31Mar2006 1505: Multiband

Oh hey I've been offered a job. No, that's not proper...what I have right now is a "job". This feels more like a "career".

27Mar2006 1755: Metaphor!

This SNES game is awesome but the damn walruses keep stealing my pot!

APB: Morgion informed me today that, while I shouldn't "laugh too hard" over this, he has misplaced a container. A container which -- stay with me now -- he tells me contains marbles.

25Mar2006 2222: Nochnoi Dozor

So I finally saw Night Watch. There were posters up for this last spring, touting a summer 2005 release, and then...nothing. I'd given up all hope of ever seeing it, and then I'd mostly forgotten it. Turns out that maybe I should have stuck with that.

I can't even say it's a bad movie, not quite. If this had come out of Hollywood it would undoubtedly be bad, mucked up by too many scriptwriters and B-list "stars". But it's Russian, and that gives it two large strengths. Firstly, it's not really an action movie or a horror movie. It's a mythology movie; it feels like there's tons of backstory to 90% of the characters, each line of dialogue carries weight. Weight as in gravitas, and also as in overwrought. I understand that the next two movies in the trilogy will clear up a lot of this but right now the entire work has this floaty quality as we watch archetypes engage archetypes in literary battle.

The second strength was almost worth the price of admission. The subtitles are awesome. I am a man that appreciates a well-done set of subs, but Night Watch took it to a whole 'nother level. Subs were occluded by objects in the foreground to aid in timing; when characters are dizzy or ill the subs jump around and fade; vampires use a BloodCall with red subtitles that waver and burst into mist. It was art, and I feel sorry for the Russian audience because they are missing out. I also feel cheated that big productions like Kung Fu Hustle or Amelie didn't do fun things with their subtitles. There is further opportunity for directors here, and I'm not sure how many realize it.

Also, DAP and I got to level 3 on Lucky and Wild, one of the greatest games ever made.

22Mar2006 2158: Nickeled and Dimed

I just checked my webstats, and recently my site started costing me more than a penny per day. To help cut costs, I'mma dial it back to the early days of the web with my sexy ultra-compressed 4-color scheme: white, black, green, and dark green.

Pedants may argue that these graphics are only three colors anyway, a combination of red/green/blue. To them I say: what's the secret handshake?

No, what is an interrogative.

22Mar2006 1900: The Sex Bits Revolution

This is a physical comparison of the Nintendo DS to the Nintendo Revolution, an image unceremoniously kiped and resized (kipesized?) from Revolution Report. I physically ache for the Revolution with every bit of my being not previously allocated to sex. Oh wait...there go the sex bits, too!

My car is repaired (again). I asked the mechanic, "Is this finally going to fix [the problem], once and for all?" His reply was less than reassuring: "I really hope so." Well shit, I could have replaced the alternator with something that I hoped worked!

If I am suitably effusive here, each paragraph in this post will end with an exclamation point!

Yay! I did it!

22Mar2006 1230ish

I found out yesterday evening that I had a job interview this morning at 11. At 1030 this morning my car stalled at a stoplight for the second time in three months. Three months to the day! At 1145 I was told that my water pump and alternator had tried to shake themselves apart, requiring an emergency infusion of a fantastic lump sum of money. This is a completely different explanation for the same exact symptoms than the one given in December. Apparently my car deals with any and all impending trauma by shutting itself down...I am going to explore this coping mechanism for the rest of the day.

18Mar2006

I am currently hip-deep (not literally (I only wish)) in tasty tasty lemon jelly beans. How is it that my local candiere can sell me Lemon Jelly Bellies at .20/pound less than Jelly Belly itself? That's before shipping, which from the site is UPS ground and from the store is "haul my candy-eating ass to the mall". Hey...orders over $50 have free shipping? *calculates* Okay, so ten pounds shipped from the site is $72 and ten pounds from the store at 6.5% sales tax is $74.44. Damn.

I'll get back to you on this.

Ten pounds!

14Mar2006

Tab Energy. I had this while in Rockford, and we (my cousins and siblings) all agreed it tasted "pink". I'm trying to describe this to Morgion and Flexo tonight, I go to the official web site, and under the "About Tab Energy" section:

What does Tab Energy taste like? Does it taste like regular Tab?

Tab Energy has a pink, delicious taste. Beyond that well [sic] let consumers describe it for themselves.

Emphasis mine, apostrophe catastrophe theirs. It is the pinkest thing you'll ever taste, and that includes Pepto Bismol.

13Mar2006

Platinum Grit #15 is out! FUCK YES.

07Mar2006

Rockford IL -- Oh man, wireless access is everywhere these days.

06Mar2006

Out of town for the week. Attending my grandpa's funeral. Talk amongst yourselves.

04Mar2006

For the love of all that is good and right with the world, do not see Ultraviolet. Ultraviolet is a bad movie, at the time of this writing garnering a phenomenal 4% from reviewers. I had hope for this movie, I really did. I enjoy the hell out of Milla Jovovich, and director/screenwriter Kurt Wimmer had a big win with Equilibrium. I had hope.

This movie fails on every level. The dialogue is worse than Aeon Flux and the action is worse than...than just about everything. While it of course uses the choppy editing and spinning cameras that are so popular in fight scenes these days, it goes above and beyond to piss me off. The entire climactic battle? A battle which pretends to span the last ten minutes of the movie? Actually takes place almost entirely offscreen. There are not one but TWO fight scenes that are set in total darkness. Not the "darkness" with the low blue lighting you usually see in movies, but an actual black screen. I told Morgion on the ride to dinner, "It's the best implied-action movie I've ever seen." I have since realized it's also the worst implied-action movie I've ever seen. It fails again.

02Mar2006

You know what I haven't done in a while? A Fark VideoEdit. But tomorrow morning one goes live that is too perfectly suited for me: "VideoEdit your own episode of a cooking show." Morgion made sure I saw the thread, knowing I could not resist the lure. Monthenor's Kitchen is open for business.

01Mar2006

See, it pretends to be an automatic blogging script with monthly archiving, but it is actually a vicious hack! I don't think I'm happy with this particular system, but screw it it's late and tomorrow (today) is sushi!