Movie Making Madness

So.
I haven't updated in a long while, or been super-active, because... I've been enjoying life, in a new-ish way? Lots more hanging out, exploring what I like in my work, living a "normal college lifestyle" etc.
Right now, however, it is ten days before I need to have the main body-text of my thesis draft completed, with a two day break in the middle (Sat. afternoon - Mon. morning) owing to concertizing my final, senior clarinet recital (look forward, 99% chance, to an MP3 recording...!). What this means is all my procrastination, white lies, short-cuts, errata, self-doubt, draft-y drafting is coming to the fore: I have a chapter-ish amount to write, an impossible amount to edit & format, not to mention some appendix charts that have just flatlined.... and.... that is so not cool.
Then, this morning, after a really funky writing ordeal? My professor drops something awesome into my lap.
The end of MY revisions? Not the end of the total revision process. Thanksgiving break doesn't have to be a dead zone, either (though, I DO plan to use some of that week to do NOTHINNNNNNG!!!). My semester won't be as flash-bang-nothing as I wanted/expected, but its more... reasonable.
I'm starting to like that word more and more by the day, yaknow?
So really, this week I am writing the end of my thesis. Perhaps actually doing classwork that should be DONE.... at some point. Next week I'll slave away at edits and formatting while doing actual school work, I won't let my concert destroy my nerves and.... hey, I'm accepting something for what it is instead of killing myself over it!?
Who'd have thought you could be healthy AND productive. Seems everyone's semi-happy, at least.

Ranting and raving on my status aside: for some reason its hilarious to laugh at people for doing stupid things you've already done stupidly and wised-up to. Kekeke.

They apparently use snails to deliver email. I got an invite from sungazing to be their friend on Facebook. It was delivered today, Nov 10th, 2009. The invite date on the body of the email says the invite date was Sept 13, 2008. It took over a year to get to me. I think it should have been covered in virtual stamps and postmarks.

I cannot get the song Sheep go to Heaven by Cake out of me head. It popped in there during a meeting we had today at work our Marc, our General Manager. Agents will be seated on the call floor based on their issue resolve score. So we're back to segregation! I just watched the video, and it's about a social outsider who goes crazy and kills a bunch of people. Hmm, I could see something like that actually happening at work.

So I won the Stanley Cup in hockey tonight on my video game. So I figured my post this week should be video game related. I go back to my grade school days for this one. I never had a Nintendo growing up, but many kids in the neighborhood did, so I didn't mind. I did have an Atari and still have many games for it. One of my favorite games was Solaris. It was a space related game. At the time I had no idea what the point of it was, nor how to beat it. The game was huge. Reading about it now, there were 16 quadrants with 16 sectors each. There was a lot battles in the game. My one memory revolves around Mike and Kevin, brothers who lived several houses down. We played the game many times and each had a specialty. Kevin was good at fighting the flying saucer type ships, Mike was good at playing the "hell zones" where all the controls were scrambled. I was good at fighting the cobra ships, which moved fast and would kill you in 1 shot. I was also the one who played it the most, and could direct the others were to go. We never did beat the game, but had a hell of a time playing the game. I've played a lot of video games in my life, few stand out like Solaris.

I spend most of my weekend playing video games. I finished my season in the hockey game (I went 81-1). I've played through 2 rounds of playoffs and am currently at the conference final. I'm disappointed that there is nothing special for the playoffs. The commentary is the same, and the rinks aren't decked out any differently. Oh well, I'll probably finish in the next day or two. I've been playing the original Halo. I've just met the flood, and forgot how badly I hate those fuckers. So far they don't have weapons, but it will only be a matter of time before I get fragged with a rocket from one of them. After I finish the hockey, I will start on either Myst: Exile, or Lego Star Wars.

Yesterday I went up to STL to play video games with my sister. She got the new Virtua Tennis for PS3. Overall not too bad. I think I had the most fun with the mini-games. You can feed animals, dodge large tennis balls, play curling, hit a lego wall and much more. We did play a tournament and at the end of the 3 rounds you face 2 mystery opponents. Turns out they are Boris Becker and Stephan Edburg. Despite being old, they handed our asses to us. Speaking of old, my sister created her own player for the world tour. It's an old (born in 1900), black guy (the template started off black, we whitened him up in the end) who is creepy looking beyond compare. There is so much you can customize for your player. We probably spent 10 min on that alone. After that we played a baseball game she bought. It was a lot of fun, but there are a lot of quirks you have to work out in that game. She killed me by at least 20 runs in the first game and she won the second game fairly easily too. In the third game I started off strong, and held on despite a major comeback in the last inning by her. We had a blast, we will have to do it again.

Other things that popped into my mind:

* My sister has a new dog named Annabell. Small beagle type dog.
* Gus's pretzels was busy as hell at 2:00 on a Sat afternoon.
* El Burrito Loco still rocks for Mexican food
* I'm hoping I have some training on my sched for work. Was supposed to have an hour and a half training on Thur, but it got canceled. Had a half hour training instead.
* I woke up with a headache today, and it not gone away yet.

Wings of Avatars, Part II:



Yup.

Barney Stinson: Okay, most of 'How I Met Your Mother' is of the incredibly lame flavor of dating sitcom. Even the near-constant New York City references don't rescue it for me and I am an NYC fiend. Television on the whole fails to woo me these days, except for 30 Rock. However, I felt that in my imaginary role as imaginary Neil Patrick Harris's imaginary fag-hag, I should at least watch an episode, because I figured it would be hard for him to fail to be awesome at something televisual.

Hard? As far as I can tell it's impossible. He opens his mouth and awesome pours out, whether it's set to music or just lovingly teasing a Gene Wilder movie with Mike Nelson. I can't believe I'm still watching this show. When his character Barney's not on I go make myself a sandwich or clean or whatever, listening for his voice to scurry back into the room and enjoy the madness. His life is like a NaNoWriMo novel, because the character takes over and you never know what crazy damn thing he's going to say or do next.

Also he's always saying 'awesome.' Which sets up his awesome video résumé (yes, a fictional character has posted a video résumé online). You can watch it in 'awesome resolution' -- I shit you not. You have to keep watching at least until you see the avalanche, then you will fully understand why this had to be posted here.

The Beatles Rockband: It was every bit as awesome as I hoped and more: apparently downloadable content includes my favorite Beatles song of all time, 'Because.' I played for hours last night at a friend's house. I dreamed about it. It was so damned addictive. I have to get the game and a microphone and I'm set. Screw the guitars and drums, I love to sing! It feels so right. There's nothing I can sing that can't be sung. Love is old, love is new.

All the coverage for elections last night seemed to be focused on it being "the referendum on the president's performance". I found the local conditions and opinions of the candidates weighed heavily on the outcomes.
In New Jersey, Corazine wasn't the most upstanding guy. Christie didn't have much to offer except that he wasn't Corarzine and defines being fiscally conservative as cutting taxes for the upper 1% of wage earners. So it was a choice of the devil you know or take a chance on the devil you don't know.

Virginia should have been expected to go to Republicans. It traditionally does, so why did people act as if this was some surprise?

It was by FAR more telling to see the election in NY 23rd where the Republican candidate was so maligned  by her own party, she dropped out to support her Democratic rival against the Conservative party candidate who:
A. Didn't live in the area
B: Didn't know or care about local issues
C. Ran on Glenn Beck's 9/12 principles, (seriously, Beck is a cartoon character) which honor the horror Americans felt on the most dreadful day in recent history
D. Had been supported by many visible and vocal Republicans, even though they demonized their own candidate.

Needless the say, the Democrat won in a district that has has been always smartly secured by Republicans because he was a moderate and not overly liberal.

This is how checks and balances work. You may have a someone in the White House, pressing social issues, but there are people in congress that are SUPPOSE to see to it the issues are addressed in a fiscally conservative manner. Not sit on NO out of principle and in corporate pockets to block addressing the social issue.
Knowing this, NY 23rd district, just sent a Democrat to Washington. Where is your Beck now?

Current Mood: Another Hot Flash...
Currently Listening to: "The Depths" Playlist

Wings of Avatars, Part II:



It was a sunny warm day, which did my psyche no end of good. Also I had a lot of fun with the writing today.

Wii Fit Plus: I didn't think I'd like this as much as I do, because it sounded like it brought even more frustrating balance games into the mix and the custom routines don't let you pick aerobics (which is true, and a major fail). The best bits are the bits they never mention.

In the bike exercise I can ride all over the island to my little heart's content. The one thing I dislike about Free Run is that you can't alter the path. Ever. Ever ever. And even in Basic Run you get a random path chosen for you. Dude, there are so many ways of covering that island! How hard would it be to program it so the player can pick out a route beforehand, or press the left or right arrow at a fork in the path to veer off?

The Beatles Rockband: I really don't want all that bulky ridiculous Rockband equipment, but this game makes me seriously want to sing Rockband. It would be like... well, like every day in the shower, but with gorgeous visuals:

The Beatles Rockband Intro from Stephane coedel on Vimeo.

GUH. Gorgeous. I gasped in sheer delight when they transformed into Sgt. Pepper's dresspheres on the escalator. And the whole surreal bit at the end? God I love the Beatles. Love love love. Love love love. Love, love, love!

The concert (for lack of a better word) was awesome. Perhaps my favorite part was the first five minutes where all the jokes were St. Louis specific. He talked about the Rams and the possibility of moving. He said that we should place a goal line around the city, because the Rams won't cross it. He went on to talk politics, drugs and sex to name a few topics. The concert was being signed for the deaf people. He asked the signer what the sign was for fuck and pussy. The hour and a half went by way too quickly. Sarah got a tour t-shirt. We sat in traffic for a long time leaving.

In other news, we had free pizza at work all day thanks to our new general manager Marc. Help desk also had to take calls for about 2 hours today due to short staffing. I also submitted a picture to fail blog. The link the the pics is here . Hopefully it will make it the homepage.

Wings of Avatars, part II: The sequel to last year's NaNoWriMo win, and looking good so far.



Unlike last year's, this one is going to have an unhappy ending. I generally don't like to get surprised by unhappy endings, so I'm going ahead and spoiling it for you. What's important is what that ending accomplishes for those who are left behind. It doesn't make it better, but at least it gives them something to salvage something from the wreckage of punishing despair.

Go ahead and have a nice day for me, will you? I think I ought to rescue my state of mind with wine, Zelda, Neil Patrick Harris and maybe even hookah. Then sleep.

I'm keeping this one short. I'm listening to game 5 of the world series, the yankees are ahead in the series 3-1, but losing the game 6-2. I'm about ready to crash, and it's only 9:13. It reminds me of a time when I was fairly young and would listen to the Cardinal's games on the radio via headphones. My mom would usually come in once I fell asleep and remove the headphones and turn off the radio. Looking back, I'm not sure how long I lasted, but I bet I didn't make it half an hour.

Right now, I'm coming down with something and feel like crap. The medicine is knocking me out. I'll try to get to the concert tomorrow. It was great.

So last night was Halloween party at Chris and Mary's. Turns out it was Chris, Mary, Clarence, Becky, and Joe. Rodger, Janice and Dani H. showed up for a little while. Towards the end a couple of Chris's friends that he plays Warhammer with came down with their son.

I brought over the bottle of Red Ass Rhubarb wine that I got in South Dakota in 2005. It tasted wonderful! Chris, Mary and Becky sampled some and like it as well. Chris had some blackberry wine. I had a cup, but wasn't too enthused about it. Becky had her mead, but I didn't have any of it. I got there about 645 and by 1045 I was ready to go. I spent the extra hour from turning our clocks back sleeping. I woke up today well rested, around 2 or so I really started to drag. I was starting to get a headache around that time too. I'm home now after my half day at work. I'm meeting Sarah at 6, going to Buffalo Wild Wings for dinner and then to see Robin Williams at 8 at the Fox. Should be a great show. I'll post about it tomorrow.

Last night we had Sarah's D&D game. I wanted a Pointer's pizza. It's been since college since I've had one. We were supposed to have 6 people total, but it ended up as 5. I ended up getting a Pointersaurus pizza. 28 inches of pizza goodness. To transport it, Sarah had to lean back in her seat, and put her knees on the underside to support it. The pizza went over very well. The game was eh, in my opinion. We ended up being sent to hell (Halloween themed). We didn't get a whole lot accomplished, but apparently that was supposed to be the point. I get to take my psion to level 2 for next session.

I came home and crashed around 6 and didn't get up til almost 1. Not much happened this afternoon. I'm headed over to Chris and Mary's for a Halloween get together tonight. Tomorrow I work half a day then back to STL for the Robin Williams show. I'm quite excited about that.

My game, Ted's Quest, is still coming along well. The pictures Sarah is drawing are amazing. Her internet is down right now, otherwise I'd have some more to work with. I've been taking my laptop to work with me and working on the game during my hour lunch break. I don't have anything else to do, so I figure why not.

So I'm on my new schedule this week. Sun-Thur 10a-7p. I think the biggest adjustment for me is the hour long lunch. Frankly, I'm bored. I may start coming back to the apartment since I live so close by. Today I did some crossword puzzles to kill the time. I've talked to my team lead and she is looking into cutting it down to half an hour lunch and seeing if I can get off half an hour early. Corporate was in the last 2 days. Kevin Foley, the CEO of the company was listening in to some calls with agents. If that isn't pressure, I don't know what is. Last week we had one of the team leads walk out and left an interesting instant message to all the agents voicing his displeasure. They shut down the messaging system and purged everything out of the system.

In non-work related news, I'm still hanging out down here. Been working through my hockey game and scattered some Halo in there as well. I've gotten Sarah to start up production on some scenery for my on-going Myst like game tentatively called Ted's Quest. If I recall correctly, it was name after Ted because he asked if it could be named after him. Sarah's pictures look 100x better than mine, although I must say I was proud of what I was capable of doing in MS paint. The game is still being programmed in VB.

I've also signed up for a game called Hundred Years War. It recreates the situation in England and France during the HYW. You are a historical person in the game and have control over fiefs. You manage your fief, make money, raise armies, support your king etc. It's turn based with updates 4 times a week. I'm waiting for a new game to start, which should be soon.

Friday night is gaming up in STL. Sat night is a Halloween party at Chris's house. Sunday I'm working half a day and then up to St. Louis for the Robin Williams show that was postponed from March. I'll be traveling a lot this weekend.

I keep feeling like there is something else I should be posting about, but nothing comes to mind. If I remember, I'll post again.