As you may have noticed, I haven't updated the blog in a while. There are a couple of reasons for this. One, my laptop's screen is cracked and is being sent away to be fixed. Two, I've got my huge test coming up in two weeks and I'm starting to freak out. So, after April 4th and after my computer gets better I'll be back in full force, but until then updates will be sporadic at best.
So, wish me luck, and I'll be back!
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Monday, March 9, 2009
Birthday!
So it's been a while since I blogged at you; things have kind of been crazy lately, and my computer's screen getting cracked did not help matters very much. Let's suffice to say that due to work, studying, and other matters I haven't had very much time to do anything, let alone blogging.
But now I am at work with a bit of a break in my schedule, so let's see what we can recap. This past Sunday, March 8th, was my birthday, and I am pleased to say I had a great time of it. The day started off kind of slow with lots of studying, but when 8 pm rolled around the party got started. Karen and Russell came by first and handed me a very miscellaneously wrapped gift that appeared to be some kind of attachable seat. Inside, however, were three beers that look very interesting, and one if had my name on it!
Next arrived Becky with a bad pun, then Teagle and Pechous with cookies. Lisa and Caroline also made appearances, and off we went to Town Talk Diner for a late dinner. You may remember my talk of this place in my Valentine's Day post, when I had the adult malted. This time we were here to both drink and eat, and let me tell you, neither disappointed. There were drinks with habenero infused scotch, drinks with names like "Hot Shot" and "Hotter Chocolate", and enough alcoholic shakes to... well, make us a bit loopy. The food included donut-like onion rings arranged like a wedding cake, fried pickles (Frickles!) that somehow tasted much more awesome than they should have, bacon wrapped pears and plenty of tasty, tasty burgers. And then, just as we were finishing up, the staff gave me a crispy banana split (strawberry, vanilla, and chocoloate scoops with fried banana bits, whipped cream and walnuts) bedecked with candles for free!
We then headed out to Southdale to watch the Watchmen. Some of us were in full regalia- I was dressed as Rorschach (sp?), Rachel as Rorschach with his mask off, Teagle as Silhouette, Pechous as Daniel Dryburg/Nite Owl and Karen as somebody with Fancy Pants. As far as the movie, it was enjoyable, but I wouldn't say it was a good movie. It was simply a live action + CGI version of the comic book, and at that it was spectacular. It remained incredibly faithful to the novel, and only changed a few parts to either make them more cinematic or a bit more rational. The songs were sometimes out of place with the scenes (Hallelujah during the sex scene? Hilarious!), but for the most part made it feel a bit more campy and enjoyable than they otherwise would have been. I guess why I don't feel it was a good movie was because it was so faithful to the comic book. It was way too slow paced, dense, and background dependent to make a good movie. Anyone who read and especially those that enjoyed the comic will love the movie because it is about as direct an adaptation as one could hope for. Others might get into it, but it's probably too dense to swallow in one sitting for most people not already familiar with the source material.
Two more notes about the movie:
1) Buckets and buckets of gore. I personally don't remember the book being that gory, but it definitely goes with the whole realism aspect that they were going for.
2) There was a lot of nudity in that film, especially male nudity. I applaud them for not making a big deal of it and simply accepting the human body for what it is, but I kept on giggling whenever Dr Manhattan moved around on camera. I know, I'm five.
All in all, it was a pretty awesome b-day. I'll have the few photos of it posted up at some point soon.
Until next time...
"You can't reach old age by another man's road. My habits protect my life but they would assassinate you."
- Mark Twain's 70th birthday speech, 1905
But now I am at work with a bit of a break in my schedule, so let's see what we can recap. This past Sunday, March 8th, was my birthday, and I am pleased to say I had a great time of it. The day started off kind of slow with lots of studying, but when 8 pm rolled around the party got started. Karen and Russell came by first and handed me a very miscellaneously wrapped gift that appeared to be some kind of attachable seat. Inside, however, were three beers that look very interesting, and one if had my name on it!
Next arrived Becky with a bad pun, then Teagle and Pechous with cookies. Lisa and Caroline also made appearances, and off we went to Town Talk Diner for a late dinner. You may remember my talk of this place in my Valentine's Day post, when I had the adult malted. This time we were here to both drink and eat, and let me tell you, neither disappointed. There were drinks with habenero infused scotch, drinks with names like "Hot Shot" and "Hotter Chocolate", and enough alcoholic shakes to... well, make us a bit loopy. The food included donut-like onion rings arranged like a wedding cake, fried pickles (Frickles!) that somehow tasted much more awesome than they should have, bacon wrapped pears and plenty of tasty, tasty burgers. And then, just as we were finishing up, the staff gave me a crispy banana split (strawberry, vanilla, and chocoloate scoops with fried banana bits, whipped cream and walnuts) bedecked with candles for free!
We then headed out to Southdale to watch the Watchmen. Some of us were in full regalia- I was dressed as Rorschach (sp?), Rachel as Rorschach with his mask off, Teagle as Silhouette, Pechous as Daniel Dryburg/Nite Owl and Karen as somebody with Fancy Pants. As far as the movie, it was enjoyable, but I wouldn't say it was a good movie. It was simply a live action + CGI version of the comic book, and at that it was spectacular. It remained incredibly faithful to the novel, and only changed a few parts to either make them more cinematic or a bit more rational. The songs were sometimes out of place with the scenes (Hallelujah during the sex scene? Hilarious!), but for the most part made it feel a bit more campy and enjoyable than they otherwise would have been. I guess why I don't feel it was a good movie was because it was so faithful to the comic book. It was way too slow paced, dense, and background dependent to make a good movie. Anyone who read and especially those that enjoyed the comic will love the movie because it is about as direct an adaptation as one could hope for. Others might get into it, but it's probably too dense to swallow in one sitting for most people not already familiar with the source material.
Two more notes about the movie:
1) Buckets and buckets of gore. I personally don't remember the book being that gory, but it definitely goes with the whole realism aspect that they were going for.
2) There was a lot of nudity in that film, especially male nudity. I applaud them for not making a big deal of it and simply accepting the human body for what it is, but I kept on giggling whenever Dr Manhattan moved around on camera. I know, I'm five.
All in all, it was a pretty awesome b-day. I'll have the few photos of it posted up at some point soon.
Until next time...
"You can't reach old age by another man's road. My habits protect my life but they would assassinate you."
- Mark Twain's 70th birthday speech, 1905
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Some videos while I'm sick
Well, I;m kind of sick right now and at home, so of course I turn to teh Interwebs to find more cool stuff. Ever wondered how the credit crisis actually works? Well, here you go!
The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.
And here's one that some of you can relate to. I'm personally banking on those skills coming in use.
Are Violent Video Games Adequately Preparing Children For The Apocalypse?
The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.
And here's one that some of you can relate to. I'm personally banking on those skills coming in use.
Are Violent Video Games Adequately Preparing Children For The Apocalypse?
Well, I;m kind of sick right now and at home, so of course I turn to teh Interwebs to find more cool stuff. Ever wondered how the credit crisis actually works? Well, here you go!
The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.
The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Delicious Mind Putty
So this week I had the pleasure of seeing two excellent shows: Happy Days by Samuel Beckett and Coraline. The former was a bit of a surprise to me- Teagle invited me along that morning as I was driving to work, and I figured "why not?" When she told me who the play was by I began having second thoughts. I mean, this is the man who wrote Godot, a play that I have heard I would hate above all others. Still, it was a free show, I got some Teagle Time (TM), so I figured why not.
Thank God I was extremely pleasantly surprised. Happy Days was an excellently executed, acted, and scripted play. Basically the play is about a woman who is partially buried in dirt. She doesn't seem very concerned about this, except for occasional terrified glimpses into her psyche where she realizes she can't remember life before the dirt. The only other actor, her husband, is more of a prop than anything else- occasionally says a few words, but that's about it. As you may have guessed, there was tons of symbolism going on, but not so much that the options for interpretation became endless. I think the version that Teagle and I came out with was that the woman was actually a terminally ill patient in a hospital who exhibited that depressing kind of optimism and can-do attitude that occasionally grips the soon to be departed, which was occasionally dispelled by momentary realizations of her condition. The husband at first simply made sure she was taken care of and visited her occasionally, but at the end realized that he had not done enough and was desperately trying to make up for it. There's a couple of other cool tidbits, but they wouldn't make much sense if you haven't seen the play. Suffice it to say that the show was very entertaining and engaged my brain in a way that a show hasn't done in... well, ever. Good job, Mr. Beckett- your weirdness paid off.
Speaking of weirdness, Coraline is awesome! We went on Friday to see the 3D version with Laura and were completely blown away. I think it's one of the very few times where a movie has elicited so many sounds of pure amazement, joy and terror from a group of 20-somethings. The visuals were spectacular, so much so that I caught our row audibly reacting to the impossible, beautiful images on the screen. The story was suitably whimsical and dark at the appropriate times, and many times at the same time. So much so that it might not actually be appropriate for children, but damn was it appropriate for us. The line between reality and fantasy becomes delightfully blurred towards the end, which made me smile evilly as I now have some more ammunition to use in my upcoming Changeling campaign. Finally, the 3D element- it's not needed, but it certainly amps up the visuals to a high degree. Nothing jumps out at you in a hackneyed manner- instead it draws you more convincingly into the story and manages to elicit even more "oohs" and "aahs" from the audience. Go see it. Now.
In other news:
-have been working on the e-waste project. Should soon have radio and print ads alerting ethnic minorities about their e-cycling options.
-junk mail is terrible for the environment. Just think about how many trees are cut down for paper and envelopes; how much water is used in paper manufacture; how much fuel is consumed in transporting logs, paper, envelopes, and junk mail; how few pieces of junk mail are acutally responded to; and how few of the rejected mails are recycled. Post if you want to get more info on stopping junk mail.
-got to see more Carleton folks on Saturday with rousing games of Catan and Heroscape (the latter took some getting used to after 40k, but was still fun.
Until next time...
"The castle-building habit, the day-dreaming habit--how it grows! what a luxury it becomes; how we fly to its enchantments at every idle moment, how we revel in them, steep our souls in them, intoxicate ourselves with their beguiling fantasies--oh, yes, and how soon and how easily our dream-life and our material life become so intermingled and so fused together that we can't quite tell which is which, anymore."
- "The $30,000 Bequest," by Mark Twain
Thank God I was extremely pleasantly surprised. Happy Days was an excellently executed, acted, and scripted play. Basically the play is about a woman who is partially buried in dirt. She doesn't seem very concerned about this, except for occasional terrified glimpses into her psyche where she realizes she can't remember life before the dirt. The only other actor, her husband, is more of a prop than anything else- occasionally says a few words, but that's about it. As you may have guessed, there was tons of symbolism going on, but not so much that the options for interpretation became endless. I think the version that Teagle and I came out with was that the woman was actually a terminally ill patient in a hospital who exhibited that depressing kind of optimism and can-do attitude that occasionally grips the soon to be departed, which was occasionally dispelled by momentary realizations of her condition. The husband at first simply made sure she was taken care of and visited her occasionally, but at the end realized that he had not done enough and was desperately trying to make up for it. There's a couple of other cool tidbits, but they wouldn't make much sense if you haven't seen the play. Suffice it to say that the show was very entertaining and engaged my brain in a way that a show hasn't done in... well, ever. Good job, Mr. Beckett- your weirdness paid off.
Speaking of weirdness, Coraline is awesome! We went on Friday to see the 3D version with Laura and were completely blown away. I think it's one of the very few times where a movie has elicited so many sounds of pure amazement, joy and terror from a group of 20-somethings. The visuals were spectacular, so much so that I caught our row audibly reacting to the impossible, beautiful images on the screen. The story was suitably whimsical and dark at the appropriate times, and many times at the same time. So much so that it might not actually be appropriate for children, but damn was it appropriate for us. The line between reality and fantasy becomes delightfully blurred towards the end, which made me smile evilly as I now have some more ammunition to use in my upcoming Changeling campaign. Finally, the 3D element- it's not needed, but it certainly amps up the visuals to a high degree. Nothing jumps out at you in a hackneyed manner- instead it draws you more convincingly into the story and manages to elicit even more "oohs" and "aahs" from the audience. Go see it. Now.
In other news:
-have been working on the e-waste project. Should soon have radio and print ads alerting ethnic minorities about their e-cycling options.
-junk mail is terrible for the environment. Just think about how many trees are cut down for paper and envelopes; how much water is used in paper manufacture; how much fuel is consumed in transporting logs, paper, envelopes, and junk mail; how few pieces of junk mail are acutally responded to; and how few of the rejected mails are recycled. Post if you want to get more info on stopping junk mail.
-got to see more Carleton folks on Saturday with rousing games of Catan and Heroscape (the latter took some getting used to after 40k, but was still fun.
Until next time...
"The castle-building habit, the day-dreaming habit--how it grows! what a luxury it becomes; how we fly to its enchantments at every idle moment, how we revel in them, steep our souls in them, intoxicate ourselves with their beguiling fantasies--oh, yes, and how soon and how easily our dream-life and our material life become so intermingled and so fused together that we can't quite tell which is which, anymore."
- "The $30,000 Bequest," by Mark Twain
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
The 41st Millenium... on your screen!
So I've been talking a lot about Warhammer 40k, but chances are that most of you have never seen the pieces, let alone an actual game. Well, I'm here to change a little bit of that with some pics of a recent game that I played. It was President's Day, and I convinced Pechous and Russell that games needed to happen. So we descended on the darkened environs of Chaos to play with little metal men.
IN THIS CORNER:
Russell and his 3000 pt Chaos Space Marines, featuring the combined might of the Thousand Sons and Khorne Berzerkers.
AND IN THIS CORNER:
Pechous' Loyalist Space Marines, the Ice Jesters, led by the heroic Marneus Calgar.
AND FINALLY:
My Eldar (aka Space Elves), defending the craftworld against the forces of Chaos.
We rolled to determine terrain and chose to compete using some older mission objectives. Across the battlefield we scattered 6 hidden objectives. Only one of them was the piece of intel/hostage/weapon that our forces wanted. Our goal was to have an infantry squad capture the hidden objective and hold on to it until the end of the game.
This is the field of battle. Objectives were placed in the ruin building, the patch of green forest, on the near side of the bridge, near the rocky plateau, and two others on opposite ends of the middle of the map.
The first round saw us with only our troops (common units, generally infantry) on the battlefield. Fortunately for me, my troops were all housed in dedicated transports... which happened to be heavily armed, flying tanks.
This meant that these fearsome looking Khorne Berzerkers were in for some trouble.
Unfortunately for us, Russell was about to start smashing our faces in with heavy infantry flaming Pechous' marines, axing my Dire Avengers, and Terminating more marines.
Fortunately for us, the mission didn't rely on annihilating one another, only capturing the objective that you can see on the bridge behind the demon. I managed to turboboost a unit of sword wielding wild women in a tank over to that corner of the board and take the objective on the last turn... but then Russell brought in some big guns.
That combined with a chaos space marine lord swinging a weapon so evil that it has a demon bound inside ended my poor red headed amazons and won the game for Russell. Still, it was fun, and I finally got to get some pics! Yay!
Until next time...
"BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD/
SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE!"
-Khorne Berzerker Chant
IN THIS CORNER:
Russell and his 3000 pt Chaos Space Marines, featuring the combined might of the Thousand Sons and Khorne Berzerkers.
AND IN THIS CORNER:
Pechous' Loyalist Space Marines, the Ice Jesters, led by the heroic Marneus Calgar.
AND FINALLY:
My Eldar (aka Space Elves), defending the craftworld against the forces of Chaos.
We rolled to determine terrain and chose to compete using some older mission objectives. Across the battlefield we scattered 6 hidden objectives. Only one of them was the piece of intel/hostage/weapon that our forces wanted. Our goal was to have an infantry squad capture the hidden objective and hold on to it until the end of the game.
This is the field of battle. Objectives were placed in the ruin building, the patch of green forest, on the near side of the bridge, near the rocky plateau, and two others on opposite ends of the middle of the map.The first round saw us with only our troops (common units, generally infantry) on the battlefield. Fortunately for me, my troops were all housed in dedicated transports... which happened to be heavily armed, flying tanks.
This meant that these fearsome looking Khorne Berzerkers were in for some trouble.Unfortunately for us, Russell was about to start smashing our faces in with heavy infantry flaming Pechous' marines, axing my Dire Avengers, and Terminating more marines.
Fortunately for us, the mission didn't rely on annihilating one another, only capturing the objective that you can see on the bridge behind the demon. I managed to turboboost a unit of sword wielding wild women in a tank over to that corner of the board and take the objective on the last turn... but then Russell brought in some big guns.
That combined with a chaos space marine lord swinging a weapon so evil that it has a demon bound inside ended my poor red headed amazons and won the game for Russell. Still, it was fun, and I finally got to get some pics! Yay!Until next time...
"BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD/
SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE!"
-Khorne Berzerker Chant
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Valentime's Day!
As many of you may be aware, this past Saturday was Valentime's [sic] Day, which the girl and I decided to celebrate in style. We began by giving each other gifts- she got me a geeky shirt, and I got her a ridiculous geeky shirt. Unfortunately the hearts on her shirt didn't light up properly, but I can guarantee you that when I get a fixed copy there shall be ridiculous pics.
We then got all spiffed up and headed out to El Meson, a nice Spanish/Caribbean restaurant on 35th and Lyndale. We got to have some very exciting looking and tasting treats like ceviche! (cold, not warm) After dinner we headed out to Yum! to grab some desert, which consisted of a slice of coconut cake. I was then directed to our mystery activity location by Rachel, who was having way too much fun not telling me where we were going. It turned out to be Patrick's Cabaret, which was having a cabaret and burlesque show that night. We got there a bit early, so we decided to head over to Town Talk Diner to kill some time.
If you haven't been to the Diner before, it is awesomeness distilled with a slight infusion of crazy. They have all sorts of delicious foods and drinks that are a bit off the beaten path- for instance, they make a lot of their own liquers and throw a lot of interesting twists into existing ones, like habanero infused scotch. The place was packed (it being Valentime's [sic] Day), but we managed to get two seats at the bar very quickly. I was immediately drawn to their alcoholic malteds and ordered one called Monkey Business (see above pic), which consisted of PB, banana liquer, chocolate, rum, and vanilla ice cream. It tasted like a chocolate fluffernutter and not at all like something that would get me drunk. Rachel had some kind of blackberry concoction with homemade liquer which was also fantastic.
We then headed on over to the Cabaret to wait in the quickly growing line. Even though it was pretty cold out, the line quickly snaked around out of the alley and down the sidewalk. The people at Patrick's didn't seem to mind- they happily crammed patrons in wherever they could find room. This led to a lot of people seeing the show, but unfortunately some bad sight lines for us unless we sat seiza style on our chairs. The show itself was pretty good- the musicians and singers were talented, the belly dancers jiggly, and the burlesque performances had the right mix of raunch and whimsy to make it incredibly entertaining. For instance, in one act the performer came out wearing pretty much only pink balloons. She had a heart shaped pin that she and audience members used to pop in a suitably suggestive manner. Once down to no balloons... let's just say that tassles are fun.
After the show we headed home to watch some 28 Days Later (best Valentime's [sic] Day movie ever!), but by 1:30 were too exhausted to finish the second half.
There's been some other stuff going on, but I'll wait till later to post about it. Until next time...
"What, Sir, would the people of the earth be without woman? They would be scarce, sir, almighty scarce."
- Speech given by Mark Twain, January 11, 1868
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