| Thursday, August 27th, 2009 |
| 3:19 am |
in The Loop
So last night I headed over to the Esquire and caught a political satire I'd been hearing good things about from the movie podcasts I listen too called In The Loop. There are two characters in this movie that spout some of the most hilarious lines I've ever heard in a movie. The first is a character named Malcolm who is the British Prime Minister's Communications Director the second is a press liason named Jaime. I just had share some of the shear greatness of this movie that I saw by giving you some of the best lines I remember. Malcolm: It's out there now, lurking like a big hairy rapist at a coat station. You know, if I could, I'd punch you into paralysis! Malcolm: Allow me to pop a jaunty little bonnet on your purview and ram it up your shitter with a lubricated horse cock! Jaime: You think that's his real name? Iceman? To Mr. and Mrs. Man, a son... Ice? Jaime (while opera plays): Turn that fucking racket off! It's just vowels! Subsidised... foreign... VOWELS! Malcolm (talking about Washington DC): We burned this tight-arsed city to the ground in 1814. And I'm all for doing it again, starting with you, you frat fuck. You get sarcastic with me again and I will stuff so much cotton wool down your fucking throat it'll come out your arse like the tail on a Playboy bunny. Jaime(speaking to Toby): Hi, Toby, Toby. Very pleased to meet you. Please sit down. Now, right, that's enough of all the fucking Oxbridge pleasantries. Toby : What's Oxbridge about saying hello? Jamie MacDonald: Shut it, Love Actually! Do you want me to hole punch your face? Malcolm: Does that not fit within your purview, Marie Antoinette? Why don't you just scuttle off back to fucking Cranford and play around with your tea and your cakes and your fucking horse cocks. Let them eat cock! Malcolm: Just fucking do it! Otherwise you'll find yourself in some medieval war zone in the Caucasus with your arse in the air, trying to persuade a group of men in balaclavas that sustained sexual violence is not the fucking way forward! Jaime(after smashing a fax machine): You see that, that's your fucking career I'd say it's fucked but let me check (stomps on fax machine with his foot) yes it's fucked. And my personal favorite Malcolm (holding up a newspaper with a political cartoon): This cartoon shows you teetering on the Great Wall of China. You are now the only political fuck up that can be seen from space. |
| Tuesday, June 30th, 2009 |
| 12:46 pm |
So last night I did something I've been putting off for about a week now and went to the theater to see Transformers: revenge of the Fallen. I get a lot of flack from people because I liked the first one but these same assholes liked Van Helsing so fuck' em. Anyways I realise the first movie is stupid I've never argued against it but I still found it fun and as a long time Transformers fan yes I'm biased towards the film too. This time out though I was apprehensive because I had heard a ton of bad stuff regarding this new film even from people who felt the same way about the first film as I did. Well unfortunately they were right this new film is just to stupid for words. There is one scene that just made me throw my hands up in the air at just how obvious everything change in a split second. They go to the Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum in Washington D.C., now having grown up in Virginia I've visited DC and the Smithsonian before and I know what the museum looks like. I also know that behind the museum is not a giant airfield full of old broken down air planes and mountains that look like they are out of the California desert. Apparently the museum has a doorway tha allows you to walk into the museum etrance in Washington DC and exit into the Sierra Nevadas. The two robots who don't do much reading and act like blatant stereo types are just annoying every time they open theie mouths, if you want to understand just how annoying I know of one person who dubbed them Car Car Binks. The movie has so many moments in them just feel like terrible sitcom cliches, and we aren't talking good sitcoms either this stuff would probably embarrass the cast of Full House. We really don't need dogs humping, a robot humping Megan Fox's leg, the main character's mom eating pot brownies and several other instances that just drag out this movie. Oh, an holy crap are there just so many instances in this movie where nothing happens for a long time. Now this being a Michael Bay movie the one thing you can count on is the action and there are several action scenes that are really cool looking all though there is one at the end which is fight between 3 robots that mobves so fast it looks like all 3 robots are tangled together and you can't tell which one is which. The movie start of with a lot of potential too it opens with a scene involving the Autobots and the army tracking down 2 Decepticons in Shang Hai. One of the Decpticons is huge and the autobots and army seem powerless to stop him that is until a plane flies over and a semi drives right out it's back door then transforms into Optimus Prime. As he is falling Prime radios to the other Autobots in that thundering distinctive voice "Autobots I'm in pursuit". At that point I just wanted to jump up and yell "FUCK YEAH" minutes later Prime takes down the giant decepticon all by himself proving that Optimus Prime is the most badass of all badass robots. Now the reason I mention this is because this scene proves one thing above all else Optimus Prime is the hero of Transformers well why the fuck do you leave him out of over half the movie leaving us to follow Shia Lebouf and his globe trotting exploits. I still enjoy the first film but I can't make any apolgies or rationalizations for this new one. Oh and also Devastator has balls, I don't know why a giant robot needs testicles but it really is just more proof that Micheal Bay is a total fucking hack. |
| Friday, May 29th, 2009 |
| 2:16 pm |
I got one
So two weeks ago I took the plunge and picked up a Playstation 3, ever since I got my first HDTV back in October I've been looking into switching to Blu Ray. I decided a couple of months ago to do it but figured it would just make more sense to get a PS3 since it's a Blu Ray player that also happens to play games. Well after 2 weeks all I can say about the PS3 is that I'm unimpressed, it's a good system but theres really nothing that really makes me go wow with the system either. Also the menus on the 360 are easier to navigate and Live is a much better on line system all together. When ever there is a Live update it takes like 20 seconds to download if that, the two PS3 updates I've had to endure so far each took about 20-25 minutes, plus when I pop a game into a system I want to play the game not wait 8 god damn minutes while the game installs itself on my hard drive. Also I went to Best Buy last night and almost all the Blu Ray discs were crap, the few good things I already have on DVD and I don't feel the need to buy again. I still don't regret the decision to pick it up it's just I have yet to find anything thats gotten me excited about owning a PS3. While leaving the Best Buy last night I did find a copy of Valkyria Chronicles with a 50% off sticker on it though so I did make one addition to my PS3 library. |
| Wednesday, May 6th, 2009 |
| 3:47 am |
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| Tuesday, March 10th, 2009 |
| 9:40 am |
Starfest
So as most of you know 2009 marks my 10th year working this convention in the anime room and it will also be my last. When I first decided this it I was really apprehensive about it but as the event has gotten closer it feels like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. Every year there is something that goes on with them that makes me want to quit every year 2 years ago it was one of the staff members storming into my room at 7 pm on Friday night and declaring in the middle of a show that "You have a screen, why do you have a screen?" to which I replied "because I get one every year". An hour later somebody comes from Starfest and tells me since I didn't request a screen I shouldn't really have one and they are one short in Horrorfest and may have to take my screen since horror is more popular. They say they sent me an email a month before the con asking me what equipment I would need and that I never replied. Well I never got the email and I checked with Michael who runs Superhero Cinema and neither did he we both just assumed since we get screens every year we didn't have to ask since we were fucking video rooms. Well it turns out last year I got complaints about the content of the programming I showed and of course Starfest never discussed it with me just waited till a month before the con and then send me an email that basically states "watch what you show, this is a family show". So they never discussed it with me and to top it off never even investigated what was shown just took the offended persons word for it. I know for a fact there was no graphic sex in anything I've ever showed and I try to keep nudity to a minimum as a matter of fact there are plenty of things I chose not to show because of the amount of nudity in the programming. Of course if any of them had ever come by the room to ever see what we show they would realise what anime is. I highly suspect several of the higher ranking Starfest staff have never seen an anime show and if they did they probably blew it off as "Jap Crap". The majority of it is not intended for children and I would say 90% of what I show would be considered PG-13. It just bothers me they never discussed it with me and when I sent them an email detailing exactly what I've said here the reply I got was "well we don't want complaints". Well I've decided I'm not going to change a god damn thing about what I show this year and if they get complaints whats the worst they can do, not have me come back next year. |
| Tuesday, February 17th, 2009 |
| 1:50 pm |
Watchmen
So this is probably the movie I am most looking forward too this year and it's one of those where I think you have to see it on the first night with other fans so I'm planning on catching the Friday March 6th showing at 10pm. Also after seeing The Dark Knight in IMAX I've pretty much decided it's the best way to see this movie which means the tickets run around $14. If anybody wants to join me that night feel free I'll probably get dinner at Dave and Buster's before seeing the movie too. |
| Friday, January 9th, 2009 |
| 11:08 am |
Formula D!
Formula De is dead, at least so says the company that published the board game. Now a new company has picked up the rights to the game and released it as Formula D! I have just ordered a copy which I will receive on Tuesday and am looking to setup a race with the new version of the game at Gimme Anime next Saturday January 17th in the mid afternoon, anybody interested. |
| Thursday, January 8th, 2009 |
| 8:14 pm |
360 Down
So got home tonight tried to fire up Saint's Row 2 and the 360 couldn't read it. Tried another game no luck, a DVD nothing again, 4 different games still nothing. I put my ear up to the 360 and notice no matter what I put in the drive doesn't even start spinning. I realised I'm pretty screwed but I call Microsoft they troubleshoot with me for like 10 minutes then say give us $99 and we can have your system repaired in 3 weeks. So I'm gonna go buy a new 360 and if anybody wants a 360 for $99 just give me the money and I'll send it in otherwise I may hold on to it eventually send it in and have a spare 360 for LAN gaming. Also since it's the drive I can still play Arcade games saved to the hard drive and stream Netflix. |
| Wednesday, December 31st, 2008 |
| 11:24 am |
Goodbye New Year's Eve
So my company Time Warner Cable and Viacom are in a dispute. Now Viacom is threatening to pull all their cable channels from our service tonight at midnight. Well because of this we are getting a ton of phone calls right now when people call in the're on hold for about 45 minutes. Anyways because of this the supervisors are going around and asking people if they would be willing to stay late or come in tomorrow. I've already told them "no" but so is everyone else and I can tell if things don't get any better they may institute mandatory OT for tonight and tomorrow. |
| Wednesday, December 10th, 2008 |
| 10:03 am |
Snoring
So as anybody who has had the misfortune of sleeping in the same room with me knows I snore, loudly too. Some have compared it to a chainsaw others a grizzily bear and one person told me that while they slept they had a nightmare where they were chased by a T-Rex and the T-Rex's roar sounded just like my snoring. Well I had a physical at my doctor's office a couple of weeks ago and they gave me a machine that monitors the oxygen levels in my blood while I sleep and the results are in. It's official, I have sleep apnia and so in the next week or so I will go in and do a sleep study. After that I will be given a machine that will help me breath while I sleep and while it will cure the snoring I will know sound like Darth Vader breathing while I sleep. |
| Wednesday, November 5th, 2008 |
| 11:56 am |
Finally
So last night while everyone else was sitting at home watching election returns I headed down town to see Metallica play at the Pepsi Center. Now I have lived in Denver for 12 years now and everytime Metallica has played a live show I've ended up missing it due to certain circumstances twice I had even purchased tickets and ended having to sell them. So, finally after all that time I got to see Metallica live. First by some miracle I ended up getting seats in the lower level only 3 rows up from the floor and Metallica's stage isplaged in the center of the arena which ended up with me only 25 feet from the stage. Anyways no matter how you feel about Metallica after everything that gone on with them all I can say is, holy crap can they put on a show. They played for almost 2 hours straight with thunderous energy that never slowed down. Also the louder the crowd got the heavier they got, so it was clear they feed off the crowd. After all that time it was clearly worth the wait, now I need to recover from a long night of pounding head banging. My brain feels like it's out of place and from all the yelling I did my voice sounds like I smoked 4 cartons of cigarettes. |
| Friday, October 31st, 2008 |
| 1:54 pm |
Robo Called
Just got robo called on behalf of the RNC. If Barrack Obama wins the election then the democrats will have to much control of the government. Thats funny that the RNC didn't seem to have a problem with it between 2000-2006. |
| Monday, October 27th, 2008 |
| 12:01 pm |
phone call
This is a transcript of a call I received on Saturday afternoon Caller: This is an independent survey of unaffiliated voters in Colorado, could you take a few minutes of your time to answer some questions? Me: Sure Caller: What is the likelihood you will be voting in the election on Nov. 4th Me: Definitely Caller: Of the two candidates, John McCain or Barrack Obama, who are you more likely to vote for? Me: Obama Caller: How sure are you of your decision? Me: 100% Caller: I see, thank you Quick easy and to the point, also the "I see" at the end made me believe he was looking for a different answer, and it thats the case, suck it Grampa McCain. |
| Monday, October 20th, 2008 |
| 11:05 am |
Wii
So my neices want a Nintendo Wii and I told my brother I would see what I can do about tracking one down for them for Christmas. I figured I would post here to see if anyone had any ideas about getting my hands on one without paying $400 on ebay. |
| Thursday, September 25th, 2008 |
| 1:51 pm |
Looking Ahead
Now that the dust from NDK has finally settled I find myself looking ahead to Starfest even though it is still half a year away. I've actually been thinking about it a lot though even before NDK. I've been working in the Anime Room at Starfest for 9 years now and have been running it for 6. Well last year I decided that 2009 which would mark my 10th year working the anime room would also be my last. I even went out and found somebody else to run it. Now with only 7 months to go I find myself having doubts and second thoughts about giving it up. I said when I decided to hand over the anime room I would continue to work Starfest in some form but now it's getting closer I'm some what conflicted. I have the chance to join Starfest security and once again work for Jeremy and Amanda and I've also discussed joining up with Horrorfest and being a guest liason. The truth is with either of those jobs I'm not sure what to expect and I know what to expect with the anime room. Also I think the control freak in me is stressing over giving up control of the anime room. Lately I've been thinking about going to Greg(who is taking over the room) and saying maybe we'll put it off for a couple of years. I don't know maybe I'm just not ready to call it quits now or maybe running the room has become routine to me and I'm afarid to break the routine. |
| Tuesday, September 23rd, 2008 |
| 12:40 am |
Post NDK Thoughts & Happenings Pt. 2
I didn't really mean to ramble on about Friday it just kinda happened so I'll keep Saturday and Sunday more concise. Saturday moring started off with my Macross panel which was even better then Game Turkey the room was full people were standing out in the hall just to listen in. The Robotech collector George also had a lot of Macross stuff with him too and brought it down and Tommy from Harmony Gold was in the audience. After that I had to check on the concert in main events by a dick head voice actor. That was followed by AMV's which ran long. Then came the Rock Band Finals which I was invited to help judge by Alex and it ended being the highlight of my day. It was really fun all though I noticed I was definitely the harshest of all the judges. After that was Cosplay and the staff I had did a great job of getting everybody seated. I still take issue with the way the judging is done and how long it takes but the show ran smooth. After that my night was pretty done but I hung out by main events during most of the rave. At one point during the rave I was standing in front of the door and after about 5 minutes I had to leave. There was so much body heat coming out of the rave I felt like I had been standing in a sauna and was drenched in sweat. After the rave closed down and I made some rounds I finally got to bed at 4 am. Sunday got off to a start with me running the Halo 3 tournament and it went well except for one guy who entered the tournament fully knowing the rules only to bitch about the rules after he lost. I had fun doing it though and a lot of people seemed to have fun playing in it. After that I went and stood in on the AMV Awards and right after that Murdock and I did our game show Which ended up changing names 3 different times. It was originally called Amuse The Host then became Anime Antics then Anime Amusements, but for some reason in the final schedule it was still called Amuse The Host. Anyway it went well, the audience had fun, the contestants did great with it and I definitely want to do it again next year. The rest of the afternoon was con tear down and prep for the evenings big event. The big event was of course Jeremy and Amanda's wedding and it went great. The ceremony was quick and also very moving at the same time. After that I asked for everybody to help us load the truck. Now when I did this I figured like usual most people would find and excuse not to help and maybe we would get like 10-12 people well this year the entire NDK staff headed out and I had about 45 people standing around the truck with nothing to do. I sent most of them away only keeping 8 people who I knew would do the work asked of them with no complaints and also weren't dressed for a wedding. After the truck was loaded we got the dead dog/wedding reception going and Bakudan and I handed out raffle prizes to staff members. Also this year I started a new tradition I plan to keep going at NDK. This year I had my own team within my staff and I asked them all to share a drink with me at dead dog. So I had a bottle of Plum wine and split it between Noel, Greg, Chris, and myself. About 10:30 I finally hit the wall and was about ready to collapse so I went up to bed. and quickly passed out. About midnight Jarrod and Cary woke me up coming into the room and they were both still pretty jacked up from the days events and since I was up we just hung out and talked while Live Free or Die Hard played on the tv. We all finally dozed off around 1:30. The next day the con depression hit me pretty hard and it's not from the con being over. Every year I just realise how many cool people we have on staff and it just makes me depressed how we don't see each other except a couple of times a year. These are just good people you just like sitting down and having a good conversation with about, anime, video games, movies, tv, manga, comics, etc,. Also for some reason I just looked around and saw all the smiling faces and people who were having a great time and I started to miss the feeling of when I used to go to cons for fun instead of to do a job. I made a decision after that too, in 2009 I'm going to at least one con for myself to just hang out and be a fan again. On a final note all the weekend long I felt like I was going to get sick but never did. On Monday I still felt pretty good and most of Tuesday was good until the afternoon. Around 4pm my throat felt really scratchy and as the day wore on I felt worse and worse by 10 pm that night I had a full blown cold. I was supposed to go to work on Wednesday but ended up calling in sick and spent all of Wednesday in bed. turns out a lot of people ended up getting sick after the con so there was definitely a mild con crud breakout this year. |
| Monday, September 22nd, 2008 |
| 2:25 pm |
Post NDK Thoughts & Happenings Part 1
So I decided I needed about a week to get things sorted out in my head about how things went this year. First everything went great and ran smoothly I was rather shcked by how many people showed up for Game Turkey but it ran great for about the first half hour I kept looking at the time on my cell phone hoping Murdock and I wouldn't run out of stuff to talk about to fill the hour. Next thing I know we had like 5 minutes to go and 5 people in the audience had their hands up. Anyway my con got off to a some what slow start arrived at the hotel on Thursday moved a few things out of the truck and then just kind of hung out. I did have a chance to hit the hotel's fitness center for a half hour on Thursday night and whoever thought to keep cold towels in a refrigerator is a genius. Anyways at 11 I had to run out to DIA to pick up a staff member who was flying in from Seattle whose flight got in at 11:58. By the time we got back to the hotel it was about 1:15 and I had planned to getup around 8 to workout the next morning. I though if I woke up at 8 I would have time to hit the fitness center every morning for a half hour then shower and get dressed and be ready to go all 3 mornings of the con by about 9-9:30. Well Friday morning I woke up at 8 and was on my way down to workout. As soon as I got off the elevator I knew things weren't going to go as planned though. There were already about 45 kids lined up in front of Registration and more were starting to show up. I saw Ops was open and decided to stick my head in, which ended up being a mistake. Apparently there was already stuff that needed taking care of and I had to get to work right away. By the time I had taken care of what I needed to do it was already 9:15 and I figured I had just better forget the work out and went back to my hotel room to shower and change. I got back down about 9:35 and the rest of the afternoon was just a whirlwind of activity, with unloading the truck, line control with reg, and every other thing that came up. In the mid-afternoon I met up with The Slants and was suprised by how laid back and helpful the were considering they were guests. When we wanted to move all their instruments and equipment they actually joined right in which I wasn't expecting because I can't remember how many times I've had to move a guest's equipment while they just stood and watched. Also they wanted all the chairs out of main events for their concert which presented a small problem as we usually dont clear chairs on Friday night. I said screw it we will clear the chairs and the J-Pop dance will have an extra large dance floor for the evening. After that I was able to get a breather then we had opening ceremonies and just other things I can't remember it all but I know I was pretty much on the move or moving something from one place to another right up till Game Turkey. As I already stated that panel went great all though I think we may hold off before doing another one. I had to head back to Main Events and make sure everything went fine with the Slants concert after that got started I decided to try to get something to eat instead of going to the Mystery anime theater panel and headed up to the staff suite. Since I was broke and had very few options I decided for NDK to throw my diet out the window. For dinner I had 2 hotdogs, mashed potatoes, and mac & cheese. Once I had digested my food and tqken another breather I threw myself right back into the thick of things. I headed back to main events made sure Durkin was good to go on the dance made sure everything was good for karaoke and before I knew it it was time for Mystery Anime Theater. I hadn't planned on watching the whole thing but I ended up watching the whole movie. The audience seemed to really enjoy it all though I did notice a lull in the laughter during the middle of the movie. Thats ok the big laughs at the start and end of the movie more then made up for it. After the movie let out I made a few rounds as a lot of people were still awake throught out the hotel. After making a few rounds I was able to head to live gaming where I was able to sit down and play the board game Stone Age with Pyro. Once that was done I made a few more rounds checked in with Ops and finally headed of to bed around 3:30am. |
| Friday, September 19th, 2008 |
| 11:15 am |
Stuck
So come this January I'll have been doing Call Center Work for 6 years and I'm kind of sick of it. I've decided I need to do something more but I'm not sure what. Lately I've seen other people I work with move to other areas within my company and one thing a trainer mentioned to me that would be a good place for me to move too would be NOC. He says with my experience in the cable industry I would be a good fit over there but the problem is everytime a job posts for a position over there the number one requirement is to know a programming language. Now I do need to better my skills to make myself a better candidate too and I've been looking into learning a programming language. After researching I would rather work on the back end of things and I think C++ is the way to go. What I need to know is am I taking on more then I can handle I have no real programming experience so is that going to make it much harder to learn C++ and what can I expect. Also I'm looking into taking classes for learning C++ but not at getting a full degree I've tried that before and every time it ended in me killing myself in trying to do to much by working full time and trying to go to school. Anybody have any ideas as to what I can do here? UpdateJust talked to our head trainer too he said I may also want to look into Python or Ruby but I don't really know anything about these. |
| Monday, September 8th, 2008 |
| 9:53 am |
Car Trouble
So I need to replace the front brake pads and rotors on my car and I'm looking to not get ripped off. I can normally do the work myself but the mechanism that holds the pads onto the rotor is screwed down so tight my brother and I tried for over an hour and couldn't get them to budge. Anybody know any mechanics that are decently priced? UpdateCouldn't wait a brake pad actually broke loose on my right front wheel and Just Brakes offered to pick up my car and take it their shop only a mile from my work place, but it's going to run me $282 so there goes the money I was holding onto for NDK. |
| Wednesday, September 3rd, 2008 |
| 11:27 am |
Avenue Q
So is anybody interested in seeing Avenue Q with me it is playing at the Ellie Caulkins Opera House between Sep. 9-21. I am planning on seeing the matinee on Sept. 21 at 2pm and getting tickets in the Loge area which are $48 a piece. If somebody wants to join me I can afford to pick up 2 tickets and you can pay me back later. |
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