500

So, somehow this is post 500. And to celebrate I'm going to do absolutely nothing. But possibly waste some words. I should be out of town right now, possibly shooting some clay pigeons and other assorted acts of random and possibly not so violence.

Alas, the office had other plans. Gotta love deadlines and high priority projects.

Anyway. I would be more bitter, but that would take a little too much effort. So I shall instead look for a silver lining and enjoy the fact that at the moment the house is terribly quiet. Well except for the sounds of me fumbling around on the keyboard. So yes. Quiet. It's a rather nice quiet at the moment. An all too rare quiet. But it will morph later into that depressing, hey where is everybody quiet. Why no, I don't miss the wife and kids at all. Why do you ask? But they left the dog. Meanies.

At any rate, I can catch up on some reading, play through some more Prince of Persia and create some Mii friends. Or something. If luck is with me I may still end up out of town, but at the moment I'm not holding my breath.

So happy 500.

Everybody Votes

I've decided that Nintendo's online strategy has nothing to do with games. And you know what? I think they might be on to something. Every couple times that I turn the Wii on it has nothing to do with playing games. It has to do with checking the weather channel (OK, it's a couple hours old usually and more specific to SLC, but it's a guideline) or checking the headlines. I've kept up with the news more since the News Channel showed up than pretty much ever else in my life. And now we have the Everybody Votes channel. Sure it's quirky, but that's the point. It's fun. And people will vote. And vote on how they think the voting will go. And so on. Nintendo is building a sense of online community. And despite the friend code hurdles, it works.

I can send my sister photos. Especially photos that have been drawn on. I can trade trash talk with my friend over Zelda times. And I do. And that's not even getting into the whole Mii concept...

At any rate, the more time I spend with the Wii, the more impressed I become. Nintendo really does have a plan for this system and it's more than just games. And that's cool.

Alton Brown

So we got DirecTV about a month ago. Since then AMC is my new friend and the Food Network has pretty much taken up permanent residence as the channel du jour. And the main reason for that is Alton Brown. I find his shows (particularly Good Eats) to be fascinating and funny and several other words that feature fs. I suspect I'm going to have to hunt down a few of his books. If they're anything like his shows, then they'll be interesting to read in addition to full of yummy things. He's joined my list of people that I'd love to have dinner with some time.

Daughter number one has become enamored of Iron Chef America. Partially due to the aforementioned Alton, but mostly because of the concept of the show - making foods featuring some ingredient. I remember iteration one of the show (featuring William Shatner). Glad to see it's back in a rather improved manner.

I've been reading through Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman. Always fun to read things by him. This collection (so far) doesn't disappoint. I really need a poster of the piece Instructions (which I thought I had bookmarked somewhere, but I can't seem to locate, so you'll have to track it down on your own (actually it's probably lost in the archives of this blog somewhere - poor thing)).

So many movies that I want to see, so few that I'll probably get around to seeing. I am terribly saddened that Norbit was number one at the box office this weekend. Words really fail to describe. For shame America. Seriously.

And you've probably seen it (it's made its way around the internet and back a few times by now) but I've finally become enamored of xkcd. I won't pretend to understand it all the time - math and I rarely get along - but I have enough nerd cred (geek cred will only get you so far with this comic) that the rest of the time it's hilarious. So check it out. And make sure you pay attention to the image rollover text, otherwise you're missing half the fun.

At any rate, the kids are now in bed and my wife is inexplicably watching a dog show. This situation must not remain unchecked...

Pranking through the internet

Pay no attention, not a real post. Mostly an attempt to help Neil Gaiman prank Penn Jillette.

Wii!

I don't think I've really spoken about Nintendo's new console yet. Other than to mention that the girls wandered over the house to look for it on Christmas. It's quite the little system. I've had fun making Miis of The Doctor from the new Dr. Who as well as assorted family members. Zelda is Zelda, so there's not much to say there. I think the big surprise at the moment is just how fun sports games can be. You've probably heard about Wii Sports, the pack-in game. And it's true that it's a lot of fun. We enjoy us some baseball and some bowling around here. But the big winner for me is Super Swing Golf. I've always enjoyed golf games, but they get a little old (and a little frustrating) at a certain point. Super Swing Golf has managed to hold onto the fun specifically because of the Wii. Using the controller as a golf club is brilliant. I could literally play this game all day.

The kids like Rayman Raving Rabbids which is a collection of mini games that utilize the wii-mote in various ways. Some of them are indeed pretty fun, but there are certainly some frustrating bits thrown in as well.

Just about wrapped up the Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks. It's been fun. Looking forward to World War Z next. Ah the joys of the zombie...

virtual break

Have I rambled on about Ticket to Ride: Marklin yet? If not, I regret the oversight. It was the boardgame we picked up for the family this Christmas. And a rather enjoyable game it is. Apparently Days of Wonder has a design philosophy that entails simple instructions, set up and game play. Note that that does not mean simplistic - there's quite a bit of strategy involved. I will mention that the rules can be a little fuzzy, but the forums over at Days of Wonder help clarify any questions you might have.

Basically, you're claiming train routes in Germany in order to connect destinations that you've drawn. You can also send passengers over the routes you've set up. There's quite a bit of tension as every player cannot connect the same routes and as you try to link cities you may find yourself having to go the long way around. The game itself is rather pretty and the pieces are all high quality. (Although the point tokens that get placed on the cities could stand to be a bit bigger.) My wife and I have enjoyed several games against each other and it's been received pretty well by those we've introduced it to. If you like strategy board games (think Settlers of Catan and so on) then this one is a no brainer.

My wife would like me to point out that total chaos is going on in the background (which is why I chose the title I did - I was attempting to tune it out to no avail). I've no idea what we've been feeding the little monsters lately, but apparently we need to switch to moldy bread and stagnant water...

new year new clutter

So we're trying out a new ISP. Things seem to be working so far. Although I really hate updating e-mail addresses. And we also acquired DirecTV. Channels... <insert Homer drooling sound here>

Anyway, consider this a test post of sorts. It took me long enough to be able to move things around.

And a one, and a two

So, here we are, whole new year and all of that. We had a thoroughly enjoyable Christmas in Casa del D. The kids were sent on a scavenger hunt by Santa that culminated in the Nintendo Wii. They got quite the kick out of that. It's every bit as fun as you've heard, and I was pretty sore for those first couple days as my muscles got quite the workout from baseball and bowling and boxing and so on.

Night at the Museum was a lot of fun. The kids also got a kick out of that. We spent the hours leading up to the New Year last night watching Sci Fi channel's The Lost Room. Also an enjoyable show. Although the ending was a little weak.

Been reading some Anne Perry lately. Quite good. Reminds me a bit of Scotland.

Anyway, here's to a grand new year. Hope this finds you and yours well.

Snnrrrk

That's pretty much the sound that I make every five minutes due to the lovely sinus infection I'm sporting at the moment. And now that you have that lovely visual my work is done.

Okay, I'll stick around a bit longer. We caught Casino Royale the other day. Excellent movie. Best Bond movie in a long time and Daniel Craig rocked as much as I expected him to. Seriously. I had high expectations for this movie and it actually delivered. Nicely done Mr. Bond. Nicely done indeed.

Pirates 2: Dead Man's Chest was also enjoyable. And not nearly as cliffhanger-ish as everyone said. Have they not seen Empire Strikes Back or any other middle movie of a trilogy?

I think I've read a few things lately, but I've no idea what. I'm sneakily reading the Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks as it's technically a Christmas present. But who am I to let a little thing like that stop me? I'm also getting World War Z and that should be enjoyable as well. Fun stuff.

I'm pretty excited about Christmas this year. The kids are getting some fun things (the wooden train we got Graeme tops the list of things I'm excited to see them enjoy) and we managed to snag a Nintendo Wii. Camped out over night for that baby when it launched, but told my wife I'd save it for Christmas. It's killing me slowly, taunting me with its presence in the house. I really want to play some Wii Sports and some Zelda and... heh heh. Sorry about that.

Got Arkham Horror for my birthday. It's fun even though we have yet to actually finish a game. We came close once, but it grew too late. It is a pretty long game and rather difficult to win. It's been interesting playing a cooperative game though. And the Lovecraft overtones are nice. Good ol' Lovecraft. I need to snag a few books by him as well.

I managed to get John Hodgman's The Areas of My Expertise free from iTunes the other day. Great book. Terribly funny. And it features Jonathan Coulton, so big plus there as well. I've no idea if it's still free, but you should grab it if it is. (I'm looking at you Kit)

Well, I'm sure there's more to cover, it's been over a month after all, but I'm officially on Christmas break and hopped up on sinus meds, so no more random words for you.

*GASP*

Alright so this is technically *GASP* version two as the widget I'd been using seems to enjoy eating my posts as opposed to actually, you know, putting them online for you lot.

Normally I enjoy this time of year quite a bit. I manage to work shorter weeks due to accrued time off and I spend the time relaxing and enjoying the fall/winter. Not so much this year. We have a bear of a project going on at work and some family dramas that are interfering with my fall zen. Oh well, hopefully within a week or so at least some of that stress will no longer be a factor.

I've been reading David Sedaris and listening to essays by Mur Lafferty. Heck for that matter I've been listening to the This American Life podcast. I've always had a bit of a soft spot for the essay form and this has pretty much cemented my love for it. If November has its cruel way I may even find myself popping a few homebrewed essays up here.

We seem to have been under some form of curse lately as we've attempted to see The Prestige ever since it came out. Hopefully tomorrow will remedy that problem. I've been looking forward to it for some time.

I submitted that Trout Lodge firework photo to a wallpaper site, so we'll see if it shows up over the next couple weeks.

Well, that should be enough of a breather to get me through the next few days/weeks. We'll see.

AAaaarrrgghh!

Post eaten. Widget trashed. Will attempt to re-create later. <sigh>

random noise

The Grudge 2 is an enjoyable flick. There's not much new there (if you've seen the original), but it still does a good job of presenting a creepy story in a disjointed fashion. That's probably the most interesting aspect - trying to figure out what's happening when and to whom. There are a couple pretty good eerie scenes, so all was worthwhile. Plus it had a trailer for The Messengers which looks incredible. Good ol' Pang Brothers.

I finished House of Leaves. Truly interesting book. Some genuine freakout moments and a narrative that is pretty unique. I certainly don't claim to understand all of it. Or probably even most of it. But it was fun to read and that counts for a lot.

Did I mention that I finally finished 1776 as well? Also a good read. It's a wonder we ever won the Revolutionary War...

Anyway, that'll do for some random bits from a life with far too much stress in it at the moment.

Just so you know

Not quite dead, but not posting either. Currently House of Leaves by Danielewski is taking up much of my time. Strange, strange book. But pretty interesting as well. And Clint Eastwood is probably my current favorite actor/director type guy. I've been watching some of his older stuff and it's brilliant. So there.

The Descent

This is just a quick post to say that The Descent is indeed a great, tense horror flick. Even my wife enjoyed this one. It plays out in not quite three acts each focusing on slightly different aspects. You have the initial character setup (with some really nice shock and mood building segments), the initial cave sequence that is quite tense in its own right, and the final everything's gone to hell arc. And for those of us on this side of the pond, YouTube has the original British ending of the film. I'm not certain which I like better, they're both powerful in their own ways.

At any rate, go give it a gander.

Thoughts on podcasts

So, Pseudopod has launched. Relatively decent first story. I've noticed that a lot of the podcasts I listen to tend to be rather focused: a couple short story podcasts, some roundtable type stuff on gaming/tech themes and so on. Which brings me to Geek Fu Action Grip. Geek Fu incorporates some of those things - Mur is currently wrapping up part one of her story Heaven, but it's a much more conversational podcast. It reminds me a bit of some of the tapes my friends and I used to send back and forth while I was in Scotland for a couple years.

It's rather different from the rest of the things I listen to. But in a nice change of pace sort of way. In a lot of ways it reminds me more of an audio blog than a typical podcast. But that's probably splitting hairs...

Picked up Castle Keep the other day. Fun little game. Nice amounts of strategy in a game that can be played fairly quickly. And once you get the basics they include some advanced rules that make sense and there are about 4 or so different game variations (including a solitaire option) that sound pretty good. And it was only $10. Really good value (and the pieces are very nice).

Odds and ends

Ju-on, the original Japanese film The Grudge was based on was fun to watch. Still a creepy story although it was robbed of some of the chills due to knowing the plot. There were a couple twists that didn't make it into the remake that I thought should have.

Insomnia was interesting but rather different from what I expected. It ended about as well as could be expected. Didn't realize that this was also a remake.

Caught the end of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly the other night. I love Clint Eastwood Westerns. High Plains Drifter is probably my favorite, but they're all good...

Snagged Michael Palin's Sahara from the library today on CD. We'll see how that is. I suspect it'll be interesting. I remember thinking Palin has a rather nice narrative voice. He apparently has a whole series of travel related books/shows.

Quick catch up

Seems like there are a few movies that we've seen recently that I should comment on.

Caché was interesting until they decided to run the closing credits without bothering to finish the movie. I suppose I should probably mark this as spoiler-ish, but when you have to watch the interview with the director for the movie to make sense, that's a bad thing. I don't mind movies that make you think. I don't mind movies that are open ended. But Caché simply didn't have an ending. It was a mess. Which is a shame as I really liked aspects of it. This film does an excellent job of ratcheting tension. At almost the exact moment when you start to get frustrated with the way things are going, the movie delivers an absolutely shocking sequence. Truly well done and it gets you right back into the thick of things. Unfortunately it's squandered.

The Greatest Game Ever Played wants to be Searching for Bobby Fischer only for golf. It mostly succeeds. It's a nice movie and you feel good by the end and there are some nice camera shots.

How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days was recommended by a friend and was pretty good. I was lured in by the love fern and that was admittedly my favorite bit. Matthew McConaughey is becoming a favorite actor and Kate Hudson is growing on me quite a bit as well. And boy is she starting to look like her Mom...

Which leaves us with Infernal Affairs. The more I think about this movie the more I like it. Excellent, excellent crime drama. They're remaking it here in the states as The Departed and I'm not sure why. The link takes you to the trailer and it makes me cry a little inside, which is strange. When I first heard Damon and DiCaprio I was pretty skeptical. I like Damon and figured he'd do a good job, but they didn't cast him in the part I thought they would and I still don't see DiCaprio in the undercover cop role. The rest of the cast is pretty amazing (Nicholson is an inspired choice) but it seems Scorsese just couldn't keep from monkeying with a story that worked. Infernal Affairs is a taut, tension building crime drama, also featuring an excellent cast. There are a few mistakes (mostly revolving around the female cast and their underuse or not really needing to be there in the first place) but overall a great show. Scorsese seems to think we need more characters, more plot and more sex... Stupid, stupid, stupid.

I don't suppose I have a problem with remakes in general, but I don't really think they're necessary. The only really positive thing they do is draw attention to something you might otherwise miss. Fortunately it's becoming easier to track down some of the original films. I have a sneaking suspicion that The Departed won't nearly match up to Infernal Affairs.

And finally, I have no idea what to make of this.

I was a . . .

Ok, so here's one of the little quirks of married life. Every so often the dreaming world decides to take a day trip to the waking world and wreak a little havoc. Initially you have odd dreams involving your new spouse and your new relationship and some facet thereof (typically fidelity or lack thereof, or some aspect of personality that was only discovered upon actually living together) and you find yourself waking up mad as all get out at him or her. It happens. At first you might take it out on them for a bit till the whole it was a dream thing kicks in and then you feel silly and have a story for later.

You don't ever completely grow out of this, but sometimes, after you've been together for a while, it gets stranger. Take last night for example. This afternoon my wife informs me that she had the oddest dream about me last night. First a little background: For those not in the know, I've been playing through Resident Evil 4 of late. I do my best to keep it away from the kids, but they occasionally get curious and I occasionally play it before they go to bed. Last night they decided to "play" RE 4 at bedtime. This mostly involved one of them saying something like, "Leon help!" and the other pretending to rescue them. When Miranda tired of the game she came downstairs and informed us that McKenna wouldn't get out of her bed. She then launched into a fairly accurate retelling of the bit of RE 4 that I'd played through that afternoon. In spite of the fact that she and her sister had been warned several times not to come downstairs. I tried to keep from laughing while my wife gave me The Look (admittedly on one of it's weaker settings).

Ok so I suspect that was at least partially responsible for the dream she had. That or watching Clerks but I'm pretty sure it was the first thing. Anyway, in this dream my friend the letter 'r' and I were playing RE 4. And oddly we had a gun controller that we used to do the shooting in the game (which was kept under the bed so as to keep it away from the kids). The letter 'r' made some comment about the fact that I was actually a pretty good shot. I then made a joke about the recent target shooting we'd done at Trout Lodge. Then we both "laughed knowingly". You know, that fake little laughter like we have a secret. At this point my wife decided to head for bed and leave us to our carnage.

Once she arrived upstairs she noticed a gun under the bed. A rifle or "AK-47" or something (she was very specific about this when telling me her dream). But this was confusing, after all weren't we already downstairs playing the game with the controller? Closer inspection revealed that the gun under the bed was a real rifle. This caused a "Confrontation". I believe at this point that the letter 'r' was no longer in the dreamscape. Instead my wife confronted me about the real gun in the house. There was a slap and some tearful exclamations about kids and loaded guns and so on. And then painful understanding. She looked at me and said (with all seriousness), "Why didn't you tell me you were a zombie hitman?!" At this point, my secret out in the open, there was more yelling and tears. "People call you up and you go and kill zombies!", "What do you mean you don't really wear glasses?!", "Your day job is just a cover!" and so on. I tried my best to console her, but she would have none of it.

It was at this moment that something woke my wife, the end of the dream, some random noise, who knows. Fortunately we've been in this territory enough that she managed to calm down before throttling me in bed for living a secret life bringing the undead back to their maker. Although she did almost wake me then to share the joke. I must admit we had a pretty good laugh about it. Of course, I'll now have to kill her in her sleep tonight for knowing too much, but sometimes that's the price you pay...

Random thoughts from a tired mind

There was a really nice rain/thunder storm earlier. Although I'm not entirely convinced that one or two claps of thunder quite qualify it as a thunderstorm. But still rain = good. And a nice break from the heat we've had the past few days. Look at me all talking about the weather. Aren't I all grown up and irrelevant... Don't answer that.

Ran across another couple trailers for movies that seem quite intriguing. I believe the first was called 13 Tzameti while the other was for The Woods (featuring Bruce Campbell in a rare dramatic role!). On a completely unrelated note (except for the Bruce Campbell tie in) Brisco County Jr. and Jack of All Trades both came out on DVD today I believe. Groovy.

I'm about to wrap up the China Mieville short story collection Looking for Jake. It was quite good. Highly recommended. Now if I can just finish 1776...

Weekend Begins

Go. Watch. Become excited. Curse the fact that it's not Fall yet.

Seriously though, The Prestige is looking quite good. I'm also rooting for Danny Boyle's new flick Sunshine. And the new Pang Brothers' movie and... heh heh, well you get the idea.

I'm glad it's Friday. I'm also glad that tonight will involve a BBQ and some bratwurst. Mmmmm bratwurst. I also picked up The Matador for some weekend movie fun. Couple that with some zombie shooting and you have yourselves a Good Time.

The relatively recent Escape Pod (episode 61) was rather amusing. Mostly for incidental reasons that involved a minor plot point of the story (Ranma 1/2). The story is a bit adult in nature, but amusing nonetheless. The episode also referenced a couple other podcasts that I now feel compelled to check out. More on them as necessary.

Well at this point I'm rambling, but I felt the need to get some new text up on the page. Although I still really like that firework shot.