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I knew him. Well, not really. (English majors, did you like how I used "well" after "him", but not really? Did anyone grind their teeth? Be honest.) After having no real desire to commit inanity to words in ye olde blog in an age, I'm not sure what about finishing "Y: The Last Man" (heretofore YtLM) brought out the need to splut out a few words. I had been reading the YtLM since issue #1 and had a broad range of reactions to it. On the surface it immediately smacks of the ultimate male fantasy of end days. But while the scifi-y-what-if premise is as flimsy as it gets, the development of the characters, the details of the heroes journey (lowercase h), the entrance and exits of so many interesting people, places and themes was like finding Dom Perignon in a Boone's Farm medium. I wasn't always happy with how things would in equal turns twist suddenly or drag on, and the scifi aspect of the story was at best weak hand waving (which it eventually self-acknowledged -- much to my glee), but in the end it excelled at what all comics should: it gave good story. A solid performer, I generally always ended up reading through YtLM first before digging into anything else I picked up at the comic shop. Smart, sharp writing, a mix of funny surrounded by a potentially endless void of melancholy; it rarely gave into the cheap sentimental gut check to move the story along. Actually, getting to that point, I stopped reading the comic at issue #58. Little did I know at the time the series ended at #60. Had I known that, #58 would have been received in a much different light. I'm gonna use a cut tag now in case you want to avoid spoilers... ( blah blah blah )Tags: comics
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There's a shocking revelation I'm about to reveal. Are you ready? I'm a consumer whore. A recovering consumer whore. As part of my effort to buy less crap I'm going to try to force myself to talk about the various junk I end up picking up. I can't very well list everything up to this point. There's not enough words. But I'll start backwards. Alter Ego - Avatars and their creators I picked up this small coffee-slash-art-book for $30 +tax at Books Inc. in Mountain View. The link I gave you is to Amazon for $20. What a bargain! It shows side by side a real-life person and their online MMO avatar. It's both hilarious and intriguing. On dead tree you get to progress through some genuine, current day recorded cyber history. Did you know there are nine invalids that play a single character collectively on Second Life? For $30 I wish this was a bit more meaty, but I'm impressed at the lengths to which Robbie Cooper and his crew tracked down some of these avatars (included is the guy who spent $100K on a virtual space station). INTERLUDE: there's a Six Flags commercial on right now and it is being subsumed in my brain almost entirely by Robot Chicken's happy fun times. Haha, let's party! Resident Evil 4 Wii EditionI bought this for $27.01 (including tax and shipping) from Outpost.com, which was bought out by Fry's a million years ago and took 2 weeks to be delivered after it was released. If you add up that timespan that's 2 million years + 2 weeks. That's pretty cosmic. It retails for $30. Almost $3 in savings! The game is excellent. Some of the best zombie extermination you can come by. I started playing it on PS2 but then found out a Wii version was coming. I immediately discarded that slop (well, not really, it's sitting in a box) and waited patiently for the third incarnation of this highly acclaimed freak smackulator. I finished it and have started a second game with infinite machine gun bullets and a pimp 30s zoot suit. Pucka pow pow. LCD Syoundsystem$15 (now $17, damn the mysterious AMZN price fluxes). It's not bad music, not great. Techno poppy dance stuff, which for me has always been great tunes to work to. Mindless, repetitive, catchy. Daft Punk is in mah house. It's two discs so it's a lot of tunes for the price. This group just came out with another album that I'm tempted to pick up. New York Times Crosswords$25 (now $30, got the pre-release discount). This is a great game for Nintendo DS if you like crosswords. I'm only adept up to about Weds after which my poor brain thrashes against the arcana for acrosses and downses. The interface for a game which could easily be a throw away thanks to the namebrand is really well done. After suffering through some clunker crossword games, this one is tops. I was anticipating more disgruntled consumer-based tongue lashing, but I guess the last few things I've picked up recently aren't heading to Goodwill any time soon. TOTAL DISCLOSURE: the links to Amazon are me trying out the "associates program" which is short to say if you actually buy any of the crap I've bought via those links I'm whoring you out for a 10% gift certificate. Sorry? Damn, that Six Flags commercial is on again... Tags: consumerwhorism
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I sometimes get a little obsessed with tasks... missions... quests? I see a goal, and will do whatever it takes to reach some sort of resolution. The hunt is often all consuming and generally pretty ridiculous when framed against larger goals like working, eating, etc, and compared to the level of energy I put into those endeavors (which is not to say that "working" or "eating" haven't themselves been targets of er quests). Grim Fandango is a PC game released in 1998 for Windows only (target OS was Windows 95/98). It's a game I always meant to play. Rave reviews and all that. But I really wanted to get it working on my Macbook. Not sure why, exactly. I have a perfectly fine desktop PC I use for most gaming, and I know it works on that. But, what if I wanted to play Grim Fandango anywhere. Well, then I'd be right out of luck, or so I thought. I honestly can't remember the impulse that shoved me along on this particular quest, but the goal was laid out. I thought at first ScummVM would lead me to success. This program emulates many of the '90s LucasArts adventure games (the golden era of adventure gaming, arr) which used the framework called Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion ( SCUMM). Maniac Mansion was the first of many games to use it. Turns out Grim Fandango, while borrowing many elements from SCUMM, wasn't actually built on it, so no dice. There was an emulation project from the same guys who built ScummVM just for Grim Fandango. And someone actually ported it to Mac OS X. It's called Grim X. It sorta does the trick but it's unfortunately half-baked, too unfinished to play the game fully. I have a copy of Parallels, which allows me to run any number of OSes on Mac OS X, and thus have Windows XP running on the Macbook. I installed the game and applied the patch. The game launcher worked just fine (sort of the majordomo of the game, you go through it first). This could be the paydirt! But no. While the game launcher worked, the actual game bombed out every time. Hunting around the interweb, folks who had had problems running Grim Fandango under Windows XP said you had to go to turn on the Windows 95 or Windows 98 compatibility mode for that app (howto: right click app icon -> Properties -> Compatibility). But this did nothing. No matter how I twiddled with the various compatibility settings, this lead to no working results. I strongly suspect since the game wants to run under 640x480 that the Parallels video driver just can't cope with whatever Windows voodoo the game is trying to pull. While looking around, I came across a custom Grim Fandango game launcher that among other things allowed the game to play in windowed mode (didn't attempt to take control of the screen). And... voila:  It works. Although 640x480 is pretty wee at native resolution on this Macbook. I can scale the Macbook resolution down to 800x600 and then play that way, but it's not as optimal as being able to play fullscreen. Success: 95%. Next steps (if I can work up the effort to care about needing fullscreen) is to try it under Bootcamp or install Windows 98 (UGH) under Parallels. If you've read this far, you're a big nerd. Hi. Tags: geekery, grim fandango, macosx
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With the help of G, I found a new home for Ingrid the bearded dragon. G found a friend of a friend of a friend to take Ingrid away to a better lizard life, including her huge-ass terrarium and a small bounty of accumulated lizard-caring goods. She hadn't been getting the tender love and affection a gentle lizard of her nature deserved. And considering you really don't have to pay that much attention to the beasts, I suppose that's saying something. We also replaced the semi-broken (leaking, dark, rusty-ice-making), diminutive white refrigerator with a giant, stainless steel, gleaming monolith of cooling. This is the first major durable goods purchase we've shared the cost on. It's 3" taller, 2" thicker, and 3" wider than the previous. All the ladies in the LJ house are fanning themselves now, I'm sure. In terms of life transitions this is small beans, but for me is more of the melon sized proportions. I'm a packrat by nature and getting rid of anything is hard. It's much easier, feels safer, better, to just hold on to things "just in case." The leaky fridge is heading to leaky fridge heaven and is not in fact hanging out in the garage waiting for a second coming. The lizard and her 2.5' x 4' home are living out the last half of their lives with someone who can give her more attention and probably isn't weighing the necessity of every used square foot of space in their domicile. The guy who picked her up couldn't actually take the terrarium on that trip because he was also picking up a trampoline on the way home. Adding a lizard and a trampoline to the mix on the same day, crazy. Now to replace the broken stove, fix the leaky toilet, recaulk the shower, replace the downstairs floor..... Tags: home pwner1ng
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Last weekend G and I took a roadtrip to see her mom and They Might Be Giants. At the same time! The last time I had seen G's mom she'd been grumpy (due to some unhappy family stuffs), so I had no idea what to expect this time. Happily, G's mom rocked. She told stories of seeing Led Zeppelin live and frolicking on the beach with Neil Young. I'd never seen TMBG in concert before, but have most of their CDs and seen their DVD movie. The concert was more fun than a hoola girl human pyramid riding an elephant on waterskis. They played some new stuff (Wicked Little Critta) and some old stuff (Birdhouse in Your Soul) and stuff off their upcoming album, which was mostly "eh." John F. didn't know any words to Oye Como Va. Etc. It was sort of what I was expecting, yet gleefully great. BUT, for once, an opening act jazzed my shit as much as the band I'd come to watch. It was this freak named Corn Mo. He's a one-man act, dressed up in something Fat Elvis may have worn once along with ratty sneakers, sporting a sparkly, pearl-white accordion and a drum stick tied to his right foot, which he'd use to stomp on a crash symbol placed two inches off the stage floor. He looked scarily like a younger, less heart-attack-prone Meatloaf. Although one of his songs laments his resemblance to Gary Busey. Truly a sight to behold. Unfortunately my camerafone failed to capture the magic of the moment due to its low battery or my user error (I'd been drinking! urp!). His songs were sort of a cross between Adam Sandler and Tenacious D. Although less wankerish and full of sex/cursing, respectively. He sang Freebird on request. Big thumbs up. It was also a weekend of great food (pardon me while I put on my ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) ladycalliope foody revue cap). At the House of Blues (where TMBG was playing), I had salmon on top of some eggplant stuffing surrounded by cracked crab claws. The eggplant stuffing was a formless brown goo, but it was the star of the plate, containing pearls of what I think was crawfish meat. Everyone had guesses as to what was in the yummy goo; my bet is on ground up Awesome. On Saturday night, we dined at Fish Company which was mega-fabu. And a wee bit spendy. I knew we were eating chique when signed pictures of Chevy Chase ("The best clam chowder... or so I hear!", ho ho, what a card) and Mathew Perry ("Mathew Perry") adorn the walls. I ordered the Alaskan Black Cod, which was crusted with pistachios, served with some rice sweetened and mixed with coconut, garnished with a mango salsa that did not suck the way most mango salsas do. They threw some asparagus spears on the plate for the sake of production art. Along with the clam chowdah, I was pleasantly stufft. No dessert, thanks. Random observation: The House of Blues is neither a House nor does it book Blues. Discuss. Current Music: Corn Mo - Lollipop
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I know tax season is upon me because 1) I owe big and thus 2) things I'd rather not break, are doing just that. The day I found out just how much money I owe fed and state for 2003, my receiver broke. It's not a super-fly, 150 watts per channel, 8.1 surround sound, THXDolbygasm type of receiver. Hell, it was 8 years old, which is like living-death unto electronics. But it handled switching devices with an over-large manly remote and it made the noise from CDs and DVDs go through some ok speakers instead of the tinny built-in things in my TV. It is (was) also my only form of broadcast entertainment (i.e. the tuner), what with no cable/satelite TV (yet). I'm bummed. And biding my time till I think it's prudent to spend the ducats on a replacement (TiVooo will have to wait another month or two). Next on the b0rken list is my iBook. I've already had the keyboard replaced once, and now the limptop decides it's going to hang randomly, with no provocation. It's funny how quickly love turns to disgust when you lose all understanding of why a previously cherished fixture in your life decides to get flaky and let you down unpredictably. I spent a week of twiddling with it, removing this, adjusting that, etc. and decide it's nearly unusable as is, so I might as well let Apple do the fiddling. It's still under warranty, so the most this will put me out is $50 if they have to do a data copy to replace the hard drive (if that's the problem). Note to self: must remember to buy the extended warranty before the 1 year coverage expires. Two pieces of electronics and circuitry aren't essential for health and happiness, but I do miss those two b0rke boxes of mine. Plus it's a good excuse to feel extra more maudlin over taxes. EDIT: The unexpected-acts-of-kindness fairies, working in conjunction with the intergalactic karma bank, left me a receiver nestled under the back left tyre of my motorcar last night. THANK YOU INTERGALACTIC KARMA FAIRIES (you know who you are). Have you donated to the intergalactic karma bank lately? You should. Current Music: It's a Fast Driving Rave Up With The Dandy Warhols
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I keep dragons. Well, actually I just keep one bearded dragon now. Humphrey, the male of the pair died and now all that's left is a lonely Ingrid. After I moved to my new place Ingrid decided it was time to hibernate. Periodically bearded dragons decide they've had enough of sunning themselves under a lamp for hours on end and take a nice long kip under a log. For like weeks at a time. This is natural for them in the wild, they generally go dormant during more inhospitable weather in Australia. I was a little worried though because she had been in sleep mode not long before the move, maybe her little lizard heart had broke when Humphrey died, so I tried to keep her awake for fear she'd croak in her sleep from despondency (or more realistically from lack of food), but she'd have none of it. Fast-forward a couple months and Ingrid's decided she's done sleeping. She doesn't appear especially hungry or all that put out from her lost Humphrey. Maybe she slept off her grief. She's been pretty content to go back to her normal routine of spending all her time under the sun lamp. But I suspect she's just repressing her sorrow.  Whazzzzzup? (Sorry.) Bearded dragons open their mouths to "vent" when they get too hot, a primitive form of sweating. Sort of like panting, except for the actual panting. This weekend G and I went to the amazing East Bay Vivarium, by far the most awesomest reptile and amphibian pet store. Walking through their displays is like taking a tour of a mini-herpetology exhibit at a zoo, with the added benefit that you could actually take home the critters for the right price. Like, fer instance, a Chinese Crocodile Lizard for a mere $1,000. Beyond oggling at the herps, I was interested to see if they had any adult male bearded dragons to keep Ingrid company on her sunning log. The only adult male they had was too big for Ingrid and it looked like his tail had been chewed halfway off to boot. While physical perfection is not my goal, Humphrey had some health problems and I'd rather avoid any obvious problems with a second male. So tonight, with both taxes and lizards on my brain, I came across this BIZARRE web banner ad: Beardies-a-bobbin' for tax remindin' †. In real life bearded dragons bob their head as a sign of saying "Hey, you, yeah you... I'm looking at you. This is my turf. And over there... that's my woman. Hey! I'm looking at you!" It's utterly ridiculous. But less ridiculous than bobbing to peddle tax software. This means something. † *grumble* LJ strips <embed> tags *grumble* Current Mood:  contemplative
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Sometimes working at SemiMegaCorp has it's perks. Fer instance, they've started this service with DVD Station where an employee can rent DVDs for $3 for 5 days. You select what DVDs you want via wall-mounted touchscreens that display, obviously along with the movie title name, the box art, trailers, synopsis, cast, reviews, etc. You can search on movie titles, actors, genre, and so on. Swipe a credit card, enter a password, then pick up the movie at the employee mini-mart counter (which is 2 feet away). The touchscreens are located in the central building on campus, next to the cafetorium, so I can drop off and pick up new movies as I come into work any day. And the selection is quite decent with a definite skew towards artsy/loved-by-nerds titles (hello all episodes of "Buffy" EVAR). It blows the normal movie rental model straight out of the water. While NetFlix has been tempting, I never was sure if I'd really take that much advantage of it, and I didn't like not being able to choose what I wanted when I wanted it. This rental service is just perfect for me. I've begun consuming DVDs at a voracious rate. Four movies in the last two weeks! Someone stop the mania. I have so many backlogged movies I've wanted to see (mostly those I missed in theaters) I've made a list. I'm posting it here, and will be updating as I can. Coming soon to my DVD player: - Confessions of a Dangerous Mind
- Intolerable Cruelty
- Brotherhood of the Wolf
- Orange County
- Old School
- Bad Santa
- Matchstick Men
- Cowboy Bebop
- Swimming Pool
- Love Actually
- Requiem for a Dream
- Spellbound
- Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back
- The Professional
- Grave of Fireflies
- Band of Brothers
- Winged Migration
- The Triplets of Bellville
- The Godfather
- Beavis & Butthead: Do America
- Pitch Black
- Citizen Kane
- Unbreakable
- Jackass
- 25th Hour
Last updated: Mar 5, 2004 Current Music: iPod shuffle
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Previous
aggravated
a bit tipsy
ka-ching