Friday, May 07, 2004

I just ran into a former pal from high school, Charlie Pollock.

Charlie was in the class of '91 and I was in the class of '93, so I only hung out with him for a short while as we did a play together. Well, Leaguers, Charlie went on to broadway stardom and is now in the touring group for Urinetown.

Anyway, I was just telling my co-worker over lunch that I was going to see Urinetown on Sunday. On our way back, Charlie strolled by on his way to see a movie at the theater near my office. Weird world, huh?

It's been ten years, but it was good to see the guy. And i guess I'm going to see him again on Sunday. Only he'll be on stage this time. But, dammit! I was his understudy in our UIL production of A Midsummer Night's Dream! (Don't worry, I'm prepared to step in for him if anything goes wrong on this production, too.)
Let it be known that I, along with millions of others, watched the final episode of Friends.

I haven't really watched the show in two or three years, and my viewing has been sporadic during that entire time. And while it's not my favorite show (It's no MXC), one can certainly see how the show surpasses... oh... about 80% of the sitcoms out there. So, sure... there's nothing wrong with people liking it.

BUT (and there's always a but), in the first ten minutes, I was ready to turn off the finale for the same reason I turned off the show for the past several years. I get a weird, embarrassed feeling for David Schwimmer whenever I watch that show. Something about him or his character just drives me up the wall. I can't put my finger on it, but it's there. That, and Matthew Perry was much funnier when he was on uppers.

Most bizarre was that Friends, once again, had big emotional scenes using their airport sets. Man, those guys get an amazing amount of mileage out of the terminal sets they built for, I think, Season 2. People are always jetting off, or coming back on jets, and somehow, the airport has to be the place where they say their good-byes or "I love you's" or whatever.

Anyway, no big deal. The show is over, and I got through it without being constantly told how it had changed all of western civilization. THis is unlike the finale of Sex and the City (which I watched for, I think, 1/2 of a season in 2001), whose finale had entertainment journalists beating their breasts and wailing at the moon for a full month ahead of time.

In the next two years, we have several meltdowns to look forward to as the cast of Friends moves on to "movie stardom" and to try to get new projects off the ground. Several series are sure to follow on NBC, and if the past is any indication, they should all be outstanding successes. Ah... how we all enjoyed The Jason Alexander Show, Watching Ellie, and The Michael Richards Show. Good luck, guys!

Thursday, May 06, 2004

After reporting on my friend, Jeff's progress on his wedding, Nordstrom posted this chilling tale of cross-border romance and the sea of red-tape which is keeping two people apart.

I am also reminded of another true life romance I was somewhat aware of back in Austin where a guy I knew fell in love with an American girl, but discovered all too late that legal issues would keep them from being together in the US, and so she ended up moving to Mexico. She had to give up a good paying job and say good-bye to family and friends in order to be with her new love.
Lately things have been sort of crappy. I don't know what the story is, but it feels as if I'm getting metaphorically kicked in the crotch quite a bit lately, and it's starting to make me edgy. Really. I'm getting really sick of it.

on the Tetsuo scale, I think I'm about right here right now...

It doesn't help that about three months ago i realized I probably am stuck in Arizona for the rest of my life as I have no clear means of ever returning to Texas, let alone Austin. And that's depressing as hell. I have a good paying job, and so does Jamie. I may not like my job, but it pays better than digging ditches, and it keeps me out of the broiling sun during the Arizona summer.

But even my job has turned from a job where I handled interesting multimedia projects into a job where I babysit faculty day in and day out as they whine about classroom space. it's chimp work and should be a minor, minor part of my job. Instead, it's turned into at least 25 hours a week of what I do.

I got my job threatened last week by one guy, another faculty called me at 4:30 yesterday to tell me he was unhappy about something we'd previously agreed upon, and he was going to pull his class from our program, effectively neutralizing the program (because he doesn't want to walk an extra quarter-mile to teach class two days a week).

My boss is asking me to create roll-away carts to create online multimedia, which seems like a splendid idea. Only I've done this before. It's a huge hassle, isn't worth the cost of what it takes to employ such a set-up, and the final product is usually pretty cheesy. In general, it's a terrible idea, and something only an engineer would dream up. No self-respecting video jock would create such a set-up as they would inherently recognize the flaws in such a set-up. Unfortunately, the video world is now run on the advice of engineers with toys more often than people who actually know a little about production work. Bleah.

There are a host of other, smaller and more annoying issues, but it seems that's all I deal with anymore. It's been a long time since I got up for work and actually was at least impassive about going. Lately it's been feeling like a real chore. And life's too short for that.

It's insane. it's 8:30 AM, and it's already a shitty day.

When you assume...

So I'd been loosely following the development of Cryptic Studios/ NC Soft's new release "City of Heroes", a massive multiplayer video game which one can play online. The basic gist is: you create a superhero and send them out into a massive virtual environment to fight crime. Sounds right up my alley.

Except I am not a gamer. Nor am I, despite my credentials, really much of a computer guy.

So I spent a good chunk of change on the game and pre-ordered it. It finally showed up at my house last night. I loaded it, all looked good.... until I realized I didn't have a good enough graphics card or even a good enough processor to play the game. In my computer I bought in December. And I have a laptop, so it's not like I can readily change out either item.

In order to even set-up the game, I had to get a subscription to the service which would allow me to play.


1) I can't return the game to Best Buy because I already opened it (that's their policy in Black and White)
2) I'm not sure if when I cancelled my subscription to the service if I am getting refunded for the 6 months I was too be billed for, and may be billed for 6 months instead of the two hours it took for me to decide to forego trying to make this work and just try to sell the copy of the game.

As I mentioned, I am not computer savvy. And I know there's a snickering army of Melvins out there saying "Snort! How did he think he could play a game on an Inspiron! Snort! He might as well have been using a Apple IIe! Hynuck hynuck!"

Wednesday, May 05, 2004

Cinco de Mayo!!!!

It's not about just boozing it up any more than that's what the 4th of July is about north of the border. But it's also not really officially Mexican Independence Day. So what is it?

Read here and here.
It's 1st Amendment Morning today at the League.

We don't need hooded government goons in this fair land of ours. We have CEO's with bottom line's and whatnot to worry about.

Michael Moore's new flick (sure to be boo'd by the right and overly lauded by the left) is being blocked from distribution by Disney head, Michael Eisner. Apparently, he just noticed that this Michael Moore chap, who one of his little subsidiaries works with, is a bit of a rabble rouser. He's effectively blocking release of Moore's new un-surprisingly anti-Bush documentary as he doesn't feel Disney should be entering into a political debate. Here's the story.

thanks to Nathan and Randy for pointing me to the story.

In more colorful news, the euphemism "getting your salad tossed" entered my universe late Sunday night, has popped up numerous times since then. I first heard it on, show of shows, MTV's Wildboyz. I wrote it off then, but it was yesterday, whilst browsing The Smoking Gun that I read up on Howard Stern and Jimmy Kimmel's attempts to get Oprah fined by the FCC. Apparently, Oprah had a show (pre-Janet Jackson's nipple) which was a "frank" discussion about sex. In which they bantied about terms like "tossing the salad".

Taking exception to being singled out by the FCC, Stern has been encouraging his listeners to write into the FCC to complain about the Winfrey program. ABC's Jimmy Kimmel, always one for anything potty-humored, has joined in the charge. Read about it here.

I encourage you to read the letters to the FCC. They're pretty funny. And the truth is, Stern has a point.

If anyone can locate Louis Black's anti-FCC rampage from The Daily Show from a month ago, let me know. (It's never easy explaining to your wife you know exactly what "Hot Carl" means.)

Tuesday, May 04, 2004

I just screwed up. Badly.

My friend, Jeff, sent out a group e-mail telling everyone that he CAN go to Mexico for his wedding. So delighted was I, that I replied to him an e-mail, said some nice things, and whatnot.

But I accidentally hit "reply to all", which means I sent nice things out to a hundred people.


I've known Jeff since I was 10, and this is surely less embarrassing than dozens of other things I've done in that time, but I did the equivalent of having a conversation with him in a crowded room while leaving a microphone on.

Ugh. It's hard to shake the creepy crawlies after you've done something like that.

I sent a Recall in Outlook, but I can only guess about how well that is going to work.

I am so embarrassed, my head hurts.
Thanks, Science!

Turns out owning a hybrid car could cause you some additional giref if you're in a car wreck.


I am very excited about the upcoming models of hybrid car. I love the Forester, but with it's tiny tank and my weekly mileage, if I don't fill up every Monday, it can spell trouble.

Monday, May 03, 2004

Can Jim D. and Randy meet the challenge set before them?

Loyal Leaguers may recall that a month or so ago I challenged Jim and Randy to:

1) see Garfield: The Movie in the theater

2) write a full review of the movie for use on both of their sites and The League

The League is willing to fully fund the price of 1 ticket, a large popcorn and a soda of their choice for each participant. Girlfriends, kindly grandmothers, and random children chosen off the street must pay their own way. The League is not a charity.

So will they accept the challenge, or be all cowardly and stuff...? June 11th, we'll know for sure.
Ahhhhh... Hippie Hollow... my earliest memories of living in Austin (around age 10) include a conversation with a girl telling me how she drifted past Hippie Hollow in her family boat, and how a dude was hanging out naked on the rocks.

"It's a nude beach," she said.
"And he was naked."
"Yes. it was so gross."
"And you knew it was a nude beach."
"Yeah, it's Hippie Hollow."
"Why in God's name did your parents go by Hippie Hollow so slowly if they knew it was a nude beach?"
"Those people are freaks."
"That apparently your family likes to take long, lingering glances at."
"No way. We were just drifting by."
"We were!"
"Slow enough to look at the nude people."
"You're a freak."
"I see."
Being married to me, my beautiful wife, Jamie, has to suffer through a lot. She's grown accustomed to a lot of the capes and superhero nonsense, and she's even embraced small bits of it (but I still can't get her to pick out a comic on her own if she ever winds up at the comic shop with me). Lately, the thing has been my school work for my grad class which has decimated the past several weekends as I slog through a project which I am not particularly fond of.

Gold star to her for putting up with me while she has to do all the real work around the house.

On another front, she was delighted to see pictures of Christian Bale in his batsuit. Apparently, the former Newsies star is the sort of dude Jamie likes to see in a pointy-eared cowl. So we both get something out of the new Batman movie, I guess.

I joined a gym this weekend. God help me. I need to go tonight or I am never going to make this work.

My friend Jeff Peek is having trouble with the US Immigration department. Jeff is marrying a lovely girl name of Adriana from Guadalajara. Apparently, the immigration services jacked up some paperwork, and now she may not be able to go to Mexico for the wedding without risking her immigration status. Sounds pretty awful from what he said, and being that Jeff is one of my oldest pals, I am really down hearing about it. They'll still get married, but the actual wedding and all that they have already put money down for is in serious jeopardy. Due to numerous factors, i was not going to the wedding in Mexico. Ugh. Poor guy.

And on a very different note... one of the biggest personal scandals to hit comics since Dave Sim declared women to be the root of all evil, anti-war activist/ comic artist Micah Wright was found out to NOT be an Army Ranger as he'd frequently asserted. Wright had published one book and was due to publish another book of retooled porpaganda posters driving toward anti-war sentiment. For years, he had always used the bulletproof defense that he was a former Army Ranger who had turned anti-war during the invasion of Panama. That is, until his lack of Ranger training, etc... was uncovered by the Washington Post.

Still, Wright asserts it was a "joke" and a "hoax", instead of admitting he's a big old liar.

Scandals liek this don't hit comics very often, but when they do... well, let's just say Wright isn't going to be working in comics again. He managed to embarass not just himself, but his publishers, editors and everyone else who ever believed him.
Reviews of movies I watched this weekend (God bless you, little DVR!).

20 Millions Miles to Earth

Ever since I was a little kid and had a book called "Movie Monsters!", I'd wanted to see this flick. It sounded really, really cool what with space ships and monsters. I'm always one for the vintage sci-fi and stuff.

But, as Randy lamented, the things we dug as kids don't always pan out to be as great as we thought they were.

It's the 50's, and our brave astronauts crash in the ocean outside Sicily while returning from Venus. The craft is absolutely enormous and very cool, until it disappears in the sea. A weird cowboy/ Italian kid who looks exactly liek Steve-o from MTV's Wildboyz discovers a big tube filled with some sort of egg in it. The cowboy/Italian/Steve-o sells the egg to a local doctor for the price of a Texas Cowboy hat.

Meanwhile, our alarmingly lantern jawed astronaut/ hero puts down his female doctor which makes her fall in love with him. (Note to self: always treat women like 2nd class citizens, and they will adore you) The female doctor is the neice or something of the doctor who got the egg. The egg hatches and out pops a monster from Venus.

Side note: everyone on board the rocket but the lantern jawed astronaut died of a mysterious venutian virus. THis is never mentioned again despite the fact a huge, venutian monster is running around the countryside contaminating god knows what.

Overnight the monster grows at an exponential rate (despite not being fed or watered or anything). The astronaut and the US space agency realize the egg is missing and go try to find it. Apparently the astronauts saw a lot of the things on the surface of Venus and learned only one thing: THe monsters can be harmed by electricity.


I guess we're to understand they flew all the way to Venus to figure out how to torture the native life.

And here's the important thing: the astronaut hero guy says that the monsters are only aggressive if provoked. And then the astronaut proceeds to poke the monster with a stick. Seriously. he finds a 20 foot pole and begins poking at the damn thing.

The monster retaliates by killing an Italian farmer. This leads them to believe the monster is dangerous, so they capture it, only to let it grow REALLY large. So, of course, the monster escapes. It runs into an elephant (they're keeping him at the zoo), has a pretty convincing fight with the elephant.

Knowing the monster is only aggressive if provoked, the military attacks it with bazookas, causing all kinds of havoc in the streets of Rome. Eventually, the thing falls off the Roman Collosseum and dies. The end

Proving that people are dumb as rocks, this movie asserts that, despite the fact the monster was our responsibility, we should kill it for, you know, trying to get out and about. Yet, this movie is still a bit of a sci-fi classic. Ray Harryhausen provided the special FX, and they're really, really good. But the questions one could raise about the game plan for containing this beast... anyway, the movie is pretty much the third act of King Kong stretched out to two hours.

I also saw Bridge on the River Kwai, which was infinitely better.