neurological dryer lint

cause i'm already on my way

2008-06-24T08:53:00.000-04:00

well i think it's time to retire this old thing. in college, when i had interesting thoughts and experiences to write about, it was a ton of fun; although it's difficult to read posts from five years ago - up until a year or two ago, my old writing just makes me cringe. but to chronicle this period of my life for my own future reminiscence, it has served its purpose.

i'll still post around on wack mc's, lazyrev, and monster closet, and of course toss up the occasional link. so not much of a farewell, more like a "look over there, shiny object!"

thanks for reading.

in dischord and rhyme

2008-06-22T22:28:00.003-04:00

tagging has come full circle. prepare yourself:

- i've continued to hold the claim that i am the laziest person i know, and moving has illustrated that. i have spent my whole life avoiding hard work - cutting corners, putting forward the least effort possible to get by. i have determined that is why i hate moving - it is way too much lifting, packing, unpacking, etc. and knowing i will have to work that hard seriously stresses me out.

- even though i have spent my whole life sailing, i get more seasick today than i did when i was a kid. and even though i've spent my whole life swimming, i still get uneasy in deep, opaque water, fearing that something i can't see below will bite me. even in simulated environments - in first person shooters, for example, when moving through water areas, i still move very quickly and get nervous.

- one of my favorite film performances is danny devito's penguin from batman returns. most would disagree - but i think he outdoes jack nicholson's joker.

- in the twelve years i have known my wife, i've never heard her swear. although the very thought of her cursing can make me laugh, no matter what mood i'm in, because it's so absurd. she claims to have done it once - but i don't think i believe her.

- i've never smoked as much as a cigarette, weed, any other drugs, and i've always been super curious what it'd be like. not because there's something wrong with my life that i'd like to modify in that way... more because of our culture's fascination with them, i wonder what all the fuss is about. i'm much too chicken to ever give it a shot, though. i think it was that literature you get when you're in middle school about all the crap drugs will do to your body - it freaked me out enough to always steer clear, even though there were probably four or five boy scouts i'm sure were high during every campout we went on. it's probably a good thing that i've stayed "clean", per se, although i never talked about it because i didn't want to seem like too much of a mama's boy. yeah, the boy scout thing didn't help that out much at all.

- my sister has been one of the most significant influences in my musical taste - introducing me to tons of genres and bands i still love today... with one exception - when i was six, a weekend she was down visiting, and she had been listening to madonna's like a virgin, and i was so fascinated... i remember going downstair (yeah) early in the morning, before anyone was up, popping in her tape and listening to it over and over. there may have also been dancing. i have no idea what compelled me to do that. madonna isn't in any of my regular playlists today... however, another album of hers i scavenged, duran duran's rio, certainly is. thanks renee...

it's automatic when you feel it

2008-06-17T09:03:00.001-04:00

the front of our office looks like metal gear solid 4 starring cicadas - dead and dying bugs litter the parking garage and the walkway in. it's more than a little disconcerting.

the drive in to work from the new house is gravy - left at 7:35, stopped for a bagel, still got here at 8. all backroads (except i need to stay far away from tylersville, coming anywhere near that road seems to add ten minutes to the drive)

hiring movers is the best money i've ever spent. thanks to them, we had enough time to almost completely unpack. well thanks to them, renee's foresight to start moving things in a week ahead of time, and my brother and her sister, both of whom helped immensely.

we did have a few minutes for fun during this terribly long, exhausting weekend - i got in about five hours of MGS4, it's great as you would expect, a good reason to pick up a PS3. i talked about it last week on the podcast and i have a bit more insight this week. the in-game ipod currently works better than my real one, unfortunately, the death clock was dead on - it finally kicked the bucket this weekend. wow, a little over two years, apple. you're never getting another cent from me, ever.

we also saw the happening, which you should avoid at all costs. night has completely lost his touch, it would seem - the film had a great concept but was executed terribly, from the casting to the writing to the friviolous, cheap-feeling shock scenes that felt like they were thought up by a sixth grade boy doodling in class.

answers to the tangled knot

2008-06-06T14:11:00.003-04:00

we are in the new house... it still doesn't seem like ours yet, i feel like i'm walking through someone else's really awesome empty place. i assume it will when we get our stuff in, or when i finish my first job around the house... renee and her parents have done a crazy good job painting. we'll be fully in sometime the week after next.

i'm discovering the neighborhood. we are pretty far out, which is probably good for me. we're surrounded by a lot of big fields, farms, some newer housing developments, etc... it's peaceful, more quiet than we've had in western hills, ten or fifteen minutes from any major shopping centers. i was too used to having a grocery store next door.

i will miss the nice stuff about stuck-thirty-years-in-the-past western hills, but it's not all lost: there's a little ice cream place down the street, a couple of pizza places, a park right next door... met one of our neighbors already - they are cool, younger like us, with a six year old boy. actually everyone around us seems super friendly. traffic on the way home from the office isn't bad, but it's fastest to take backroads. looks like that motorcycle might actually be reasonable.

we are on episode three of the podcast and i think we're getting more comfortable and into our rhythm. artie has been generous enough to come up with some awesome looking concept art for the site, and i can't wait to see how it will turn out.

the new weezer disc has a higher ratio of woo! to yawn than their past two releases. that pleases me. plus, there's more electronics, a grittier, dirtier guitar (see the first part of the greatest man that ever lived) and far more interesting songwriting from rivers... there's very little "boo hoo i didn't get the girl" from them, probably cause rivers got married. exciting!

fifteen years getting loaded

2008-05-28T21:37:00.004-04:00

remember the scene in jurassic park when dennis nedry, played masterfully by wayne knight, is trying to get off the island and loses his way, ending up at the mercy of the acid-spitting dinosaurs? it's one of the most tense moments i've ever seen in a film - just thinking about it gets my blood pressure elevated. spielberg sure knew back then how to get the audience to the edge of their seats...

i've felt that tense most of the day, trying to get prepared to close on the house tomorrow. granted this is way too commonplace of an event in American society for mistakes or incompetence (either on my part or someone else's) to totally derail the whole thing. that's exactly what i am expecting will happen, though - and events are conspiring to bring it to fruition. mortage dude emails me crucial paperwork that he'd forgotten about the night before... i find out i won't know the exact amount i need to bring to the closing until the morning of... you're thinking, these things probably aren't a big deal. true!

nearly every nightmare i've had in the past ten years has looked something like this: i'm in a room or a hallway, usually at a high school or college, and i'm late to a meeting or a class of some kind, and i can't find something i need - a bag, a folder, etc. i am turning over tables, opening drawers and lockers, desperately trying to find whatever crucial thing i am missing. someone is in the room with me urging me to hurry up, and i get more and more frantic.

so apparently, my greatest fear is that i will irreversibly screw up something important by being late to something - or not having some thing very important that i am supposed to have - or not knowing something i am supposed to know, and i will let down people that are important to me. so i expect myself to be a little tense for the next 24 hours until this thing gets done - after all, this event is the most important one of its kind that i have ever faced.

i was very pleased to have a 5-6 week buffer zone between when our offer was accepted and when we closed - it was so this type of crap would get taken care of, by someone else that does it for a living, waaaayy ahead of time, and i wouldn't be able to futz it all up, or have to prepare paperwork so close to the deadline and not know the information i'm supposed to...

prayer has helped a lot to bring calm... driving around the new neighborhood today has also... watching hockey certainly doesn't (does anyone else get really tense watching hockey?) - but it looks really good in HD so i'm doing it anyway...

just another stupid american

2008-05-22T10:02:00.001-04:00

i drove home at 2:30am last night, squirming uncomfortably in the driver's seat... i felt like someone had kicked me in the stones - it was the most visceral physical response to an emotional wound i had ever felt, and its cause was an overwhelming disappointment drowning my heart.

indiana jones and the kingdom of the crystal skull was soulless and empty, a scifi b-movie-of-the-week poorly dressed up like the films from the 80's that i loved. it was like going on a date with a mannequin that looks like your girlfriend. comparisons to the new star wars trilogy (raiders of the lost ark is to a new hope as the phantom menace is to crystal skull) skip over one important point - episode 1 had some redeeming qualities.

you could recognize lucas' abysmal writing and story from a mile off, something i braced myself against walking in... but nearly every otheraspect of the film matched that low quality - one dimensional characters (wow, shia lebouf, you're such a rebel who plays by his own rules), an uninteresting villain, and a convoluted "backstory" that they tried to present as mysterious but came across as half-baked and confusing (apparently indy was in the cia? whatever).

and since when does ILM let their janitor create their special effects? for the most part they were run-of-the-mill, except for the very end, in one of the final crucial scenes - i won't spoil it, but i will say i felt like i was watching men in black.

the most stunning betrayal came in harrison ford's utter failure in reviving the indiana jones character. twenty years ago he was funny, clever, committed, the guy had heart. there was absolutely no heart in the indy i saw last night - 90% of the time, harrison played the grumpy, i'm-always-right, get-off-my-plane, give-me-back-my-family old man he's been in every film role for the past ten years... for the other 10% he was a disconcertingly sensitive, warm-and-fuzzy chump that made me want to projectile vomit.

depressed yet? don't watch this film, unless you want to feel like someone just ran over your dog.

songs of redemption, songs of war

2008-05-16T16:50:00.003-04:00

i'm not sure i have the right look for radio, but i do know tony does, as he already runs a successful podcast. and ryan, duh, homie was born for it. i have suckered these two into a new experiment, monster closet, a podcast about games. shhh! it's still sleeping. hopefully we will record episode one soon. in the meantime, someone make me a better logo, my photoshop skills really butchered this poor mudkip.

i was totally wrong about tim armstrong's solo album a poet's life. i heard into action and kind of yawned because it wasn't another pure rancid or op ivy track. turns out there's nothing wrong with the album, though, its really solid, head-bobbing reggae/dub/ska with tim's heavy, gritty vocals. a bunch of the tracks hearken to early stuff by the specials... very reflective of tim's roots influences, and definitely worth a listen.

below the blanket of a burning sky

2008-05-15T15:40:00.003-04:00

eric (at least i think it was him) threw a comment below about adrian graduating soon and being pretty high in his class... as in, dude is valedictorian... i am crazy proud that he has done so well - while working, getting his eagle, running, playing soccer, learning to play guitar in Rock Band on expert, and dating a girl. seriously he's like ten awesome people duct-taped together, a true renaissance man.

we've changed closing dates like four times on our place. it appears the deal is happening may 29th now. we start painting the following week, and then move some small stuff, and movers show up june 16 to get everything else.

i think i am close to shutting this particular site down. i'm shocked it's taken me this long to lose interest, honestly...

your revolution is a silly idea

2008-05-08T15:47:00.004-04:00

it's weird being one of the only gamers i know not playing grand theft auto IV. any game with scores this high i generally check out on principle, and i am a little intrigued by the gameplay and visuals. i've never been a huge follower of the series, though, and i'm not sure if it's because of the stigma behind it (as the most immoral thing ever created by man) or because i usually get into less mundane stuff. not that it's boring, but it's too real. i don't need a simulation of a real city, real cars, people, etc... probably why i enjoy scifi so much.

i'm actually excited about decking out one room in our new place - the office. i had this idea while in college but never followed through (the transformers: the movie poster was sufficient): a dozen or so of my favorite album covers, hi-res and in black and white, in black frames. when i say favorite, that's in terms of the artistic quality, the ones that really capture the mood of the album, that reconnect you with the emotional state you're in when you're listening to it, or where you were when you first listened to it.

i knew a few of the ones i wanted right away - physical graffiti, purple, who's next, ghosts - but there are a bunch of others i am juggling around. i put the candidates so far up here. so tell me about your favorite album covers - why do you like 'em?

my voice just echoes off these walls

2008-05-05T11:29:00.002-04:00

another week, another new, free nine inch nails album.

it's so strange - we used to wait five years between albums, and now in the space of a year we get three. i just finished my first listen now and enjoyed it. sort of.

i'm not complaining, mind you. used to be, though, i would spend those five years poring over those albums, extracting every nuance, grinning at the subtle, the refined, the way trent played the same style of music in a completely different way.

except i haven't even finished digesting ghosts (with which this disc sounds as if it will pair very well, btw). again, not complaining; this is more like too much of a good thing. it's just different, a different sameness. we aren't waiting five years and getting a different trent, like a letter from a long lost friend twice a decade, now-he's-an-angst-ridden-junkie, now-he's-an-anti-establishment-radical. we are seeing a more steady stream of thought. weird. a good weird.

as a result: the slip doesn't sound exactly like year zero, but they are certainly very similar, both in tone and artistic direction. some tracks could easily be mistaken as zero's b-sides (except corona radiata which is straight off the downward spiral, hot). there isn't a furious, gripping track, a blatant standout. nevertheless it is cohesive in a way the 90's stuff (and with teeth) never was; sharp and satisfying and compelling from start to finish, with none of the dreary, moody quiet you see in the tail end of the previous albums.

dave, doug, daniel and i got tickets to the lexington show in august and i'm excited to hear how these tracks work alongside the others. especially demon seed and 1,000,000 and corona. dang.

your polaroid is on the wall

2008-05-04T16:38:00.003-04:00

i'm always up for a good superhero flick... good being operative here, and the ones i've enjoyed since the genre exploded early this decade (the first two x-men films, superman returns and batman begins) are the ones i knew at least a little about. although i wasn't ever a comic junkie, the genre has appearled to me, but i've avoided the punishers and fantastic fours because i can recognize when a film has nothing to say to me, and it's purely a product of marketing.

normally iron man would have fallen into that category - and i think i'm glad that i knew nothing about the series or characters before walking in. i have no idea if robert downey jr's tony stark is close to the comics, and i didn't really care for once, because the character was capitvating, smarmy and self-important and yet you want him to succeed, to live, to win. and jeff bridges, generally too nice of a guy to pull off a modern villain, ends up as a solid corporate bad guy. there's a sort of lame half-love-story and a clumsy (but poignant) anti-war thread... but gear heads and gadget nerds will eat it up.

yes, this phone has a dedicated GOOG-411 button. i wanna shake the hand of whoever came up with this idea. bravo, GE.

call your bluff like it had a phone number

2008-05-01T14:14:00.002-04:00

really enjoyed this lengthy but compelling talk from evan griffin on personal change from a spiritual perspective, a topic that has long perplexed me and yet no one ever seems to speak practically on. i kind of miss hearing this type of stuff from navs/younglife leadership. i guess NKY younglife records messages weekly and posts it... great idea...

our family went up to check out mesh for my mom's birthday last night - an honest-to-goodness new restaurant in cincy, amazing - incredible atmosphere and decor, great food but mega pricey... and they were a little misleading about it... i probably wouldn't have gotten side dishes, for example, had our waitress not made it sound like they were included with dinner. i did enjoy them (basil bisque - like a mild creamy soup made of pesto, and a spinach & mushroom risotto in which i couldn't quite locate any mushroom) as well as the special, the most sophisticated walleye i've ever had.

a world that won't stop burning

2008-04-28T21:37:00.002-04:00

after watching harold & kumar this weekend (mostly funny) i realized how rare trips to the movie theater have been in the past year or two... obviously the just-under-$10 tickets have dampened my moviegoing spirit, but so has the lackluster menu. remember when we used to do a few midnight showings a year? it's certainly been a long time since anything was worthy of late-night devotion... i remember in 2005, after revenge of the sith and batman begin i thought, we'll never have another year of marqee titles i will care about again...

except 2008 is chock full of 'em. behold:

- indiana jones 4, may 22. it's been almost twenty years since the last crusade, and in that time i grew to love the trilogy's stories almost as much as star wars or the lord of the rings. so this new one feels like coming home.

- the dark knight, july 18. duh. nolan's begins has edged out burton's first as my favorite superhero flick, and i certainly didn't think he could outdo himself. it'll be a masterpiece.

- x-files 2, july 25. the long-forgotten series fits well in the context of a film, and so even though this one won't tell more of the alien conspiracy mytharc, i know chris carter will tell a great story, and i still hold a place in my heart for mulder + scully. and john doggett, haters shove off, yaahh trick!

- star wars: the clone wars, august 15. there is potential here... i really liked genndy tartakovsky's animated series, seems that the star wars universe can make for great cartoons. plus, lucas isn't writing or directing it, so that's at least one plus.

- quantum of solace, november 8. my initial "meh" towards daniel craig's bond and casino royale in general has faded - i have reluctantly accepted the new guy - and so i'm eager to see him in a full-fledged role. and this one starts right after the last one. continuity, intriguing...

on top of those, i will likely check out iron man, even though i know nothing about the comics - solely because downey looks like a trip... pineapple express, which i first heard of friday, could be the funniest thing i see all year...get smart may come in as a close second... shyamalan's the happening will get a courtesy watch, but i was so let down by lady in the water that i am now pretty hesitant... and tropic thunder's cast and plot are pretty appealing.

what looks good to you?

right behind what's happening

2008-04-27T21:36:00.002-04:00

i really couldn't miss botcon when it was fifteen minutes away, and call myself a transformers fan. if for no other reason than to tell my kids that i went once. i guess. doubt they'd care.

it was a letdown, of course, but really the only way the event could have satisfied me was if i walked in the door to be personally greeted by peter cullen, frank welker and chris latta (which would have been impressive since he passed away fourteen years ago). it was 95% dudes selling toys and memorabilia... gratefully i didn't have much cash on me or i might have a gen-1 megatron or starscream in my hands. there were some comic artists and illustrators from the new series signing autographs, as well as drawing classes, a "film fest" (i.e. a dvd player, a tv and a dvd boxset of beast wars) and a fan-art competition.

(i am definitely picking up a tf:animated starscream in june when they come out - prerelease versions were up there and they look sweet)

there were a ton of true fans there, though. their passion was tangible (and quite contagious). a bunch of them had their kids along and you could see them bonding over the experience. there are some pix up here...

to think that you've lost your cool

2008-04-25T13:35:00.001-04:00

metal gear solid 4 is the top reason i picked up a PS3... which has been heavily delayed and is now slated for a june 12 release. with MGS4 they're including a totally separate, full-blown multiplayer game called metal gear online.

i played about ten minutes of MGS:portable ops' online multiplayer and found myself instantly overwhelmed by the more skilled veterans. i never went back.

an invite to MGO's closed beta was included with a preorder... the beta was supposed to start april 21 and has also been delayed due to server failures and, we assume, konami underestimating exactly how much bandwidth they'd need to make this thing work.

so the beta went live today and over lunch i set up my character, went through the training, and played a four-round match and - shockingly - came in first overall, something that's only happened to me probably a dozen times in fifteen years of online gaming. mostly because i haven't ever had the desire to put in the practice required, with one exception: the original quake.

in high school, i had doom and descent, but "online multiplayer" - i.e. groups of two or more playing over an internetworked WAN - didn't exist so much. the best you could hope for was peer-to-peer over dialup, and there were only a handful of folks at northwest with the savvy, willingness, phone line and a fast-enough modem to make it work.

but during the end of high school and the first year of college, i sunk hundreds of hours into quake. the game itself was a turning point in online multiplayer - one of the first FPS' with a client/server network model (one person starts a quake server and clients connect/disconnect at will). before quake, groups of players had to simultaneously start a networked game, and they had to be on a local network. quake was the first to support TCP/IP, too, which meant it would work over the public internet. servers sprang up everywhere - at onenet we had quake.one.net, a fairly popular server that i would hang out on regularly - mainly because i was already on their network, so the ping to the server was low (meaning a fast connection).

throughout the rest of college, i had other things to occupy my time and couldn't really devote energy to mastering the online games that gained popularity after quake - namely quake 2, half-life, and teamfortress classic (although i did have a brief stint with counterstrike). shortly after i wandered away from PC gaming completely for halo and missed tribes, battlefield, medal of honor and call of duty completely.

it was even less of a draw after getting married (other multiplayer experiences took precedence). i played call of duty 4 enough to level up to 22 or so, but the only time i could fire it up was later at night, and the sounds of gunfire and soldiers' shouts don't make for a pleasant, peaceful house for our family.

initially i wanted to talk about how great MGO is, even in beta - plays smoothly, no skipping or lag, gorgeous graphics and immersive audio, the much-heralded MGS4 improved control system is great... but i know as much as part of me wants to invest in becoming great, i feel - what is it? the weight of real life and priorities. the knowledge of its importance in the grand scheme and how it's not worth the time is a buzzkill, to be sure, but that doesn't make it wrong. i certainly hope MGO turns out to be a game that the moderately-skilled can still play online and enjoy (much like burnout: paradise is, and halo 3 is not).

did i cross a line?

2008-04-23T13:37:00.002-04:00

i LOVE the new digital music era. LOVE IT.

trent just posted a new nine inch nails single, discipline, for free download here. comments in the ID3 tags say to visit www.nin.com on may 5.

the track itself is alright - not incredible, but very good. very, very good for the price.

collision is such an ugly sound

2008-04-23T09:24:00.002-04:00

b and i made the trek up to the DAY to see paramore + jimmy eat world last night. not many artists are worth a drive longer than 30 minutes these days; though to cross another band off of the "see before i die" list is always motivation enough.

paramore was forgettable... the teen girl squad was out in force to shriek every time hayley williams scampered across the stage, and so the hannah montana vibe sort of elbowed out any chance of hearing or appreciating the handful of their generic pop-punk tracks that i enjoy.

jimmy's 90 minute set was thoroughly satisfying, OTOH. they nailed my dream setlist, hanging out in the last four albums fairly consistently, playing:

- crush, blister and your new aesthetic from clarity
- bleed american, a praise chorus, hear you me, sweetness, and the middle from bleed american
- futures, just tonight, work, 23, and pain from futures
- big casino, let it happen, always be, here it goes and dizzy from chase this light

unfortunately they dropped the tuning of the three songs at the end of the main set, before the encore (just tonight/bleed american/pain) and they sounded pretty bad.

i do find it interesting how hearing some songs live makes me enjoy the studio versions more afterwards - 23 and dizzy are good examples, i felt they were kind of boring before last night; today listening to them is a very different experience. since i don't enjoy standing in one place, being shoved by ten people way inside my circle of comfort, and having my ears hurt for eighteen hours like i did ten years ago, i think a renewed appreciation for parts of an artists' catalog is one of the only reasons i go to shows anymore. anyway, pix are here.

your arm in mine here near midnight

2008-04-20T22:35:00.002-04:00

"i consider the true history of the american revolution and the establishment of our present constitution as lost forever."
- john adams, in a letter to hezekiah niles

maybe adams was right... i certainly feel a little more enlightened and a lot more grateful, though, after this extraordinary series. easily the most visceral, intelligent, real tale of the revolution and one of its central figures. while a little tedious around the middle, the series otherwise doled out steady nuggets of fascinating, well-written accounts of american history. i think this is a series i will revisit regularly. i fell apart when abigail died, of course, fairly typical for me during scenes where a great love is lost (i doubt i could watch the fountain again, for example).

i modified jamie oliver's recipe for steak, guinness and cheese pie a bit today - used cast-iron for the stewing, swapped out rosemary for basil + parsley, got rid of most of the cheese, added red potatoes.,, i also found that the liquid didn't thicken or reduce as much as i expected - but it worked great after being extracted, gravy-fied and re-added to the meat + veggies (and i do think guinness gravy could complement a bunch of other dishes). i've always wanted to make a steak pie as delicious as dad's... i think i came close today.

better leave while you can

2008-04-19T19:52:00.003-04:00

sure, all fall out boy all the time is certainly a nightmare of mine. which is why i am saddened and terrified that i cannot stop listening to their cover of beat it. i think i'm ill. it's a very accessable, by-the-book version, if you enjoy the pop-punk as i do, you will likely devour it.

i just fracking found out that i missed mike doughty at the southgate house last week. argh!

so kyle noe and doan tran are engaged and we got the chance to go to a traditional vietnamese engagement party. lots of protocol and formality, and oh yeah, i obliterated a plastic patio chair. scooted backwards a little too fast and it exploded. really helped with the romantic, familial mood that was going on.

refuse to sing along

2008-04-16T18:06:00.002-04:00

if i could (read: renee would let me) decorate our entire house with this guy's stuff... i don't know art, but i know what i like. absolutely gorgeous.

this hotel here in austin has an alarm clock with an ipod dock. should be standard in every hotel room in the country, what an awesome idea.

i really liked ian's recent post on sin, i have been feeling some of the same things recently... i had a kind of picture in my head a few days ago after reading - what a day in my life would look like without treating God or the people around me badly. for about a tenth of a second i almost believed it was possible; which made me kind of realize the defeatist attitude i have adopted about my own sin. you hear "you can't be perfect while on this earth" from wise people, and my brain auto-appends "so don't even bother trying to be better" to the end. there is certainly a lot that i cannot defeat on my own; there is also a lot that might require some heavy lifting on my part and i haven't bothered with it because of the former stuff. let's see if this theoretical concept could translate to reality...

keep getting stuck here all the time

2008-04-14T09:40:00.003-04:00

i will oblige the honorable daniel smyth's tag and respond with random things about myself:

- i have crazy dreams almost every night, david-lynch-style creepy, and most of them are about being late to something or not knowing something i'm supposed to know, and the dire consequences of those failures
- two of renee's favorite things to eat - jellied cranberries and cottage cheese - are two of maybe four things in the world i won't eat
- the other two are liver, and... i can't remember the other one
- i've watched wayne's world more times than any other film, even a new hope or lebowski or big trouble in little china
- i've read gibson's count zero more times than any other book... close seconds are H2G2 and blue like jazz

and... here's the big one... are you ready? ARE YOU READY?

- i used to watch saved by the bell. religiously. there. you now know my biggest secret. so why have i derided its fans for years? kept my mouth shut during SBTB trivia, when i knew every answer? walked away from every "whoa bayside"? because i am ashamed of my SBTB-watching past. years after i'd seen every episode and turned my attention to other things (this was probably during my senior year), i caught a few minutes of a stray showing on TBS or something - and saw it for what it really was - meaningless drivel. i was so disgusted by my past love for it that i swore to eliminate it from my memory. i'd never intentionally watch it/discuss it/avow any knowledge of it again.

it's your turn: artie (to whom this revelation will likely strike the hardest blow); b (mister "i'm blogging again", yeah); the braggalicious treat (the reason that wayne's world number is so high); duebber (who is a good sport about these types of random lists); darren (whose answers will be a thousand times more interesting than mine); and brain, (who is quickly running out of posts before he quits). six random things. now.

so this whole post isn't self-aggrandizing - a few other notes - one, purple's producer brendan o'brien is making the next AC/DC album, hot! and also - there is a snippet of the new weezer track pork and beans up on amazon, delicious.

i'll star in a mystery

2008-04-09T21:30:00.004-04:00

like a bunch of other churches in the area, lifespring just started the consumed series developed by crossroads. even though i've known for a few months that it was coming down the pipeline, i was still surprised at how powerfully i was struck by the first week's content, and more than that, how ready i was to hear it.

for years i have half-rationalized, half-ignored my own rampant media/gadget addiction... "it's my hobby", or "i tithe / donate enough", etc... since we got married renee has (very patiently) helped me to curb it a bit, but the root cause hasn't been addressed - the addiction... the high you get from picking up something new... a feeling i have also been objectively aware of for years, and also rationalized away.

since sunday, and then our study's first week of discussion about the material on monday, i've felt the weight of my possessions and my desire to buy stuff. i even had the quick, terrifying feeling of wanting to intentionally spend less than my normal self-imposed limit this month.

ZOMG! so what is it that made me ready, caused this obscene, radical reversal in my usual instinct? i have read dozens of words on the subject, heard hours of commentary from some very wise people and my heart hadn't budged an inch before this week. the content of the consumed series isn't all that different from anything i've seen before. maybe cause we are about to step into a thirty-year loan? but i've known that for a while. maybe it's just getting older? maybe it was asking God before this series started to really make it impact me this time.

in any case, i'm more hopeful about this particular flaw being fixed than i've been before. the series takes a great approach to the topic - and really illustrates effectively how easily we Americans are ensnared by advertising distrupting our contentment. crossroads did a bang-up job with the whole thing. now if you'll excuse me, i have to go sign up for thirty years of debt. :)

also - i take back what i said in 2005 - michael keaton as bruce wayne is > christian bale. what was i thinking? keaton has the nuance, the glum-lonely-wry-disturbed bachelor billionaire down pat, bale makes it a little too yuppie-scum, but that's probably my leftover angst from american psycho. *sigh* another few months til the dark knight, to see how bale matures the character...

guess my race is run

2008-04-08T23:30:00.002-04:00

just FYI on a few things. one:

two: our offer was accepted, we got the house, and we should be closing on june 6.

if you float away

2008-04-07T16:11:00.003-04:00

i'm starting to understand how my in-laws feel when i come over to fix their PC. i explain and explain using every lowest-common-denominator term in my vocabulary what i'm fixing, how to protect themselves online, how things work... but it never seems to fully sink in.

i'm sure our mortgage guys and our realtor feel like that when talking to me - every time i think i have a handle on this whole thing, someone will send me some document, make me sign some paperwork, or make a comment that derails me completely and shoots my blood pressure through the roof.

a healthy dose of prayer, the starting line and def leppard have helped to provide some peace. and God has cleared enough space in my heart for joy about moving to a new community and settling down a little more. we've been blessed with good advice from friends we trust, too. everyone who has thrown out suggestions about what to look for in a house, and how to get through the buying process without apoplexy - i'm grateful.

so we put an offer in on the place we love today. hopefully by the end of the week we'll have a deal settled and by june we'll be all done and moving in. originally i was concerned about moving to the barren northern reaches of west chester; but we spent some time in the neighborhood this weekend and i really don't feel too far away from anything. probably means we'll be switching churches, and i'll either need to make regular pilgrimages to bfm or find a new butcher's shop out there.

throwing wrenches in the gears

2008-04-04T09:45:00.003-04:00

two popular third-person brawlers just ended up as portable games recently - and both are excellent translations of the home console experience. behold:

- ninja gaiden: dragon sword is one i doubt i would have laid down cash for, if it hadn't included the sweetest stylus ever. it's certainly the most complete action game i've ever played on the DS (new super mario bros. aside). where zelda's controls collapsed, dragon sword shines - sophisticated, slick attacks are executed like butter. graphically it's not too shabby, the backgrounds are pretty simple and i really think they could have done something a little more stylized (i.e. okami, or the original SF4 trailer comes to mind) instead of the SNES-level sprites. it's a ton of fun to play, though, nowhere near as frustrating as the xbox installments.

- god of war: chains of olympus is stunning. i've never seen anything look this good on the PSP - the guys at readyatdawn certainly pushed the system to its limits. i was kind of afraid it would run like crap on my original model (load times are faster on the newer "slim" psp2000 hardware) but it looks just fine. the controls made the jump from the PS2 and i actually find myself dodging a whole lot more than i did in GoW 1&2, but that's mainly because the enemies you fight in this version require that you're much more defensive. the only serious flaw is the occasional "where the heck do i go now" moment - a sign of insufficient playtesting by the developer. it's pretty short, too, so i'm glad i rented it.

it got me thinking about how good a PSP uncharted title would be - i'd definitely hit it (with an inverse tachyon beam). hopefully this game's success drives devs to do more ports...

i get hysterical hysteria

2008-04-03T13:31:00.003-04:00

chris sabo just bought me lunch.

last june i went on a weekend canoe trip and missed a ball game set up by some folks at work and a vendor - and chris was there as a part of the reds' "living legend" program, where an ex-red hangs out with you in your suite. i missed it, and my whining about it afterwards drew mockery from my coworkers, and pity from my boss mike. mike and chris chatted for a while during the game, and so earlier this year he wrote chris a letter explaining my sad story. chris responded and offered to grab lunch.

see, my skills were pretty weak for the first few years of little league, and after two years we discovered it was because i couldn't see for crap. so i got glasses, and all of a sudden my game showed up - i hit better, fielded better... i also got ridiculed for wearing glasses. so when chris won the NL rookie of the year in 1988 - and did so in the sweet rec specs, i felt a little vindicated. afterwards i kind of considered him my hero and i still think of him as my favorite ballplayer of all time.

so i figured, i'll buy my childhood hero a guinness. except he insisted on picking up lunch. and signed a baseball. and hooked me up with a signed bobblehead.

dude is a PIMP, no doubt about it (and so is my boss for setting it up). today is a day i won't soon forget.

everybody's gonna leave their seat

2008-03-31T09:02:00.003-04:00

in the space of about two seconds this saturday, i went from "meh" to "WOOOOO" about house-hunting. we had just walked into the first of seven houses we looked at on saturday... we ended up only seeing one we really liked, and it was a little further north than we'd expected. it's closer to my office, though, and if renee ends up with a job up in that area it would work out well.

i've never thought too hard in the past about what's around me when i've moved - it'd been dictated by college and by ministry... now we have to think about schools, how far we are from our family & friends, resale value, quality of the neighborhood... i've never been one to handle the feeling that i don't know everything i should about a decision this big. i think that's been one of the tougher internal battles in this process... anyway, we're going to keep looking but maintain an eye on the one place we liked.

finally - salut to artie + lisa, who welcomed lincoln, another heir to the kuhn kingdom, over the weekend.

future's coming much too slow

2008-03-28T10:04:00.003-04:00

in trying to find a good place for renee's birthday tomorrow i discovered the enquirer's food blog the foodie report - weak name but interesting content. who knew there were new restaurants/dining experiences here in the nati?

the recent boston rock band pack is pretty much the greatest thing ever. i was also shocked to find myself enjoying detroit rock city. maybe i should go pick up some more KISS? maybe i was born a decade too late?

never meant to be a cheater

2008-03-23T23:19:00.003-04:00

north carolina is extraordinarily peaceful. maybe it's the hundreds of thousands of hippies... the >$4/gal milk... the mudkips (aka tarheels)... although i spent far too much time under the angry yellow ball, yesterday at the arboretum with mike and jerri and their crazy adorable son; and today at the biltmore estate. and yet only my forehead got any sun, i guess it's shiny?

we got cheerwine, though, and delicious pizza from the mellow mushroom. we are both wildly relaxed. oh and we were in this little town called black mountain and i had a childhood memory literally unlocked before my eyes when i walked past a train caboose that'd been converted to an arts & crafts store.

anyway, we did manage to catch john adams tonight. that show is dangerous with a cliffhanger, like a ninja with a katana or b with /usr/bin/perl, i am absolutely dying for next week. and i found my visit to biltmore far more interesting, for some reason, since getting interested in this show. i walked into the big frickin dining room and saw the flags of the thirteen original colonies hanging around the ceiling and i was struck with a new pride, a puzzling and wonderful feeling.

outside in the cold distance

2008-03-19T09:56:00.004-04:00

the greatest show on television is about to come back for its fourth season... it's so easy to overlook battlestar galactica because of the name, or because it's scifi about robots that hunt down humans in space, and most folks i know that don't dig scifi or would rather watch espn, they skip it.

except that the scifi elements in this case are really just the medium, not the message; they are the scalpel that ron moore uses to open up humanity, to force us to examine ourselves - our instincts, our fears, and our souls. this is the shakespeare of our generation, absolutely brilliant drama that can elevate the discourse about society.

i'm rewatching the finale of season 3 - i've written about the more serious elements, examining the mob mentality, etc... this time through i found myself chuckling at the lines from all along the watchtower tossed out by anders, saul, and the other newly-discovered cylons. i probably laughed for ten minutes after anders said "no reason to get excited" in the beginning of the episode. ron moore is a genius. drew curtis from fark has an interview with ron where he mentions a half-hour "catch-up" episode that's coming up before the start of season 4. seriously, worth checking out, even if you've never liked scifi.

and speaking of watchtowers (ugh, awful segway), the enquirer's got a story on nate showman and his blog. it's exciting that the press is honoring the anniversary of the war by talking about the folks involved that really matter and the sacrifices they've made. i don't know what i would do if i had to leave so quickly after marrying renee, and to not see her afterwards for months on end would've been unbearable. nate, buddy, you're still in our thoughts and prayers.

echoes of our heritage

2008-03-17T08:46:00.003-04:00

john adams was marvelous as you'd expect - it kind of had to be, with the source material, the cast, etc... but it didn't really get my patriotic blood boiling, and i'm not really sure it's supposed to. it doesn't make the founding fathers look like the justice league of the colonies; they are instead real human beings in a dire situation, forced to make difficult decisions, trying to reason out what would be in the best interests of their families and countrymen. they're ordinary men in extraordinary circumstances, people who understand far better than us what freedom really means, and i would imagine that's the best compliment you could pay them.

you should check out local cincy band bad veins. kind of like power-slop, but with an edge. also check out the delicious not accepted anywhere, released a few years ago by the automatic, crazy rock thats kind of evocative of talking heads, plus they say "battry" like artie does. sweet.

this ain't back in the day

2008-03-11T17:56:00.006-04:00

danger mouse's genre-expanding mashup the grey album spawned a hundred million terrible new mixes of artists/styles, and a handful of good ones. two of them are sitting at DJ Doc Rok's site: american zeppelin, a solid (and a bit airheaded) blend of jay-z's weak-sauce american gangster and various led zep tracks; and the delicious biggie experience, a BIG/hendrix soup that is hearty, spicy, and over way too soon.

yep, the last time you heard led zep + hip hop together, this abomination was the result... this one's not as bad, although it suffers from bad choices on what to mix with the one-size-fits-all jay rhymes. it tries to be a new grey album and comes up just a bit short - interesting, good for a spin or two, but ultimately unsatisfying (which you can say about every disc jay has released since 2001). i can't stop listening to the biggie album, though. it's just too good. both are free - download and enjoy...

times are caught in a jar

2008-03-08T14:06:00.001-05:00

well we're under nearly a foot of snow; i'm bummed we didn't get to hang out with neef + bethany, eat delicious chinese food and watch be kind rewind. and i'm kind of itching to get out of the house, but it's improbably that we will actually get back up our hill if we leave.

speaking of houses, we are going to start looking. you have likely heard my concern in the past few weeks, knowing very little about what sounds like a complicated and, honestly, terrifying process and feeling overwhelmed and afraid that i'm going to botch what will certainly be the most significant financial decision i will make. been praying for peace, more than anything, and trusting that all we need to do is just keep our ears open, learn, try to make sound decisions, and take things one step at a time. we've (mostly) narrowed down a price range - i guess step two is figuring out where we want to go, and right now it seems like we are heading north, somewhere between fairfield and maineville.

then we need to decide whether we're going to build or not. i'd rather build - have a brand new place (so i won't have to fix anything, cause that'll just be a disaster) and have it set up how we want off the bat. except most of the places up north that we can build in are way out of our range. plus i am worried about how the cost of building will escalate beyond where we want...

as much as this has worried me, i'm surprised i haven't written about this before. impending decisions or events don't usually bother me, stress me out, etc and i'm not quite sure why this one does. anyway. as my tank of knowledge about this topic is pretty empty, i am soliciting any wisdom, suggestions, experience, helpful resources, etc. that anyone has. no one will be turned away!

since i have been stuck inside, i've had a chance to play a ton of warhawk. i expected it to be a serious FPS (much like resistence, which bored me to tears) and it turns out it's an almost cartoony third-person shooter mixed with very entertaining air combat. it's online-only - no single player to hone your skills in - but it hasn't really been necessary, once you get the controls down the on-the-ground element of the game is fairly simple. it might have worked better in first-person, though, movement and aiming are a little awkward; the weapons are well-balanced and most of the game modes are fun.

when you jump into the warhawk (the aircraft), though, everything changes. flying is a blast, and dogfighting is incredibly exciting - even though i'm getting blown out of the sky ten times for every kill i make. if the whole game was just that, it'd be worth checking out. when you mix that element with the on-the-ground combat, the end result is a great shooter packed with a million things to do. i may end up picking this up down the road, but tomorrow is smash brothers brawl and i imagine that'll take a little of my time for a while...

violence as polished steel

2008-03-03T10:13:00.002-05:00

ghosts is kind of a dream scenario for me - a nine inch nails album (well, four actually) of instrumental-only tracks, a genre trent works masterfully and poetically. and one of them's free. all four are $5 to download, or $10 for two CD's + immediate download. was a time, too, when i would probably have picked up the $75 deluxe edition - the blu-ray with all the music + visuals sounds intriguing... but i think the cheap seats will satisfy for now.

not much of a jester

2008-03-01T17:19:00.005-05:00

with the oscars over i always get curious about the award-winning films i haven't seen. so i remedied that in part this week...

started with no country for old men - lots of potential here, with great performances by tommy lee jones, javier bardem and josh brolin, but best picture? i must be missing something; i certainly don't deny my tendency to overlook subtle symbolism in more artsy films like this... but whatever the coens were trying to communicate, it came across as often incoherent, often dense, with some compelling characters, but ultimately pointless.

contrasted with michael clayton, a much more traditional film, with characters you really care about and a satisfying ending. it could be because i dig films about law, although this was less a few good men and more the firm... clooney was his typical self, tilda swinton was more emotional than i've ever seen her, and tom wilkinson was absolutely brilliant. definitely worth buying.

i am still dying to check out there will be blood if anyone's ever interested...

think you're kinda neat

2008-02-28T22:09:00.004-05:00

i've been walking around for a week with a tasty stuffing and nothing to stuff it into. ever had that problem?

specifically, some ricotta, basil, and a baguette. i was a bit bored with stuffed pasta... feeling uninspired (think i'll start a fire) i let it sit, until today at work, when over lunch my coworker ben threw out the idea: peppers. i took it a step further - stuffed tomatoes, a medium in which i have always wanted to experiment. the blueprint:

three large ripe tomatoes
1 cup ricotta cheese
1 cup mozzarella cheese
1/2 cup shredded parmesan
1 cup fresh breadcrumbs
8 fresh basil leaves
1 clove garlic
1 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 tsp balsamic vinegar

chop the tops off of your tomatoes and hollow them out. put your breadcrumbs (or your day-old bread, pre-breadcrumb stage) and three of your basil leaves, torn into very small pieces, into a food processor and chop until the herbs are fully mixed in. remove 1/3 of the breadcrumbs and set in a bowl. add the rest of the ingredients to the processor (add a dash of crushed red pepper if you're feeling spicy). pulse 8-10 times to bring it together.

liberally salt the inside of the tomatoes, and then fill with the mixture. top with the remaining breadcrumbs. drizzle a little more olive oil over the tomatoes. bake for 20 minutes at 350 - i used a toaster oven and switched to broil with 5 minutes left to brown the topping... probably wouldn't have turned out as dark on top if i had used a regular oven. still, they satisified.

hard to overstate my satisfaction

2008-02-23T09:33:00.006-05:00

some excellent stuff out of GDC this week... how appropriate is it that, a day after i pick up rock band, the nine inch nails song pack is announced? a coincidence, or do the fates conspire?

supposedly street fighter IV will be showing up in US arcades. do those mythical pantheons exist in this city? and furthermore - will i feel awkward, a 28-year-old, showing up there to drop some quarters with the teenage?

actually, will anyone under the age of 21 even care about a new SF? that's a sobering thought.

and finally, check this video of star wars: the force unleashed. yeah.

the shadows that you cast so tall

2008-02-22T14:54:00.003-05:00

i may be able to nail two of my four remaining "gotta see before i die" shows in 2008:

- Jimmy Eat World, April 22 at Hara Arena
- Stone Temple Pilots, May 17 at Columbus Crew Stadium

that only leaves weezer & led zeppelin. (still planning to hit up 311, March 2 at Miami University, getting tix soon if anyone is still interested)

pack and deliver like UPS trucks

2008-02-19T21:54:00.005-05:00

in the past two days i've used all four of the preeminent desktop OS platforms for casual home tasks - browsing, email, IM, basic image editing, listening to music, reviewing webserver logs, downloading podcasts, blogging... it wasn't really intentional, but i ended up with an opportunity to investigate what it is i'm looking for in a desktop experience. i hadn't evaluated it in such a qualitative manner, and yet i talk all the time with friends and co-workers about which environment i prefer and why...

i used XP and OS X 10.4 on my macbook, and ubuntu 7.10 and vista on a dell D600. some disjointed thoughts about the experience:

- i've spoken quite a bit about OS X and where i feel it's lacking, and i figured out where it shines for me: web browsing. browsing works great with just single left clicks and directional scrolling... i spend a decent amount of time just sitting on the couch surfing, and because OS X's drivers for the macbook trackpad are better tuned than XP's, if all i'm going to do is hang out in firefox, i'll often do so in OS X, simply because of the noticeably better response i get out of the device in that OS. plus browsing doesn't require a lot of keyboard navigation (besides shortcuts in email and searching through a page)... which is where OS X chokes. browsing in vista, XP and ubuntu all feel just about the same.

- i also like OS X's sleep function - simply closing the lid sticks it into a virtual coma with very little power usage. i haven't seen another OS match it; but then again most OS vendors don't also make the hardware that it runs on.

- email is easy anywhere - gmail looks the same in every OS. wasn't that way ten (even five) years ago - i wonder what other complex, critical apps could become simple in that manner with just a platform adjustment. blogging is much the same.

- since no native google talk client exists for OS X, i use adium, which is missing a few features from the windows client. pidgin on ubuntu is worse. i prefer the native windows version.

- since photoshop is stupid expensive, i use free image editors - and paint.net for windows knocks the gimp (for OS X and ubuntu) out of the water with its ease of use, just the right featureset, and great mix of simplicity and style in the interface.

- despite years of apple's attempts to condition me to itunes, it remains a bloated, clumsy, buggy, inconsistent media app that i simply wish i didn't have to use. windows media player uses a fifth of the RAM (itunes topped out at 120MB yesterday) but also doesn't do me much good since i have an apple media player (the last one i will ever own - i'm going zune when this guy dies). i still prefer winamp (for windows, duh) and i am growing on the v5.5 interface changes; XMMS on ubuntu imitates an older version of winamp but does just as good a job. side note - now that amazon's mp3 store has the support of all of the major labels, we need a competitor to itunes that'll integrate w/amazon's store and work with all major media player device platforms.

- itunes isn't too bad with podcasts (aside from the earlier problems i mentioned); my problem is more with the ipod. i find that if i'm listening to a podcast, and i pause playback and pick it up a few hours later, it'll start playback about thirty seconds after where i left it. and what's worse - when i try to rewind to get back to the place i left off, i have to go back two minutes or so, and then i overshoot the right spot... so annoying.

- ssh clients exist on every platform; ubuntu's standard gterm + ssh wins out for a keyboard jockey like me. OS X's terminal would be a viable alternative if it auto-closed the window i was in after logging out - and i didn't have to hit apple-Q to close the app once i was done. putty on windows, the defacto free standard, is a bit clumsy and slow, but port-forwarding support in the GUI is much easier than the CLI alternative in the other two.

so if i spent all my time in a web browser, i'd probably be fine with OS X; however since much of the time i'm doing these other tasks that it doesn't handle as well, i ultimately prefer XP - stable, consistent, tons of app support, and unmatched driver support.

i have given up once again on linux on the desktop - ubuntu can't recognize a simple wireless driver without requiring a ton of conf files, apt-get installs, and twenty pages of digging through incomprehensible forum posts. everything else about ubuntu was fantastic - i love how customizable the GUI is, especially with compiz-fusion enabled by default in 7.10. i can make gnome look twenty times as slick as the other three with a couple of themes downloaded freely from the web.

i'd only used the vista RC's and betas and never installed the retail version. the install process was indeed uncomplicated, and once inside the OS i was surprised at how fast it reacted considering the d600 hardware (pentium-4 mobile 1.8ghz, 512M RAM). unfortunately that means aero wouldn't run and the default light-blue color scheme is fugly.

deep down it wasn't all that different from XP, especially once i changed the start menu to classic mode. UAC was ridiculous and got turned off; and once i got it configured how i wanted, it stayed on its leash. that took a while, sadly, running into application incompatibilities and struggling to find where vista put all of my old control panel options and where on the hard disk my profile-specific items (documents, pictures, music, etc) were. i found no compelling reason to upgrade and a whole lot of reasons not to.

so XP still wins and will likely be my OS of choice until ubuntu fixes the driver incompatibilities. plus it's free, and while i can't remember the last time i paid more than $5 for a copy of windows (thanks OEM, technet and student pricing), it beats $130 for OS X upgrades i don't want. who would have thought back in 2001, when this flashy windows 2000 challenger was released, that i'd be trumpeting XP's praise seven years later?

walk around in circles

2008-02-18T22:13:00.003-05:00

i'm pretty psyched about the john adams miniseries coming up, and i have no idea why. never been much into history... but the cast and writing look interesting. probably the same reason i enjoy watching the presidents; the founding fathers and those that have held the highest office are kind of mythical figures to me, sort of like the american version of greek gods.

darren mentioned ben franklin last year and i remembered how much i want to read a good bio on that dude. amazon has a ton of them and i'm not sure which one is worth reading.

btw i am really digging coach dungy's memoirs, his life of following Jesus in everyday matters is fascinating,, powerfully simple, relevant, and poignant for where i am finding myself...

from the fire we return

2008-02-15T10:46:00.003-05:00

mmmm, delicious street fighter 4 footage. i am so ready for this game (and for the HD remix if they ever finish the stupid thing). although the character art is a little too cartoony, ryu looks like the judge from roger rabbit...

suggestions to remedy mediocrity

2008-02-14T15:43:00.002-05:00

in many wants, PAC's / corporate lobbyists / special interests represent the gravest threat to a democracy of/by/for the people. because the ones with the most money win in washington, these groups have the potential to affect change that benefits the heads of large, rich organizations and is generally bad for everyone else.

our foreign policy, energy policy, environmental policy, health care system, intellectual property laws, educational funding, communication regulations, these have all been heavily affected by special interests. and because you need lots of money to get elected in this country, you (almost always) end up in the pockets of one of those special interests because they have a lot of it. this isn't a drastic oversimplification. this is the reality of the american political process.

it seems that politicians by and large have little choice but to ride the current in this particular river; mainly because doing otherwise means they won't have the financial advantage of their opponents, and they will lose. "to affect any positive change," they rationalize to themselves, "we have to play along, because you can't make laws if they elect the other guy." and once in office, the interests of the financial support outweigh the interests of the citizens they represent.

this isn't news. obviously everyone reading this is aware of the situation; sadly we spent the 20th century learning to accepting this system as inevitable, and ourselves as powerless to change it. but eliminating the special interests' control of our elected officials really could be the silver bullet. what if more decisions were made to solve the problems of the average, working-class american, than solely to grow the stock price of the fortune 500?

this is chiefly why i am voting for barack obama in the ohio primaries on march 4... set aside the fact that he shares my views on education, health care, technology, social welfare, faith, and the environment - obama has become the democratic frontrunner and he's done it without support of the special interests.

now i'm not naive enough to think that there aren't leaders of those large organizations writing checks to his campaign; or that one man can fix the system. but he's the first one to set the special interests' control center stage, pointing out the elephant in the room while he's campaigning. he is talking about how to fix it, and that's far better than any other candidate on the ballot has done in a long time. if even that one variable about american politics changes, the possibilities for other dramatic progress grow like crazy.

and for once i don't believe it's a campaign scheme to buy the votes of the middle class... he's been talking about it since before he started running for president. the guy has captivated me with his class and his honest, total anti-sleaze attitude since he got elected to the senate. when the buzz started in 2006, i wondered if he might actually be the guy that could change things. when i read his book around this time last year it pretty much removed all doubt. and his voting record seems to match his rhetoric.

i don't expect magic - the president alone can't fix all that much - but i think obama has the capacity to at least change our direction, rally support from both parties, and make better decisions that recent administrations. who knows? we might make it out of this decade intact after all.

the guns of love disastrous

2008-02-10T22:24:00.000-05:00

so i was supposed to be in austin this wednesday - friday on business, but the trip got moved til april. wasn't too big of a deal, at least it'd be a bit warmer... that is until i read about this.

yep, that is correct, a reunion screening of the classic 80's gamer flick the wizard, with appearances by the director todd holland, luke edwards (who played little jimmy), and of course, fred savage. the event included some theater-screen mario 3, a ton of memorabilia and autograph sessions.

and it was held (of course) at the awesome alamo theater, where b and i watched lost last year while in the city. a few miles from the hotel i would have been staying at. right after the end of the event i was going to be in town for. oh, it breaks the heart...

riding the gravy train

2008-02-07T19:06:00.000-05:00

i've been enjoying hbo's new drama in treatment, where gabriel byrne is a therapist and every weeknight they show him meeting with a different patient. i've only caught bits and pieces of a few of the nights, except for wednesdays, where he is psychologically evaluating a high-school gymnast. it's written very well and byrne is somber and soothing, seriously one of his best roles ever. it does a great job highlighting the skill with words, empathy and listening ability it takes to succeed in that line of work; the stories told by the patients are top-notch, too, gritty and real and yet familiar.

one of the other reasons (besides the great acting and writing) i dig it is because i am fascinated by the work; the idea that two people, sitting together talking, can radically change the mindset, behavior, lifestyle of someone looking to change. l have always wondered if the practice could help me... i also considered it as a career option at one point. ultimately i like to make conversations about myself too often, though, and i have feared my self-centeredness would really overtake any capacity i had to help anyone.

i think the process of finding the right thing(s) to do with my life has always been like this. i watch a show about a therapist having powerful conversations and i start to think "what if i did that instead"... thinking about something like that obviously isn't harmful, or any sort of decision or commitment to anything... but with the path i do intend to chart my life along, i certainly am influenced in the same way.

i am around younglife people and i want to start volunteering again - and i talk about it a lot. i listen to missionaries give speeches and they make me start to mentally rearrange things so that someday i could sell my possessions and drag my family to the remotest corner of the world. i sit down and talk with chris (the lifespring westside minister) and eat some cheese coneys and all of a sudden i am totally sold on the effectiveness of the church.

perhaps this is driven by a still-hungry need in my heart to get the people i like to like me back; but my own meditation on this has really revealed that it's because i feel like i have no idea what i am supposed to be doing to positively impact this world for Christ, and because i'm not sure if i'm doing it now, i want to rearrange, shuffle, make changes, join new groups, commit to new things.

the strongest callings in my life, the very certain voice that said "go to UC", "be a younglife leader", "marry that girl", i long for those and they seem silent now, even when i actually bother to listen for a bit. even now, i have a decision to make about another way to spend my time, another potential personal ministry; and here i am already involved in four of them. you might think i am incapable of saying no; i can fortunately say that i've exercised that particular muscle, very recently. it's the perceived silence i have felt for a few years that has kept me juggling all this activity.

i want to know what God wants me to do. and what would make the most sense is what chris described while we were talking about this - doing one thing with passion, not four things halfheartedly. i know what that one thing is and it makes total sense to simply pursue it; but it doesn't look enough like the organized ministry i am used to for my brain to feel comfortable dropping everything else and simply focus my time there.

i will switch off the mental spigot; i know there are some wise folks out there, and i wonder how others have dealt with the same thing.

target for faraway laughter

2008-02-06T10:35:00.000-05:00

my cousin will organizes a charity concert up at miami every year called bandfusion; i've wanted to head up to check it out for a while but never got the chance. this year they got 311 to show up. it's been years since i've seen them live and the show is for a great cause - a benefit for high school music education. i know there are fans in the audience, anyone else up for a trip to j. crew county? the show is sunday, march 2 at 7:30, tix are $29 and come with a free contact buzz!

from a cold steel rail

2008-02-04T23:12:00.000-05:00

burnout: paradise was one of the initial reasons i was eyeing nextgen consoles. i've really enjoyed the franchise and the concept - described as an open-world, always-online, build-your-own-race-anywhere update with incredible 60fps visuals - sounded delicious. the demo had three events and one vehicle and did exactly what demos are supposed to do - got me fully hyped for the retail version.

so what we have here is a flawed but ultimately enjoyable trip. the classic burnout events - race, burning lap (a time trial event), and road rage (my favorite, take down a set # of opponents in a certain period of time) are still there; and whereas in older releases there was a menu system that let you pick your event, now you drive to the location on the map where an event is and start it at the stoplight by revving your engine.

little features like that abound in paradise - you can also drive through repair shops to insta-fix your car, paint shops to restylize, gas stations to refill your boost (all without stopping)... and there's certainly plenty to do - 120 events, 75 cars to find, 50 crazy stunt jumps, 400 gates to knock down and 120 billboards to tag. the completist or achievement junkie won't get bored.

road rage is still the most satisfying mode of the game - you are given 4 minutes or so to drive anywhere on the map and knock out opponents - and they're on every street, so you're never searching for one. that mode alone makes this game worth its time; unfortunately it falls pretty hard on a few other levels.

while technically the concept i mentioned is an accurate description of what you get, there are a ton of caveats. "race anywhere", for one, means your race still has to end at one of eight locations on the map (it's not user-configurable), and "build your own" isn't quite the truth - you still need to start from one of the preset events on the map.

and navigation is just plain awful. the open-world sandbox idea is a great one and while just driving around is seamless and highly detailed, it breaks down during events: you have a tiny map in the corner of the screen (that's too small to make any use of while driving); you have a compass that points in your destination's direction (also useless while racing, because if you try to eyeball just that, you'll probably hit a wall or drive into water); and you have street signs that flash when you need to make a turn left or right. except you're usually going so blindingly fast in an event that a twitch reflex to turn will probably ram you into a guardrail or a wall. none of these nav tools are great on their own, and trying to use a combination of them mid-race is just not possible for a human with two eyes.

it ends up making what should be great races incredibly frustrating - because you are constantly defeated not by the other racers, but because you just can't find the finish line. worse - there are plenty of roads that appear on the map to be the right one to get you where you want to go - but might actually take you over or under your goal. all of these things happening while you're trying to stay in first place, or trying to not hit an innocent bystander stopped at an intersection... i think they were trying to make the whole thing more sophisticated, bless them, but it ended up suffering from the complexity, instead of benefiting from it. while in a race, they should have stuck with the formula - block off streets that don't take you to your goal. focus on the race, going fast, and staying alive, not trying to find the end.

all of that said, the spirit of the old games is still here. taking down an opponent feels marvelous, as does a perfectly-executed stunt jump. and it's perfect for casual players to just aimlessly explore, or the hardcore running event after event nonstop. i haven't had much of a chance to do a lot online - it's just not the same running these races with strangers in other countries.

what makes it worth checking out is this: during the very first race i ran, i was taking an unintended shortcut on an elevated railway bridge and the ground cut out - my car fell through to the street below, and i landed on top of one of my opponents, scoring a "vertical takedown". i shouted like a little kid in excitement at how effortlessly awesome that simple move was, and the game is packed with a ton of that, and it's exactly what burnout fans are looking for.

these leftover feelings of you

2008-02-02T15:58:00.000-05:00

so recently i got asked by some lifespring staff to get some folks from the church together to discuss their current website and how it could be improved, 'modernized', whatever you want to call it... now keep in mind that the current site looks pretty slick as is, but it's also simply a brochure for lifespring, and web 2.0 has introduced a ton of capability that is very valuable for a community-driven organization like a church. what we really want to do is extend the church community onto the web, allow us to interact and share our lives there as well as in the building, especially because we are heavily investing in the multi-site thing as well as small groups - and so the number of physical locations where we exist is growing steadily.

we had our first meeting this morning and i'm pretty excited... initially a fear that (1) there wouldn't be enough people to "do it right" and (2) nobody would really care had me trying to limit the scope to simply adding more content to the site - stuff to appeal to folks trying to plug into a church... in essence, making a shinier brochure. but the other folks in the meeting put that to rest pretty quickly - and just go buck wild crazy, and build our dream site.

we came up with a list of features that was fairly obvious for anyone who's used the web in the past three years - sub-sites for each of the three locations (north college hill, western hills, and harrison); subscribable content - message podcasts, video, event calender feeds; staff blogs; individual sites for small groups; easy subscriptions to existing mailing lists; and a ugive-esque database of volunteer needs and opportunities that individuals and groups from the church can sign up to attack.

i'd love feedback from everyone - examples of churches that are doing this now, free services (like youtube/odeo) that could be used instead of rolling our own; aspects of any of the aforementioned features that should be done in a particular way; or other features that'd fit well with this kind of theme.

i know we're certainly not the first to attempt this and we aren't trying to win any competitions here - just create a system that serves the lifespring community and people that are checking it out. so whatcha got?

did your string come undone

2008-01-30T18:18:00.000-05:00

now that tickets are on sale, it's time to man up and start planning for PAX 2008. a few months ago ryan and i started discussing a trip out to seattle for the yearly gaming fest, packed with concerts, tournaments, and keynotes that quickly become legend. the expo itself is only $40... so right about now is a good time to start looking at flight/hotel/car packages.

so i wanna throw this out to everyone, in case there's some interest, cause it'd be sweet to take a big crew to this thing. the dates are august 29-31 - we would head out thursday and probably fly back sunday night or monday morning. looks to be a good time...

an avalanche of taunted bones

2008-01-29T19:17:00.000-05:00

while the mars volta's talent hasn't come close to diminishing over the course of their last six years, i haven't taken much to their last few studio releases... the passerby will hear the chaotic guitar/drums/brass on all three, and miss some of the more subtle mood revealed on each disc. personally i've been a bit disappointed - frances was just pretty good and amputechture was a little weaker, and i have been clamoring for a return to de-loused's stunning whirlwind.

the bedlam in goliath is pretty darn close - more consistent than the last two discs, certainly less contemplative, a bit of an easier listen, and still it'll give you whiplash like few other rock albums on the shelf. omar's staid, furious guitar (supported brilliantly once again by john frusciante) hearkens to jimmy page; cedric drops some unnecessary effects on the vocals; overall an inspired return to form, incredibly satisfying for any fan of the genre.

nobody gonna take my head

2008-01-28T08:44:00.000-05:00

we revisited rooster's on friday night. any place that can seat four of us in less than an hour at 7:30 is a miracle... i was impressed to sit down in ten minutes. and eat some of the biggest frickin wings i've ever had - no joke, ten of these wings were about the mass of twenty of BW3's equivalent. bonzo! they were delicious.

i played a ton of uncharted over the weekend. i have heard it's a must-play for PS3 owners; i'm not really finding it as such. it's about 75% run & gun, and 25% platforming/exploration, and i wish the balance was 50/50, because the combat is a little weak. run into an area, hide awkwardly behind cover spots (which are usually impossible to maneuver) and shoot at the same four bad guys with a drastically slow aiming system. climbing through the ruins is great, though, the visuals are gorgeous and make you want to actually be there - something a game has never done for me before. definitely glad i didn't buy it - it's a perfect rental.

i also discovered i'm not a jukebox hero, because i failed miserably singing that track in rock band; not even adrian's stellar guitar could save me. well, actually, he and renee saved me three times and i still bombed it. what the crap? guess next time i let mom sing and only pick up the mic during the 90's stuff where i actually know every note. ugh.

happy birthday, LEGO, the greatest "toy" from my childhood, but it was really more than that... because you built your own world, planets, towns, vehicles, you could be law enforcement or an alien or a pirate or an off-roader, all built with the same bricks. my LEGOs have lasted through twenty years - my childhood as well as my brother's - and some of the stuff both of us built still stands to this day. back in 06 when we visited the LEGO store in chicago i picked up a little barrel of some random bricks and every once in a while i get the urge to grab them off the shelf and build something. i usually shove that urge back, feeling foolishly childlike... maybe i should let that guy out more.

the air that's mine to breathe

2008-01-19T00:05:00.000-05:00

i wasn't really "eagerly awaiting" cloverfield - i like monster movies about as much as i dislike reality-handheld-camera-filmed junk, and so a godzilla-meets-blair-witch mashup wouldn't have been compelling, except that i enjoy jj abrams' storytelling style.

the result was a polarizing film - read user comments on reviews, they hit both sides of the fence equally. and it certainly has its faults - it's much too short and ends up feeling unsatisfying; the easily shaken will hate the camerawork; the pacing at the beginning of the movie is fairly slow; and, of course, it doesn't explain enough for the scifi fan to feel like it was a real monster movie.

greater than its faults, though, is the film's success in reinventing the monster movie for our generation. abrams sets new signposts for the genre in several areas (light spoilers ahead, beware):

- point-of-view: barely any time is spent away from the victims in the midst of the disaster. most monster movies hang out for hours with the military, in a roomful of generals with phones and maps; this film spends about five minutes with any dialogue from soldiers or cops. abrams also puts the 'narrator' character behind the camera. the result is jarring - because you've spent so much time watching the events unfold before "your" eyes, the feeling that you're there doesn't stop after you leave the theater.

- reality: it was refreshing, not annoying, seeing this film happen while among normal people. they didn't sound too much like actors pretending to be regular folks, and the central cast is small enough and close enough that you connect to those characters rather quickly.

- attention to detail: you certainly fear the monster, but you also fear the collateral damage from collapsing buildings and tunnels, you fear being hit by friendly fire from the military, and of course you fear what comes with the monster. part of the 'incomplete' feeling is the lack of any frame of reference about the monster's origin and the lack of centered shots on it; the tradeoff is a floor-level view of the action that feels less fake than a lot of films that don't feature an enormous CGI monster.

originality being such a rarity in hollywood, a film this ambitious and interesting is more than welcome; that ambition carries it over its problems and sets it up as one of the better scifi/suspense/action films i've seen.

never raised an eye to me

2008-01-18T10:06:00.000-05:00

hahaha, hey roadrunner customers, hope you like paying by the byte. oh, you downloaded a couple of those HD rentals from itunes? let's see, that'll be $500, EPIC FAIL. enjoy getting screwed.

i'll be sitting over here with the third best ISP in the country, torrenting my face off.

dude, cloverfield tonight, 9:45 at The Rave. and delicious grub somewhere beforehand.

as if i'm suffocating

2008-01-17T23:52:00.001-05:00

folks, today is a day i will long remember.

on the way back from lunch today we ran by gamestop, and while wandering around i noticed a box labeled impossible mission on the DS shelf. hoping it wasn't a stupid typo, i checked out the screenshots on the back, and confirmed that this was indeed the long-awaited port of the commodore 64 classic. and it was only $10.

and yet i sensed something as i walked up to the register, a presence i hadn't felt since...

as a small child, i started gaming on my C64. i was okay at some of the games, better at others, but the one that always confounded me was impossible mission. counfounded doesn't begin to describe... it terrified me.

renee laughed while i told her this story. so did tony, ryan, and brian. but i think the things that frightened us as children - things that we haven't completely confronted as adults - stick with us. maybe you saw a dead animal on the side of the road, or saw a clown that was particularly scary. me, i played this game - a simple concept, really. you are dropped into an elevator shaft and are met with a monstrous, 1980's-computer-generated evil voice telling you that you're trapped. your goal is to search every room looking for puzzle pieces hidden in equipment, as well as avoid the robots that can kill you by touching you, or by shooting you with lightning. there are also deadly floating black spheres. they float.

none of these things were the real problem. two things were:

- when you fall down a pit, you scream, loud and gratingly, for a very long time. excruciatingly long.
- the game is timed - a six hour clock, counting down constantly, but it's not onscreen. you never know how much time you have left. you lose ten minutes off of it every time you die, and you die a LOT. when you are out of time, the game ends, and the previously mentioned evil voice laughs at you and the screen shakes. this happens with absolutely no warning - it's like someone jumping out and startling you when you think you're alone. it's like this. at age six or seven, it was awful.

needless to say i never got close to finishing it - not only was it terrifying, it lived up to its name. once you found all 36 puzzle pieces, you had to make it back to one of the rooms with a special door, and then spend hours trying to put the pieces back together into nine different complete pictures, rotating and changing the colors of the pieces.

ever wonder why i write about games so much? it's because they have been a part of my life ever since i can remember, and this one was one of the first to impact me. for my entire life it has represented my inadequacies - the things i couldn't do, wasn't smart enough or brave enough or clever enough to face on my own. and because it scared the crap out of me, i've been scared of facing those inadequacies.

i'm impressed you are still reading. thanks. this is actually kind of important to me - because today i faced those feelings head on. yep, i'm a 28 year old guy that was just a little jittery booting up the DS.

about 30 minutes ago, i finished impossible mission. DOMINATED it. with HOURS to spare. a little strategy and patience and some graph paper and it was incredible. best $10 i ever spent - a victory for the human spirit.

did you know that 'barbarian' originally meant 'barley eater'? thanks alton.

five years is forever

2008-01-15T13:56:00.000-05:00

the grand opening of BD's in mason was certainly grand... the location is great for when i'm at work (although a little inaccessible otherwise) and the grub was delicious as ever. and meatballs are now an option along with the other meat choices. i forsee many a work lunch happening over them there bowls.

and next time we show up, i am dressing like ricardo up there, as i was frequently commanded to "take khantrol" while i was there. khan, you bloodsucker, you're gonna have to do your own dirty work now, do you hear me? DO YOU????!?!?

how about the amazing ~~kreskin~~ artie calling apple's itunes rental announcement? sadly it's still not enough to justify buying an appletv - but i hope this will drive other companies to offer more open, lower-cost alternatives. or, even better - all apple needs to do is add support for the DLNA standard into iTunes - then i can use their store, their application, and i can use whatever hardware i want to show it on my TV. too much to ask?

speaking of movies - anyone up for cloverfield on friday (looks a little goofy, but i hear there is a star trek trailer attached)

it's like giants falling down

2008-01-12T14:57:00.000-05:00

could there be a sweeter desktop background than this?

yep - cause it's right here.

please tell me it's not true - hayden christensen as Case in the new adaptation of neuromancer... worst idea ever. at least cast viggo mortensen, he's the right age, or if you have to lower it to make him like a modern hacker, use jonathan rhys meyers or nick stahl or someone you won't confuse with a piece of plywood.

a foreign enemy to deplore

2008-01-09T10:03:00.000-05:00

kotaku had a fascinating article this morning discussing a parent's moral qualms with call of duty 4. his gripe was that in the first three COD games (which are set in WWII) you fight and kill nazis, and in COD4, which is set in vague middle-eastern and ex-soviet countries, you fight and kill terrorists and insurgents. the dad played the first three with his son and was fine with killing nazis, but because he is "morally opposed" to the iraq war he doesn't want his son playing the fourth.

teaching your kids a moral standard is great - it needs to happen more often. it's not super relevant that the game isn't actually about the iraq war, as he stated - the storyline actually revolves around a military coup of a mideast democracy by a brutal general with nuclear weapons - but that isn't what got me thinking. what did was the question it raised about who it's "okay" to kill (or more accurately, simulate killing) in any form of entertainment. i include other forms of media - film, theater, books, etc - in this because they pose the same question.

so what are the rules? which humans are we okay with killing? some are fairly clear:

- nazis
- stormtroopers
- as a larger generalization of the first two, enemy soldiers, as we have no qualms about killing someone as long as it is classified as "war"
- lawyers
- ninjas
- pirates
- assassins

this list largely revolves around my media collection, obviously, so if you have other contributions, please comment. i find it interesting how the list changes when we narrow our focus just to games - and all of a sudden we are pulling the trigger. i wonder what the first game that involved actually killing another person was.

the first one i personally remember playing - where a human being, not a ship with a human in it, one that wasn't my avatar, died by my hand onscreen - was lode runner on the C64. the guys chasing you can fall into puts you create, and they get swallowed up when the pit refuels itself. and i think i was actually a little horrified at the prospect, considering i was six or seven at the time.

i'm not quite sure where i'm going with this. i know that gaming hasn't desensitized me to death - i may be okay gunning down a soldier on a screen, but seeing real death still paralyzes me, because my brain is able to distinguish reality from entertainment; at the same time i'm not really thrilled that i consider killing a soldier to be entertainment. there is a base instinct in me to fight, to defend, to survive, which these games successfully engage, and in fact i am healthier when i exercise those muscles in a simulation vs. the real world; but there is also a significant difference between mario stomping a goomba, and me shooting a terrorist in the head with an M4 carbine. both feasibly scratch the same psychological itch; i wonder if the latter has more of a detrimental effect on my character than the former.

fools to make war on our brothers in arms

2008-01-05T10:56:00.000-05:00

every re-imagining of the transformers in an animated form since the G1 era has been a betrayal of the spirit of the series. most have foregone the characters that made the original work; some were bland and unimaginative pokemon ripoffs.

artie mentioned a while back that a new series was in development - considering he's as big a fan of the original series as i am, his optimism was encouraging. it debuted last week - and i just caught episode two this morning. so how did it fare?

so far, so good. transformers: animated got it right from the outset - with a (good) cover of the G1 theme. gabe from PA said it was like teen titans, but the animation style reminded me more of the new batman (yes, the same studio does all three). the characters aren't clones of the originals, but most of them are very close - they even got some of the G1 voice actors like corey burton and john moschitta - as well as phil lamarr (green lantern from JLA), and weird al to do wreck-gar. more importantly, the spirit of those characters seems reborn. and you can tell that real thought was put into the story and character development, while staying true to the original.

i'm not (quite) a delusional fanboy - i realize no one is ever going to perfectly remake G1; but this new series meets and far exceeds my expectations. it's not as if the bar wasn't depressingly low, though; in any case this series is worth watching and convinced me to give it a season pass.

one guitar just blew him away

2008-01-01T18:54:00.000-05:00

just as i started feeling better, renee got sick. so between the both of us we've had a quiet couple of days at home... during the window where both of us were mostly harmless, we managed to make it out to perfect north with her sister for a couple of hours, but besides that we have been taking turns enjoying the break and taking care of the other.

my first PS3 game is call of duty 4, mostly because tony has raved so much about it. it's slick, loud, intense, and i probably wouldn't like it as much if it wasn't in 1080i @ 60fps with surround sound - i'm generally more comfortable in traditional, non-military FPS's (i.e. half-life / unreal tournament). it probably deserves all those game-of-the-year awards it got... anyway, if you are playing on PSN - i've met at least a few folks who are in the last week - look me up, the name is deliciousbass.

whew. i had jukebox hero on repeat for a little too long there, it was like a black hole of love whose gravity i couldn't escape. looked a little too much like this, good thing renee is in the other room.

throw out your cares and fly

2007-12-29T10:16:00.000-05:00

i was interested in a PS3 for way more than just games - which is good, because after cashing in my gift cards for the system + a second controller, i didn't have any dough left to get any... i did grab two demos from their playstation store, i.e. a shoddy website rendered in the console's browser... for a $70 billion company you'd think they could maybe hire a decent web designer.

anyway, the demos. burnout paradise is everything i'd hoped for - gorgeous, fast, and wild. running events with no set path took a whole lot of getting used to - with no real limitations on where you can drive, knowing the route ahead of time is now just as important as not wrecking. i think i enjoy the challenge, though.

uncharted, OTOH, is sort of underwhelming. the demo has a cut-scene intro, but it doesn't hand you much in the way of a story, and as a result you are simply dropped into a jungle and Pirates-Of-The-Caribbean rejects start shooting at you. the combat and exploration are pretty good, and the visuals are stunning, but i'm kind of undecided about whether or not i want to pick up the full version.

anyway - i have plenty to keep me busy outside of games on the console. the media center functionality wasn't too tough to set up - sadly iTunes doesn't talk DLNA, but that's the music library on the PC that i actually maintain. to use the native PS3 functionality i had to use Windows Media Player's built-in DLNA sharing, and by-and-large it works well. streaming music sounds great, and video was almost all perfect (except for trying to watch the 1up show in WMV - for some reason it kept hanging, i assume because streaming video over my PC's weak wireless signal is asking too much).

remote play on the PSP was also a snap to set up - and worked great with no lag on my home network. i'm sure streaming over the internet will change that; however my dream of easy streaming any media from my PC to my PSP has been realized.

the console came with spider-man 3 on blu-ray; however since i wanted to watch a movie that didn't suck, i grabbed the newly released blade runner: final cut. i have never seen a film look that good, ever. ever. absolutely incredible. i'm convinced.

on top of that, renee got me the west wing: the complete series, so that she will be forced to watch every single episode of my favorite drama. glorious. (btw did you know that sorkin wrote charlie wilson's war? now i'm interested)

and finally: mom and dad picked up planet earth for me too, of which i'd seen bits and pieces, it's as good as you've heard, every second compelling, surprising you with the knowledge that you are on the same planet as the incredible things you are watching.

first compusa and now netscape? don't these enormous conglomerates have any regard for my adolescence?

hey you should check out wired's excellent article on the year zero ARG. a secret concert? i had no idea, that is amazing...

the late night record shop

2007-12-24T00:31:00.000-05:00

watching a wild episode of iron chef america where this dude homaru cantu pwns iron chef morimoto. homie cooked crap with a class-4 laser, served food and sauces in syringes, and stirs beet juice balloons in liquid nitrogen - with his bare hands. sweet!

speaking of food. made some dip for xmas w/my family tonight that worked out pretty well, a tomato/bacon dip:

16oz cream cheese (2 packages)
4oz mascarpone cheese
2 cups cherry tomatoes (~15 of em)
1/3 lb bacon
2 cloves garlic
1 Tblsp fresh basil, chopped
1 Tblsp fresh dill, chopped
1 tsp cayenne pepper

coat tomatoes with extra virgin olive oil (sprinkle w/crushed red pepper also, if you're in that kind of mood), roast in 350 degree oven with garlic for 12 minutes. cook bacon and dry on rack, and finely chop when dried. drop tomatoes and garlic in blender, chop for a few seconds until liquid. combine tomato mixture, bacon, cream cheese, mascarpone, basil, and dill in mixer on low/medium speed. add salt, pepper and cayenne to taste.

speaking of xmas with my family, my cousin will dropped v2 of trivial pursuit pop culture on me - what a great call. so we fired it up - me, my brother, sister, wife, and cousins vs. my mom and dad and aunts and uncles. we started out slow but eventually dominated. the question of the night, from the TV category: "what does elmo lift up to release mr. noodle?" the answer doesn't even matter.

merry christmas to all! and so forth.

used to call it love

2007-12-19T15:56:00.000-05:00

a lot of things can change in ten years, right? i mentioned a few weeks ago that just ten years ago, spending all of your time on websites and playing video games was socially unacceptable... still a wild thought, BTW... anyway ten years ago, the winner of multiple wired vaporware awards, duke nukem forever, was announced. today a (rather unimpressive) teaser trailer was announced, and in joystiq's article they linked to another great site - a list of things that have happened in the video game world (and beyond) since DNF was announced.

it's quite a wild list - three console generations; the invention of the ipod; the filming and release of the entire second star wars trilogy, the matrix trilogy, and the lord of the rings trilogy; gas prices have doubled in the united states... they also list a few things that happened in less time than DNF's development - namely, WWII and the entire career of the beatles.

doesn't seem so long ago, does it? will time appear to move this quickly when i'm forty or fifty?

discourse your saving song

2007-12-16T19:13:00.001-05:00

one of the reasons mario galaxy gets my game of the year vote is the way it encouraged me to hone my skills. this is not something i have done much in years of gaming... gabe from PA recently said "I don't play games for the challenge. I don't need or want to be punished by a game for making mistakes. I play games for what Ron Gilbert calls "new art". I play to see the next level or cool animation. I don't play games to beat them I play games to see them."

i really took that to heart. i'm not much of a completist - i will happily play through a game til i've gotten all the fun out of it that i can and then move on. guitar hero is a great example - i was very happy to finish each of the three GH games on medium w/five stars on each song, play through a dozen or so on hard, and then stop. i don't care much about being like this kid. or another example, ninja gaiden on the original xbox - that game was so hard it stopped being fun after a few hours (PA got that right too; some folks would play through every level a hundred times trying to get that one attack right to get to the end. not for me - that just seems like torture, there is absolutely nothing entertaining about that process.

or take SF2 - i've probably played more street fighter 2 in my life than any other gamem and i think i'm decent, but i watch vids like this and know i will never be at that level. as much as i talk about games (at least on this blog), getting that good has never been that huge of a priority.

all of this is to say - mario galaxy was different somehow. i finished it not too long after i picked it up... but every single level, every challenge, was different from the last - even though there were about a dozen or so that were "collect 100 coins in this level", each one of those was varied. some of the challenges were sickeningly hard - but in the past where my controller would have been long since destroyed in frustration, something about the design of this game made me want to keep going, learn what i did wrong and try to fix it, even if it took 30 or 40 tries. and on the levels where i started out and said "there is NO WAY i will ever beat that" - knocking those out were immensely satisfying. well done, miyamoto-san, you are truly a genius.

speaking of street fighter, i got my issue of EGM with the street fighter 4 cover story recently - i haven't been this excited about a magazine showing up in my mailbox since i was ten years old waiting for my copy of nintendo power. there are a ton of details emerging on SF4 and they all look solid.

speaking of other potential game-of-the-year contenders - i would have put orange box over galaxy had it run at a decent speed on my PC. that said, portal is my #2.

finally - the 1up show has a great feature on burnout paradise, which i am losing my mind in anticipation for, check it out and see for yourself.

love in an empty world

2007-12-12T21:09:00.000-05:00

(image stolen from diesel sweeties)

feeding the music elitist in me, here are my top five albums for 2007:

5. MC Frontalot - Secrets From The Future
4. Nine Inch Nails - Year Zero
3. Bad Religion - New Maps Of Hell
2. Anberlin - Cities
1. Rise Against - The Sufferer And The Witness

back in february i was floored by this album, and several months later i still love every second of it. every track jumps in a different way, and each is masterfully driven by tim's battle-cry vocals. i'm not sure i will ever get tired of this album, and that (for me) is an enormous testament in and of itself.

this list isn't a shock to anyone who knows me. i don't share much in common with the music journalists touting the shins, LCD soundsystem, and feist - i doubt anyone else ever would duplicate this list, not because the list (or my taste) is better/worse than anyone else's; on the contrary, stuff strikes different people so differently that everyone's list should be different from everyone else's. right? or is that hopelessly optimistic?

confidence and character complete

2007-12-11T23:34:00.000-05:00

i scored (if that is an appropriate term) some tickets to the cbell-sponsored rascal flatts show tonight down at music hall... before you ask, i haven't quite gone country, renee is a fan... although this is one band in the genre that admittedly i don't mind, most others make me a little queasy. the show was equally tolerable - filled to the mud-covered bin with wal-mart references, sappy love songs with twelve part harmonies, and girls screaming and swooning like they were watching the beatles.

musically? well they can write successful country songs, at least, and minus the vocal twang and absurd lyrics they're a talented rock band. although there were like twenty guys onstage playing and only three of them were actually the band we came to see. did i just describe a nine inch nails show?

so yeah, it was okay, the show was energetic, the band seemed down-to-earth and the whole thing was hosted by brad johansen, cris collinsworth, anthony munoz, and the indomitable jack cassidy. the show itself was a benefit/launch for a sweet project that these guys (along with some other cinci notables like bob castellini) are starting called UGIVE, essentially a social networking site that allows high school students, schools, and charities to team up on volunteer projects and groups.

needless to say i'm a little more excited for motion city + anberlin + mae on thursday. yep.

lookin' for a partner

2007-12-10T22:22:00.000-05:00

with the SNES hooked up i fired up super mario all stars and spent a few hours playing through mario 2 from beginning to end - something i've never done before, i always used warp zones. when i played it on my grandparents' NES, at nine years old, i was shocked by its difficulty... especially the boss battles. it was interesting, the trepidation i felt when entering the boss chambers, a carryover of almost twenty years of psychological conditioning. they were ridiculously easy now, though, and now undaunted i flew through the game, and the enthusiasm i felt finishing it was unmatched in my years of gaming.

man, how have i not talked about this yet? geometry wars: galaxies is the pick-up-and-play DS game i've been looking for, and my new favorite title for the platform. if you've never played the original, think asteroids + robotron - you fly your ship around with the d-pad and point in a direction on the touchscreen to fire, and the goal is to stay alive as piles of enemies fly at you from all directions. most of the enemies drop little nuggets that let you unlock helper ships and new planets. i haven't even tried multiplayer yet - the single player is just too satisfying, excellent for five-minute or 60-minute sessions.

for more days-of-computing-yore reminiscing - check out wired's Commodore 64 retrospective... what wonderful memories...

the face of your dreams of glass

2007-12-08T09:17:00.000-05:00

got the sad news that compusa is closing down. i was 15 when i left the movie theater at forest fair to literally "move on up" to the first floor, where the computer superstore sat nestled next to bigg's, beckoning to travelers on 275 that computers weren't such terrifying creatures. but that place meant a lot to me even before i worked there. let me set the stage: fifteen years ago, the average teenager didn't spend hours in front of a computer - in fact, doing so made you a social pariah. we didn't have your "facebooks" or your "instant messaging" or your "DSL", just usenet and trumpet winsock on a 9600 baud modem.

so when compusa opened, i was eleven or twelve, just starting to find my identity as a pc hobbyist - and to walk into a store that made my geek hobby look shiny and classy - i felt at home there. i would frequent the store often over the next few years - usually in their gaming area, where their sega genesis display let me game for free instead of dropping stacks of cash down at the arcade. it's also where i first played wolfenstein 3d and doom, on a fast PC with a sound card. it's where i pwned my first noob in networked multiplayer - a cocky twentysomething in a suit that wasn't pleased about humiliation at the hands of a kid with enormous glasses and a megadeth shirt.

probably my favorite memory, though, is my dad and i at the compusa windows 95 midnight launch - it was a cool 'industry' event, the first time i ever showed up on day one to get something new. look at what you started, dad :)

so it seemed a natural fit for an afterschool job - i got tired of shifts til 2am at the movie theater, anyway. at 15 the only job they could let me have was cashier, but it didn't matter - i was in there, messing with new products, explaining tech stuff to customers, working with good people. strangely most of my co-workers up front were girls from miami - none of them incredibly technical, which i didn't get. why work at a computer store if you weren't a computer geek?

the best coworker i had, though, was an older guy named les, probably in his early fifties - he was a greeter, so he would often sit in the foyer, but when we weren't busy he came in and hung out with us. he was a really nice guy with a great sense of humor - les could make all of us laugh no matter how busy or stressed we were. he talked with us about real stuff, our lives, and always listened and gave good advice. after i left that job i would often stop back in to just talk to les, listen to him tell stories about his son and the goofy stuff he did.

i think les stayed around even after the store moved over to tri-county. i thought i saw him stocking the shelves a few years ago, but i was too busy at the time to stop over and say hey. still kind of regret that.

so after about three or four months as a cashier i asked to move out to the sales floor - there i could spend all my time talking to customers. i really enjoyed making the mysteries of technology make sense to non-technical people - probably why i ended up doing tech support at onenet a few years later, which burned that desire up rather quickly. the other guys on the sales floor were all in their twenties and thirties, and i never felt comfortable in their territory, so a little while later i moved over to the repair department, and i spent the last few months fixing PC's. it seems so long ago, so primitive compared to how things are now, but man, was life simpler over there. sit in a room, listen to WEBN, and install CD-ROM drives and new CPU fans.

i left a year after i started, the summer after i graduated, to work 40-hour-a-week temp jobs for twice the pay... where i learned the difference between work for work's sake and enjoying my job. three weeks into my first assignment at choicecare (now humana), i was falling asleep almost every day when i was supposed to be doing "data entry", and the management wasn't too keen on that, so i got kicked out of there, and the temp place stuck me at a nursing home doing 'electronic filing' (basically creating directories on the single PC in the place and moving files into those directories).

it didn't hold a candle to compusa. the store moved to tri-county a few years later, and then they added a games section to try to compete with best buy and circuit city. i stopped going in there right around that time - microcenter (or pricewatch) had better prices and a better selection, but also i think the place was too different from what i remembered, and it was kind of sad to see it so unlike the geek mecca in which i spent so much of my childhood.

a million blinding brilliant white incendiary lights

2007-12-05T15:58:00.000-05:00

hey you, american citizen, you want proof that your vote absolutely counts?

the northwest local schools levy passed by two votes. this is crazy exciting news - the district is in desperate need of new materials and supplies, the buildings are in disrepair, and the teachers are among the lowest paid in the state.

but it's more exciting news that two votes can mean the difference - two votes mean that some kids will be getting a better education because of a better environment, and quality books + technology (i've seen the computers in renee's room - i wouldn't give them to my worst enemy). i hope the board of education puts this money to good use - and i hope parents actually bother to take an interest, show up, and hold them accountable. and heck, if a few years from now we are still in the area, i am totally running for school board.

the handshake drugs i bought downtown

2007-12-03T17:56:00.001-05:00

renee likes her pasta pretty simple - with some grilled chicken, garlic and parmesan. i usually dial it up a bit more and go with chicken + alfredo + mushrooms, or sausage and tomato sauce... tonight i think i perfected the latter. this stuff absolutely ruled and i can't wait to make it again:

8-12oz italian sausage (1 piece)
8oz tomato paste (probably 1 can)
3 ripe roma tomatoes
1 cup onion (about 1/2 an onion)
1 cup celery (1 stalk)
2 cloves garlic
1 tsp basil (2 or 3 leaves)
1 tsp oregano
1/2 cup red wine

grill up your sausage, chop into 3/4" pieces. finely chop onion, celery and garlic, sautee onion and celery over low/medium heat in 2 Tbsp olive oil until soft, then at the last minute add the chopped garlic (otherwise that stuff burns quick). boil some water and drop your tomatoes in, leave for about a minute, then pull them out and remove the skin. core them & remove the seeds, then add to the sautee pan along with the sausage, tomato paste and red wine. let simmer for 5-10 minutes, add the basil and oregano (you could do parsley or fennel too) along with salt & pepper to taste and crushed red pepper flakes for heat, toss with some pasta (i used farfalle), serve with grated parmesan or romano.

careful with that crushed red pepper, though. renee's mom gave us some dried red peppers, i chopped and added a few to see how potent they were - on top of BFM's hot italian sausage, it about knocked me out of my chair.

open skies over me

2007-12-03T14:47:00.000-05:00

wow, the supposedly great component switchbox i picked up in october has now died a second time. this means i now have to find a fourth one. inconceivable!

(you keep using that word... i do not think it means what you think it means.)

i guess i should stop buying cheap ones? invest in a real one that doesn't look like it was made by playskool?

speaking of, i almost made it out of target on friday with optimash prime, but i was ridiculed into shelving the idea.

back in november of 2004 (right around election day i believe) i remember thinking "i can't wait for 2008"... seemed so far off, and yet here we are less than a month off. is time really moving so quickly? good gravy, i'm almost 30.

you cannot destroy the heart

2007-11-28T21:15:00.000-05:00

i usually just skip over public TV channels, but tonight i paused on wired science and, lo and behold, it's actually a tv version of wired. and it was awesome. who knew something else worthwhile would be on PBS?

they talked about satellites, table PC's and RLS which i am still sorta convinced i have.

this was right after episode two of the discovery channel documetary rise of the videogame. renee got pretty tired of me pointing and shouting at every familiar face. "shoe! n'gai! kohler! david jaffe! OMG MIYAMOTO!@#&!*@"

to help allay the typical frustration of me wandering around the grocery store tonight, i fired up the classic mellon collie and the infinite sadness and it made the whole experience way less stressful - it was actually kind of fun. i think i may have startled a few of the middle aged women wandering the aisles... anyway it got me thinking - i never picked up machina back in the day for whatever reason. any recommendations on whether or not it's worth my time?

rattles all the doors

2007-11-27T22:18:00.000-05:00

frick on a stick, yep, that's another macbook flaw, although this one isn't apple's fault - it's seagate's, a batch of bad hard disks. hopefully apple will step up and replace them.

so is it me or is the kindle a solution in need of a problem? i guess i can see wanting to store dozens of books on a single device... when the ipod debuted i marveled at the ability to store a huge chunk of my music collection on something small and portable, but i guess because i don't switch frequently between stuff i read like i do music, it doesn't exactly line up. it'd be perfect for college students, though, imagine bringing that guy into class instead of all your books. or, you know, just use the laptop you already have.

free wireless provided by the vendor, though, is something i can get behind and a trend i hope continues. imagine if sony or nintendo provided similar functionality in their next portable console, or apple / microsoft threw that into their next music player.

are you imagining? you should be.

the vacuum of his eyes

2007-11-25T15:57:00.000-05:00

contra 4 showed up while we were out of town. it's a total homage to the classic NES/SNES series with barely anything new (besides the grappling hook that takes you to the top screen). it's as tough as the reviews say - as merciless as the originals, with ten lives, five continues and one-hit kills. basically the idea is to play through it a million times until you manage to not die by the end of the game - not really my idea of fun anymore. sure it was fun in 1988 but now it just feels dated for a new release.

sony finally opened up their PSP store where you can buy old PS1 games and load them onto your PSP. sadly the app that pulls it down and stores it on your device requires that your device be turned on and in USB mode the whole time - so for a 350MB download that takes 30 minutes, you just ate a decent chunk of your battery life.

that said, the whole process was smooth, i picked up the classic castlevania: symphony of the night, the spiritual predecessor to my DS fave dawn of sorrow. SotN is the first in the series to have RPG elements - leveling up, buying items, upgrading weapons, etc, and i'm enjoying the experience. i'm not sure what planet i was on when the original playstation came out - i think i was too busy hanging out on IRC for most of high school - but i had no awareness of the existence of the console or most of the games until i hit college. that void in my memory still surprises me - it's not that i wasn't into gaming then (although unlike now, it made you a social pariah... or maybe that was just being in scouts)... i guess without ubiquitous web coverage of everything, there's a lot of stuff you miss?

so who dey, huh? not sure who that team in the orange jerseys was today but it was encouraging to watch them play and to see chad getting his groove back. how about coach coward and boomer knocking his endzone celebration at the half? apparently these guys forgot what it means to have fun in a football game, how pathetic.

speaking of, i finally caught the HBO documentary on the ohio state/michigan rivalry. solid, although felt like it could have been a 90-minute or even two hour feature instead of one hour. they focused mainly on the ten year war, obviously because the woody hayes/bo schembechler competition is the most iconic historical period, but only talked for about three minutes about recent years with coach tressel - i don't even think they mentioned lloyd carr. it was a little slim on highlight footage and scores, which would have been more appropriate IMHO. in any case, it's entertaining for fans of either side (good or evil).

in this uncanny house

2007-11-24T18:55:00.000-05:00

i finished up galaxy right before we left - probably the fastest i ever completed a mario game. i can whip thru SMB3 in just under 30 minutes now, but i've never completed one in less than a week on my first time through. none of the final battles have been so satisfying as galaxy's, though. i have 52 stars left to find out of 120 - and i think i may just try to tackle all of them.

we saw my family thursday - something i have looked forward to for weeks - and then bounced out to indiana until this morning. we managed to get our tree up and in the process i dug out my old SNES. sadly i am missing a power adapter (maybe gamestop sells them - adrian just got a job there, sweetness). i was thinking about converting one of the controllers to USB - i also may bring it into the office (although i won't be around much in december - bell is taking all our extra PTO, so i'm taking a few weeks off during the holidays). hope you all got to be with loved ones during thanksgiving and got to attack some delicious eats.

it's coming up - motion city soundtrack + anberlin + mae on december 13 at bogarts - gonna be a great show...

whenever i let my guard down

2007-11-19T14:41:00.000-05:00

so every year we take the UC new leader training folks down to a young life fall weekend to be the work crew - i know it'll be the toughest weekend of the year, because i won't get much sleep, i'll be moving nonstop, and i'll be sore for the next couple of days; it's also really valuable time with the NLT guys.

i don't much enjoy being in charge of things, and these weekends always bring that feeling to the surface. i can never escape the constant thought that every decision i make is wrong - and more often than not, they turn out to be, and it's a bummer of a way to spend a few days. sure, we got through the weekend just fine, nothing burned down, and jason shields got hit in the face with an octopus, and our work crew was phenominal. but i got home, my self-confidence as torn-up as my legs, and thought about the best part of the weekend - sitting around for an hour with a hurt camper, waiting to hear back from his parents, just hanging out, trying to ease his mind about his injuries, talking about video games and paintball.

when i was thinking about leaving oak hills in '05 i had this urge to sort of 'be a bridge' to a different generation of Christians, people that were heavily anchored in the traditional. so here we are almost three years later and i am exactly where i talked about being (although the people i'm trying to lead are my parents' age).

i don't doubt my decision to leave young life, it was the right thing to do so that i could devote mindspace to being married. and i don't dislike what i'm doing now in the church small group - it has certainly been the right thing to do for the past year; but my heart is being nudged in a different direction, it seems, and sometime soon i imagine i will discover a much stronger pull and i'll know it's time to come back.

hey look, galaxy is the highest rated game of all time. ok, i'll bite. here's what's good about this game:

- brilliant level design. each 'galaxy' is one level with a bunch of small planets and four or five separate objectives to play through, and each galaxy feels totally new. you're never lost about what to do next, or how to accomplish something.
- graphically amazing (for the Wii), although i think nintendo has hit a ceiling on how good mario games will look forever. if the wii had the horsepower of the 360 or ps3 i honestly don't think it would improve anything.
- a whole lot of fun. unless you're a hardcore dude who wants everything to look like gears you'll laugh and enjoy yourself while digging through this game.

what sucks about it:

- here we go with the same problem i whined about in zelda recently: if you're going to do innovative controls, do them PERFECTLY. i'm not used to first-party nintendo-developed titles with any flaws in the controls... and just like with zelda, they manifest most frequently in boss battles, where timing and precision are key. when you can't hit the boss because the motion controls aren't working perfectly, or you miss something because your pointer stopped appearing onscreen, and you die or get hurt because of it, something is wrong. it's hugely frustrating and kind of sabotages the whole innovative-motion-thing they are selling.
- when you save & quit your game and restart it later, you lose all of your lives and reset to the default of 4. have i talked about how crappy that is?
- every time you get a 'letter' from a character in-game, your main Wii inbox gets a message, and your console's disc tray lights up. i used to think this was a cool feature. now it's just distracting.

GHOSTBUSTERS, y'all. with the original cast doing voice work. uhhh, LEGENDARY.

on a steel horse i ride

2007-11-13T21:37:00.001-05:00

no front tonight - but i've been playing mario galaxy for much of the night, so that's a fair tradeoff.

to hear 1up's shane bettenhausen bubble about it being game of the year on 1up yours had me intrigued. i loves me some mario, obviously, but honestly mario 64 (hailed as brilliant and the father of 3D platformers - a genre i avoid) never really won me over and sunshine seemed a little too fluffy. it was the controls, really - i never quite felt like i was able to get the onscreen guy to do what i wanted. contrast that to, say, ocarina of time - still with 3d platforming elements, but i always felt in control.

so galaxy controls almost exactly the same - but add in vertigo from running around spherical worlds. still feels a bit imprecise, and when it starts to cost you lives it gets aggrivating. but it is creative (albeit a little too adorable at times), addictive, and a lot of fun. the critics say mario 1 is to mario 3 as mario 64 is to galaxy. an hour in, i'm not sure, but it's absolutely worth getting if you liked 64 or sunshine.

trying to find a copy was an experience. i ended up at toys r us, which was offering a $25 gift card with purchase... so i rolled in on the way home from work to find a crowd of six or seven people floating nebulously around the counter and a couple of listless employees ambling around. after about 20 minutes the number had grown to about 50 and a line formed. we waited around for a while, and in process i spoke to the three people in line ahead of me:

- a dad in his late forties with three kids. he talked for a while about how gaming had improved his kids' relationships with each other - they cooperate better, ask each other for help more, share a lot more, etc...

- a mom in her late thirties whose husband enjoys gaming as much as their kids. she raved about their wii - playing wii sports, making mii's, etc. she also dug the rock band demo.

- a grandmother in her sixties who was name-dropping her favorite Gamecube titles like... she was me. plays a lot with her grandkids, as well as a lot of PSP on her own. it was quite inspiring.

i spend enough time among hardcore gamers - i found this crowd refreshing. strangers that don't know tons about games, talking about genres they like, stuff their kids like, their opinions of the different platforms and their strengths and weaknesses (a lot of comments, for example, about how the game consoles match up appearance-wise in their entertainment centers).

speaking of rock band... brian, tony, ryan and i fired up the four-player action today over lunch. wanted dead or alive - b was on bass, i manned the drums, tony on guitar, and hamrick was jon bon jovi - and tore it up, garnering an audience of customers and even a few best buy employees that certainly did not want to throw us out of the store and ban us for life.

seventy-seven feet tall

2007-11-09T17:11:00.000-05:00

dudes. mc frontalot, this tuesday, 8:30pm, in columbus. tix are $10. worth the drive - the front doesn't head out to the midwest coast that much. who's interested? it'll be the best hip-hop show you ever see.

flip a couple words

2007-11-04T12:05:00.000-05:00

american gangster was magnificent, a brilliantly-told story that could have completely indulged itself in glorifying drug dealers, and instead was honest about the tragedy of addiction. frank lucas reaps what he sows - some call him an anti-hero, but by the end of the film you are so eager for him to take a fall. and the reason isn't in the script as much as it's on the screen - denzel plays lucas as a brooding, desperate creature that loves his mother and yet carelessly hurts so many. the headliners are magnetic... two scenes in particular had my eyes glued to the screen - the conversation between lucas and nicky barnes (cuba gooding in a pimp suit), and lucas & richie roberts in the interrogation room.

props to ridley scott for great pacing and mood. i was surprised to hear that the original helmer was antoine fuqua (another of my favorite directors) but was removed before production began. kind of sad - while scott's film is pretty incredible, i'm curious how fuqua would have done it, if lucas would have been even more like alonzo...

glad i tuned into SNL last night - not only did brian williams rule, the obama cameo was pure icing.

in spite of years of silence

2007-11-02T13:28:00.000-04:00

hamrick and i just played rock band up at best buy over lunch. OMG.

the dynamic on its own is almost identical to guitar hero... but the addition of another person on a different instrument into the mix makes the experience SO much better. the four-player experience must be intoxicating.

the drums were super easy to pick up and play and were so much fun - i braved vasoline on medium and got through with only a few mistakes (mostly because i was hitting the outside rim of the drum pad instead of the pad itself).

the guitar tracks are easier than GH - i set the difficulty on medium for say it ain't so and it was as slow as the easy setting on GH. the guitar felt a lot more solid, less toy-like, with better buttons, a much better strum bar and a very realistic whammy bar.

blows a hole in the radio

2007-11-02T10:19:00.000-04:00

retronauts is finally back after a two-month hiatus, and they actually dropped two shows in two weeks. so on this week's episode the crew reminisces about mario games, and spent a few minutes on their first experiences with the series. it brought me back, too, to my childhood.

i never got an original NES - i was primarily a PC gamer back then (and by PC gamer i mean the immortal C64, wolf3d was the first PC-as-in-x86-architecture game i really dug into)... some of my friends had the console , which is where i first experienced the legend of zelda, the mega man series, final fantasy, the original ninja turtles games, etc. but my first time with mario was at my grandparents' house.

to this day, i'm not too sure why they had one... i assume it's so that me and my cousins could have something to do (and leave the adults alone) while hanging out at their place. at the time my cousins christina and alex and i were the only ones around that were old enough to play a game console. their library wasn't huge - just the super mario bros./duck hunt cart and SMB2, but those three titles were more than enough to keep us busy. i was the oldest (and the most excited to fire up the NES - i thought of little else on our long drives up to dayton) so i got first crack at the games - and as a result tina & alex got very little time to play as the second player. i absolutely loved SMB, so simple and yet so challenging. people talk about the music, but the sound effects were what stuck with me - the sound of stomping an enemy, grabbing a coin, chucking a fireball - they were rich, so much more stunning than the grainy pops and beeps coming out of my c64's speakers.

i remember that the discrepancy between styles in SMB and SMB2 was always confusing to me... hearing the origins of SMB2 later in life cleared up a lot of that. i never liked SMB2 very much, and even after finishing the all-stars version i wasn't very satisfied.

i got a gameboy in '89 for christmas, and after i burned through an afternoon of tetris i switched up to super mario land... i remember hating that game because it changed play styles even further from SMB/SMB2. what was this level where you fly a plane? where's my fireball? all i have is this stupid bouncing bowling ball. to this day it's one of the only games from my childhood i haven't revisited via emulation.

i've extolled the virtues of super mario 3 before - i need not repeat my praise, except to hold it up as one of the finest console games ever made.

the real revelation was christmas 1991 when i opened my SNES box and freaked out much like the N64 kid. i played super mario world most of the day, until we went up to visit family that afternoon. that evening i went to bed - but unbeknownst to my parents, who for some reason had the SNES hooked up in my room, i got up and played the entire night through and finished it on day one. i was twelve at the time - my first all-nighter. i haven't stayed up all night to finish a game since.

mario 64, mario sunshine - for some reason these two never really bowled me over. i'm excited for mario galaxy in two weeks - i hear it's marvelous - but my heart will always lie with the old side-scrollers.

a pillow made of concrete

2007-10-29T23:02:00.000-04:00

wake up, mister vice president. california is on fire.

the first guitar hero was not only totally novel, it was finely executed from beginning to end. the biggest star - the track list - was never too dull and never too overwhelming. you could play it straight through and the tracks just fit together. it was like a perfectly arranged playlist (something i have worked my entire life to successfully craft).

number two had some gems - them bones, trippin' on a hole, sweet chi-eee-ild - and also quite a few tracks that were pretty blah (surrender, tattooed love boys). quality was more polarized. guitar hero 3 is a mile down that road. there are even more intense experiences, like one, evenflow, anarchy in the UK, and rock you like a hurricane; and there are some downright awful ones - story of my life, paint it black, hit me with your best shot... heck the entire first two tiers are miserable. i almost nodded off during mississippi queen and in the middle of barracuda i stopped caring about whether or not i beat the song.

some of the other changes are good: the graphics are gorgeous (or maybe it's because it can do 480p now) and there are these cartoon cutscenes about your band's rise to fame that i kind of wish they did more with; the bad changes: the boss fights are dumb. you have to make a computer-controlled legendary guitarist like tom morello fail in a competition with you by hitting note combos that give you 'attacks' that screw him up. it's awkward, painful, and a total nuisance - should have been chucked.

the great songs still make up for the bad; things like the bonus video from the sex pistols on their reunion to re-record anarchy) are some of the sweetest extras i've seen in a game. but the series has lost much of its magic, and rock band is certainly going to finish them off. sorry GH4.

when i fly off the handle

2007-10-28T21:22:00.000-04:00

thanks to big stephen bragg (pimptastic) renee and i ended up at paul brown today. i think had i watched that game at home i would have been ten times as frustrated... that said, it was a gorgeous day, the seats were phenominal and renee enjoyed her first live NFL game. awesome. yeah, good call, coach.

i finally got my god of war: chains of olympus demo disc saturday, about two months late. it doesn't stray from the formula an ounce, which is good (ready at dawn did a faithful translation to PSP of a high-selling, top rated franchise that's a lot of fun to play) and bad (feels like the same game i've beaten twice already).

apparently GH3 is out already. yes, i'll take that one day early.

your heart was an open book

2007-10-26T21:36:00.000-04:00

i was struck this afternoon listening to heart shaped box, driving home from work, and i found myself confronted with an incredibly specific memory of the first time i saw the video. i remembered sitting on my parents' couch in '93. i remember being stunned at the tempo, the mood of the track. looking back now i think i was wondering at how it sounded mature and childish at the same time, but at the time i thought "what happened to nirvana?". of course now it's silly, it feels at home in their lexicon, and i think it's funny how disappointed i get when a band seemingly changes direction mid-career.

speaking of nirvana singles - did you know that teen spirit video director samuel bayer is the greatest video director of all time?

it seems there is a contender for greatest film soundtrack of the nineties, too - watching grosse pointe blank tonight with renee, i just noticed how deep, humorous, and thoughtful the soundtrack is. probably because it was assembled by joe strummer...

will our leaders tell us why

2007-10-24T20:31:00.000-04:00

yep, time warner is exactly the same company i'm used to dealing with. so far i've had to drop $100 deposit on a directv HD receiver, only to find out i can't get HD from them because of visibility to the dish. so i took back the receiver and prepared to jump ship to cable.

except the story i'm being told tonight by them is different from the story i was told this afternoon. huh? apparently standard cable + HD is $63/month, and i only get local HD channels + three additional (TNT, TBS and ESPN). i can get five more for an additional $7 a month and HBO is another $12. i realize many people survive without cable; part of that mentality is what makes me hesitant to throw down so much a month for it. $63 is a little outside my reasonable zone.

i am certainly calling afternoon time warner dude back tomorrow to get the scoop on their mysterious fluctuating prices. geez how i am pining for cable ala carte.

those chevy malibu "a car you can't ignore" commercials are even more ironic because the chick is running into an olds cutlass, an older rebadging of the malibu. it shouldn't make me as angry as it does every time i see it.

imap on gmail, finally. of course, if you cared about that, you already knew about it.

detonations in the distance

2007-10-22T20:32:00.000-04:00

i mentioned a while back that kmfdm's xtort album was one of my least favorites, even though lead singer sascha k thinks it's one of their best. i hadn't listened to it since 1996, though, so eleven years later i figured i'd give it another chance, and what do you know, i liked it. a lot. i think because it wasn't as well produced as nihil i was disappointed, but compared to their recent outings it's a refreshing listen. glad i didn't throw it away or sell it back.

big mark up at BFM has been hyping his bengal burger all year, and it finally debuted recently. i brought a few home and grilled one up tonight, and true to recent form i couldn't down the entire 1/2 pounder. it was way tasty (albeit a bit too spicy) - ground chuck mixed with onion, red pepper, orange bell pepper, asiago cheese, dill, and garlic. grilling on the balcony, i almost took some pictures - the fog and rain shrouded the forest and its myriad leaves in the dimming evening light.

i ended up settling on directv hd after i found out i could get free installation by signing up at best buy. they are coming on wednesday morning, sweet action. i'm hoping they show BSG:Razor in HD, which is shaping up to be pretty solid.

let the factories rust

2007-10-20T17:37:00.000-04:00

i won't be joining the world of competitive eating anytime soon. duh. der gooch won the contest this morning with 9 donuts in ten minutes. looks like my change in eating habits has permanently affected my ability to eat fast, though. when i was a kid i could down an entire little ceasar's pizza in about seven minutes; now it's all i can do to complete a burrito or a rack of ribs.

i wasn't in this thing to win, though - just to enjoy myself, which i did, even though glazed donuts suck. ed definitely deserves that golden donut - a thing of beauty.

so i actually made an effort to hit the reunion this weekend - however part 2, the d&b's outing, was canceled, so darren and artie and i and our wives had lunch instead. it worked out better than i could have hoped.

so if you enjoyed america: the book, you will devour colbert's i am america (and so can you) - just as funny, and obviously aimed at the gallavanting-pundit audience. i particularly loved his section on old people.

everything is yours to lose

2007-10-16T22:22:00.000-04:00

well chase this light is just a step above mediocre, at least on the first few listens. maybe it'll grow on me. i do find myself skipping big casino every time i play it. the water hasn't drained out of the pool, but it is certainly lukewarm. the rollercoaster of emotion that bleed american was, has been reduced to a whirl around the merry-go-round. how many more ridiculous analogies can i cram into this review?

there's a handful of tracks that i do really like - let it happen, here it goes, dizzy - but it's not all standouts like i've come to expect. maybe butch vig brought them down? who knows.

i finished up portal, which for a three hour game was incredibly satisfying, funny, and deep. game of the year quality. and hamrick's favorite jonathan coulton finishes it out with a hilarious song in the credits.

this saturday could contain the best or worst ten minutes of my life. i'm not really sure anyone loses at this thing, though.

why should i stay here

2007-10-15T22:11:00.000-04:00

i gave radiohead two bucks for in rainbows. it isn't bad, by any stretch, just pretentious, muddled, and uninteresting. i'm sure if it was the style of rock i was most tuned to, i would love it. i'm sure steady fans will adore it.

no, i've been most surprised by the fan-created album art that is piling up. since no album art was provided by the band, the fans have stepped in and created their own. my favorite part of the whole crazy experiment hasn't been listening to the record - it's been deciding which of these covers will represent the disc in my collection.

(btw i'm stuck between these four)

i will say that i really dig bodysnatchers. it's worth a listen.

a lifetime of scrutiny

2007-10-14T09:20:00.000-04:00

renee certainly knows how to keep a secret. apparently behind the cleverly misguiding comments about us not needing a new TV, she had been planning for months - MONTHS! - to drop a 50" plasma on me for my birthday. i am rarely speechless (duh), and upon walking into her parents' basement i was in complete shock.

setup was a breeze (having already laid-out plans for its inclusion into our home AV mix in my waking fantasies) and within a few minutes adrian and i were playing co-op halo 3 in 1080i. the tivo and the wii both do 480p just fine. although now i am reconsidering time warner (the new devil) vs. directv, not sure whose HD package is better (wait for it)... opinions?

and yeah if people are interested in watching some boxing over here, it's much more feasible now...

update: so this process has been quite educational. turns out my cheap component switchbox has been hax0ring my surround-sound signal - something i apparently haven't noticed before today (or occurred when i rewired my whole setup on friday). time to replace, and i hear this philips unit is a good replacement.

with no antenna hooked up, i can pull five HD channels off the air - both WLWTs, both PBS's, and 64. i'm not sure if it's worth picking up an antenna, then, especially if we move to directv HD. although this has me considering a switch back to the new devil, time warner, since directv will likely require me to get a new dish and a new receiver. i guess time warner will make me get a box anyway - but i won't need one for the other tv.

haven't you enjoyed all of this rambling? no? fine then - criss angel is a tool. discuss.

when you think your path is clear

2007-10-11T21:44:00.000-04:00

hmm. jay-z has bored me to tears since 2001, but i see a glimmer of hope in the new pharrell-produced track blue magic - a minimalist drop it like it's hot-ish beat that's actually a little interesting. the track is the first one off his upcoming "concept album" american gangster.

(ahh yes, something as dreary and single-minded as mainstream hip-hop will certainly produce a "concept album" that will be compelling, and not at all a total recapitulation of every other album on the charts. but i guess no one's buying 50 cent's CD to get something new. yep, confirmed: single # two sucks. oh well, at least it's not soulja boy.)

the bad religion show was excellent - it felt short even through they cranked through 28 songs and almost fired up a cover of sweet home alabama. the setlist included a few surprises - skyscraper and lookin' in were unexpected.

we're going back to vincenzo's tomorrow night w/the family, and daycon is saturday. and i need to start prepping to eat some donuts - i believe some practice is in order.

see him on the interstate

2007-10-10T13:26:00.000-04:00

what a fine night lies ahead. issa at montgomery inn, followed by bad religion at the madison theater. been waiting to see their full-length show for ten years, and i'll be joined by b and tony. plus, it's like 65 degrees out. all is well.

this does mean i won't get to fire up portal until tomorrow night. i hear it's short, fun as crap, and totally hilarious.

so trent did stick to his word. how nuts is it that they're now an 'indie' band with no record contract? i can't wait to see where this goes.

eat your salad day deathbed motorcade

2007-10-09T15:37:00.000-04:00

i am excited about reaching post 1000 today, but even more excited that wack mc's beat me to it. that site has been a rousing success and is one of the first places i hit every day, i'm thrilled that it's been consistently entertaining and interesting. bravo, y'all.

on the contrary, reading back over four years of my own material has made me cringe more than smile. i enjoy revisting some of the more interesting conversations about faith, church, government, gaming, popular culture, etc... but yeah, about 95% feels like drivel.

however the remaining 5% (about 50 posts) that i feel were significant to me, i think i'm going to compile them into a book. it may appear that i am arrogant and self-important enough to think that people would pay to hear what i have to say - i don't, however, this would simply be for my own sake. i wouldn't sell it, i'd just use cafepress's self publish feature to throw one together, carefully formatted with the most substantial comments inline.

why? in ten or twenty years, blogger probably won't exist, and i will have been too lazy to back up the content. but this is an important period of my life - and although when i'm forty or fifty i doubt i will care what i thought of phantom hourglass, i do think that some of the realizations i've had about my relationship with God will be good reminders.

so here's to another thousand. let's kick it off - youth ministry using first-person shooter video games to reach kids - totally legit or disgusting abomination? GO.

the cracks beneath the door

2007-10-07T20:25:00.000-04:00

i finally got to try vincenzo's on saturday - the place was absolutely top notch. great atmosphere - it's not too big, maybe a few dozen tables, but still felt really small and comfortable. the service was decent, a little slow, and they gave my reservation to some other "Hall, party of four", although we still got seated right away.

the food was fantastic - markedly so by the fact that they got renee to eat an alfredo dish, something she's always avoided. i had a a mix of scallops, shrimp, salmon, peppers, mushrooms, tomatos and capers and angel-hair pasta that was perfect - incredibly simple, with a little olive oil and parmigiano. i absolutely cannot wait to go back - there were a dozen or so other things on the menu that i wanted to try.

or, if you're up for some free food, get down to the BW3's at UC tonight - the first 100 people in the door tomorrow at the grand opening get a year's worth of free wings. there were a few dozen people camped out this afternoon. if you want your wings to be cooked, though...

hold them down our bleeding suspects

2007-10-03T21:43:00.000-04:00

can you believe it's going to be 90 here in cinci this weekend? yes, i'm sure you can, if you've lived here for more than a few months. ugh.

phantom hourglass came out on tuesday. i usually find myself subconsciously attenuating my opinions about media to reviews i've read beforehand, which is why i try to avoid movie reviews before i see them - if the reviewer thinks a movie is slowly paced, for example, i will feel like it's dragging while i'm watching it. it's a subconscious thing and quite inconsistent, but it's still there.

so the reviews for this new zelda have been pretty high, and i figured the same phenomena would present itself. not so. this game has annoyed me from minute one, and it's mostly because of the stylus-only controls. i adapted fairly quickly to twilight princess' new wii-based control scheme... this one isn't working as well.

i wrote up some thoughts regarding the control issues - which really are the most frustrating during fast-paced boss battles - about two hours into the game. another three and i'm a little more comfortable, but still missing the classic d-pad + button system, and since this whole game is based on the 'innovative controls' i'm finding myself wishing it was over already. i even had to switch off from the DS' tiny plastic stylus to a larger metal pen-stylus combo - because otherwise my hand blocks the screen the entire time i'm playing. apparently no one thought of that potential problem. don't believe the hype!

frozen strawberries + pineapple juice + cranberry-pomegranate juice + magic bullet == crazy delicious.

hey there's an ad on for an allergy-control drug called veramyst on, and in that ad, they say "The way VERAMYST works is not entirely understood". sweet, sign me up.

the world we set on fire

2007-10-01T12:37:00.000-04:00

i still think radiohead is hugely overrated. nothing i've ever heard from them has been as innovative as their rabid fans claim. and thom yorke is a little too whiny for my taste.

that said, it's kind of cool that they are releasing their new album online and allowing buyers to pick their price. initially i thought it was just a publicity stunt, and that they would get too many people spending $.01 on the disc and prove we net.music_fans are just scavengers who don't like to pay for things.

but the more i think about it, the more i like the plan: because i personally think that the value of an album does vary depending on the artist that creates it, and the quality of the work. i would pay $10 for the new jimmy eat world disc coming out in a few weeks; i would pay $3 for this radiohead album because i don't like the artist as much. if social distortion released a new disc and i had to buy it without hearing it first, i'd only drop a max of $5.75, because their last few have been weak. and under no circumstances would i ever pay more than $12 for a disc ever again, because CD prices nowadays are much too high for what you get.

i certainly don't think this will begin a sweeping trend through the music industry; i think it's a cute tactic and it may even get me to buy the album when i wouldn't have otherwise, because i want to support the cause. maybe trent will stick to his word and after ending his record contract, charge $4 a pop for a digital version of his next album.

carried away with every page

2007-09-28T22:50:00.000-04:00

i stole the pimpest photo from bragg's pics for some shiny new wallpaper. what a sweet shot, chief, it's gorgeous. there's a widescreen one available too.

tonight was a night i wish i had our camera with us. renee and i did dinner at vinoklet and went out back by the bonfire afterwards... full moon, clear sky, great light on the vineyards, would have been perfect for some photos.

all we want to do is change your mind

2007-09-27T14:02:00.000-04:00

there are lots of other dudes named justin hall out there. one was one of the first internet celebrities, one is another geek blogger. one is an engineer with GE Transportation out in Missouri, and folks in the company often mistakenly send me email meant for him. today i got one that fascinated me.

apparently Justin S. Hall got on the news after dropping 40lbs on a Chipotle Diet. one burrito a day, plus fruit and salad and water. i hit him up and he pointed me to his site with the whole story.

i doubt it's sustainable, especially for someone like me who (1) hates water (2) loves to cook (3) gets tired of repetition fairly quickly. but i love fruit, i love salad, and i could probably change my burrito up enough to make it work. intriguing, no?

how it breaks the heart

2007-09-26T23:16:00.000-04:00

i've been staring intently into computer monitors since i was two years old, and i've never seen one this annoying. specifically my macbook is suffering from the infamous screen flickering problem, where the screen will randomly flicker in brightness between normal and dim. does it in both OS X and windows. that article is from december of last year, and this apple support thread is from even further back in august, and yet the problem still hasn't been acknowledged by the manufacturer.

first the discoloration, then the fragile little power cord starts sparking and needs replacing, and now this, and i've had the system a little over a year. i think going apple was a mistake - while i do like the keyboard's feel and the embedded camera (that i never use), this whole reliability / quality thing is bothering me. i have a dell d600 at the office that is going on three years old and has been flawless, while taking much more of a beating than the apple has. will it even last another two years?

leave me at the roadside

2007-09-23T00:29:00.000-04:00

balls of fury was okay. sadly mediocre. its a cameofest, though, if that's your thing.

do me a favor, don't open any PDF files you get via email for a little while, cool?

apparently the ipod touch is sort of lame. ruh roh. don't buy it! by christmas, apple will have cut the price in half and you will get screwed.

did you realize that Guitar Hero 3 will be out in a month? have you seen the (rumored) song list??? FRICK. knights of cydonia, prayer of the refugee, bulls on parade, welcome to the jungle, sabotage, paranoid, cherub rock... that is WORTHY.

colerain had to have homecoming tonight in a non-air-conditioned gym. PLEASE vote for the levy if you live in the district. remember homecoming? think about that dance, in 95 degree weather, already nervous guys sweating like pigs, like a human farmhouse in formalwear. ugh.

can someone please track down an online video of that burger king ad with the ninja chicken? i don't think i can watch it enough, and it's nowhere to be found, and that is a crime.

play my little part in something big

2007-09-18T22:21:00.000-04:00

i was going to wait until post one thousand to drop the new layout. but that seemed too ostentatious?

i've been trying to check out universal's new music store spiralfrog... but the bloody site won't even load. strike one was the name, strike two is the speed, and i assume strike three is being unable to use the songs from the store on an ipod.

let this be a lesson to you all - if you are annoying at a political rally in florida, you will get tasered. bro.

i cannot wait to hear the generational divide on this one. older folks across the country spouting "spare the taser, spoil the child", eschewing the benefits of strict, physical discipline... the ACLU suing the university, citing first amendment violation and excessive force... we're going to be listening to this story until 2008 at the least.

can someone explain to me why i want to see this movie?

ill tuck you in, homie, buenas noches

2007-09-17T20:26:00.000-04:00

guitar hero 80's isn't just boring - it flat out sucks. weak track list with some shoddily-transcribed notes that don't match up at all to the song you are playing. run away.

orange box and phantom hourglass drop in a few weeks. til then i am thinking about firing up zork.

had an interesting weekend - my check card got stolen, right? fortunately i found out quickly, as PNC watches for anomalies in my purchasing patterns and calls me when there are strange deviations, like, for example, buying mexican calling cards or random stuff from telemarketers. so i only lost $30 and because PNC gives me a separate card just for use with online purchases, it was trivial to replace. the whole thing was remarkably stress free - after spending the last fifteen years online i'm surprised it didn't happen sooner.

artie inspired me a few weeks ago with his excellent chicken tortilla soup, so i braved some potato soup - my first foray, if you don't count the really thin tomato sauce that might as well have been soup. it ended up tasting great, although it was a bit thin as well, gotta dial back the chicken stock next time.

the night before on my cheesesteak, i tried another sauce combo - some of the caribbean jerk sauce we brought back from jamaica + mayo and lemon juice. flat out one of the best sandwich toppings ever - throw some sweet peppers on that ride and you're set.

i've been listening to lots of electronic stuff lately, mostly on The System. i am enjoying, it's a genre i haven't hung out in a lot ever. any fans have any suggestions of good artists to check out?