Meanderings Archived

02/06/07 - 03/15/07



03/15/07 10:29am


Netsorcery

Beautiful, no? Here's a bigger version. I made it here. If you want to change stuff after you preview it, I think you gotta delete your temporary internet files first and refresh the page. Kind of a pain but fun once you figure it out. But yeah, it's for dorks.

Speaking of dorks, I came upon this nest of awesomeness: The Uncyclopedia. Right off the bat, I lost the Game. Stumbling around from the resulting headache, I found refuge in the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Drifters. Which in turn led me to enthralling discussions of redundancy and redundancy.

Cool article about vision tracking.

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03/12/07 10:49pm


sexual gestures, nudity (Janet Jackson), and what-not

Some real gems courtesy of the Smoking Gun... Personally this one is my personal favorite. Hope that HIV test turned out alright.

At this Wilco site on Sunday they were streaming the new album, Sky Blue Sky, and I had a chance to hear almost all of it. You can still download one of the new tracks, "What Light." It was definitely Wilco, at first listen similar to the A Ghost is Born sound, with some new sounds and lyrical phrasings thrown in the mix. It was just kinda... ok. At first listen. It'll be out May 15 but I expect more tracks to show up on their myspace before then.

We watched the first episode of The Riches tonight, and it was a pretty decent pilot. It wasn't half as cheesy as I expected it to be. The accents are a little troublesome but it wasn't unbearable by any means. The most interesting aspects were the dark corners... Minnie Driver is a pretty harrowing junkie. I predict this will be the breakout role for grizzled B-actor Gregg Henry, who, it appears, will be playing the asshole of the neighborhood.

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03/11/07 1:26am

Carandiru

Carandiru (2003)

Steve Buscemi A Japanese "Cammy" Cosplayer
John Steinbeck Satan

Furthermore: Another slow Brazilian film, maybe a little bit better than The Man Who Copied. The film is named for an old Brazilian prison that suffered from severe overcrowding, had a famous deadly (and one-sided) riot, and was eventually demolished. It's based on the recollections of a doctor who visited the prison, describing the inner world of the place, and all the various wackjobs he met there while giving HIV tests to the inmates. So mostly character studies, but at least they provide some entertaining flashbacks. It's all right.

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03/05/07 6:29pm


Morehammer

I finished my Imperial Guard regiment last week after about 4 months or so of work and played a game against Mucky's chaos on Saturday. The 54th Tiefwalder held their own. Near the end of the battle, the demon prince charged the center of the Guard formation, slaughtered a squad of infantry, but finally expired in a hail of lascannon and heavy bolter fire. The confrontation ended in a stalemate, as both friendly and enemy forces fortified their positions without significant losses. Tiefwalder casualties included one Sentinel, a mobile infantry command squad and their Chimera, and a fire support squad.

In early test games I used the two infantry command squads as deep-strike suicide teams, but I’ve decided to give them each a Chimera instead to add even more anti-infantry firepower. I added a flamer or two to the infantry command squads and special weapons squad to help out with close-quarters defense. I also added a Commissar to the Command HQ for a hidden powerfist and leadership boost, and used Iron Discipline instead of the Drop Troops (deep strike) doctrine. It allows squads using an officer’s leadership to ignore the -1 Ld for being below 50%, as well as to regroup even when below 50% (needing 9’s on leadership tests almost every time, which is much better than normal Guard Ld). I had 12 points left over that I couldn’t allocate, so I decided to throw a sanctioned Psyker into the command squad for the hell of it. He’s going to be worthless most of the time but every once in a while he’ll boost the junior officer’s leadership radius to 18”, which could help in a pinch.

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03/05/07 12:46am


Borne Aloft

We went to see my brother play in his Brasilian band at the Blanton Museum's B-Scene. It was cool to see D blow through like 8 different instruments as the night progressed. Some good sambas and whatever all else different types of songs. As it turned out we weren't able to check out too much of the actual art exhibits, so we'll have to go back at some point. I had heard some good things about the B-Scene, but I didn't find it that appealing really. A little too swinging.

Saturday we went out to the neighborhood park and launched a couple of cheap kites, featuring a pterodactyl and a couple of aliens. We definitely got our two dollars worth, and enjoyed some crazy aerobatics before the pterodactyl bit the dust for good. Pretty soon after we arrived we were joined by some of the most selfish, asshole parents I've ever heard, all the time snapping at their kids and spouses for no reason, grabbing the kite away when -god forbid- the kid threatened to bring their kites down, that they had spent 10 whole minutes getting into the air, thank you very much. Even a grampa got into the action. But all-in-all the day was just too awesome to be spoiled by a bunch of bitter breeders.

Here's some pictures from all that mess.

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03/04/07 12:05am

The Man Who Copied

The Man Who Copied (2003)

Steve Buscemi A Japanese "Cammy" Cosplayer
John Steinbeck Satan

Furthermore: Eh. Pretty good foreign film. It drags on too long but it's got some fairly interesting narrative devices, not to mention Luana Piovani... zowie.

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02/28/07 8:54


The River Rise

I went on a site visit this week, checked out a fairly typical large-scale remediation site. Here's some pictures. Pretty interesting feats of engineering.

Heroes and Lost are continuing quite nicely. Great shows but with both I have to wonder just how many more seasons they'll be able to milk out. I understand a new season of The Shield is cranking up in the next month, the first of two final seasons. I hope they just go all out and have everything go totally batshit and fall apart.

I forgot to mention that we visited Schoepf's BBQ on the field trip. I had a big ass combo platter with ribs and sausage that was quite tasty. The potato salad in particular was very enjoyable. I got the "hot" jalapeno sausage but it wasn't that spicy. The sauce is good but not the absolute best as many other reviews on the web seem to suggest; I dig the thin, peppery style but it was just a little too thin for my taste.

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02/25/07 10:40pm

Talladega Nights

Talladega Nights (2006)

Steve Buscemi A Japanese "Cammy" Cosplayer
John Steinbeck Satan

Furthermore: Such a frustrating movie. There were some really brilliant moments, but the dead spaces in-between were extremely aggravating. The characters and plot points are introduced so haphazardly it makes it pretty hard to follow. Fortunately "Shake and Bake" makes for a pretty good comedy duo, and I was pleasantly suprised by Reilly's ability to steal many of the scenes that the two share (pretty much the entire film). The part where the two chat on the phone late at night after their schism was a good example: Cal and R.B.'s random banter is so dry, idiotic, and honestly hilarious but it just drags on and on and on... Overall I liked it but I probably wouldn't be able to sit through it again. "Greatest Generation my ass. Tom Brokaw's a punk!"

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02/21/07 8:27


Yeah! Especially Backed In!

Some douche left this note on my vehicle at work. Suffice it to say that it was fucking unwarranted and I was pretty irritated about it. Back in San Marcos you were eye-to-eye with your competition. At work the act of parking is much less hectic and cutthroat, but people are generally older and bossier. At least he could have used one of these instead of this creepy little burning cross-esque back-of-the-receipt bullshit.

Tonah stormed the set this past weekend and we had some good times, including a big poker game on Saturday. KLube cleaned us all out and went home with the big win.

Jeez... I fired up Seven Mary Three today after Mucky was humming some "Cumbersome." Hadn't heard it in ages. Pretty good.

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02/19/07 1:04pm

The Departed

The Departed (2006)

George Washington Howard Taft
John F. Kennedy Ronald Reagan

Furthermore: Pretty dang good! Lots of killin' and gangster whathaveyou, great characters, altogether a very well-told story with excellent pacing. Marky Mark did a great job, but I have to crown Baldwin as the champion: "I'm gonna go have a smoke right now. You want a smoke? You don't smoke, do ya, right? What are ya, one of those fitness freaks, huh? Go fuck yourself." The camera follows him around from right to left as he spins a circle around Matt Damon... that's fuckin cinema. And noone has used the cell phone as a prop in a film like Scorcese. It's genius. Yep, everything I heard about this movie was true.

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02/12/07 9:16pm


Time For You To STEP OFF

Had a pretty fun weekend, starting off with the Lemonheads live at Emos. It was a late start, but after the two mediocre opening bands, Dando and crew took the stage and very quickly rocked through a ton of great material. Allison got her tit pierced! Also I heard something about a mohawk.

The first meeting of the Austin Dodgeball Society went down on Saturday, but we didn't really play any dodgeball. We just posed really enthusiastically for this series of staged pictures.

I've been watching this silly White Rapper Show. I hate hate hate this show... but I still cannot stop watching. Hallelujah holla back.

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02/11/07 7:17pm

Clerks 2

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005)

Steve Buscemi A Japanese "Cammy" Cosplayer
John Steinbeck Satan

Furthermore:

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02/10/07 11:55pm

Clerks 2

Clerks 2 (2006)

Steve Buscemi A Japanese "Cammy" Cosplayer
John Steinbeck Satan

Furthermore: Wow. I was not prepared for how bad this turned out to be. Every passing moment brought a new clench in my stomach. About an hour in, I started outright yelling at the screen. Judging by the number of repeat gags and plot points (in the guise of nostalgic winks to the first film), I don't think Kevin Smith's sense of humor has changed much since the original Clerks, so I guess mine has. It really made me think about why I liked that first one so much. It was definitely one of the first few indie films I'd seen, and it was in black and white. It combined silliness, profanity, and shocking douchebaggery with the mundane world of service industry work and cult geek entertainment. Obviously those last two elements had personal appeal. I must have watched it a million times and committed nearly the whole film to memory. And it was honestly funny. And Mallrats was fun too, despite Jeremy London's best efforts. But starting with Chasing Amy, the simple honest dialogue began to seem really drawn out, fake, stilted, wooden. Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back was actually very enjoyable, mainly because he stayed away from drama and stuck with shenanigans. Not so with Clerks 2. He goes whole hog with another love triangle featuring Dante, two chicks, and oh yeah, a brand new batch of Randall's best friend whinery. And there's a spontaneous dance number. The preposterousness shoots off the charts.

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02/06/07 10:46pm

An Inconvenient Truth

An Inconvenient Truth (2006)

Steve Buscemi A Japanese "Cammy" Cosplayer
John Steinbeck Satan

Furthermore: I hereby officially endorse this movie as a scientist. Crap shit ass. The situation is decidedly un-big time.

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02/06/07 10:44pm

Superman Returns

Superman Returns (2006)

Steve Buscemi A Japanese "Cammy" Cosplayer
John Steinbeck Satan

Furthermore: Really terrible movie. The only thing I liked about it was how well Spacey embraced and celebrated the ticks Gene Hackman had already associated with the character. Other than that, balls. Ok, maybe when he stops the plane above the baseball field, that was somewhat decent. But that's it.

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