Random Crap

Go Boys!
Dallas was in fine form last night. We weren't looking our total best, but we played a good game, especially against a good running team, the Titans. Testaverde was in great form playing almost a throwing game only and completing most everything (Keyshawn appearing to be his fav). A blocked kick or two helped us out in winning the game by a close 3 points, but the Titans were playing a good game as well sticking to our receivers and making them work for their paychecks. It's unfortunate that this was still preseason, but i think if Parcels can tighten this team up, we may have a decent season as we did last year.

TV is going to the dogs
During the game last night, they were advertising for a new reality show for swingers. Wife-swapping - what is this about and where is the line drawn? Does this mean that my mom heads over to my buddy's house every day and picks up his dirty underwear all day and smacks around his sister or are we talking about her giving hummers to Gordon, his dad? This reality TV craze has been going on for years now and i'm wondering when it'll end, if ever. Right when i think we've run outta things to embarass ourselves with, we go and do something like this. Who is watching this crap and why?

speaking of...
anyone know anything about the forthcoming fall season of TV? i'm interested in finding out what we will be subjected to for the next 6 months. between the whore-swapping mom commercials, they were advertising for a new show called 'Lost' that actually looked pretty decent (even if it did look a little reality based). I know i have some favs i left behind last spring and want to find out when they will show up again. I've got to start putting my TV viewing schedule together soon or else the next 6 months are just wasted. And it pains me that i'm saying this all as i used to pride myself on not watching TV. Old age or boredom? you decide.

movies
caught Hero this weekend with mis parientes. what an amazing film. truly breathtaking. i'd have to say this may be my favorite film of the year, so far. visually stunning, amazingly choreographed, phenomenal score and the martial arts were a treat to watch. i'm so glad that films like this are giving the genre a good name. it's to bad that it has to be so grand scale to do so, but i'll take it. my next visit to the theater will have to be a triple bill of Anacondas, Without a Paddle and Superbabies...
anyone with me?

a legend passes

the biker world lost a true motorcycle legend today when Indian Larry passed on after complications from an accident when performing one of his signature tricks. for those unaware of his work, he will be recognized from the Discovery channel's Great Biker Build-off show. Larry was a pioneer in custom motorcycle design and will be greatly missed.

fuck sony, long live harmony

so, about a year ago, maybe less, j convinces me that it's time to start spending horrendous amounts of money on things like hookers and coffee pots and exfoliants and universal remotes. ok, he only convinced me of the remotes, but he still managed to appeal to my darker, electronics-minded (or maybe i should say addicted) side of being a guy and talked me into this sony universal remote. despite the $125 price tag, i bought it and thought it was the bees knees. since my entertainment center looks like the inside of a best buy with varying brands of electronics and knick-knacks, the only way i could complete my mecca, was to buy the ultimate universal remote. without it, i had 4 separate remotes just to watch TV or a DVD. this was a great relief and after a mere 36 hours of intensive study of the 375 page manual and a degree in electronic engineering, i got the remote programmed only to realize it doesn't do everything i really need it to do. so i was back to still using various remotes, but i was contented in knowing exactly what i needed, when i needed and made due with a remote that could have paid a car bill and i could have spend $13 on one at Wal-Mart that did the same thing. Basically, a remote that used macros.

so, i'm sitting on my couch late saturday afternoon and have just finished the mind-bending 1983 horror classic, Sleepaway Camp and i grab the Sony remote to punch a button that has a macro programmed to switch the TV and stereo over to watch some american chopper and it dies on me. WHAT???? WTF???? calm down, it's just the batteries. so i replaced the batteries and it doesn't work. undertandably, i have to reset the time, but, and the owners manual of the remote states this, it will remember all of the macros input previously and all you will have to do is set the time again. BULLSHIT

the time set beautifully, but the rest of the functions were lost. press a button and it beeps at you. press the commander button and it prompts you to set up another macro. press the tv button and it filters thru every component and then dies again. basically, it threw up all over me after less than a year's time and i just ate the $125. i was all kinds of pissed, so i actually used the separate remotes for the rest of the evening thinking i was stuck in some kind of temporary electronics portal that had displaced me to a time that didn't allow the function of macros. well, guess what? i was right. i was stuck in the portal and it wasn't for just a day. it was forever. bitches

i hit the best buy website and found a new universal remote, made by harmony. now, the cool thing about this remote is not only does it allow for macro programming, but it doesn't make you do it. you aren't required to know a bunch of codes from different manufacturers or hit a bunch of different buttons in a certain order to make it work, you do something that no other company has ever done. you connect it to a USB cable to your PC and everything is done online and then downloaded to the remote. my naughty parts are a tingle. you plug it in, write down the name and model of any component you want to have it control and then you step thru an online wizard and it sets everything up for you. it will program the macros for you, which includes renaming buttons, suggesting better ways to set up your components and it doesn't require the knowledge of a single four digit code for a single component. you even have the option to tell it to turn things off that aren't being used, automatically. so if i finish a DVD and want to watch some tv, i press one button and my cable box comes on, the tv switches to the right video channel to watch, the stereo switches to TV and the DVD player is turned off. pure genius. and the website sets up your configuration as a webpage you can log into and change things to keep up with the addition of components and even tells you when the remote's firmware is ready to be upgraded (via that nifty little usb cable).

this whole ordeal just firms my contempt for sony and their overpriced crap. i have finally found my electronic mecca and that mecca is harmony.

oh, and it really helps to have a roommate who works at best buy and can get a $200 remote and extended warranty for $150. nah, nah nah nah, nah...

uh...

I'm not sure what exactly to say about this, but it's just looney. Whether it's in a good way or bad, this just struck me as really funny. I pulled this straight off of Dark Horizons:

The Daily Record indicates that Quentin Tarantino, the director behind "Pulp Fiction" and "Kill Bill" will play himself in a Muppets adventure movie for ABC based on L. Frank Baum's classic tale "The Wizard of Oz".

R&B singer Ashanti plays aspiring performer Dorothy Gale, who works at the diner of her Auntie Em in a small Kansas town while dreaming of hitting the big time. One day, a tornado sweeps up the trailer where Dorothy lives, and she
finds herself in a Muppet version of Oz.

There, she meets the Munchkins (played by the Muppet rats), the Scarecrow (Kermit the Frog), the Tin Man (Gonzo) and the Lion (Fozzie). The group's quest to get the Wicked Witch (Miss Piggy) culminates with a fight scene between Dorothy and the witch. The film cuts to Tarantino pitching to Kermit how the scene should be done.

Queen Latifah is in final negotiations to appear as Auntie Em. There will be several musical numbers but it is NOT a musical.

I guess this is basically another muppet movie (can you really ever have enough of these?) with it's usual all-star cast.

and now i'm singing The Rainbow Connection...

zero to one hundred in five point four seconds

on a 600...

and get this - it can top 100 MPH before you consider shifting into second gear...

Meet the new Ninja from Kawasaki. Check out the review here and then ask yourself,

is this much power really necessary?

What has the gaming industry come to?

It's the ultimate computer curling experience. A full 3D engine, with Multi Level Zoom, Pan and Rotate functions, bring an exciting visual feast to your eyes. Tons of gameplay features for every player, as authentic physics and Varying ice conditions bring a challenge to all skill levels, from beginner to pro.

yup, you got it right, a game about curling to bring a visual feast to your eyes. until 30 minutes ago, i thought everything had been done and now i stand corrected. and should you want this gem of a game, you can grab it for less than 5 bucks right here.

now, if i could just get them to build that game about midget jello wrestling, we'd be in business.

QotD

Why do gay people require special announcement?

I was listening to NPR this morning on the way to work and one of the reporters in Berlin was doing a story of how Berlin has reclaimed an olympic stadium from its Nazi past. This nice story of how Berlin has rebuilt and reopened the stadium used in the '36 olympics is to redefine to the world what the post war Germany has become. So the reporter goes into this story of how Nazi paraphernalia has been left to show Germany that it can't escape its evil past, but can teach it a lesson on how to better the world and live thru something like the Nazi era. He continues with discussion of games and then tacts on to the end of the sentence of how there are even gay and lesbian events going on. Not until now (my mind moves very slowly) did it occur to me that anything in this world that may include someone who is gay has, for some reason, been announced especially to inform us all that we haven't left out these sexually repressed people. And this just amazes me.

I have no problem with someone of a different sexual orientation than i. I'll admit that it was an issue at one time, but i'm beyond that now. I have friends that are gay, i work with people that are gay, i even go to church with peo . . . (wait, no i don't). My question here, is why should people with a sexual orientation, regardless of whether it meets with or is approved by society's beliefs, have a special place in our world. These people aren't any different than you and i. They just have a different preference in one small category. So, why do they feel it's necessary to announce that "yes, we even have gay and lesbian events", or feel the need to create a gay/lesbian checkbox on life insurance forms?

Joe and Mary Bob want to be treated normally, like the rest of us, so why do they get up in arms when there isn't a specially held lesbian discus throw in the olympics? Why do we feel the need to make light of their sexual preferences?

I don't go out on a friday night and meet my buddies at the hetero-bar or feel the need to announce to the world that i'm hetero and proud, get used to it. So why should we do the same for someone who's really no different than I, but she happens to think my girlfriend is cuter than me? I won't even discuss religion or government and this issue, because i actually have to get something done here at work today, but can someone logically explain this to me?

BUB BUB BUB BUB BUB BUB...

so i joined the bub club today. i got my custom pipes in the mail last night and installed them this morning. took about an hour and a half and with a little blood and some sweat and a lot of cursing, i got them installed and man alive, you can hear me coming. what amazes me is that during my research for custom pipes, the bubs were considered the quietest of them all. i guess i'm just so used to the quiet stock pipes, that these just sound really loud. no tinny sounds, no more sounding like a lawn mower, this sucker is loud. and i can't wipe this stupid grin off my face. it definitely turns heads.

here's a coupla pics: pic 1, pic 2, pic 3, pic 4

Must not sees

i made a promise a couple of months ago in a post that i would occasionally review films since i'm such a huge fan and i've let you all down on that. bad dog!

so, lemme give you a couple of head's ups for some films i've seen recently.
AVP - don't waste your money. i was a huge fan of both franchise's originals, so undoubtedly, i was looking forward to seeing what they could do with this. the AVP video games had been released a few years ago and were decent games. FPS games where you could play the role of alien, predator or marine. good graphics, just not very memorable games other than they had a good creep factor. i was pretty stoked about hearing they were making it into a movie and even more so that my boy, Lance Henrikson, was staring in a leading role. He played Bishop in the second and third Alien movies. Well, i went and saw it on saturday night and the only time i like that much cheese is with my ranch style beans. suddenly, the alien race that's being entombed 2000 feet below the ice is the fat red headed kid on the playground that always gets the dodgeball chucked at him first. and the alien and the humans become best buddies cause they made matching wooden paddles together in woodshop. it's just to much to expect and you've seen some of the films on my list. i've got a reach that'd make a hooker jealous.

the bourne supremacy - have i discussed this already? 3 words - bring your dramamine. Franka's gorgeous as usual and Matt Damon is convincing once again as a secret agent.

the village - saw it coming. saw it coming before my butt hit the seat. half assed acting, good mood, his worst yet. M Night needs to do a Disney film or something family oriented and then remember what good, tense thrillers are about. or let someone else write his scripts.

and some rentals...
Mystic River - this has been sitting on my coffee table for a month cause i haven't been in the mood to be depressed. so these guys can act and Clint finally did a pretty good job directing, but this wasn't as depressing as i expected it to be. i used to really enjoy films like this when i was into the artsy thing, but i think i've been desensitized to the anguish and tortue that the world has fed me. i'm guilty for it just as it is for feeding itself to me, but it just didn't grab me. was it oscar calibre? possible, but i thought the first resident evil film was too, so that just shows what i know.

secret window - crap, complete crap. johnny depp has made a name for himself because he never chooses mainstream roles for himself and because he's just a good actor. i loved him in Pirates and i'll even admit that Chocolat was well done. but this...total crap. it was almost as if he'd run outta cash and needed a quick, mindless role. or maybe he was trying to make up with America after his shitty little comments about us and Mr. Bush. either way, Stephen King books have almost never translated well onto the big screen (or the small screen for that matter) and this was no exception. i saw fight club and i like that. and you sir, you are no fight club...

monster - turned it off halfway thru cause it was so fucking horrible, i had to put on family guy and laugh a little. charlize theron was convincing as a white trash hooker and this film made me jumpy in ways that ben stiller never could. i felt uncomfortable watching it, so i just didn't.

real kicks apple in the balls

RealNetworks has made the jump (in my mind) from annoying application maker that never quits dragging down my box to cheapie MP3 provider. They announced recently that they, for a limited time, will be running their MP3 download service (similar to Apple's iTunes service) for 49 cents a song and $4.99 per album. Now i haven't seen their list and am interested in finding out if this is a genuine list or just a list of a couple hundred Huey Lewis and Carol Kane songs instead of those Snoop Dogg songs i really want. I've been overly pleased with iTunes ever since it was released for Windows and very rarely ever not find a song in their list. and if i can't find it via iTunes, i just go rogue and find it on WinMX. another thing that i like about iTunes is that when you open it, it doesn't slow your box down to a crawl or throw up 9 splash screens or closing boxes as Real tends to do. it's really annoying and in the long run, that may keep me from using Real, but again, i'll need to decide based on the selection. i guess the 49 cent download isn't going on forever, which also makes me wonder whether that price will set the selection and if i want something i can't find for 49 cents, i could just pay the other 50 cents and immediately find it. so maybe it's just a nut and not a swift kick . . .

occ week

finally, discover got something right (actually, they get most everything right), but this week is American Chopper week, so you and i both get to watch Paul Sr. and Jr. battle it out for two hours every night for the next week. grab a beer, switch to discovery and see what it's like to be a real man.

mikey rules

random shit

no offense, but someone needs to hand him his ass
this barrage of advertising we have to deal with these days is overwhelming. all i want to do is sit on the couch on a quiet saturday morning and drink my coffee and watch the dirty dozen...'you, ...you, dirty dozen...'. But instead, we have to put up with shit like dr. greg senemone or whatever the hell his name is, trying not to insult us, the viewing public, the people who pay his bills.

'no offense, but if you can lose as much weight, then you should put down
that doughnut and get up off yer fat ass and do something about that. unless of
course, you like lining the pockets of rip offs like myself trying to convince
you that even though you can consume an entire turkey in one sitting (and look
like you just have), it's not your fault.'

how fucking stupid do i look? no wait, don't answer that. i mean really, are people that desperate? again, just leave me alone and let me finish the movie.

AMFs 100 greatest songs and the opening ceremonies
i went to the parents last night. hadn't seen them in a week or two and had dinner with them. then we ended up watching the 100 greatest songs from movies ever made and the opening ceremonies of the olympics. the songs weren't bad, but i can't get 'ding, dong, the witch is dead' outta my head and the opening ceremonies was like watching grass grow. but not as exciting. the good time was had because my sister's bulldog was over for the weekend. Lula is a real trip. every effort to get up in your lap and clean your face off with a tongue the size of cincinatti.

'He's cute ain't he? Only problem is, he's got a little bit a Mississippi
Leg Hound in him. If the mood catches him rite, he'll grab your leg and just go
to town. You don't want him around if your wearing short pants, if you know what I mean. Word of warning though, if he does lay into ya, it's best to just let
him finish.'

not a female to be found for miles
Mar and i are gonna go check out AVP this afternoon and then head over to QuakeCon. If you've never seen this or even heard of it, it's basically the biggest concentration of geeks you've ever seen in one central location. two years ago, they had it in Mesquite (where id's offices are located) and there was so much power needed, that the entire city of mesquite lost power for about a half an hour and they brought in an 18-wheeler with a power source big enough to power the city of dallas for an entire month.

'...I had to have it replaced, because every time Catherine revved up the
microwave, I'd piss my pants and forget who I was for a half-hour or so.'
(yeah, i'm on a roll)

i figure we'll do that for a while and then go grab some food and drinks.

in the shop
so, the wrecker service came and picked up Dobra the other day. looks like i won't get her back until after next wednesday. guess they don't keep those parts on hand. and it's gonna be such a beautiful weekend. on the upside, i've got my bubs on the way. this doesn't do them justice, but at least you'll hear me coming.

booya

tim is an owner. it's all about the luxury...

fighting the forces of H, E, double hockey sticks with a kitty

so i'm pretty deep into Doom 3 (eric, see previous post) and i'm still loving it like MST3K on saturday mornings with coffee. it's gotten much harder and i'm saving quite a bit more. i thought i'd gotten some good screenshots to show you just how frightening this game really is, but turns out that screenshots just don't do it justice and have the effect that playing the game has, so i won't bother with that. but what is cool is that the mod community has taken off with this game and done all kinds of really cool stuff with this, but i just stumbled across a mod that delights me in ways only one person could fully understand, so mer, this mod's for you. And another. And if that wasn't enough, here's a huge helping of lovin' for ya.

hugs...

word to the wise, check your bolts

so, i'm headed out to meet the local, not-so-hell's angels (my dallas sabre chapter) last night and 70 feet out of the drive of my apartment complex, i hit an unseen hole in the concrete and the bike jumps. nothing bad, nothing to lose control over, but it startles me. so i pull up to a stop light about a half mile away from that and the cover to the battery on the bike jumps off and slides a coupla feet. again, i'm startled, but no biggie, i just pull forward, pick it up and attempt to put it back on. as i'm doing so, i discovered the cause of the supposed 'hole in the road' and realize that it wasn't a hole, but the bolt that holds the top half of one of my back shocks has worked lose and the shock has separated itself from the male part that it attaches to. In other words, i'm riding with one shock. fuckin shit. so i pull over into a parking lot, call my rommate and send him on a scavenger hunt for the missing bolt that's slipped into oblivion. he shows up with a set of bolts, none of which are for the bike and makes the observation that the bolt probably left the bike a while back and the only thing that was holding the shock on was a wing and a prayer. after some huffing to get the shock back on, with no success, we eventually have to lay the bike down on it's side to get it back into place. this upsets me more, because not only does it end up scuffing some of the chrome on the pipes, but the bike weighs in at 650 lbs and is a struggle for even 2 full grown men like ourselves. so now i've got newly scuffed parts and a missing bolt AND, i missed the outing. RAT TURDS!

And i wanna be pissed, but i'm not really. nothing i can do about this and i know this kind of stuff happens until i post it on our board as to why i missed the outing and it turns out that this happens regularly with hondas. Over half a dozen others posted that the exact same thing happened to them after their 600 mile checkup (which i had done, just last sunday). Guess the checkup doesn't include checking bolts.

So, i'm headed off to the dealer during lunch to get a replacement bolt and get them to replace the cover as well. I've been told that it's actually cheaper to get the chromed cover replacements for both, cheaper than it is to replace with one painted. If this is true, i'm happy again.

there's an assload of potato salad

up here on the 4th floor if anyone is hungry. looks like it was left over from a business meeting...

from the mind of an idiot

i haven't posted in a while. last week was frustratingly busy and i just haven't been feeling witty or bitchy or anything as of late. so my apologies to both of you...

was it over when the germans bombed pearl harbor?
i was sitting on the toilet the other day reading thru the new gq or ihop or linnens and things or jugs magazine, i don't remeber. but there were a set of articles written by different authors spouting about the presidential elections that are forthcoming and which of the lesser two axis of evils we have to choose from. personally, i'm a bush fan. i'm a george bush fan as well. i grew up in a family full of republicans, so before i really knew who or why i was voting for reagan or bush I or bush II, i punched the little card or pulled the little lever and voted just to get my old man off my back. now that i'm 16 and can make choices of my own and will be able to watch R-rated movies next year, i'm trying to decide why i should bother voting at all. the articles make some great points about both candidates and unfortunately, as most other discussions have stated, we need to throw out both and start over. elect someone who isn't a nutcase or isn't asking to vote for him because he's not a nutcase. bush is a good man. he has good intentions, but he needs to quit mixing religion and government. hey, your religion is in my government! hey your government is in my religion! two great tastes that taste great...
do we vote for a man that thinks god is talking to him personally and telling him how to run the country? or do we vote for a man who likes to brag about his purple medals and how he acquired them? they both seem to have about the same belief as how they would run the country or keep the germans from bombing pearl harbor again, but i'm pretty sick of the bullshit, "I'm not touching you..." game they're playing right now and wish it were november. i wish i had an answer as to who would do less damage to us and the world, but i just don't know.

the second coming of jebus
you'd think that it was happening around here, cause it's been beautiful and not the norm for what august, texas weather should be. i haven't seen the skies turn red or anthing like that, but i did get bit on the butt a few times for sitting in the grass yesterday morning (does that qualify as plague?). i spend the weekend on my bike enjoying the 82 degree weather. yup, you heard me right, all of you in antarctica. i went to breakast yesterday and actually got chilled without a jacket. i probably shouldn't have just been wearing that thong, but i thought it would be warmer...

the mark has been made
caught Collateral last night and man, can Michael Mann make a movie. he's been stylishly cool in almost everything he's ever put out. maybe it was just the subconscious seed he planted in my mind during my miami vice years, but it's hard to find a bad film made by this man. and cruise should really try this bad guy persona more often. it was a little difficult to pull my gawking stare away from his hair, but when it came down to it, he was a mean motherfucker. and jamie foxx actually did a great job as well. not a whole lot of authentic talent coming from In Living Color, but this guy is making his way up the charts.

i like tacos
...really, i do.

code of business conduct
so, every year, we are seemingly berated for our inability to comply with the code of conduct for the company i work for. it's not like they give us a chance to ever forget. we get quarterly emails from the HNIC of IT reminding us that we shouldn't be speaking badly of others (like calling them the hnic...) or not inviting them into our secret clubs where all we talk about is release schedules and implementation procedures.

other: can i join your club?
me: are you a woman, or jewish or black or crippled or have only one eye or are a bi-sexual hermaphrodite or don't like tacos or are a pittsburg steelers fan?
other: yes
me: piss off you commie

it's not like i'm buttfucking some poor developer in the bathroom with his design document or asking ethnic groups to park at the back of the parking lot. they all get treated with the same amount of angst and loathing that i afford everyone in this company. so why am i logging on to the same website to click YES to being nice to everyone or NO, piss off i'm ready to get canned by those two faced punks down in HR? meh

oh, and chips too
ok, really, that's it.

you eeedeeote!
good news has been brought to the world. John K's masterpiece is being released in october on dvd. the first two seasons of ren and stimpy are finally being dropped into our players to show us how mtv fucked mr. krikfalusi out of one of the greatest cartoons ever made. go preorder your copy now. joy!

duke nukem 3d, this isn't
now that i've had a chance to really get into doom 3 (it's a video game, eric. a really great, scary video game for the pc. kinda like sim city, but not so much.), i'm changing my opinion about it. gamespot put up a review about the game and i agreed with every single word it. now that i've had a chance to pick up the rocket launcher and kill some babies (yeah, i'm a baby killer. what're ya gonna do about it, you hermaphrodite commie?) and run around thru the dark and really see what id has done with this new engine, it makes me all tingly in my private parts. the thing that really does it for me is the level design. this could have fallen into the same bland, meaningless textures and square rooms with elevators, but they've really gone about 5 steps further than before and created some really cool, working machines (albeit, worthless from my perspective, but cool nonetheless) and i've gotten past the fact that a human made installation on Mars would be built with every room having secret compartments for just the reason of mosters from an invading, Hell force to hide in should i ever show up to save whomever is left on the planet. It's a long shot, i know, but i'm over it. and it looks as if some mods have already been released for the silly things that id overlooked like the ability to carry 15 guns and 3 megatons of ammo, but never figured out how to duct-tape your flashlight to your weapon. i know it was done that way on purpose, but the duct-tape and flashbang mods seem to have taken care of that little issue. i'm excited to see what else they'll be able to do with this engine and how they'll be able to expand on the incredibly dull and nonexistent multiplayer side of the game.

Plano got smart, for once

I lived in plano for most of my life growing up and even though, at one point in it's history, it had a great schooling system, it's just a stupid town. that may be a completely biased opinion, but that town breeds arrogance, superiority and corruption. So, imagine the surprise when local Planoites discovered from reading their paper this morning over their grande latte enema that the cumulative IQ sharply rose for a 4 hour period of time last night out front of a Best Buy location.

Yup, like every other big geek gathering, Best Buy held a midnight sale for the release of Doom 3 and i was there. J and i showed up to an already long line around 10:15 last night after a frosty shot of rumple or tuaca and sat in the summer evening heat with, eventually, about 1000 others bent on being the first kid on their block to kill a pinky demon. Instant friendships were created, plans for Quakecon decided upon and deathmatch servers were discussed. it was obvious that this was a parking lot full of geeks as the stature and build of most of these guys reeked gamer. Guys (and i only say this because there couldn't have been more than a dozen females there and most of them had never heard of Doom before) who had hammered down to many Bawls and Snickers and read to many bulletin board reviews and had online aliases that were spelled with not only, letters, but numbers (as a makeshift letter) loitered around the BB parking lot with intent of saving the world. Yes, even the famed Fatal1ty was onhand to sign copies for those that idolize a 21 year old that can make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year as a professional gamer. We were all there, all giddy with anticipation, all sweaty and ready to pay our $60. The EDGE was onhand throwing t-shirts and stickers and other worthless crap at us to keep us out of riot stage. The time came and at 12:01 am, they started letting us in, in groups of 30 like packs of inmates waiting to get our hour outside in the yard. Ironically, we were waiting for exactly the opposite. $60 lighter and with a new glimmer in our eye, we filed back outside and most, right back into another line to have a dozen or so members of the id team to sign a copy of our new reason to forget our lives, our families and the sun. The time was at hand and retribution was forthcoming for all of those poor demons that were about to be unleashed on Plano, Texas.

thpptttt!!!!!

that's exactly how i feel about both big films released this last weekend. and no, i'm not talking about harold and kumar. i saw the village on friday afternoon and the manchurian candidate last night. the village was just slow, the acting was subpar and the surprise twist? saw it coming a mile away. someone needs to tell shyamalan/shayman/salami/however his name is spelled that it's ok if the films he directs are written by someone else. the sixth sense was great. signs was good and i loved unbreakable, despite it's slow following, but he needs to do something new. i felt very let down by it. as for the manchurian candidate, i never intended to actually see it. it's hard to build on perfection. the original was amazing. and honestly, i was pretty surprised at the reviews being as good as they were when it was released on friday. about 10 minutes into the movie i realized i had made the wrong choice and should have never gone. the build-up was long. and i mean long. my roommate fell asleep, some guy behind us fell asleep and later when leaving, we heard others talk of their restful sleep during the film. it probably didn't help that we'd hit bone daddy's before the film and filled up on jumbo burgers and chicken fried steak, but still... the one thing done right with this film (and it wasn't a badly done film - very well done, i just didn't care for it) was that Meryl Streep did a great job reprising the Angela Landsbury role. Angela rightfully won the academy that year for some truly creep scenes and Meryl did her justice. i just had a "been there, done that" feeling all the way thru the film and needed a blanky to keep myself comfortable while we all dozed.

the rest of the weekend was quite relaxed. i did a lot of riding as you'll see by the new burn on my head and the farmer's tan on my arms. good dinner and to many drinks on saturday night. thank goodness Doom comes out esta noche, cause i'm not gonna be able to take this dry spell we've had for so long, any longer. midnight at big buy and i've got a sudden 24-48 hour flu...