Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Scoopy

adj. - "Sorta cool, sorta creepy".

See: John Locke from season 1 of Lost, Hush (season 4 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer), advertiser tracking [like when you go on Amazon.com and they totally know what type of things you want based on previous clicks], Mad Eye Moody, and the universe in general.

The word was coined on Saturday during our camping trip by yours truly. When we went on a walk and I looked up and saw the clouds moving at a much faster pace than normal, I commmented that it was "Scoopy."

During the same walk I noticed a rock on the ground that resemebled a brain. I dubbed it, "Brain Rock: The smartest rock in the wilderness.", much to my own amusement.

I think the fresh air was making my brain (rock) go into hyperdrive, because while on the trip I managed to get a lot of work done on The Project. Yay!
And the creative kick has stuck around for a bit, because I did a little more work on it at work yesterday.

Sadly, today I did not get a chance to even look over the previous days notes because work was too busy. Hopefully my muse will stick around and I can continue tomorrow. For now, though, I need to run (drive) to the grocery store to buy materials for dinner. Good thing, too. I'm starving.

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Puzzling.

Over the past two weeks or so, I've managed to watch all 3 Saw movies.


And...I kinda liked them.

I still won't see the new one(s) in the theater, and it's not like I'm going to go out and buy the box set on DVD, but they weren't horrible, either. (Okay, #3 was by far the most visually disgusting, but I've seen far worse movies at work. Speaking of, I actually have to watch Armageddon. For content.)

I'm also a little less than half-way through Dean Koontz's latest, The Good Guy.


I believe the lesson to be learned from this post is that I seem to attract less than stellar entertainment into my life... and that I'm kinda okay with it. "Why have steak when you can have hamburger?"

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

[Pro]

-fessional.

I know appearances are highly important, but I truly don't get why I need to 'dress up' for work. I rarely, if ever, interact with the public (at least in person. I still have to field irritating phone calls, emails, and letters), and wearing jeans and a t-shirt won't make me perform my duties any differently than if I'm wearing casual business attire. (Except that I would feel much more comfortable in jeans)

-test.
I'm sure by now, everyone has heard about the student who was tasered at the John Kerry rally at the University of Florida. In case you've not seen it yet -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bVa6jn4rpE

When I originally saw the footage, it made me physically ill. Yes, the student was being a dill-weed (he spoke longer than is shown in the link above, apparently). However, the cops most certainly did not have the right to taser him. Well, okay, I guess they did have the right. That's the problem.

Eh. More intelligent minds have undoubtedly analyzed this better, so I'll summarize with what has been said several different places that I've seen: Tasers are meant to be used as an alternative to using a gun. Does this mean that had the police present not had tasers, that they would have shot the student?

-tagonist
Everyone should be reading Y: The Last Man. Yorrick, 355, Dr. Mann, Ampersand... even Hero. All of them are just amazingly fun characters.
There's supposed to be a movie, with Shia LaBeouf being the top runner for the role of Yorrick. I suppose he could do all right. But Hollywood has mixed results in comic-book to movie adaptations, so I'm nervous about them screwing it up.

-jects
So many ideas for creative endeavors, and not just writing. But that brings me to...

-crastin@ion.

[sigh]

Just.... [sigh].

[SIGH]

Periodically, and with increasing frequency, I find that I get this annoying anxiety-attack type of feeling when I'm not working on one of the aforementioned projects. (And because of my laziness/fear of not succeeding/whatever, I'm never really working on them.) These anxiety-attack type of feelings are a feeling of extreme restlessness and all around unease in my skin. Like I should be doing something.
I probably should be.

Sunday, September 16, 2007

Got to get a j-o-b...

So, there's this career-test-meme thing going around. I like bandwagons!!

Rules:
1. Go to Career Cruising, www.careercruising.com
2. Put in Username: nycareers and Password: landmark.
3. Take their "Career Matchmaker" questions.
4. Post the top twenty results.


1. Website Designer
2. Cartoonist / Comic Illustrator
3. Writer
4. Data Entry Clerk
5. Graphic Designer
6. Film Editor
7. Artist
8. Researcher
9. Special Effects Technician
10. Technical Writer
11. Cartographer
12. Animator
13. Political Aide
14. Director of Photography
15. Makeup Artist
16. Illustrator
17. Musician
18. Biologist
19. Camera Operator
20. Film Processor


Political Aide?? Really??

Saturday, September 15, 2007

Funky.

Anyone care to explain how (or why), exactly, a brick house is supposed to be analogous to a woman with an hourglass figure?

Friday, September 14, 2007

Yes, I'm being vague. Humor me.

Question the 1st --- 5 or 6? (Or 10? 10 might not be really feasible, but it is possible, so I'm still throwing it out as an option. But, mostly, 5 or 6?)

2) Name several large vehicles. SUVs or RVs or Limos or Buses. Those types of things.

3) What are some cliches/stereotypes/must-happens for post-apocalyptic survivor scenarios and/or horror movies? (In particular, zombie/werewolf/vampire/alien invasion stories. Like how there's always* a pregnant woman in the group. And the baby always provides a symbol of hope. ...Or sometimes a symbol of how f-ed the survivors are.)

I...think that's all I need hive-mind assistance with right now.


In other news... Steph covered most of it. Boogie is extremely fun, and we haven't even played it two player-style yet! Tomorrow I'm going to go spend an inordinate amount of money repairing the van. The brakes have been squealing for about 2 months now. I took it down to be fixed about 3 weeks ago, and they gave me an estimate of 691 dollars, saying that the drums needed replaced. I said, "Well, okay. That's a nice opinion." and haven't checked anyone else sense.
But, seriously. The van is an '03, and has less than 44,000 miles on it. There is NO WAY that the drums need replacing. Besides, drums thump, they don't squeal [/lame].
But, we'll see what happens tomorrow. The brakes are only one of the things that is wrong with that ...machine. Hopefully I can find someone who will repair them all (or most of them) and for a fair price.



*not always

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Vampires and werewolves and zombies, oh my!

Lots of things on my mind, hopefully I get to them all, undoubtedly it won't be in any logical, coherent order.

So, obviously I've given up on the whole 'blog everyday in September' thing. Along with the keeping track of what I had been watching on TV. As with so many other things in my life, it can be summed up with the following 4 words: Nice idea, horrible execution. Truly, if I were a better writer, blogging about what I watch on telelvision could be riveting stuff. Or at least, more entertaining than...television. [side note... no, never mind. I've got too much to cover to get distracted this early on. Besides, if posts are too long, they cause people to not leave as many comments as they would if the post were shorter. maybe.]

That being said, I watched a movie at work today that warrants being talked about! It was "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" (1978 version). I had somehow managed to go 32 years of my life [okay, 29, since it hasn't been out for 32 years] without having seen this. And even though I knew the ending (again, just how long is the shelf-life on spoilers?) but the movie itself (and the ending) was still really quite good. You know, in that 70s cheesey type of way. Also - does Jeff Goldblum always play the same character in every movie or what??

But. This brings me to the main point of this blog post:

Monsters.

Obviously (unless it's not, but we'll get there) the top 3 monsters are:
1. Vampires
2. Werewolves
3. Zombies

Now, I'm not really comfortable putting them in that particular order. I picked alphabetical order, really. Because, really, you could call it a three way tie with that trio. There are many times when the idea of freakin' living dead hordes totally trumps the idea of immortal bloodsuckers. And of course, we all know about my obsession a few months back with werewolves.

My question is - what is #4?
Possible contenders:
Robots. - Namely, Terminators. Killer robots that are from the future that have the ability to blend in with normal humans, but will totally kill you if you interfere with the mission.

Pod people body snatchers. - Yeah, this is due to seeing the movie today, but the fact that a version of this story is made about once a decade or so proves that the alien invaders who steal our bodies is a powerful monster meme.

Frankenstein's Monster. - I think the Monster has fallen out of popular favor lately, and that's mostly due to a) that he's just one guy and b) he's pretty much just a reanimated corpse, which is more or less just a zombie.

Ghosts - Sure, they're popular, but really, are ghosts frightening enough to be labeled as monsters? I tend to think that ghosts fall more into the angsty category myself. They just need to get some therapy and move on.

CHUDs - That's really just a catchall for mutated humans that live underground. Plus, are they well-known enough to make it to the coveted #4 position??

Republicans - Dude.


So, my question(s) to anyone that wants to comment, and feel free to interpret them however you see fit:
What are the top four monsters? Do my top three even fit into your list? And if so (or not) what order?

Friday, September 07, 2007

all work...yada yada... dull boy

Another day of being way too tired to blog anything of interest. Sorry. I suspect after Sunday that will change. Well, I mean, I'll probably still be tired, but there will be much more to report on. (We're going to go camping for in the RV for the first time over the next two days...)

So, yeah. Busy day at work. Didn't do a lot of TV watching - an hour at home (The Simpsons & an episode of Mork & Mindy [dude. That show... really really unfunny. I loved it as a kid, but, then, I would've been about 5 or 6 and probably didn't care that I didn't understand the jokes.]Anyway, I have been thinking for a while that a movie-ized version of Mork & Mindy might be half-way decent {or, more accurately, half-way inevitable} but I think what would be better would be a re-imagining of it.
You know, like they did with Battlestar Galacta and Bionic Woman? They should remake Mork & Mindy, but make it all dark and sinister instead. If done correctly, I'd totally watch that.)
And at work I watched the news for 30 minutes, Dr Phil for 20, and about five or so of just random catching stuff on the screen.
Grand total, including the ten minutes of news I watched when I got home that I had forgotten about at first, comes to... oh, let's say 2 hours and fifteen minutes.
Month to date total is now 11 hours. Whee!

Thursday, September 06, 2007

Almost didn't blog.

So. Very Tired.
Watched an episode of The Shield ("A Thousand Deaths" - which had a laugh out loud moment when Corrine told Vic that she has been dating Dutch), the usual Dr Phil stuff, all of who wants to be a millionaire, about ten -fifteen minutes of last night's MyNetwork lineup (special episodes of the new game show "Temptation", folllowed by that "Revealing How Magic Tricks Are Done" special from a few years back) and then about two minutes (if that) of the Kabalah DVD when I got home.
For a grand total of 1 hour and 47 minutes (approximately) of tv viewing time today.
TOtal for the month so far 8 hrs 45 minutes

So glad tomorrow is friday. and that it's bedtime now.

Wednesday, September 05, 2007

Let's give it up, ya'll.

Bill Bellamy might just get paid per "let's give it up" or "ya'll" or "one more time".

TV tabulation time!

15 min for Dr phil & commercials (Head On! Apply directly to the forehead!)
+
20 min of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (Tennessee was the last state to secede from the union, and the first to rejoin. Or vice versa, I forget. "Sorry, Tennessee!")
+
10 minutes of The F-in' News (More Chinese toys being recalled. Apparently lead paint shouldn't be eaten. Who knew?)
+
10 minutes of an episode of Family Feud (100 men were asked, "of a women's day-to-day activities, what are you most relieved you don't have to do?" Surprisingly, "tolerate men" didn't make the survey.)
+
50 minutes of 2 Simpsons episodes ("Selma's Choice" & "Brother From the Same Planet")
+
15 minutes of TV's Most Outrageous Moments (OUTRAAAAAGEOUS!!!!!)
+
45 minutes of Last Comic Standing (Gerry Dee is totally going to win. As he should. Canadians are just instinctively funnier people than anyone else. If there are any Canadian P@riots still reading my blog [Lucas? Vicki? Iago?] they know what I'm talking aboot. Let's give it up for our Canadian friends, ya'll!!)
=
2 hrs 45 minutes for the day
month to date total = 6 hrs 58 minutes

Control issues

I was also considering titling this entry, "Anger management".

It's time for another installment of Church Sign Wisdom!

WHEN HURT BY ANOTHER
YOU MUST FORGIVE
TO RECOVER


Hmm. I don't know if you *must* forgive. I mean, sometimes a good kick in the nads helps, too.

"Oh look, the Americans are resorting to violence to solve their problems."


And on the other side...

THE PEOPLE WHO
ANGER YOU
CONTROL YOU


Perhaps.
But what if you find the people who anger the people who anger you, and you make THEM angry?
And that, in a nutshell, points out the truth to what I've said for years - control is simply an illusion. It's a very attractive illusion that many people exert a lot of energy trying to capture, but an illusion nonetheless.

Discuss?

Tuesday, September 04, 2007

never underestimate the power of coincidence

1st things 1st - i have a sleeping baby in my arms, and i'm utP@, do typing is not easy, and typos will most likely occur.

surprisingly little tv viewing today, again. only 45 minutes )more or less) done at work, and only the 30 minutes to watch Maarge vs the Monorail at home.
work tv was 15 minutes of Dr. phil A& his commercials (a daily thing. mayve i'll explain it in detaul tomorrow when i'm not so tired), 15 minutes of a Lifetyme Television Movie that was on during lunch (Tori Spelling got stabbed by some other actress that loooked fam,iliar, but i can't id her. I think the mnovie may have beeen called "Death of a Cheerleader", snd if not, it should be.), and 15 minutes of here and there catching glimpses on the monitors in the control room or on Art's tv in his office.

ANyway, total for the day, approximately 1hr 15minutes.
total 4 the month so far - approx 4 hrs 13 minutes


The other big thing of the day- As I was leaving work, I backed into a parked car.
I considered, briefly, simply leaving and not doing anything, after I got out of the van and saw that the damage to both vehicles was extremely minimal (a small amount of paint had come off the car i hit). Instead, i parked the van, and went into the builddng where the car (a shiny silver newish looking Ford Magnum, in case it matters) was pareked.
The business, by the way, is a Kabbalah center of something or other. They, like, selll Kabbalah-related merchancidse or something.
Anyway, I went inside, and there was a young blonde woman on the phone behind the counter. After five minutes or so of waiting (not really an exaggeration, but maytbe?) for her to get off the phonbe and talk to me, i ask her if that car out front is hjers. "Yeah. Kinda?" she responds. (She's driving i t, but it's actually her teachers car, she tells me)
I told her that i backed into her car, and does she want to see the damsage, yada yada.
We go outside, and she looks at it, and i get the insurance info, and she makes a copy of it, and then as she's handing it back to me, she says, "since there's no such thing as coincidence, here's a free kaballah dvd, so you can know what we're all about."
???? The hell?
I simply said, "ok, thanks".
i gave her my contact numbers (cell phone and home phone) so she could give them to the car's ownder, and ...well, that was,m like, 6 hours ago. In a perfect wrold, the guy would just say, "Oh well, no big deal," and not even bothher calling the insurance comapny. Maybe he still will. I know if the situation were ferversed, that's what i'd do. [shrug]

in other news, there's some new church sign wisdom to share, but i'll do that tomorrow.

And lastly, we went rv-material-shopping today. our maiden voyage in it will be this saturday. Let's hope i don't back into anything.

Monday, September 03, 2007

It's not easy to juggle a pregnant wife and a troubled child, but somehow I managed to fit in 8 hours of TV a day.

Mr. Plow and Lisa's First Word were on today. We watched them both, adding up to an hour of television for the day.
I suspect that when the fall season starts in a few weeks, our tv viewing will increase exponentially.

Nothing really to remark on the episodes, except that Mr. Plow isn't all that amusing anymore. I've actually seen it so many times that I didn't laugh. Except during Homer's rap. "I got a big plow, and I can move a lot of things. Like a cow, if you had one..." Heh.

Lisa's First Word, on the other hand, was much funnier overall. Even though I've seen that episode probably as many times as Mr. Plow, it just had more laughs to it.

Lisa - "Remember, 'It is better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.'"
Homer's brain - "What does that mean? Better say something or they'll think you're stupid."
Homer - "Takes one to know one!"
Homer's brain - "Swish!!"

Krusty - "You people are pigs! I'm going to personally spit in every 50th burger."
Homer - "I like those odds."

And of course this episode brought us, "Can't sleep. Clown'll eat me."
A true classic.

If KTUD continues in order, that means tomorrow night will be my all time favorite (well, one of them, anyway) - Marge vs the Monorail. ...and I just checked, and yes, they are airing that episode tommorow night at 7:30pm. Sweet.

Total tv viewing for today - approx. 1 hour
Total tv viewing for the month - approx. 2 hrs. 58 minutes.

Sunday, September 02, 2007

I'm having a mild-to-severe case of "why do I even bother blogging"-itis right now. To be honest, I've been in a sour mood since 5 or so, and I'm not sure why, exactly.

Anyway. Not a lot of tv viewing today, either. I turned on the television around 8:45, and Irina and I watched the last fifteen minutes of an episode of Maya and Miguel on PBS. After that ended, an episode of Nature came on (it was from 2004, "Chasing Big Cats" with the narrator being Michael Gross - whom Steph knows!!)
I always find these nature documentaries pretty interesting, but, since it was so early in the morning, and I had woken up around 5am, I actually fell asleep about 15 minutes in. (Doh!)
I woke up for the final ten minutes or so, in time to see a lioness go on a suicide run against some water buffalo and get gored in the neck. Ouch! [apparently, her tribe had recently died except for her and one other lioness. I missed the backstory on how that took place, though. So they were pretty desperate for food, and she attempted to attack the water buffalo alone. My interpretation, though, was that she knew she'd get killed doing it, and that she wanted to be reunited with her family.]

After that episode of Nature ended, we turned off the tv. I turned it back on later, to play some Metroid, but we haven't watched anything else all day.
Later in the afternoon, we drove down to an indoor mini-golf place called King Putt. It's all decked out with an Egyptian theme, and blacklights throughout the entire place. It's a bit pricey, and the course is very very difficult (especially hole #5), but it was still nice to go out and do something as a family.

TV Viewing for the day - approx 45 minutes
TV Viewing for the month - approx 1 hrs 58 minute

Saturday, September 01, 2007

It's still early, though.

Maybe it's because I know I'm planning on documenting my tv viewing for this month, or maybe it's because today was unusually busy for us, or maybe iiiiuiu9iopopi <-- Irina typing there.
Or maybe it's because Saturdays have less interesting programming than any other day of the week, and we have no Netflix I'm supremely into right now.

Whatever the reason, I have done amazingly little television viewing so far today. In fact, the only thing that has been on was the DVD of Barbie and the Magic of Pegasus. I watched most of it, after the first ten minutes or so.

Nothing really groundbreaking to say about it. It was another Barbie movie, so, it had all the pros and cons of the typical Mattel outing. Although this one did have the main character named Princess Annika, so there's that.

Anyway. Not a lot of tv viewing done today. (There was probably about 45 min- 1 hour of youtube viewing/surfing, however. I discovered the monkey-fied videos, which are 1 minute vignettes of famous movies, all performed by chimpanzees. I guess they aired on TBS a few years back, but since we don't have cable, they were new to me. And, of course, we had to watch the Potter Puppet Pals videos ("Mysterious Ticking Noise" and "Bananaphone" and several of the spinoffs as well.) And probably another 15 or 20 videos that I can't recall right now. Luckily, youtube videos don't count toward the blogging goal/gimmick/whatever of this month, so I don't have to remember them all. :)

Total amount of tv time for the month - (approx.) 1 hour, 13 minutes