film is vying for my favorite among the Harry Potter shows. It does lose a lot of elements the book had, but it's a magnificent addition to the franchise. Highly recommended.

Good Marketing

2007-07-18T19:07:00.000-05:00

I have a few blog topics upcoming. More to say than there is time/energy to say it. But this one requires a comment.

I received a package today (actually a couple days ago, but I found it out on the front porch today). What follows is the entirety of the letter included (emphasis is mine):

Dear John,

Well, it has taken two years and I'm happy to say the quest was well worth it.

After watching wine lovers drink from glasses specifically designed to enhance different varietals, I decided that I was going to find the perfect glass for Samuel Adams Boston
Lager, and as a member of the American Homebrewers Association, I wanted to
share the results with you. I hope you share my view that beer deserves to be
approached with the same respect that wine is accorded.

We are enclosing a document we wrote about the history of this quest... what we tested, who we worked with, etc., and I hope you enjoy the story [we did... Heidi remarked how it was really well put together] The proof, however, is in the tasting, so, I am sending along a pair of our new pint glasses for you to experience and test. As an AHA member you have showed the same commitment that we craft brewers have to the brewer's art.

I hope you will enjoy Samuel Adams in this glass. While we developed this glass specifically for Samuel Adams Boston Lager, we suspect it may enhance the taste of other beers with a high malt body and a high level of complex hop aroma as well. You can be the judge. I would certainly be honored if you enjoy one of your homebrews from this glass.

Thank you for your support over the years.

Cheers,

Jim Koch

That's right, they sent me two pint glasses for no reason other than that I'm in the AHA. Of course, they're advertising their beer, but they did a really bang-up job with that. They're really cool glasses as well, and since we both dig finding new pub glasses, this makes for a huge treat. I wish the camera was working, so I could post a picture of them.

So Sam Adams, I tip my glass to thee! My new one, at that.

Transformers

2007-07-07T16:28:00.000-05:00

We just saw Transformers. I was really looking forward to this movie, even to the point of wanting to take off work early so I could go see it sooner. On Friday, I checked Rotten Tomatoes for early reviews. At the time, they were 100% positive. I had also read good reviews from a couple people whose opinions I trust. And yes, it was a hell of a lot of fun.

The plot is little more than giant robots that can transform into nearly anything they see come to Earth in search of "The Allspark." Some of the robots go about it for different motivations, and using different means. The bad robots are very good at destroying things. Humanity likes living. Hilarity ensues.

This is an action movie; there is no question that's what it's trying to do, and it does that quite well. It's a bit long on scenes of rather goofy dialogue, but when it comes into the action, it shines.

Transformers has some freakishly die-hard fans, and there was some significant backlash when this movie was announced. There were a lot of people that were appalled that Michael Bay was making it, and expected horrible things. However, this was built with thought. There were internet forums up, asking the fans to have input. There was semi-meaningful dialogue going on between the creators and the fans. I remember when the first shots of Optimus Prime (in truck mode) were shown, and there was backlash (that Prime's semi cab had a nose instead of a flat front). The moderator stepped in and rationally explained why. This film was built with fans in mind.

I'm a geek, and have been for the vast majority, if not all, of my life. I was a teenager when Transformers was in it's original TV iteration. I remember going to see Transformers: The Movie by myself, having driven myself there and paid for it with money I earned at my job. Yes, I'm that much of a geek. I loved it at the time, but I've seen the movie again recently, and it wasn't quite what I remembered (as in it was kind of bad). But here's the thing: they're really similar films.

They seem to be made for the same age bracket. The dialogue is campy and cheesy, and the events don't really move forward with a lot of sense, much like the 1986 version. In fact, there are moments of dialogue (specifically between robots) that are lifted verbatim from the 1986 movie. It seems to be built for kids, with a few double entendres thrown in so the adults can giggle during the slow stretches. And the screenwriter absolutely loved using the phrase, "No, no, no, No, NO, NO NO!"

It's a bit of a bugger for me; I like the Transformers. Optimus Prime kicks ass (and is voiced by Peter Cullen again... bout damn time), and when Starscream was introduced, I got a little shiver down my spine. But this show was a long and expensive toy advertisement. It was aimed at younger viewers, and not in a favorable way. It almost talked down to its viewers, making some characters more goofy than they needed to be simply for the goofy fun factor. Sometimes I was sitting in the theatre (particularly when the Autobots are being introduced) cringing in embarrassment for the writers and actors.

Let me state yet again, the action in this show is freakin' amazing. The effects are seamlessly beautiful. It's a hell of a lot of fun. If you can swallow some goofy stuff, and view parts of it as aimed towards children, you will love this movie. It practically makes you want to fly out of the theatre crying out for the inevitable sequel, but it's built to brainwash kids into getting some admittedly cool toys.

I still recommend it, but not as highly as I had hoped.

Watervale, Pt II

2007-07-05T18:01:00.000-05:00

This weekend we went back to Watervale. As I mentioned previously, this is a lovely old resort in northern Michigan, started by the family of old college friends of my grandparents. My grandparents used to come here now and again in their youth, then again several times when my mom and uncle were children. Of course, this tradition continued when my siblings and cousins were children, and now it's continuing when the rest of us either already have children, or are thinking along those lines. It presumably will continue on through our children's and grandchildren's lives, adding generations and families to this mass escapade.

There are a handful of obligatory tasks that are required at Watervale. One is to head across Lower Herring Lake to the outlet into Lake Michigan. Typically you take a boat of some kind out there, and swim or build a sandcastle or just dink around. This is my brother and I starting out our voyage across the lake.

Another obligation is to climb this 1000' sand dune called "Old Baldy." It's a fun hike through the forest, then a slow and somewhat difficult climb up the back, and then a kickass run down the front. I don't actually have a picture of the front of Baldy, as my camera broke during the hike there. But these are various neices and nephews on the hike (the only ones who would take the course faster then myself).

The last obligation is to have a campfire out on the beach of Lake Michigan, having S'mores which are frequently built from marshmellow torches.

I have two sides of the family; my side (coming from my parents), and my cousins (coming, obviously, from my aunt and uncle). It's really surprising the difference between them. My brother in law was the only one of my side who would have one of my beers. My uncle's side couldn't get enough of them. Other than my brother, nobody dared have a whole bao (sort of a Chinese hotpocket), whereas my uncle's side couldn't get enough of them. There were other examples, but you get the picture. It was a bit offputting being with a family that lacks any desire for adventure (my side), when the promise of open minds (my uncle's side) is just a couple doors away. It's not as much of a complaint as it sounds; it's more of an observation.

In all, Watervale is absolutely wonderful. I never had my keys, never had my wallet, never needed to lock the door, my cell phone didn't work, and I barely saw a computer my whole time there. There was no schedule, except for dinner. Especially after the high stress couple months I've just had, it was bliss.

Back to the Bank

2007-06-29T22:40:00.000-05:00

A couple months ago, the old Post Office building downtown was transformed into the Gotham National Bank temporarily for the new Batman movie. The filming stopped there due to some unfortunate circumstances: they set the Post Office on fire. This was unintentional, but I'm sure they were shooting the six fire trucks and the whole cacophany surrounding it and will try to find a way to work it into the movie. But that meant that they couldn't shoot there for a while.

Well, they're back, and I got a picture. Since it's my phone, and it's grey on grey, and it was kind of a cloudy day, you need to pop the picture a little bigger to really see the signage, but I can also give you a bit of a closeup.

John's Advice: Never Get a VW Beetle (an unfortunately ongoing series)

2007-06-28T21:44:00.000-05:00

A few months ago, I had a really bad oil leak, and went to Midas to see what was up. It was simply a poorly placed oil plug from Jiffy Lube. There was something else in there too, but I forget what it was. No matter, the point for this story is that Something Went Wrong. While Midas was working on it, they turned on the check engine light. During their digging around in the engine, the throttle sensor went all wonky. Of course, the Midas line was that this sort of thing happens all the time for no reason, but they'd be glad to give us a deal on labor and could get the part for $750. It was obvious to me that they had hosed something, and that they weren't going to do a damn thing about it. They also didn't fix the oil leak. Schmucks.

The car ran a little rough, but still ran. We went down to Chattanooga in it, and haven't had a bit of trouble with it, except that at low speeds it couldn't figure out what gear it should be in. And so we didn't spend any more money on it. Until the emissions test notice came.

Heres the thing. If the check engine light is on for any reason, you automatically fail the emissions test, and 2 1/2 months later, lose your driving privileges. So, obviously, it was time to get the thing fixed. We took it in to a great local shop, run by someone Heidi's mom helped in her job (she's a nurse in a NICU... that's about as much as I choose to say). We got a wonderful deal on labor, and the part costs significantly less than Midas said it was. We brought it in on Saturday, they needed to get the part, and told us to bring it back on Tuesday. This was Tuesday of LAST week. It wan't the throttle control, as it happens. The computer was buggy, so they had to get a new computer. However, VW, being the master engineers that they are, needed the shop to bring the car in once it was installed to program the computer. The VW people have been giving the shop a runaround for the past three days, and it looks like it's not getting fixed anytime soon. It also looks like it's more than one problem.

So yeah, wah, cars have their issues. That's not the main complaint. Even the Midas thing isn't the main complaint (although this and previous history makes me never want to trust them again). Here's my big beef: VW is riding on their 35-year-old reputation, while cranking out horrid crap that costs an obscene amount to fix. When you bring it in to a dealership to fix, they charge an arm and a leg (I don't think I ever mentioned the $400 headlight a year ago) and drag their feet on getting the damn thing fixed. Hm, substandard customer service, substandard parts, substandard construction. Woohoo! VW is da bomb (which I hope isn't literal... I'm hearing reports of these things catching fire).

Two great tastes that taste great together

2007-06-03T08:47:00.001-05:00

I can't say these are two of my favorite things put together, but these are two things that mesh really well together, and it makes for some incredibly entertaining watching. I haven't laughed this hard since Borat.

I tried to embed the video in here, but it's not working. Bugger.

The End of an Era

2007-05-28T09:52:00.000-05:00

So I'm borrowing the title of this post from David, who wrote about the same thing. Comcast is gone. Their customer service stinks, their service is unreliable and too expensive. I wash my hands of them. Our internet and phone is now handled by AT&T. Faster, more reliable, cheaper. Their customer service also stinks, but at least there's less reason for me to call them.

Now, normally, the end of cable would require an immediate subscription to DirecTV or somesuch (an option that I heartily recommend, by the way). Now, however, time is an issue, and I like to watch DVD's, and I like to play games (and the TV is GREAT for both). Battlestar Galactica isn't coming back until September or so, same with Heroes. Lost isn't coming back until January. And we can see all those on their respective networks' websites. The only purpose to continuing the cable service is to veg for an hour or two. Sure, we'll miss Pucca and Adult Swim and Alton Brown, but losing cable saves us enough that if we wanted, we could get two seasons of our favorite TV show each month and never miss it.

So begone, wicked Comcast! Never again will I bow to the filth you spew!

Pirates of the Caribbean: At Franchise's End

2007-05-27T09:36:00.001-05:00

We saw Pirates of the Caribbean a couple days ago. Now, I'm a big fan of pirates and pirate movies. I think it's a great thing to see a mess of people leaping from ship to ship, and being all swashbuckley. But this was a really bad movie.

It clearly tried hard to be a good movie. I liked the second one a lot, despite other people's abject hatred of it. But this just didn't really go anywhere fast, and it kind of stayed in that nothing place for the whole movie. Sure, it wrapped up some of the open plotlines from the previous movie, but it was just really unsatisfying.

I really can't get into a lot without adding spoilers, but the climaxes aren't all that climatic, the choices made were stupid ones, and the action scenes were too chaotic to be as fun or suspenseful as they should have been.

The performances of the best actors weren't as good as they had been, although the performances of the weak actors were better than usual. Therefore we have a lowball average; you don't really go to a show to see Orlando Bloom and Keria Knightly act, you go there to just look at them. Johnny Depp, Geoffrey Rush, and Bill Nighy, you go to see act (alright, women can go to swoon over Johnny Depp, but not so much in that role). Their performances were little more than charicatures of their characters, taking out a lot of the spontenaity and fun that they developed in the earlier films, and replacing it with shallow hamming.

So anyway, I'm afraid the "season of the threes" (Shrek, Pirates, and Spiderman) is going to be a weak one. I've not seen the other two, but haven't heard particualrly good reviews of them. I'll still see them, doubting that they can be as much of a disappointment as this one was.

In-law Funeral

2007-05-27T09:19:00.000-05:00

My sister's mother-in-law died Wednesday. It's actually a good thing; she had lung cancer, and had had several strokes in the hospital, and was suffering. She had been given only weeks to live, which was a huge stressor on her children. She's in heaven now. But still, she's gone.

Jean was a cool woman. She was strong, faithful, brutally honest and she had a really wry sense of humor. She was one of the most nonverbally expressive people I've known, as one look from her spoke volumes. A small roll of the eyes or a quirk of her mouth, and you knew exactly how she felt. I didn't spend a lot of time with her; I maybe saw her once or twice a year, but each time we did get a chance to talk, she was great. I will miss her to some degree, but I really think about my brother-in-law, and his family. I've never seen my brother-in-law close to tears before yesterday. It brings me back to my own father's death a little bit.

I started blogging in response to my dad dying. I knew I needed to get stuff out, and I was learning what this blog thing is all about. It's been really therapeutic to write down what I'm feeling, as it helps me identify and develop the emotional mess into something more concrete.

Ah well, in any case, I'll miss Jean. I know I'll see her again, and I'm cool with waiting, but she was a good person to have in this world.

In-law Wedding

2007-05-20T07:57:00.000-05:00

Darrick, Heidi's brother, got married yesterday. Freakin' awesome! Heidi's family has been pouring in from hither and yon over the past few days, people I never really got the opportunity to know the last time they were here.

Anyway, the cermony was a good ceremony. Not much different from our own, but with more of a wedding party. And what a wedding party! Darrick has this amazing ability to inspire loyalty in a large group of cool people, and him being the wild guy he is, he sucks others into his vortex of fun, dynamic geekiness. Therefore his cronies are a group of people more fun than I've run into in a long time, and instantly accepting of another geek such as myself.

The reception was a huge kick in the pants. Ours had better food, theirs was a heck of a lot more fun. Admittedly, in mine, I was more focused on running around and chatting with everyone, and last night I was able to sit and talk in greater depth with some of Heidi's cousins.

In any case, I'm incredibly happy for Darrick and his new bride. They had a kick-butt celebration, and they make a fantastic couple. Mazel Tov!

Blood Diamond

2007-05-14T10:00:00.000-05:00

I just saw Blood Diamond last night. This came out in December, while we were still coping with the leftover schedule of the wedding, so I didn't get a chance to see it at the time. I see the value of not going to see it in the theatres: if I saw it in the theatres, Heidi would have seen it with me, and she has an issue with overly intense, overly violent movies. This was one of those.

It's set in Sierre Leone, during a civil war in which the government was bad, and the rebels were worse. The RUF (Rebel United Front) attacked and burned villages, killing everybody but the boys that they could brainwash and use as combatants, and the men who would make good slaves for the diamond mines. With these diamonds, they would buy weapons with which they would carry on the fight with the government. It was very similar to my concept of hell.

This show is primarily focused on the RUF, as Solomon Vandy (Djimon Hounsou) was one of the men taken for labor in the diamond pits, but not before he gets his family on their way to relative saftey (compared to the rebel extermination of the village). During his slavery, he does find a huge, nearly perfect pink diamond (astonishingly rare and expensive), and manages to hide it from the rebel leader, burying it near the camp. Meanwhile, Danny Archer (Leonardo DiCaprio, doing an exceptionally convincing South African accent) is a weapons dealer, being paid by the rebels in diamonds, and subsequently smuggling them across the border to sell them. Eventually the two come together, (more manipulated by Archer than by chance), and they subsequently set off in search of Solomon's family and the diamond.

It's an interesting and complex plot, but the biggest aspect of the film that stands out to me is the chaos the country is going through. I've seen a fair share of the chaos that happens with warlords throughout Africa on various TV shows and films, and by nature these are fictional accounts. But I know that horrible things are being done in Darfur, and I have doubts that it's much different than depicted. Certainly, Blood Diamond was only showing the horror of life plagued by these gangs of rebels, and not that African life is pretty similar to life everywhere else most of the time, but the horror is still pretty horrible.

I'm sure that was the point of the movie, and not so much the story (although the story was pretty good as well). It was a pretty heavy-handed call for people to do something about the hell in Africa. There's even a dialogue between Solomon and Jennifer Connelly's character (who is a journalist that ends up working with Danny and Solomon):
Solomon: Will [the American people] do anything?
JC: No. They might send a check, but that's about
it.

There are a few quips from Jennifer Connelly's character that talk about how the chaos and horror they're witnessing might be shown "between sports and the weather." Or that "the world is falling apart, and all they talk about is [the Clinton sex scandal]."

My own reaction to this was a sort of resigned acceptance. In America, we simply don't hear about what's going down in various other countries, simply because it's deemed unimportant or not ratings-friendly. It's also a little discouraging to be reminded just how messed up the world can be. I find myself overwhelmed to the point that I don't even know how to start, even in prayer.

So yeah, it's a good movie, and I'm glad I saw it, but I'm not sure I can recommend it. It's good, but be prepared to be really uncomfortable for a couple hours (or maybe an hour and a half... the last half hour is much more of a Hollywood movie).

2007 Goals, Update 4

2007-05-01T09:47:00.000-05:00

So... it's been a slow month. I've been putting effort in some places, not so much in others. As it stands, I haven't progressed much, if at all, on any of my goals. It's frustrationg almost to the point of discouragement, but not quite there yet. Or rather, it was there, but I moved past the worst of the discouragement. It's partially lighting a fire under my butt, and partially just annoying the hell out of me.

1. Get at least 5 union voiceover gigs: I just finished up my first promotional mailing to ad agencies. Since I'm on a budget, I wasn't able to send out any CD's, but instead postcards that have my website on them. I have yet to get a single hit from an ad agency IP address. Hm.
2. Get one national gig: See #1.
3. Get at least three agents in the local market: I have one; no change from late last year. We'll start sending out mailings to talent agencies probably this weekend.
4. Get into both SAG and AFTRA: Heh.
5. Drop my bodyfat to 12%: After a lazy month (we did keep working out, just not as much), we've decided to hit the gym in the evenings when we can, and mornings when we can't. Still, I'm pretty much in the same shape I was at the beghinning of the year.
6. Travel at least four times: 1 down, 3 to go
7. Get my headshots done: I'm waiting to lose a bit of weight, as I tend to hold a lot of my weight in my face. Not entirely sure what good headshots will do me at present, as I need a flexible day job in order to do on-camera auditions. Perhaps that will be a next year goal.
8. Join the Fighting 501st: I'll start work on cleaning out the garage this weekend, or at least clean enough to set up a card table. I should start work on the suit this month.
9: Get out of debt: Slow going. We're trading out high interest for lower interest, and plugging along as best we can.
10. Brew at least four batches of beer: 1 down, 3 to go. I just got this month's Zymurgy (the magazine of the American Homebrewer's Association), and there's likely a recipe in there on which I can work. I haven't looked through it much, but will check it out. Otherwise, I'll just get another kit.
11. Read the Bible from beginning to end: I'm still a little behind, but moving along with this. So far, so good.

Plans for this month: Dunno. I'll keep reading and praying, probably work on the Stormtrooper outfit, send out some mailings to talent agents, but I'm frustrated right now. I kind of want to just spend my time playing whatever Gamefly sends me. I'll get over it, but it's a hassle.

Working Near Film

2007-04-18T08:12:00.000-05:00

For the last month and a half, some workers have been building an extension onto the face of the old post office building north of the highway. I didn't think much of it, other than that it was kind of flimsy (wood framework with concrete facade). They brought in cranes yesterday (like enormous cherry pickers, not the monstrous, skyline-changing cranes). I figured they were going to work in earnest. I was partially right.

This morning, as I was walking from the train to work, I noticed a lot of what looked like HMI lights on the top of those cranes. I thought that odd, and then saw what the big deal was. They weren't shining on the old USPS building, they were shining on the Gotham National Bank. Yep, the letters over the entrance had been changed for the new Batman movie. I didn't get a picture of it, because the cranes obscured the view, but it's definitely there. I might be able to get a glimpse of it on my way back home, but I assume they'll be there for a couple days. If I get a picture I'll post it.

So, when you see the next Batman movie, and you see the Gotham National Bank, you can know where it is.

Oh come on, you knew it was coming!

2007-04-11T07:18:00.000-05:00

Every year there's a big warmup, and we think spring is here. Every year there is the subsequent blizzard that makes people complain about it being winter again. Yes, it's later than usual, and it's kind of funny in light of the Easter post that I recently wrote, but really, is this blizzard a surprise to anyone who's lived in Chicagoland for any significant amount of time?

Easter in Chattanooga

2007-04-09T20:53:00.000-05:00

If you're linking from a goal update, this is our second trip this year. Our first is here.

This weekend, we went down to Chattanooga, where my aunt, uncle, a cousin and my brother live. It was one of the more relaxing family vacations I've had in a while (I've had some fairly relaxing vacations so far, but this one was a relaxing family vacation; big difference).

My uncle is a great storyteller. My mother, not so much, and my dad was all but silent on his past. Since my uncle has a great knowledge of our family history, he's always able to tell me something new that I don't know about my grandparents and/or great-grandparents. It's wonderful, because my grandparents were real movers and shakers, and I like to know the legacy I have. A couple small things: my grandmother lived next door to Thomas Alva Edison when she was a little girl. Not so much her doing, or anything that would affect her or my life, but it sure is cool. What was her doing, though was her friendship with Groucho Marx. They were staying at the Waldorf Astoria and she was in an elevator when Groucho walked in. She, being the irrepressible socialite she was, started a conversation, and they hit it off immediately. Evidently my grandparents went out to Palm Springs to visit the Marx household later on. These were two of the more memorable stories, but others were shining examples of a legacy of great deeds that I have in my life. It's a darn sight better than what I thought was there.

Chattanooga is a lovely city. We were actually staying up on Signal Mountain, which is this quiet little mountain community, as beautiful as it is relaxing. Chattanooga itself is a model for downtown renovation in the south, as it came from being a stagnating semi-redneck town to becoming a thriving artistic and cultural center in just a little over a decade. Both Heidi and I were discussing our possibility of moving down there, in an it-will-never-happen-but-it-would-be-kinda-cool manner.

It was Easter weekend, and most of my relatives are very involved in their church, so we spent a decent amount of time at church. It was more ritualistic than I'm used to, but there's room for all different styles, and I found it to be very grounding.

The road trip down and back was even kind of cool. As we went farther south, it looked like we were going forward in time. Spring got later and later the farther south we got. We started with the budding trees here, to the fully blooming trees down in Chattanooga. It made for a lovely trip.

We're glad to be home, as even a fun 10-11 hour drive is a 10-11 hour drive, but it was a great diversion for a weekend.

On Death and Ressurrection

2007-04-05T18:44:00.000-05:00

It's green out. For the first time in six months, there are leaves on the trees (OK, leaf budling things, but work with me here). For the first time in maybe six or seven months, you look out and are overwhelmed by green. Life is returning to the land.

I kind of wonder if the whole Passover thing was intentionally done in springtime. Originally, the Hebrews were in a desert country. The vast majority of Egyptian civilization was along the Nile, but that didn't really have the same kind of seasonal shift; flood season was closer to summer, and it signified the end of the farming season (as the farms were mostly submerged at that time). The Hebrews wouldn't understand it yet, but when they got to their promised land, Passover would be around springtime. I don't know how much the seasons change in Israel, but I do know that it is comparatively green (as opposed to actual desert), and that there is sometimes snow, so I would assume that there is some form of seasonal shift.

Anyway, Jesus was crucified just before Passover. He was dead for a full day (which was the Sabbath, so technically he was supposed to rest anyway), then returned to life on "the third day." This is a brief overview of the seasonal change, and a really interesting point, that right during the ressurrection of the world, comes the ressurrection of the Lord.

This intrigues me about other things as well. In northern Illinois, we have a contant reminder of the principles of death and ressurrection. In fall, things are in their sunset, and then they die. The world lies dead for several months. Then, in early April, the world comes back, green and more beautiful than it has been in quite a while. People are happier, life feel like it has more hope, allergies start to hit, it's just a better time (OK, not the allergies so much).

In California, I noticed a dominance of the "Health, Wealth and Prosperity" teaching in churches. Now understand here, I do believe that elements of that teaching are valid, and some of them do have scriptural backing, but it has no place in a church. If God wants you to be the head and not the tail, and you're struggling financially or have a chronic illness, then the obvious corollary is that God must not love you as much as the rich, fit guy over there (and there are a lot of those in LA). I'm sure part of that comes from a greedy subculture that dominates Southern California, but I also noticed that there is no real seasonal change there.

Here, you predominantly see a theology wherin suffering is a part of life. Pain causes growth and strength. Nobody likes it, until they look back on how they have changed over the years for the better. Is that because Chicagoans are smarter and more balanced? Well, yes, in part. But I also think the instinctive understanding of death and ressurrection allows people to accept a more balanced theology. Life is a great training ground; it can be a kind of a difficult place to call home.

And yes, there are places in Chicagoland that teach the prosperity theology, and there are places in LA that teach the death-and-ressurrection theology; it's just that each place has its dominant focus.

Anyway, that's me being all thoughty-like. Happy Easter!

Spore

2007-04-02T20:26:00.000-05:00

I originally heard of this from my friend Zach. He had mentioned something about Will Wright (creator of Sim City and The Sims and countless other Sim games) creating a new game which was effectively sim-everything. It sounded interesting to me, but I let it go. I didn't know much about it, and figured I'd know more when the time was right. And so it came to pass that I'd hear snippets of what was proposed for this game, and I grew covetous.

Here's the deal. You start the game as a microorganism, swimming around in a little puddle, potentially in the primordial ooze of your planet. As you eat and get bigger, you can reproduce and evolve. Soon, you develop complexity, becoming an animal of whatever design you choose. The program will determine how the beast should move, based off of the design (in the first video, Will Wright creates a three-legged thing with a hand on the tail arching over its back, and the program figures out how that thing will move). Anyway, after being a beast and attempting to make your way in the world, you reproduce and evolve, eventually developing the brain capacity to reach sentience. That starts the tribal phase. You're no longer evolving as a species, but instead you're evolving as a culture. Your tribe grows and develops, eventually becoming a city. As you develop your city and your culture, you develop technology, including space travel. You move out from your individual planet into the solar system, colonizing and terraforming other worlds, abducting things, making treaties, starting wars. It's life starting on a small scale, and developing into a huge scale.

One of the better things about this game is that it's largely about design. Sure, you're all about building a greater and better society, but its the design element that's so appealing.

When Matt was here a week ago, he showed a few videos that I had heard about, but had never seen. This first one is at the Game Developers Conference in 2005. It makes me drool, and it's nearly two years old.

This next one is at E3, 2006. It shows the game being more developed, which is cool, and ends with Robin Williams designing a creature.

Keep in mind, these videos are 40 minutes a pop, but they're so very yummy. It's making me quiver with anticipation. It's making Heidi say, "We need two computers, so we can both play." It's making Matt consider getting a Windows system.

2007 Goals, Update 3

2007-04-01T21:50:00.000-05:00

As usual, I'm seeing how my goals for this year have progressed. Not a great deal that has changed tangibly, but there's stuff in the works.

1. Get at least 5 union voiceover gigs: I just sent out my first promotional mailing to ad agencies. That will likely pay off in the future, but it hasn't just yet.
2. Get one national gig: See #1.
3. Get at least three agents in the local market: I have one; no change from late last year.
4. Get into both SAG and AFTRA: Bupkus
5. Drop my bodyfat to 12%: We've been going to the Y every weekday at 5AM. Lat week was a low-motivation week, but we're plugging away. Still no actual number to hang onto yet.
6. Travel at least four times: 1 down, 3 to go
7. Get my headshots done: I'm waiting to lose a bit of weight, as I tend to hold a lot of my weight in my face. Still, it's a bupkus right now.
8. Join the Fighting 501st: I'm waiting till it's warmer before I can set up a card table in the garage and get to work.
9: Get out of debt: We just paid off one moderately sizeable bill (literally a couple minutes before I started this post). There's quite a bit left, but we're on our way.
10. Brew at least four batches of beer: 1 down, 3 to go. I'm not sure if I'm going to kit it this next time or follow a recipe.
11. Read the Bible from beginning to end: I'm a little behind, but moving along with this. So far, so good.

So, the year is 25% over, and I'm not quite 25% done with all my goals. Some of them, moving along pretty well; some, not so much. Plans for this month: Pray. Read. Travel. Work out. Eat smart. Do some cleaning in the garage so I have some space. Get more cards so I can finish the mailings (a complete mailing to ad agencies is a five-week process). Plan for the next brew. I might do a talent agency mailing, but we'll see how everything works out.

The Yard House

2007-03-31T06:33:00.000-05:00

Heidi's new job is in Glenview, and she's near The Glen, an outdoor shopping center something like Old Orchard but for the even more affluent. As it happens, there's a Metra stop a block away from her workplace, so I can take the train up after work and we can go have a lovely meal or whatever.

In any case, we chose last night to go to the Yard House. It's a chain restaurant, but it's a new chain restaurant, and I remember going there back before it was a chain. This was in Long Beach, mind you, but it was good there, it's pretty good here, too.

The Yard House's big claim to fame is that they have 250 beers on tap. Some of them are Budweiser and it's various American kin, but most of them are either microbrews or foreign or both. This makes each trip to the Yard House a lovely little experiment. The food is good, too.

In any case, I came in and asked if they had anything like Goose Island's MBA (Masters of Beer Appreciation), where you drink so many beers, you get something free. They didn't (I kind of already knew the answer; the one in Long Beach didn't, but I wasn't sure if they had initiated something like that). The manager told me no, but then he subsequently bought me a beer (a Spatten Optimal, I believe... oaky and a little sharp, but sort of complex). Yes, the manager of the restaurant gave me a beer on the house. For no reason than that he was in a good mood.

Speaking with him later, I mentioned that I just started homebrewing, and he said, "Hey, I'm a homebrewer, too!" Just from speaking with him, it was obvious that he was much more experienced than I am, but it opened a pretty cool door for us to talk brew stuff (as a result of that conversation, I have ideas about how to proceed with this Hefeweisen... could end up being very very good).

The Spaaten was stronger than I expected it to be, and I'm still a bit of a lightweight, so I ended up being less enthused about the rest of the night. Still, I know from experience that this is a good place to go, and now I know from experience that this particular Yard House is that much more worthy of my patronage.

Brew #4: Hefeweisen

2007-03-27T19:50:00.000-05:00

On Saturday Mattox & I got together and brewed a Hefeweisen (well, we talked and drank and ate and played Katamari Damacy on Darrick's PS2 while the thing boiled). This was arguably the easiest brew I'd ever done.

There was a concern about the yeast. When we receive boxes, we never know it. We open the door and it's there. Even if we see the UPS guy pull into our circle and then drive away, we're not sure if he's delivered to us until we open the door. In any case, my kit was delivered on one of the really cold days (not the subzero ones, but the single-digit ones), and we weren't sure if it had been sitting there just that day, or for a whole day. Matt had had an issue with yeast that was delivered when it was butt-cold, and he had to head out to the brew store to pick up more when his brew wasn't fermenting. I knew that this might be an issue; if the yeast was frozen, the brew wouldn't ferment, and I wouldn't have time to go to the brew store for a week. Sure, I could have made a starter to see if it was alive, but I couldn't find the starter kit, and was too lazy to look it up.

In any case, the brew: this was an extract kit for a Hefeweisen (a German Wheat beer). And that's all it was. Literally, the entire package was six pounds of Bavarian Wheat Dry Malt Extract, and a half ounce of hops. No grains, nothing else. So, all I needed to do was boil the water and dump in the extract. That was an adventure all its own. For some reason, the boil didn't evaporate the water as expected, so dumping in six pounds of powdered malt was too much mass for the size of pot I have (and keep in mind, this is a big pot). I ended up dumping it all over the stove, much to the annoyance of my lovely wife, and had to get another pot to boil the overflow. There was a brief panic situation as we scrambled to clean the stove, and the brew boiled on.

Eventually, when both pots had boiled down a bit, I dumped the excess from little pot back into big pot, and got everything underway. It was still too much for the fermenter, so I left a bit of the brew in the pot to be dumped. Good thing, too. There's certainly nothing wrong with the yeast, as this was my first brew to spew out of the fermenter. Yep, the fermentation was so vigorous that there was some crap that had come out of the fermenter and plopped on the carper. Coulda been worse. It's in a closet and the only coat that got a little on it was the sleeve of my raincoat. Having a bit of a mess on a closet floor isn't a big deal, especially because it appears to have cleaned up well.

So this was a messy, albeit crazy easy brew. So far, brewing has been sort of like making Easy Mac. I get everything measured out in a bag, and I follow the directions. Easy to the point of silliness (OK, it's a little more difficult than Easy Mac, but it's still pretty basic). I think the next step is to find a recipe from Zymurgy (the magazine of the American Homebrewer's Association), and follow that, getting the components individually. I might still do a couple more kits, but I think it's time to graduate to the next level perhaps a kit that takes a little more work than just the regular brew. I'm not ready for all-grain, but maybe that will come in the next couple years.

Oh, and for those who care (and for posterity), the original gravity was approximately 1.038.

Two cents

2007-03-24T12:22:00.000-05:00

Heidi and I had Cingular and Verizon, respectively. Heidi hates Cingular, and Verizon is kind of expensive (but I've had a fairly good experience with them). We just recently switched over to a T-Mobile family plan, so as to save money. We heard that T-Mobile customer service was very good (and have confirmation of that as much as two days can tell you), and everyone I've discussed it with in the Chicagoland area has been more than pleased with them. So save money, good customer service, good reception, good call.

We planned out our purchase in a big way. We read reviews (CNET is really good for tech reviews), we studied the literature, we talked to the sales folks at the mall kiosks, and lastly, we went to a standalone store with active demo models and tested the clarity of the calls. We decided on a Blackberry Pearl for me, and a Nokia 5300 for her.

Then we went to Amazon. With Amazon, they have spectacular deals on phones if you're starting up new service. Our monthly bill will be the same as everyone else's (with our stuff, that is), but our upfront cost was a grand total of two cents. One penny for her phone, another for mine, and free shipping (I'm not sure why we got that, but I'm also not complaining).

They got shipped to us activated, but we were able to get our numbers ported over as soon as we received the phones (well, that's still in the process, but it was easy to get started). So, we're both pretty excited. We're both kind of sick of our old phones, and are excited to get new ones, especially such nice new ones.

A change in goals

2007-03-18T10:24:00.000-05:00

I've been thinking about my goals this year (a good thing to always keep them in mind), and I think I need to change one: Instead of enabling one of us to quit our day job, I'll change that to getting us out of debt. It doesn't mean we can't go back into debt (neither of our cars are very reliable these days, so we'll likely be buying before the year is out), but as long as there is a day during this year in which we have no debt, we're cool.

Here's my thinking:
1). Both Heidi and I have pretty good day jobs. The original concern was that Heidi's job was unsatisfying, but she has a new one which appears to be really good. Even if we could, she's not likely to leave this one for a couple years. Mine is a good gig now, but I have the potential for a better one in the relatively near future. Good plan to keep a steady income coming in.
2). Even if I make a heap of cash this year, my SAG benefits wouldn't kick in until next year (assuming I get into SAG and make enough to receive benefits). We need to keep ourselves healthy.
3). It's a lot more financially feasible. Even if I make a heap of cash, we're saving up for a house, and we'd really like to move to Evanston. Houses aren't cheap there. It's even worse in El Segundo, if that's where we land.
4). Debt sucks.

On the air

2007-03-13T21:10:00.000-05:00

So anyway, I won't make as big a deal with the next commercial I get (probably), but I really like the fact that I did this commercial for Tommy Nevin's. I could hardly have asked for a better product to schill, and I could hardly have asked for a better commercial (seriously, this one is arguably the best, if goofiest, local commercial I've seen).

It's running in Evanston and the Chicago North area on these Comcastcable networks: USA, MTV, TBS, MTV, FX, CMDY, and ESPN. It will air during some of these programs: Law & Order, South Park, SportsCenter, JAG and CSI. You can also watch the spot on Letter Blue's website. Just go to http://letterblue.com and hit the Commercial Reel link. The Nevin's spot is the first one on there. That's actually how I saw it; I live in burbland, so I'm not able to see it on the air.

So yay!

300

2007-03-10T19:27:00.000-06:00

I just saw 300. Wow. Big wow. This is a film based off of the graphic novel by Frank Miller (Sin City was the last and first of these). Since Frank Miller is really picky about having his work filmed, it's shot exactly as the graphic novel is drawn. As a result, it's visually stunning, with remarkably little work on the director's part. It's about the 300 Spartans that stood against the might of Xerxes' Persian army, roughly a million in number. This actually did happen, probably not quite in the way the movie portrays.

In any case, there's no question that this is a really violent movie, but some of the reviews I read used terms along the lines of "bloodbath." I wouldn't use terms like that, as it's so visually arresting and so artistic, that it doesn't really register as violence and gore. Saving Private Ryan was a violent movie, in part because it was so gritty and realistic. In 300, it was more like a ballet of steel and bodies. This really is a less violent movie than any one of the Lord of the Rings movies.

There's not really a lot to say about this movie, other than that I recommend it. It's a good story and a work of visual poetry. Here endeth the review.

Bad Advertising

2007-03-09T11:46:00.000-06:00

For the first time since I started this job, it's slow. So, what better way to use my time than to share my precious opinions? Well, precious to me, anyway.

Anyway, let's talk about advertising, and what makes a really bad commercial (OK, I'm not going to go into everything that makes a bad commercial, but rather this one facet). If a commercial tells me how horrible and wrong their competitor is, that's a pretty good sign that they're actually superior.

Let's look at Comcast's recent ads bashing satellite dishes. Instead of saying, "We're the best thing since sliced bread!" They're saying, "Only a moron gets a dish." Hm. They're slamming their competition. Could it be that they're scared? As it happens, I have Comcast, and have tried to get them in every place I've lived in the Chicago area. They used to have lovely customer service, and that was my motivating factor, despite their common lack of actual service. Well, their customer service isn't quite what it used to be; their actual service is pretty much par for the course. Now, last place I lived, I couldn't get a signal from Comcast, so I used DirecTV. My God, that was nice! I can see why cable is scared. Yes, the signal went out once in a great while (most notably during the last 10 minutes of the season finale of Lost). Since I've had cable in my current place, they've had at least twice as many severe drops in service than I had with my dish in a whole year. And yes, I'm not allowed to have a dish in the current place. Now, I can see the reasoning behind Comcast slamming their only competition, because it's actually superior; notice how you don't see any DirecTV commericals saying how crappy their competitors are?

I think the stupidest "the other guys suck" advertisement comes from Macintosh. I have a lot of friends, whose opinion I truly respect, tell me that when they switched to Mac, their computer experience changed dramatically for the better. A few years ago, that was the Mac campaign strategy: "Switch. We're really good." Now, it is true that they have a behemoth to overcome with Windows-based systems, but this is the wrong way to go about it. They have some greasy-looking prick saying "I'm better than the really likeable and friendly underdog here. Shun him, love me." These people are effectively telling me that they're afraid of Windows, because Windows is superior. What kind of messed up marketing strategy is that? Even their website is telling me, "don't settle for PC." Now, I actually am considering getting a Mac, but that's because of word-of-mouth, not their annoying advertisements.

Politicians go into overdrive with this. "Politician X eats babies! Vote for Politician Y!" I'd say that I would vote for Politician X, simply because of Politician Y's hate-ads, but the X is doing it just as bad. Don't tell me how crappy the other guy is; tell me how great you are.

So, there's my rant, combined with a warning: don't believe the hype. If a product is legitimately good, you can see by how they advertise it. If it's good, they'll say it's good. If it's bad, they'll say their competition will usher in an age of darkness and sorrow.

2007 Goals, Update 2

2007-03-01T19:26:00.000-06:00

In keeping with the tradition, I'm posting my updates about my goals. Not a huge amount to report, but there are stirrings and echoes of various cool things coming together. In any case, seeing how little things have progressed is keeping me accountable to do some crap about it.

1. Get at least 5 union voiceover gigs: Not so much.
2. Get one national gig: Not so much.
3. Get at least three agents in the local market: I have one; no change from late last year.
4. Get into both SAG and AFTRA: Bupkus
5. Drop my bodyfat to 12%: We've been going to the Y every weekday at 5AM. It's just beginning to become less difficult, although we tend to be pretty wiped out during the week. My pants don't really feel any looser yet, but my shirts feel a little tighter, so it's a start.
6. Travel at least four times: 1 down, 3 to go
7. Get my headshots done: Bupkus
8. Join the Fighting 501st: I'm waiting till it's warmer before I can set up a card table in the garage and get to work.
9. Make enough with voiceover that one of us can quit our day job: Not so much. Heidi just got a really cool new job though, so this might not be as big a priority.
10. Brew at least four batches of beer: I've ordered a Hefeweisen kit (one of my favorite styles of beer), but I don't have a schedule for when I want to do it. This month is a pretty likely candidate.
11. Read the Bible from beginning to end: So far, I'm doing really well with this. I'm not using it for vocal warmups anymore, although I'd like that to change. But it's good to read and ponder on the train into the city.

So, plans for this month: Brew. Get a whole mess of postcards and start sending them out to the ad agencies here in the city. Keep working out. Keep reading and praying.

Various Ends and Various Beginnings

2007-02-27T20:12:00.000-06:00

So, I can drive now. I didn't blog about it, and I didn't really talk about it so much unless it was relevant or necessary. Here's the deal: I had a seizure back in August. No biggie, just something that happens from time to time. I told my neurologist, didn't tell the DMV. However, because the State of Illinois knows that I have a seizure history, they can't renew my license without a medical release from said neurologist. The neurologist can't sign off on my medical release unless I've been seizure free for six months. Still no problem, but here's the kicker: my license expired last December. So, for two months, I didn't drive much, and when I did, I was always looking over my proverbial shoulder (and sometimes my actual one) to make sure I wasn't going to get pulled over for anything. Being pulled over is bad enough when you have to pay $50. When you run the risk of having your car impounded, it's a little worse.

But now I can drive. I got my medical release, I went to the DMV, and I'm a legitimate driver again. It's really freeing when you can legally drive all you want. I'm a happy man.

Also, I've quit World of Warcraft again. I've done it before, and I might end up doing it again, but for now, the game isn't doing it for me anymore (and I have less time to devote to it, with me being out of the house 12 1/2 hours a day). I'm kind of wondering if I've had enough of being a PC gamer. I could consider being a console gamer and getting a Mac, but I'm also not about to make some leap that I don't want to follow through on just yet. Meh, just thinkin.

Pucca

2007-02-19T18:24:00.000-06:00

Heidi and I have a new guilty pleasure: Pucca. We started looking for some fun, goofy cartoon on Saturday morning (y'know, sit on the couch, eat junky cereal, watch cartoons), and this was the best one out there (good cartoons are harder to come by these days). Heidi likes it because Pucca reminds her of herself as a little girl, and we both like how fun, innocent, and freakin' hysterically funny it is. We decided to regularly record it, and just watch it when we have nothing else going on.

It's based off of some wildly successful web animations, and has marketing galore all over Asia and Europe (less so here, but I'm sure it's going to pick up soon). It's a pretty simple premise: Pucca, a ten-year-old noodle delivery girl and master martial artist, has an insane crush on Garu, a ninja-in-training. Garu doesn't reciprocate, as he appears to be in his girl-cooties phase of life. There's a fair amount of comic action, as almost all the characters are the super-powerful ninja-esque characters common in Anime, but they're cute little kids, and it's just as much about the action as it is about little kids and their various crushes. Some of the humor is really witty, and other times it can be really slapstick. The flash animations were created with no dialogue, so as to enchance the international appeal, and this tradition is carried over to Pucca and Garu, as neither of them speak in intelligible words (although the rest of the cast speaks).

It's a guilty pleasure, but it's so charming and fun (and requires almost no commitment) that it has become a bit of a staple in the Fisher household.

John's Heroes Theories

2007-02-13T20:31:00.000-06:00

Warning: Spoilers ahead. Also, if you don't watch NBC's series Heroes, you're going to be a bit lost.

OK, here's my theory about the end of this season. I've had it since December, but I'm sharing it now, as it seems to be leading in that direction.

We've all seen Peter's vision of him being the bomb that blows up New York, but I postulate that it is not him that is the "bomb," but Sylar. Both absorb powers, and both have a lot of them flowing around inside there. But here's something to note: Peter didn't start having his visions of him blowing up until he was near Sylar. Neither of them have a history of exploding, obviously, but Peter just has a lot of thoughts/powers/feelings running around in his head. Sylar has a blood clot running around in his. Remember Charlie, Hiro's girlfriend/obsession? The reason she didn't like to get close to people was that she had a blood clot that could turn into an embolism "at any moment." And Sylar ate her brain. Peter's absorbed maybe ten powers, hardly fuel for a significant explosion; Sylar's absorbed hundreds.

That's where I think the "Save the cheerleader, save the world" came in. It's not the explosion that's the end of the world (although I'm sure Our Heroes will do all they can to stop that), it's the fact that if Sylar ate Claire's brain, he'd be able to heal himself. He'd heal his blood clot without even knowing it was there. If he were to absorb Claire's power, he'd effectively be able to kill every super individual and claim godhood over the world.

Now, the explosion: We've seen the guy who can irradiate things by force of will, but he's been a nonentity. He shows up in a scene or two, and we're done with him for three or four episodes(maybe he plays a bigger role in the website stuff, I haven't checked that). It is my considered guess that Sylar will eat his brain, get the embolism and nuke the city. I'm actually guessing that the explosion won't happen (or at least not in New York), but that's how I see Hiro's vision of the future coming together; we don't lose one of the series' main characters, we lose the bad guy who really can't stay alive for another season for the drama to be effective.

If anybody has any thoughts refuting or confirming this, I'm all ears. If not, I'm cool, too.

Alka Seltzer & Lemonade

2007-02-12T18:54:00.000-06:00

Yeah, so I'm still in blogger's malaise. Not much to say, no time to say it. But, so's people don't feel like they're being gypped by coming here regularly or subscribing to any feed they so desire, I'll give you this:

If you have a bit of a sour stomach, Alka Seltzer and Lemonade are REALLY good together.

For that matter, Bacon & Pineapple make for a really good pizza. Just FYI.

2007 Goals, Update 1

2007-02-04T22:52:00.000-06:00

As usual, I'm updating everyone on the progress of my goals. Much like the original goal posting, the update is a little late, but I had pretty big news that I wanted to post on the first of the month. In any case, here's how we're doing with the goals.

1. Get at least 5 union voiceover gigs: Not even one yet, but I'm on may way.
2. Get one national gig: Not so much.
3. Get at least three agents in the local market: I have one; no change from late last year.
4. Get into both SAG and AFTRA: Bupkus
5. Drop my bodyfat to 12%: We joined the Y last week, and both have had our first meeting with one of the trainers. We're also eating healthier, so it's a start. Still don't know where I am as far as bodyfat, though.
6. Travel at least four times: 1 down, 3 to go
7. Get my headshots done: Bupkus
8. Join the Fighting 501st: I'm waiting till it's warmer before I can set up a card table in the garage and get to work.
9. Make enough with voiceover that one of us can quit our day job: Well, I at least made SOME money with voiceover. It's a start.
10. Brew at least four batches of beer: Bupkus
11. Read the Bible from beginning to end: So far, I'm doing really well with this. The one year Bible thing (where they group readings into 365 dated entries) helps a lot.

So, my plan for this month is to at least plan my first brew of the year, work out both my body and my voice regularly, and keep auditioning. I also want to do an agency mailing, but I'm not sure if that's going to be possible for this month. A lot of my goals are out of my direct circle of influence, so prayer is a large portion of my tasks for this month as well.

Gig #1: The Larch

2007-02-01T21:33:00.000-06:00

OK, an explanation about the title: my gig actually had nothing to do with trees; it's a Monty Python reference. But, I did have a gig.

It was a local commercial for Tommy Nevin's Pub in Evanston, and it didn't pay very well, but it was a gig, and the gig was good. I got to play, and have fun with my voice, and just be an actor. I felt alive, defined. Acting is where I shine; it is my craft, above and beyond any other creative outlet. I have a few other creative outlets, but acting is where I work best, and this was what made it so fulfilling.

Again, it's small. I won't be able to support myself on it for any length of time, and it doesn't accomplish any of my goals, but it's a great beginning.

"Do not despise the day of small beginnings." -- Zechariah 4:10

People are cool

2007-01-31T20:16:00.000-06:00

So first off, let me apologize for making it a slow blog month. I had a bit of blogger's malaise. Can't say I'm over it, but I was thinking about this today, and thought I'd share it.

People are cool. At my workplace, there are pictures of people around Chicago, not really doing anything; there's a picture of a Hasidic Jewish family (with a beautiful little kid) sitting in Union Station. There's a steelworker looking at something work-related off camera. There's a fat guy screaming out his orders on the trading floor of the Merck. There's an old man bowing his head before the wind on a cold, blustery day (hmmm, haven't seen much of that lately, have we?). Just pictures of people. Complex and different. Diverse and unique.

And then I look at all the people out on the roads. Take a drive down a highway at rush hour (I don't, I take the train, but work with me). Look at all the cars coming at you the other way. Each one has at least one person in there, possibly more. Each of those hundreds, if not thousands, of people has a story as complex as your own. Maybe a little more or less eventful, but they have the same ups and downs and cool stories and quirky relatives and aspirations and dreams and regrets and needs as you do. And that's only a fraction of people in this metropolitan area. Then there are the millions of people in other individual cities across the globe. Thinking about one city is mind-boggling enough, thinking of another specific one is even moreso.

It has been going through my mind lately: people are cool. Yes, people have their crap. You do, I do, someone else does. Not everybody lives to their potential, and a lot of people live in a half-stupor (yes, I'm speaking from personal experience). But when you open your eyes and see the world, how it's created, how the people in it live, thrive and survive in it, it's freakin' wonderful.

And yes, it's an epiphany, but it doesn't keep me loving everybody all the time. Just more appreciative of them.

Sh'wah?

2007-01-18T08:36:00.000-06:00

So, here's an enormous kick in the pants (and my thanks go to Richard for pointing this one out): HBO is doing a TV series based on what is arguably the greatest fantasy series ever written. Well, fantasy isn't so much the right term for it, it's more of a political thriller set in a fantasy setting, the Song of Ice and Fire. It starts with the Game of Thrones, and I'm currently on the fifth book, A Feast for Crows. Over the past five books, they started with one noble family ruling some backwoods area up in the frozen north. Over a period of four books, they promoted that family to a higher ranking in society, and killed off almost every one of them during the bloody, horrible civil war that has been going on since the last actual king's death in the first book. It's a little hard to read, because you're entirely unsure if this character you have grown to love is going to die shortly, or if the people their betting their life on are tinkering behind the scenes to bring about said character's demise.

But it's freakin' PERFECT fodder for an HBO series. Considering what they have done with previous series, this is going to be big, it's likely to be good (based on the source material), and it's definitely going to be a reason to get HBO. No word yet on when it's supposed to start production, but when it does, it's a gimme.

2007 Goals

2007-01-09T13:34:00.000-06:00

It took a while, but I've determined my goals for this year. Yes, I know, the year is already 1/37 over, but I'll have to cope with the shortened timespan. So anyway, the reason for posting the goals is for accountability, and so I have a place where I can refer to them, should the need arise.

1. Get at least 5 union voiceover gigs: Yes, it's being optimistic, but I think I can do it.
2. Get one national gig: This will likely overlap with goal #1
3. Get at least three agents in the local market: The local market includes Milwaukee, and at present, I have one there. So getting two more shouldn't be that much of a hassle.
4. Get into both SAG and AFTRA: Getting to the point of being Taft/Hartleyed, but not actually "in" is sufficient, although with goal #1 being what it is, it'll be more likely that I'll have to be actually "in."
5. Drop my bodyfat to 12%: I don't know where I am right now, but I'd estimate around 24%. This is a more definable goal than saying "I'll get back in the gym," and it's less restrictive (if I'm working out by running or martial arts, I'm not really "In the gym").
6. Travel at least four times: I'm already 25% done with that.
7. Get my headshots done: I'm thinking this is a good goal for after I've trimmed down a bit.
8. Join the Fighting 501st: They're a group of Star Wars costume enthusiasts, primarily stormtroopers. I've had the stormtrooper outfit in a box for almost two years now, and the first part of joining is to build the suit.
9. Make enough with voiceover that one of us can quit our day job: It'll likely be Heidi, as my schedule isn't hindered by VO auditions, and she's likely to pick up a sizeable freelance income.
10. Brew at least four batches of beer: This is one of those goals I'll probably exceed, but I'm OK with that, too.
11. Read the Bible from beginning to end: So far, I'm doing really well with this. The previous disconnect was that I had a bad history with the version I was using (NKJV). Heidi got me an NIV Bible, and also suggested I do my VO warmups with it. Both really good choices.

So anyway, them's the goals. If you'll notice, there are two more than last year, and last year I didn't even finish half of them. Why do I think I can succeed with eleven when I didn't succeed with nine (or for that matter, five)? Because I know what held me back previously, and I'm willing to put up a fight to get them done.

This ain't no disco...

2007-01-06T09:14:00.000-06:00

Heidi and I don't like to give each other Christmas gifts. It's all our money, so we're just going to give each other something that effectively we're buying for ourselves, but without much actual input. Instead, we like to take a trip early in the following year. We weren't sure if we could do anything this year, as money's been a bit tight as of late, until Heidi saw that JetBlue was opening service to Chicago in January. They were offering $36 one way from O'Hare to Long Beach. Problem solved.

First, let me sing JetBlue's praises. OK, they were close to two hours late coming into O'Hare, but that wasn't a JetBlue problem, that was an O'Hare problem (we left when the nasty rain just got started). On JetBlue, they don't have first class, and they doen't have huge airplanes, so they can treat their regular passengers (read: everybody) with respect. They don't have huge seats, but they're all leather, which is nothing special to me, but a pleasant touch. What is special to me is the inflight entertainment. It's a small screen imbedded into the seat in front of you, but it's 36 channels of DirecTV. On the flight out, I saw all of NBC's Thursday night lineup that I care to, and, on a different channel, I saw Supersize Me (which is one of those movies that makes you really want to change your lifestyle).

Long Beach airport is a joy to fly into. It's a small airport, so it doesn't have heaps of amenities, but the baggage claim is quick, and the car rental place is right across a slow-traffic street. Most of the airport is open to the elements (much like the Burbank airport), which can bite you in the ass, but in this case it was freakin' lovely. We also got a free upgrade on our rental, for no reason other than they were in a good mood. We could have had a Hummer, but I'm morally opposed to driving one of those, and we plan to put a lot of mileage on our car; we don't want to waste our travel savings on gas.

We're right now staying in a Residence Inn in Manhattan Beach, thanks to our pals at Priceline. It's built to make people comfortable with long-term stays, so it's quite a breath of fresh air from your typical hotel room.

But here's the thing. I used to live in LA (not down here; I hardly ever came this far south), and I left completely defeated. It took me years to get over my failures when I was in Chicago. Now I'm back, admittedly just to visit, but it feels very "right." Heidi's feeling it, too. She's said a few times, "Yeah, if we could afford it, I wouldn't mind living here." I have yet to see any of my friends, but I'm sure once I do, my desire to return here will increase tenfold.

I had a lot of problems living here before. I was underemployed pretty much my entire time here (when I was employed), I lived in some crappy places, and my social life was limited to mostly uneducated people with a "what can you do for me" mentality. I'm not saying this place is perfect, but, like the rest of life, you have to make wise decisions. My life in LA was pretty much a series of bad decisions, and I suffered the consequences. Moving back here could potentially be significantly easier, now that I'm wiser, and (more importantly), that I have a wise wife by my side.

I'm not saying that we're going to move here next week; but I am saying there are a lot of good reasons to move here. It's an option that has become much more palatable in the past few months, and although we're not making any definite plans (let's see how this year works out), it's something that we won't dismiss out of hand.

In any case, whether or not we end up moving here, this is one of the most relaxing vacations we've taken in a while. It feels good to be here, and that's what a vacation should be.

Lady in the Water

2007-01-04T07:58:00.000-06:00

We didn't see Lady in the Water when it came out primarily because of mediocre reviews. Not many critics thought it was a decent film, and we really didn't want to waste our time and money on a film that wouldn't be worthwhile. It recently came out on DVD, and so we rented it. I'm kind of wondering what movie the critics were reviewing, as this thing is one of M. Night Shyamalan's best films since The Sixth Sense (although Signs is a really strong contender in my book).

Effectively this is a fairy tale. Not the charming, innocent fairy tales that the Shrek movies lampoon so well, but rather a dark and dangerous fairy tale that the Brothers Grimm would have written (the real ones, not the movie ones). It's set in an apartment complex, which Cleveland Heep (Paul Giamatti) manages, and is filled with much quirkier characters than are usually in a single apartment building. Cleveland finds a "Narf" (I'm kind of surprised there wasn't a creture named a "poit"), and asks the local Korean family about it. They start relating the fairy tale within the fairy tale, but not in one sitting. As the story unfolds, several iconic characters are mentioned, and Cleveland starts figuring what roles people in the apartment complex play in the story. M. Night Shyamalan plays a much larger part in this one than he usually plays in his films; it seems a bit self-indulgent at first (he plays a writer who will go on to change the world with his book), but it's a convincing character, and it's really tough to direct oneself and be good at both.

This story could have been told in twenty minutes, but it unfolds over a much longer period of time. This is not to say it should have been twenty minutes, but it could have been done quicker, to its detriment. It was a great film, as long as it should be, and not a moment longer.

This is a character piece, really. The plot is interesting, but you're introduced to a number of different characters that are all really quirky and fun to get to know. The characters turn what would otherwise be a good movie into a great one (when I say great, I don't mean Bridge on the River Kwai great, but Signs great).

I highly recommend this film. If you haven't seen it yet, put it on your netflix list (or whatever you use to rent films) and see it soon.

Children of Men

2007-01-02T08:57:00.000-06:00

Heidi and I took a trip into the city to see Children of Men yesterday, as the only place it was playing was River East. In retrospect we won't do that again, as it cost an arm and a leg, but it was a decent time.

Anyway Children of Men was a brilliant film, filled with intrigue and maintaining a really high level of tension through a moderately long movie. It establishes a unique and intriguing concept and, at the core of it, distinguishes between the solid, enduring qualities of faith over the randomness of chance.

The film is about a world in which nobody has been born for over 18 years. As a result of no children being born and the imminent death of the human race, the entire world is in complete chaos. Britain is slightly less hosed than the rest of the world, which results in countless illegal immigrants to Britain. Subsequently, the British government initiates a violent, oppressive crackdown on illegal immigration. This is a world of despair, a dying world. The people have a lot of choices to deal with their misery, from antidepressants to easily available suicide kits. It is criminal for people to avoid fertility tests. Through a twisted series of events, Theodore Faron (Clive Owen) finds himself responsible for transporting a young pregnant girl to the coast, where she can get onto a hospital ship of a group called "The Human Project," a sort of underground science community that are working on the infertility issue. She, being the only pregnant woman anybody has seen for nearly two decades, is a commodity to whoever has a political agenda, and there are a lot of those.

This show tells its story succinctly and tightly, but with the viewer open to filling in a lot of the gaps. Not that there are much in the way of plot holes, but there's a lot of exposition that is left up to us to figure out (or not, as the case may be). As it is, it's still tightly packed with information, getting us up to speed on the world and the characters. I like how they use the countless bullets flying around the one remaining hope for humanity (that we know of, anyway) to such great degree. It's a plot device, but as soon as you see that this girl is pregnant, about a half hour into seeing the effects of infertility on the world, she suddenly becomes more important than any other character in the world. And there are alot of people dying through excessive violence around her.

This is a very violent movie, but I have a theory why (and keep in mind that, like much of the movie, this is completely up to the viewer). People fight because they're angry at how the world just seems to have shut off the switch for the human race; they end up taking it out on anybody around them. But also, what had stemmed the tide of excessive violence in society before was that there were children to think of. Without that impetus, there is nothing to live for, and therefore people don't so much care about the consequences.

The show isn't so much about acting or interesting character interaction, but Michael Caine plays Theodore's father figure Jasper, and does it with style. He's a great character that is an old, eccentric, hippie and Michael Caine plays him with great energy and fun. He's a little remaining spark of life in a society that has little life left.

I recommend this film, but it isn't for everyone. Heidi didn't much care for it, but I find it to be a deep and rich vein of thought-provoking material.

Happy 2007!

2007-01-01T16:04:00.000-06:00

So one year is over, another has begun. Last year was a good year; a lot got accomplished, much of which is completely life-changing. 2007 will be just as significant, I predict, but with different things going. Since I was so verbose about my goals last year, I'm going to continue the trend. However, I still need to recap my goals, to see how everything turned out. Hence, this post:

1. Get Married: Successful
2. Move to a new place: Successful
3. Get a different job: I got the new job I was looking for, then lost it, then got another new job, then lost that. I think next year I need to be a bit more specific. So I'll call this one unsuccessful.
4. Get back in the gym, and establish a regular routine: I started, and was doing pretty well with it, until my back gave out, and I completely dropped it. In retrospect, dropping it was a bad decision. We really haven't done anything since. Unsuccessful.
5. Get at least one Voice-over gig: I was really diligent to get things going, but didn't actually get a gig this year. Unsuccessful.
6. Brew at least three batches of beer: Successful.
7. Travel at least four times: Successful. I actually did five, but there's nothing wrong with exceeding your goals.
8. Write a script: Unsuccessful.
9. Read the Bible from beginning to end: Unsuccessful.

And now, the analysis:
I succeeded in 4 out of 9 goals. Not a bad average for batting, but I'm not much of a fan of baseball. Of the four successful, each of them relied entirely on me or me & Heidi (one all me, three both of us). Of the five unsuccessful, three were all me, and two were resulting from actions outside of my sphere of influence. The three that were all me could have been done had I been less lazy, but I was lazy. Of the other two, I worked my can off for those, and still wasn't successful. So, here's the track record:
Me & Heidi: 3/3
Me: 1/4
Me & some external influence: 0/2

This brings interesting things to light. If I involve Heidi in my goals, they're going to get done much better than if I just do them on my own; two is better than one. Relying on something external is perfect material to get me hosed; this is bad, because a lot of my life does revolve around other people than my wife playing along. So the trick is to figure out how to get those externals working better.

I haven't yet figured out my goals for this year... I'll post them when I have them in order.

Geek Weekend

2006-12-31T08:03:00.000-06:00

We had the first Geek Weekend party yesterday, which consisted of many friends coming over to worship at the Altar of Entertainment for several hours. We watched Firefly; not the whole series (although we feasibly could have), but most of it. Despite the hour-long socializing breaks between discs, we managed to stuff 11 epsiodes down our television-gluttonous gorges. It was freakin' lovely. Good friends came to hang out, sit on our couches, eat our food and watch far too much TV in one sitting. This is pretty much the reason we have the place that we do. Yes, my eyes are tired and my legs are cramped, but it was a successful day of fun geeking.

A Dilemma

2006-12-29T10:57:00.000-06:00

As many newly married couples find out, our friends don't contact us much anymore. There is the unconscious attitude that the married folks are busy being with each other, and don't so much want to be bothered. I've been that way myself with friends who have gotten married, and even with friends who have had children. I assume they have too much on their plate to get together. In any case, that ends up leading to a dull social life for the newlyweds.

Part of the problem for me is that I'm a suburbanite now, and most of my friends are city folk. It takes an Act of Congress for either of us to get out to each other's location, and it makes for a bit of a problem. I have a lot of suburban Mensa friends, which is freakin' awesome, but since I used to be a city person, I'm not so used to hanging out with them. Time to change the social circle. Heidi has a lot of friends here in the 'burbs, but they are under the "no time" impression.

This is exacerbated by the fact that we don't have a church home yet. When I was at First Free, my social schedule tended to revolve around my serving schedule. I got a lot of interaction through that, and being the inrovert that I am, that was pretty good for me. Admittedly, I was serving 2-3 times a week, but that was good. I like serving, I like getting to know and hang out with people who serve in similar manners, and it just tends to be a lot of fun.

However, since we don't have a church home, we are relegated to one-shot serving opportunities, occasional local dinners, etc. These are good opportunities to get to know people, but it generally is a random assortment of people that are significantly different than us. I have no problem mixing with people that are different than me, but there's not much of an opportunity to really bond with them, and that's what's missing.

So here's the quandry: there are two churches that we're considering, and that makes for some interesting problems. I like to serve, and I like people (usually). At Willow Creek, it's a freakin' monstro church. There are serving opportunities galore, and it's a very art-friendly church. They have great music, great preaching, great drama, even great set design. However, we have attempted serving there, and A) people either don't care to get to know you or they are just difficult to connect; and B) they're REALLY disorganized. Both issues would likely be less of an issue in a production environment (sound or music or drama), but it's a bit of a challenge to get into those groups.

Harvest Bible Chapel is also a great church. It's a lot more organized, and Heidi has a lot of friends there, which would make it easier for me to get friendships going. The music is pretty good, the preaching is freakin' AMAZING, but they're not particularly creativity-friendly. Neither of us have really "served" there, but from what I understand, they are much better at administration and thinking through things before they're implemented. I could certainly do sound at that church, and I'd be pretty good with it (and they do have a really nice sound board). And doing that, I'd probably hook up with some good geeks. Their small groups are much easier to get into, and the church, while still pretty big, is of a much more manageable size. But it's still a church in which creativity is somewhat stifled, and that's a huge bug up my craw.

So that's where we stand right now. It's becoming more of an issue, because, for the first time in my adult life, I find myself sitting around and watching TV because we're bored (as opposed to watching a freakin' fantastic show that I would pay to see). Meh, I'm sure it'll come together eventually, but it's a bit of a quandry.

Brew #3: Dwarven Ale

2006-12-26T14:02:00.000-06:00

I just finished brew #3, my admittedly inexperienced take on a Dwarven Ale. Darrick (Heidi's brother) commissioned this brew, and here's hoping it comes together the way we both expected. I chose a base of a Scotch Ale kit, and added spices on my own.

3.5 lbs Plain Amber Malt Extract
2 lbs Plain Amber Dry Malt Extract
8 oz Crushed Crystal Malt 60L (grain)
4 oz Crushed Chocolate (grain)
1 oz Crushed Roasted Barley
1 oz Fuggle Hops (Bittering)
1/2 oz Fuggle Hops (Finsihing)
11g Nottingham's Brewing Yeast

3 tsp Cloves
1 Tsp Allspice
1 handful, Cinnamon bark

This is a kit from Brew & Grow, the local brew store, as opposed to my usual morebeer kit. My concerns are the following: there was no clarifier, so it'll likely be kinda cloudy, and all the spices we used were fresh; they tend to float, and I know some got into the fermenter. This will change the flavor dramatically, and could be a little overpowering. I'm thinking powdered spices are a much better choice in the future, but I'll wait until I've seen how everything comes together. What it boils down to, though, is that I'm not particularly thrilled with the kit I bought at the brew store. It's a great store, just not the greatest place to get a kit. When I get more experienced, I'll probably go with recipes found here and there, and then I'll go to Brew & Grow.

And one other thing that was fun to find out: we have mice in our garage, as evidenced by all the little mousy poo that was all over the brewing stuff. Fortunately, thorough cleaning and sanitization is an essential first step for brewing, otherwise I would have been really pissed off and not done my brew this year (and therefore hosed yet another goal).

A Very Merry Christmas

2006-12-25T10:11:00.001-06:00

Merry Christmas to all! We've finished with our Christmas festivities, having spent time with my family last weekend and time with Heidi's family yesterday. It's been a kind of stressful Christmas season, but there were two standout high points: The Willow Creek Christmas service was the most spectacular (not necessarily the most moving, but definitely the "biggest") church service I have ever attended. It was like a variety Cirque du Soleil/Comedy/Muscial show, with a Christmas message. People were saying it was going to be huge, and dang were they right! The second wonderful high point was Heidi cooking the bet prime rib I'd ever had just a few hours later.

It's always a pleasure to get together with people I don't normally get together with, and this was no exception. Heidi's brother's fiancee's parents are great people, and we don't really get a lot of chance to spend time with them because they are fairly far removed from our normal daily life. But yesterday was one of the days we got to, and that was freakin' awesome.

So in all, it was a good Christmastime. It had some significant crap to it, but I choose to dwell on the happy things.

Comcastic, craptacular

2006-12-18T17:15:00.000-06:00

I've had my issues with Comcast before. They haven't always been very good with the actual service, but their customer service was always top-notch. Please note the use of the past tense in that last sentence.

We have a pretty fancy package with Comcast, but I have a pretty fancy TV. The fancy package does not entitle me to better customer service by any stretch of the imagination, but it would be desirable if Comcast actually cared about retaining their customers. I wanted to switch out my cable box for on with the exact same specifications, just with an HDMI ouput instead of the DVI output. This isn't so much so I can have a super-duper extra crystal clear TV picture, but more so I can plug more things into the TV.

I was told by the Comcast technicians this would not be a problem. I was told by the Comcast 1-800 number this would not be a problem. When you're ready, go to the office and switch it out. When I got to the office, they didn't have the box I needed. If that was the end of it, this post wouldn't be written.

However, this wasn't the end of it. When I got to the office, this was, pretty close to verbatim, the conversation I had.

Me: I know you don't have any DVR's available, but are there any with an HDMI output at any other offices?
Comcast: No.
Me: Okay, is there anybody I can call to figure out when one is available?
Comcast: No.
Me: Can I set up an appointment to have someone bring one out to me?
Comcast: I can set up an appointment, but I can't guarantee they'll have one.
Me: Is there a number I can call, later on down the line, that woud be able to direct me to one?
Comcast: No.
Me: When will they be in this office?
Comcast: We should get a shipment in on the beginning of the year.
Me: Can I call this office in the beginning of the year?
Comcast: No.
Me: If I call the 1-800 number, will they be able to tell me if you have any boxes available at this office?
Comcast: No. The 1-800 number are the ones telling people to come here.
Me: OK, here's what I would like to do. I want to trade out my DVR for one with an HDMI output. How can I do that?
Comcast: There's a list that some customers are on to let them know when our DVR's come in.
Me: Put me on that list.

From there, it was a pretty standard customer exchange, but it was like pulling teeth to get anything from them. Between that and the middlin' levels of service we're receiving, we may end up switching to some other company and/or companies.

The Big Flu

2006-12-18T13:47:00.000-06:00

This weekend, I had the worst bout of stomach flu I've had in my adult life. It could have been food poisoning, but everybody I was with came out of it fine, and I was still pretty quivery the next couple days (up to today), so not sure what-all can be made of it.

In any case, I went to a brew at Mattox's place, and hung out with him and some other folks, and had some good chat time. It was my first time witnessing an all-grain brew, and it was certainly fun to watch. It will likely be fun to actually do one of these days, but we'll see what happens. Afterwards, Heidi and I met some other folks (Richard and Libby and a friend of theirs) for dinner at Red Rooster, a fabulous French restaurant in the city (I cannot recommend this place highly enough, even considering the rest of this story). Afterwards, we went to a party that Tracy and Kristin were having at their place, which seemed a lot more fun than I was able to appreciate. About twenty minutes into a good conversation with one of the guys there, I was pretty sure I was going to be sick. I figured we should go, as throwing up in a friend's bathroom during a party... not so good. It was good we went when we did, as we weren't even out of the city before I had to stop to take care of my dirty sinful business in a Jewel bathroom. Before we got home, I needed to puke again in a church parking lot. Over the next five hours, I ended up eliminating pretty much everything that was in me, out of whichever orifice was most convenient. I'm still a little achy from the violence of the sickness, but feeling significantly better.

As we were heading home from my mom's last night, Heidi said, "Well, except for the puking and the vomiting and the nausea and the explosive diarrhea, it was a pretty good weekend." I couldn't agree more.

Darfur

2006-12-15T09:12:00.000-06:00

I recently learned of the genocide of Black Africans in Darfur from Jake's blog. I will post his post in it's entirety (updating it to include hotlinks). Please spread the word. Please contact someone. Please do something.

In about ten years people are going to go see a movie about Darfur, Sudan and they are going to ask why did the world let it happen?

When Hotel Rwanda came out three years ago people were asking how could the world let that happen? The world watched that movie and got angry, just like when Schindler's List came out and everyone asked, "How could that happen?" Why did the world let that happen?

Well, right now in Darfur, Sudan the Sudanese government is allowing (encouraging) a militia group called the Janjaweed to track down and kill Black Africans. The Janjaweed are Arab Africans, which constitutes this as an ethnic cleansing. The low estimate for number of people killed is 200,000 but the number could be as high as 400,000. However, because the Sudanese government is in control and won't let anybody in for any kind of official count, nobody really knows.

The methods of the Janjaweed are fairly simple. When it comes to men they kill them. When it comes to women rape is the preferred method. More specifically, gang rape. Militia will track down young women and literally bite their flesh to mark them as rape victims then rape them. If there is a group of soldiers then it is likely that the young women will be gang raped. The bite marks are designed to bring shame to the woman and her family. There are stories of older sisters sacrificing themselves to rape in order to save their little sisters. Children and Senior Citizens are beaten and killed. Villages are burned while people are still in their homes.

The refugees try to make it to safety in Chad but the Janjaweed have begun to travel to Chad to continue the pursuit. There is no way of efficiently protecting the borders so the Janjaweed can more or less do whatever they want.

I'm writing this blog post in response to a conversation I had with my friend Erin. We were talking about this subject and she said, " I don't think people know about it." Well I know a handful of people read this post, maybe they will tell others.

After Rwanda, Senator Paul Simon of said, " If a hundred people in every district would have written their congressman and demanded action things would have been done." We as a world community have a chance to stop this; the world has been destroying Africa for thousands of years. We use them for slaves, diamonds, and so many other resources. We ignore their cries for help in AIDS and other tragedies. It is time to start doing something for them.

When pressure has been applied to Sudan they have backed off, they don't stop but they back off. When the world takes their eyes off it strikes up again. Put pressure on them.

Here are some resources

Find your congressman at http://www.senate.gov/

Contact the White House at http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/

Please visit http://www.savedarfur.org/content and learn about this.

If you have iTunes go to the store and go to NBC's section and download a free news report with Ann Curry. It is under video but you don't need a video iPod to play it.

In the mean time please keep Darfur in your prayers. Please pray for God's justice in this land. Please pray for the ears of the world's leaders to be open to the cries of the refugees.

It is hard for one person to change the world, I would even say impossible. But if enough people care and if enough people do something about evil then the world will respond.

Please Don't Wait For The Movie

Proverbs 24:11-12 Rescue those being led away to death; hold back those staggering toward slaughter. If you say, " But we knew nothing about this," Does not he who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not he who guards your life know it? Will he not repay each person according to what he has done?"

Happy Feet

2006-12-14T08:35:00.000-06:00

Warning: this post contains spoilers. If you wish to be surprised about the movie Happy Feet, read no more. But seriously, who reading this would desire to be surprised by this movie?

Heidi and I saw Happy Feet recently, being that we were near a movie theatre, and the next show of the seven or eight films I wanted to see was this one. It's clearly the oddest animated movie I've ever seen that got a major release (I've seen some really odd animated movies in my time, but they didn't get much of a release). Heidi likened it to "March of the Penguins: The Musical," and it's pretty darn close for the early part of the show. Here's the crux of the story, which is pretty obvious from the trailers. All emporer penguin have a heart song, which is how they attract a mate. Mumbles is born without the ability to sing, but instead the ability to dance. And he can dance well. But here's the thing: if you're going to have a movie about dancing animals, are penguins really the best choice? Penguins have some really stumpy legs, especially the young penguins. Dancing loses some of it's charm if you can't see anything but the most broad movements.

In this show, Mumbles gets the whole penguin community dancing, except the elders. The elders are focused on their penguin god, and his call to sing and his resultant bounty of fish. There's a drought of fish recently, and the right-wing conservative religious elders assume his sin of dancing is the cause. They force Mumbles to leave, for the heresy of dancing instead of singing. Mumbles seeks out the source of the fish drought, which turns out to be Antarctic fishing by humans (or "aliens" as he and the other Antarctic birds call them), and eventually learns to communicate with humans through his dancing (it's not interpretive dance by any means, it's more of a tap dance, usually to Stevie Wonder). Ultimately, the humans stop fishing in Antarctica, and the fish are restored to their former bounty (it makes marginally more sense in the movie).

But here's the thing. Mumbles can't attract a mate the same way most penguins can, and is forced out of the community by the religious leaders for it. His mother loves him, but his father continues to suggest that he should conform to society's standards. This style of attracting a mate ends up being the way to get in touch with the aliens, who restore the source of nourishment to the community. So, here's what the movie is really about: his sexually deviant behaviour saves the community.

I have to say that this is an interesting movie, but I can't really call it a good one. There's a lot of cool music in it, and the dance scenes are amazing, and Robin Williams leads a group of smaller penguins that are freakin' hysterical. It's incredibly strange, though, and not really in an eye-opening, fresh way; it's more like a "what the hell" way.

I'm not old... I'm 37

2006-12-06T11:31:00.000-06:00

The first person to get the reference and post it in the reply wins; I don't know what you will win (it will depend on my relationship with you), but you win.

So I'm a day older than I was yesterday, but I tack another year on the roster today. 36 was a good year, as I predicted, and I'm expecting just as cool stuff to happen in my 37th year here. Admittedly, different cool stuff, but big things nonetheless. Tonight, to start 37 off, I'm actually preparing Christmas presents for the "less fortunate" at church. I figure a good way to spend my birthday is to prepare gifts for someone else. That just feels right for some reason.

Clothe Our Naked Tree Day

2006-12-03T07:59:00.000-06:00

We had our first party in our new place yesterday, and it was a raging success. Heidi traditionally throws really good Christmas parties, and I'm good with supplementary planning, so between the two of us, we had the place decked out for a good party. But the proof is not in our hands. The people at the party had a fantastic time, many of them staying for about a half hour after they said, "We have to go." We have a few Chicago friends who showed up, and they get the A for effort; driving from Chicago to Schaumburg in weekend traffic to Capitalism-land before Christmas is a trip not to be undertaken lightly. The bulk of the party were Heidi's friends for church/school/whatever and my Mensa friends.

Heidi's traditional centerpiece for her parties is the undending supply of cookies, and her wassail (apple cider with cinnamon, allspice, orange, orange peel, cranberry juice, red wine, and a few other bits n peices in there). Matt brough over the remains of the champagne he made for the wedding, and we had the chocolate fountain out for the first time. We're good with a spread individually; together we are nigh unstoppable.

We started with a relatively naked tree. It had a few lights up, and a ribbon, and three ornaments. Most people brought an ornament (really nice ones, too!) and put them on. This is awesome, because now we have a lot of ornaments to use year after year, but also we have memories that will be with us decades from now, with each ornament we put up. It's humbling to have a tree with so much love and care on it.

So yeah, first party, a heck of an accomplishment.

World AIDS Day

2006-12-01T11:19:00.000-06:00

It's slow at work because of the obscene amount of snow we're having right now (fewer people in the office, fewer people asking for stuff). As a result, I have a lot of time to blog.

In any case, today is World AIDS Day. The AIDS epidemic is really something most Americans choose to ignore or minimize, but it is among the worst global plagues the world has ever seen. Sub-Saharan Africa is by far the worst hit by AIDS, with 64% of the infected people in the world residing there (please note, that DOES NOT mean 64% of Africans are HIV positive, but rather that of all the AIDS cases in the world, most of them are in Africa).

Now, what does this mean to us? Well, there are remarkably few people reading this that are sexually promiscuous or like to share needles, so personally, not a lot. Yet that is the attitude of a lot of America, and I think future generation will look upon our apathy with disgust, if not horror. And honestly, I'm not sure what World AIDS Day is trying to accomplish, other than awareness.

If you have the opportunity during this holiday gift-giving orgy, buy some (RED) products, which will help towards AIDS research or support for AIDS victims. You can find more information here.

Goal Update 10

2006-12-01T08:20:00.000-06:00

Aaaaaaand the last goal update for this year (at the end of the month I'll do a goal recap... I'm hoping December will be a busy month).

1. Get Married: Done
2. Move to a new place: Done
3. Get a different job: I actually will need to quit this job on December 6th (more on that later). The new job is in the works, but it's been in the works since September. We're actually on the schedule I expected, so should see this one done before the end of the year.
4. Get back in the gym, and establish a regular routine: We'll get to a gym before the end of the year (or at least work out at home when the schedule is a little easier), but I won't be able to say that the regular routine has been established by the end of the year. Two weeks doesn't establish crap.
5. Get at least one Voice-over gig: I'm auditioning pretty regularly these days, but nothing happening legitimately. Such is the way of acting professionally. December is a slow month traditionally, but all hope is not lost.
6. Brew at least three batches of beer: Brew #2 is OK. I'm not incredibly thrilled with it, but I haven't gotten anybody else's opinion of it. Brew #3 (an attempt at what should be a Dwarven Ale) is scheduled for Christmas Day.
7. Travel at least four times: Done. I actually did five, but there's nothing wrong with exceeding your goals.
8. Write a script: No progress. This is no longer an active goal. There's no freakin' way.
9. Read the Bible from beginning to end: No significant progress. This is no longer an active goal for this year. There's no freakin' way(next year, however...).

Happy Thanksgiving!

2006-11-25T20:42:00.001-06:00

Hey, I bet you thought I forgot about the holiday. It's been a busy weekend so far, but I did want to wish anyone reading a very happy Thanksgiving. It's traditional to tell everyone that for which you're thankful, but I've never been one for tradition, and I don't want the post to go as long as my list would make it. A short and vague list would be friends, family, home, and opportunities. Yes, I'm missing a lot even in those huge generalizations, but you get the picture. I have a lot of thanks to give.

It's been a busy weekend. We're getting stuff ready for our big tree trimming party next weekend, and we have two families with which to celebrate (both of which like to eat). Getting Christmas gifts is also a high priority, but we need to make sure our house is in order first. So, it's been a busy but fun weekend.

Hope yours was just as good, if not better!

Thoughts on brew #2

2006-11-19T23:47:00.000-06:00

I recently had a bottle of brew #2, ostensibly my "Christmas Ale." It's a decent ale, but needs to sit in the bottles for a bit longer, to smooth out the taste a bit. But here's the thing: it's not very Christmasy. The spices (which were wrong to begin with) didn't do a whole lot for the brew, and it's still a bit more hoppy than I'd like, but I'm guessing that I can figure that out eventually.

The last bottle of the Irish Red got taken over to a friend's house yesterday, although I have two large bottles of it still in the fridge. Now here's the thing, and perhaps other brewers can help me out with this: The most recent bottle of it I had was slightly more fizzy, and significantly smoother than any of the others I had. It almost tasted like a different beer. It was in a thinner bottle, and had been sitting there longer than any others I had drunk, but not that much longer. My thought is A) more oxygen had gotten into this bottle than usual, therefore mellowing it a bit more, B) the bottle was thinner than usual, and therefore aged differently than bottles with more depth to them, C) I had a bottle of the sorta-Christmas-ale that hadn't been marked, and I just didn't realize it. The more I think about it, the more I think it's C, but does anybody more knowledgeable in brewing have any insights into the other possibilities?

Also, I tend to prefer less bitter and more mellow or smooth beers. So far, I've made somewhat bitter beers, that taste a little harsh. Any input on what I might be doing wrong?

On being a hero

2006-11-18T06:33:00.000-06:00

I saved two kittens last night. Heidi's mother saw some kittens in their storm window (a window in the basement that looks out at the bottom of a four-foot pit). They had only recently gotten there, probably in the late afternoon. Heidi's mom saw an adult cat (presumably their mother) in the window, presumably attempting to save them, but couldn't, and jumped out on its own. The window doesn't open (or at least hasn't in Heidi's lifetime), so it was up to someone going into the storm window on the outside to go get them. I stepped up to that challenge. There was a bush in front of the storm window pit, one that had some pretty sizeable branches right up next to the house. It took me about five minutes to be able to squeeze past it. I lowered a foot down into the pit, and the kittens were well and truly terrified, trying to find a way to avoid me in their little square foot of space. As most kittens are, these were impossibly cute. I nabbed the tabby one first, but it squirmed out of my hand, and I had to go back for it. The second (calico?) was a lot easier, because I picked it up from the back of the neck, like a mother cat would. It tried to squirm, but that didn't do much. Both were set down on the ground just out of the stormwindow, and ran off, but not out of the bushes. I'm guessing that their mother was somewhere in there, and they ran to her safety.

Now, I realize I'm building this up a lot more than it should be. I pulled two cats out of a stormwindow, not two children out of a well. But I don't care.I'm proud of my accomplishment. It makes me feel as though I accomplished something great in a week of relative mediocrity. I'm a hero!

Vegas, Baby!

2006-11-09T17:27:00.000-06:00

We're in Vegas right now. Heidi has a conference for work, and I decided to tag along. We're staying at The Belaggio, and it's pretty nice. We're on the 26th floor, so we have a lovely view. From high up, however, the city of Las Vegas looks a bit like a giant strip-mall-cum-trailer-park with a few giant neon buildings scattered around, all of which is in a scenic desert valley. Our room is lovely, however we miss our bed at home; this one is comfortable, but not as much as ours (we have a really nice bed at home). Also, the elevators are the fastest and smoothest I think I've ever ridden on. We get to the 26th floor in just under 20 seconds, and you barely feel like you're moving.

So far, there hasn't been a lot to note. Walking up and down the strip has been the bulk of our time here, although I'm taking a lot of opportunities to relax, because I can. Today, we're taking more advantage of what Vegas has to offer; tonight, we're seeing Penn & Teller, and might do a buffet if we have the time, inclination and stomach capacity.

Yes, I've gambled a little bit. I had earmarked $40 for gambling, and I've only had a net loss of $30. I've only done slots, because I don't know much about the table games. Maybe I'll read up on those before I come out here next. I have had the challenge of changing some of my perspectives here; when I came here before (moderately frequently when I lived in LA), I was single. I could do pretty much as I pleased, within the bounds of my morals. Now I'm married, and I have to curtail a lot of my habits. When you're married, what happens in Vegas stays in your relationship. So I've been good. No late night carousing, and very limited gambling. We're going to be gluttons, though.

Today, I aslo went to a firing range and, for the first time (and possibly the last), I emptied a clip of an AK-47 into a target that looked like Saddam Hussein. If/when we come back here, I'll try other fully automatic weapons, as they have quite a few there. Really, firing an AK-47 is not much different than some of the more realistic video games. The only significant difference (other than the fact that I was holding a real, loaded assault rifle), was that a casing came up and hit me on the cheek, and those things are really hot! I have a small burn just below my eye from it.

Other observations: the strip is all about soaking as much money from you as they can. In the bigger casinos, most things are roughly twice as expensive as they should be. They're nice, but they're pricey. Also, I was on the bus on the way back from the firing range, and looking around at people. Admittedly, these are people who are taking the bus instead of a car, but I was shocked at the high percentage of people who appeared hopeless and desperate. Lastly, this place is an adult theme park. Nothing is real; it all appears kind of plastic. It's obscenely opulent, and there are a lot of opportunities you wouldn't have elsewhere, and a lot of very cool shows you couldn't see elsewhere, but it seems to be unreal. What it boils down to is that it's a nice place to visit, but not very often.

Borat

2006-11-06T12:37:00.000-06:00

We saw Borat on Saturday, and I've been trying to formulate a way to write about it since then. I didn't put much effort into it yesterday, as it was an otherwise busy day, but also because I didn't really have words to describe it. In any case, it's intended to appear like a Kazhakstani documentary about America. Borat, the character, is based off a Russian doctor the Sascha Cohen met once, and was the most unintentionally funny person he'd ever met. And now he's made a movie.

I can see why the Kazhakstani government had a problem with this movie. It paints all Kazhakstanis as impossibly anti-semitic misogynists. It is an apalling, crass, crude, obscene and horribly, horribly funny movie.

There's few films which can successfully walk the narrow line of unrepentantly obscene humor. Either they completely turn me off, or their really not that obscene. In this move, I laughed as hard as I've laughed at any movie, even while my stomach was turning. It's primarily sexual and racial humor, which is offensive, but not as bad as it could be.

It seems as if the entire movie was improvised, usually without the people involved being aware of what was going on (they clearly saw the camera, but it appears as if they thought it was actually a Kazhakstani documentary about America, and not the comedy intended). Borat manages to offend innumerable people, most of the time with the interviewees feeling uncomfortable without wanting to show how uncomfortable they actually are. And he really goes out of his way to find easily offended people, and stick it to them.

A fair number of scenes were very likely staged, otherwise the filmmakers would probably have been arrested. And it is a comedy that's pretty much about watching other people be offended, confused or both. At the same time, it was one of the funniest things I've ever seen.

I can't say I recommend this film, as it does put South Park to shame, both on the humor and offensiveness scale. So be warned, but if you choose to go, prepare to laugh until you cry.

Brew #2 Bottled

2006-11-04T21:28:00.000-06:00

We just bottled Brew #2. I filled the bottles, and Heidi capped them. It moved a lot quicker this time, and it looks (and smells) like it will work out quite well. If there's anything I'm concerned about, it's that the corn suger didn't fully mix in with the finished beer. This shouldn't be a big problem (I think); it should just be a little flat, if there's anything wrong at all. I'm learning that homebrewing is a forgiving activity, so I'm not all that worried.

Approximate final gravity: 1.017
Estimated alcohol content: 6.6%

Lost vs. Battlestar Galactica

2006-11-04T13:48:00.000-06:00

I've had the question in my mind which of the shows currently on right now are my favorite, as both Lost and Battlestar Galactica are among the best shows I've ever seen. Both are in their third season, and both have captivated me for a long time (I caught on to Lost late in the game, but spent a 3-day period catching up on it). Both of them have all the aspects that make TV shows addictive: Compelling characters, fascinating plotlines, continuing multiple story arcs for different characters, and mystery and intrigue. Up until very recently, I have been stunned by both, and each time thought that each show must be my favorite. And then the holding patterns started showing up.

In Battlestar Galactica, humanity is stranded on a crappy planet, surrounded by cylons. In the season finale, they jumped forward a year in time in the middle of the episode, in a very "what the hell was that?" fashion. The second season of BSG was split into two separate DVD sets, and you can't even buy them in a single set... and they're $40 each. The people of Battlestar Galactica did get off the planet, and got caught up in some crazy crap, and I'll get to that later.

In Lost, the season ended with the hatch exploding with three of our heroes in it. Three more were captured by the Others. The rest were back at the camp, which is "OK," because they tend to be minor characters. The three primary people are imprisoned, and we get to start a holding pattern here. What will happen this episode with Jack and Kate and Sawyer? Oh, they're still stuck in their cells. The first two episodes, which would have been great as one two-hour premier episode, were weak and flat. Last episode (an episode which seemed like a "hm, this guy is breaking his contract" episode), was about half commercials, and not a whole lot happened, except that it's clear they're introducing new characters, because they're busy killing off old ones. The "Fall Season Finale" is supposed to show next week, and to that I say "Wha? Did the season start?"

There lies the crux of the issue. Both shows started the season out in a holding pattern. Neither of them started out all that interesting, with our heroes being dominated by their respective captors. In both cases, we have a separated cast, each in their own little problem world (to some degree).

In Battlestar Galactica, most of humanity was on the planet, hosed, but fighting back. It ends up being a lose-lose situation, until they manage to break a message through to the people on the ships, who are on a skeleton crew, and soft from a year of doing nothing. But they do something. The two battlestars come back and rescue everybody in a rather spectacular fashion, destroying one of them, but also a lot of cylon ships. New alliances and new rifts are created in the cast, and new storylines and plot devices are created, with all the castmembers that we know and love. We do have a somewhat split cast, but for a very different (and quite intriguing) reason.

In Lost, our three primary heroes are captive to the Others, and they stay that way. They try to get out now and again, but they go back to their cells. Nothing much happens. Some folks try to mount an offensive against the Others, but nothing happens. Other folks try to seek out our heroes, but nothing much happens. Our heroes try to psychologically manipulate the Others, but everybdy's playing everybody else, so effectively nothing happens. J.J. Abrams has a talent for creating these fascinating shows that pull America in for two seasons, and then flush it down the toilet in the third season. I still have hope for Lost, but it seems like it's kind of winding down. I'll watch it for a while, because it has a lot of potential, but Lost is losing me.

So there ya have it. How to screw your characters up with examples of what to do and what not to do. You can hose your characters, but move the plot along. If there is the opportunity for change, take it. Make your characters fight against the odds and accomplish something. Maybe not end the oppression by the bad guys, but let them accomplish something. A lot of us are stuck in situations that we don't feel we can change, and it's inspiring to see people who are in similar situations, but do something, and do it to some result. I'm getting that from Battlestar Galactica, even in the last show, where someone makes a positive change, and someone else in the same place intentionally slides into their own personal hellhole. They made decisions that are going to impact them, but it was obvious that they made decisions, and those decisions changed their situations. Lost is (right now) all about people who are powerless to change their situations. So there ya have it. Battlestar Galactica maintains it's high quality, Lost is slipping.

Goal Update 9

2006-11-02T12:32:00.000-06:00

Sorry, I realized that yesterday I should have posted about this, but I'm sure my readers will overcome their anxiety and grief over not knowing about how my goals have progressed. Not much progress in anything. But see for yourself:

1. Get Married: Done
2. Move to a new place: Done
3. Get a different job: Incredibly frustrated with the current one right now, but that's a temporary, today-sucks kind of thing. I have a good job, but this is still an active goal.
4. Get back in the gym, and establish a regular routine: No progress. Working on it.
5. Get at least one Voice-over gig: Had a couple more auditions, and I think I did pretty darn well with them. Still, working on it.
6. Brew at least three batches of beer: Brew #2 is almost done with the fermentation. Bottling will happen on Saturday, to be consumable just before Thanksgiving.
7. Travel at least four times: Done
8. Write a script: No progress.
9. Read the Bible from beginning to end: No significant progress. Jane gave me some good advice, which should make next year an easier time of it.

Ass Effects

2006-11-01T21:05:00.000-06:00

I've been having heartburn regularly, like every day regularly. Recently I had an additional development that if I've eaten within 3-4 hours of going to bed, I'm going to upchuck a little of it. Same if I lie on my stomach at any time in the night. So naturally, I chose to go to the doctor.

He understood the problem, and was checking to see if I increased my usage of alcohol, chocolate, mints, spicy foods, caffeine and a few others which escaped me. None of these changed significantly, but he mentioned that any of them could be triggers. Hm. Good to know. He also gave me a sample of a "proton pump inhibitor" (which is not as science-fictiony as it sounds), called Aciphex. It's supposed to reduce the acid production in my stomach, and we'll see where we go from there. But look at that name again: Aciphex. Say it out loud, and listen to yourself. Sounds kinda odd, doesn't it? I thought I already had enough of that.

But anyway, despite the hilariously sick name, it seems to be working OK. I think it's too early to tell, but so far so good.

Burnout: Revenge

2006-10-26T08:52:00.000-05:00

Y'know, I don't post a whole lot about games. I do mention that I'm a gamer, but really, in order for me to post about something, it has to make a big impact. Not many games do that anymore. But that has changed recently, as I discovered Burnout: Revenge.

The first "race" I played, it wasn't about getting first in line with the other guy, there weren't even any other racers on the track. Just traffic. Rush hour traffic. The timer gives you forty seconds to wreak as much havoc on the streets (designated in property damage costs) as you can. Each time you ram another car, you get a boost in time, so you can ram more traffic. I first played that after a mean commute, and it was a magnificent release.

The next "race" was a crash. That's it. Nothing else. Your goal in this one is to run at top speed into a busy intersection and cause as much property damage as you can. You get a massive pileup pretty quickly and can rack up millions of dollars of damage (primarily because cars keep ramming the pileup, and then you can explode your car which is hopefully in the middle of the junk heap).

They do have actual races, but even though the goal is to get across the finish line first, the methods are frequently to ram the other car off the road and see him crash spectacularly in slow motion. It's also fun to bounce another car into your opponent, causing him to crash and burn in the same manner.

The locations are beautiful as well. They aren't exact depictions of actual cities, but they clearly evoke the city you're supposed to be visiting. The first one is in "Sunshine Keys," a very Miami-ish setting. The next one is "Motor City," a very Detroitesque city. I've also gone through something that completely resembles northern LA (complete with going over the Hollywood hills at speeds exceeding 100mph), a Roman-ish city and some Swiss mountain area.

No other game in recent memory has given me such sustained glee. I found myself laughing frequently, not so much because something was funny, but because it was just an insane amount of fun. Heidi even played two sessions (the beat-down-traffic one and a crash), looked over to me and said, "Great, just what I need; crack."

This is a great game for anybody who hates traffic (and who of us doesn't). Right now it's a rental, but I've already decided to save up enough to buy it.

Brew #2: A Christmas Adventure!

2006-10-22T07:49:00.000-05:00

Yesterday Mattox was over and we brewed a Christmas Ale. It was a good time to hang out and the first time we had seen Matt since the wedding. It was a bit of an adventure, though. This was the first time I brewed in the new place, and the brewing in the new environment thing seems to be an interesting experience. Schaumburg water tends to taste a bit like chlorine, so I had to buy a gallon of water and then fill that jug with filtered water, but that was a small matter. I think the biggest thing that made it an adventure was the fact that the kit was improperly packed, and didn't include hops or the right spices. The spices aren't much of an issue, the lack of hops is a pretty big one. Unfortunately, I didn't realize the hops thing until we were almost to boiling. Fortunately, there's a brew shop in Schaumburg, unfortunately they had just closed when I called. Here's where you rely on the kindness of strangers, at least strangers who brew. I explained that I was right in the middle of a brew and needed to get hops. They asked how soon I could get there, and we were off. Not only did I find the place, but it was a nice one. They had already won a new customer when they let me buy stuff after closing time, but they would have won a new customer just by being the shop that they are. Neato!

We also figured out a new heat transfer tool. I have a copper-coil "heat sink" (not sure what it's actually called) that goes into the pot for a quick heat transfer to cool the wort down after the boil, but it requires hooking it up to a nozzle, which I don't have in my kitchen (the sink doesn't have that kind of faucet). In my old place, we used this by holding the nozzle over the faucet, and that's what I expected to do for the 15-20 minute cooldown process this time. However, Matt, being the ever-resourceful guy that he is, looked around the immediate area and saw the right kind of nozzle coming off the washing machine. We managed to pull the pot over to the dryer, and started the flow, and the tube connecting to the copper coils promptly popped right off, spraying water all over the place. A little screw tightening later (combined with turning on the water a little slower), and we were transferring heat quickly, cleanly and with little fuss.

I have a good feeling about this brew. The last one was a hit with friends, and there's still plenty of it left, but I think this one is going to be even better. I'm not sure if I'll have enough bottles to do the third brew this year, but we'll see what-all comes of it.

And now, the details:
Extract:
8 lbs, Ultralight Malt

Grain:
8 oz, Crystal 120L
8 oz, Caravienne
4 oz, Honey Malt
2 oz, Special B
2 oz, Black Roasted

Hops:
1 oz, Northern Brewer Hops (bittering)
1 oz, Willamette (aroma)

Spices:
2 tsp, Cinnamon
2 tsp, Pumpkin
1 tsp, Ginger

Yeast:
White Labs California Ale yeast

And Whirfloc as a clarifier.

Original Gravity, approximately 1.068