Florida Trip Nov 2009 - EPCOT

Finally got a number of pictures loaded up so it's time to continue the review of last month's trip. I've gotten through all the pictures but still have a number to upload. Anyway, this is what we did in our two trips to EPCOT.

Spaceship Earth - Three Times. The linchpin of the park still holds an appeal for me. Many long-term fans will argue that the current version of this ride pales in comparison to some of it's previous versions but I still love this ride and it's edutainment qualities.

Test Track - Test Track is an attempt to marry education (how cars are tested before they are mass produced) with a thrill ride (doing about 65 in a NASCAR like turn). In principal, this is the right way to approach the concept at EPCOT. You can't just fling a coaster in EPCOT and have it fit the theming. Test Track makes you the test 'dummy' in a car. You ride around in the main building going through rough road tests, heat tests, cold tests, brake tests, etc. The final test tries to trick you into thinking you're going to crash but the wall opens and you're outside the main building, whipping through a mighty curve at a high rate of speed. It's like riding in a full sized slot car. It's fun but there's no real adventure to be found. We walked through the queue and immediately got on the ride. Once we'd finished the ride, there was a slight queue. That was enough to keep us from riding again. It's just not that fun. Besides, we were going faster during the car ride to and from Orlando. There are rumors that a couple of the not in use pavilions will be removed in order to put up a thrill ride at EPCOT. If they can marry education and thrill ride more successfully than this, it may be the greatest thing ever. Otherwise, blah.

The Seas with Nemo and Friends - Twice. It's not that long, it's fun, and there was no line for it. Win - win.

Turtle Talk with Crush - a show where the computer animated Crush interacts with the audience. The interaction is impressive. It's a fun show. Kids ask questions of the figure on the screen and he answers them. Recommended.

Soarin' - Once. Hang glide over bits of country. Very nice.

Living with the Land - Once. Boat ride through a number of experimental greenhouses. More interesting than it sounds. Seeing things grow without being planted in dirt and receiving no water is impressive.

The Circle of Life - Once. Short movie about ecology with the main characters from The Lion King. A bit dated but nice.

Gran Fiesta Tour Starring the Three Caballeros - Twice. Boat ride. Jose Carioca and Panchito are to appear with Donald Duck but, where is Donald? The birds search Mexico to find their friend, always being one step behind the famous Duck until the end. It's an entertaining way to 'tour' Mexico while still having a story to follow as well as using some lesser known Disney characters. Brief and fun.

Maelstrom - Twice. Boat ride. You float through Norway's history and myth. This is brief but fun as all heck. You see some vikings and such before approaching a troll who casts a spell on you and flings your boat away from him, backwards! You rocket past polar bears and things, your boat almost 'falls' from the building (there's a hole in the front of the building where your boat readjusts back to traveling forward), you go down a waterfall, and float past a oil platform in the North Sea. You finally dock in the middle of a normal looking town in wherever Norway. There's a lot going on in this ride. Lots of fun to be had in its way. As much as I enjoyed the ride in Mexico, the going backwards and the drop make this much more fun. Most of the other countries in the World Showcase have a film to watch about the country, which is fine, but if they all had a ride like this, it would be so much more awesome in general.

The UK area has a Pub and a Fish n Chip shop. They warm the heart to think of them. I don't care much for seafood but I can do the occasional fish n chips drown in malt vinegar, especially with a pint of lager to go with it. Mmmm...

Pictures on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2044181&id=1353274305&l=fd4714be13

A Few Thoughts on Comics from The Past Couple Weeks

Dark Avengers Annual #1 gives us a whiz-bang blowout of a fight as well as a new heir to the name: Captain Marvel. Interesting.

The Marvels Project #4 shows us the origin of the original Captain America, Steve Rogers, but from the point-of-view of the Nazi agent assigned to kill the 'traitor' scientist working on the project. Interesting.

In Thor #604, the hammer wielding hero finds out that Doctor Doom has been experimenting on Asgardians. A beat-down is about to be delivered. Interesting.

Vincent Price Presents #13 features the return of one of my favorite Price characters: Dr. Phibes! The art style is a bit odd, darkly inked like Jae Lee, but still with enough detail and character to communicate the story well. The story shows it's links to the two movies and continues the story in a way that allows for further sequels. The characters are written well enough to what we've already seen. The story seems a bit over the top but, really, the best Vincent Price movies all are a bit over the top. I liked this but I'm not sure I loved it, mostly because the art style was a bit too weird at times.

Siege: The Cabal shows the beginnings of the end of Norman Osborn's reign of darkness over the Marvel Universe. We see Loki's influence on him is strong, stronger than I expected. I'm hoping that we don't get a 'everything that has gone on in the past seven years our time has all been Loki's fault' but it is nice to see Loki messing with the Avengers as that type of story tends to go well for the reader.

Invincible Iron Man #21 further details Tony's plan to have his friends 'reboot' him. All these bits and pieces from storylines from the past couple years come together as one big master plan. Excellent. Even better is an appearance by Captain America. Captain Americas maybe? Oh yeah, Steve Rogers is back and his shield is a big part of the plan!

New Avengers Annual #3 is also a big piece of the 'beginning of the end' puzzle for Norman Osborn's reign. The New Avengers (hopefully to just be The Avengers again soon) lose their hideout but may gain a new leader at the end. Mike Mayhew's art is beautiful, looking like it's tightly drawn pencils that have been colored. Very wow!

The Muppet Show Comic Book #0, the first of the ongoing Muppet Show Comic, was a bit of a let-down for me, the first Muppet Comic in the new line that left me a bit cold. It's not the style of the new artist throwing me off, that I didn't mind. Link Hogthrob had a few lines that just didn't sound like him and threw me off. The construction of the story was a bit odd as well. The 'Pigs in Space' storyline is supposed to be a movie pitch, which could explain the odd phrasing from Link, but the ending would seem to negate that concept. The movie execs being Statler and Waldorf is obvious from the beginning of the book and is either stupid, because its too easy a joke to have them turn something down, or is awesome, as that's been their job this entire time and explains why they're used to hating. The story just seemed a little lazy. That said, it does earn a point for Bunsen Honeydew making a sonic screwdriver comment.

Snow Day

Last night was supposed to be the unholiest of snowstorms. Milwaukee did get snow but wasn't as badly hit as some of the surrounding area. If it had just been a bit a snow, today would have been fine. We lost power overnight and it didn't come back on until early evening. The bits of routine were lost today. No morning coffee, no causal puttering online, no tidying as I listen to podcasts. Nothing. I wanted to write but the chill and lack of coffee got to me. Not an outstanding day of days.

A Haunted Tale

In advance we had decided to attend one of the occurrences of the 'Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party' that would be held at the Magic Kingdom. Gaining access was simple; you just bought a ticket. The only catch was that the number of available tickets were limited. This turned out to be a non-factor as we all got in.

At about 8pm, anyone not wearing a wristband indicating they'd paid for the party was asked to leave. The party ran until midnight. During this time lines were almost non-existent. It was about as close as you could get to having a park to yourself. For example, earlier in the week the line for 'Peter Pan's Flight' had been 40-50 minutes. During the party, I rode 'Flight' three times in about 15 minutes. It was great. For rides that tended to not have much of a line anyway during this relatively quiet time, it meant you could pretty much just walk on and ride.

Some of the gang was going back on Peter Pan. Some were going on 'its a small world'. I'd had my fill of both and declared my intention to go to the Haunted Mansion. By myself. But it's haunted! Spooky!

The Haunted Mansion is a fun ride, a little creepy, a little spooky, but mostly fun. Still, I don't think I'd ever ridden anything completely by myself and this dark ride would be an odd choice to start with if it wasn't so fun. My imagination is just too good sometimes in the dark. I scare myself.

The queue area was silent for the ride as I approached it, meaning that the creepy started immediately. I zipped through the lack of line and headed for the entrance to the Mansion. There's a sudden right turn just before the door. As I rounded the corner, the door slammed shut. Until the room cycled and the Castmembers opened the door, I'd be outside. I was alone.

A small cemetery rests just outside the Mansion, sitting in tribute to the major Imagineers that worked on its design. Thankfully, I knew what the trick was and waited.

Madame Leota is the spirit trapped in the crystal ball, the room that signals the switch between the 'creepy' rooms and the more fun rooms. While I sat alone for a couple minutes, I watched her memorial stone.

And it moved! Having read up on many things Disney since my last trip, I knew this would happen and waited on the picture (which kinda turned out). The carved head opens its eyes and moves around a bit before resetting to 'stone'. I was glad I knew about this because, otherwise, it would have freaked me out a bit.

Soon enough, other people arrived and lined up. Some of them didn't know and soon there was a nervous 'did it move?' comment. Then there was excited giggling as everyone sought to watch. Disney is full of little things like this, attentions to detail that add so much to the experience.

I survived the Haunted Mansion riding in a Doombuggy all by myself. I had fun, even when the ride paused twice. After the moment of 'oh man it's stopping' came the 'I got to hear the breakdown spiel!' which then turned into 'why couldn't I have stopped in front of something I could take a picture of?'

There are more general Park stories to tell. I just finished going through all my pictures tonight and am still uploading them to Facebook. I took almost 600 in one day, about a third of those being Muppet related. It's a work in progress.

Music Monday - Sloan

There's something about rock/pop bands that sing harmonies. The Beatles? Awesome. The Hollies? Awesome. Sloan? Awesome.

Sloan's a bit like Weezer without being quite so comical. Sloan seems to understand that rock music can be many things but it should be fun most of all. That's why I've picked two of their songs from the same album, 'Pretty Together'. One is clearly a fun hands in the air rocker while the other is more maudlin, thoughtful. Variety, I also love variety in a band. This is good stuff.

A Passing Review of Blizzard Brawl 5

I'm not trying to do a blow-by-blow review of last night's show. I just want to cover the highlights, the memories as I have them before they disappear and get muddled. It was a busy and fun time.

Normally I meet and get a picture with a wrestler or two. I bumped into some friends I haven't seen in way too long and chose to catch up with them rather than get a picture with Bobby Heenan. Tough decision, honestly.

Pre-show: Ten bell salute for Eddie 'Umaga' Fata who passed away on Friday at far too young an age.

First Match: Dakota Darsow vs Tony Scarpone (?)

Dakota we've seen once before, put on a good show, and was really nice. He's the son of Barry Darsow aka Demolition Smash (amongst other ring names). Dakota was billed as being from Minnesota and Tony as from Chicago, causing me to lean over to my buddy Brian and ponder 'I had this problem while watching football last week. When Chicago plays Minnesota, who do you cheer for?' Dakota had a cockiness to him that was new. Tony played the big tough guy. Dakota got the win.

Second Match: Headbanger Mosh vs Ryan Rogue

Late 90s WWF wrestler vs local boy. Nice match, both guys worked hard, some high flying, some bumping to the outside, but something weird happened with the finish and the match ended on what appeared to be a blown spot. Everyone seemed okay though.

Third Match: The 'Gun Show' Retirement Gauntlet.

Local tv reporter Lance Allen is 3-0 at Blizzard Brawl and announced he intended to retire after tonight undefeated. His manager, wrestling legend King Kong Bundy, would insure success. GLCW commissioner Armando Estrada announced he had searched high and low in Wisconsin to find three opponents, one of which had to defeat Lance. Opponent one, Bobby V, wore black briefs barely covered by a weird fuzzy pink singlet that appeared to be for a female. (Bundy's comment to Bobby V was 'I've taken dumps bigger than you and they were better looking!') Bobby V was quickly defeated. Opponent two, 'El Vato' Jose Guerrero, was more of a challenge but Lance managed a victory. Opponent three was Eric Freedom and the dirty hippie caused the tired Lance problems. King Kong Bundy assisted and Lance got the victory, able to retire undefeated.

Bobby 'The Brain' Heenan tribute. Bobby was presented with a lifetime achievement award by the local wrestling talk show as well as the proclamation that December 5th, 2009 was Bobby 'the Brain' Heenan Day in Milwaukee. Bobby wondered if there was a cash reward as well. King Kong Bundy did an introduction for his former manager. The crowd chanted 'Bobby', 'Thank you Bobby', and, briefly, 'Weasel'. Bobby is a throat cancer survivor and the crowd went totally silent when the man grabbed the microphone. 'Thank you. Very much.' This was a wonderfully sweet moment.

Footage of such:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYxhyo2uFt4&feature=player_embedded

Intermission. More talking with my buddies that I haven't seen in ages. Entertainment value increased as I said hello to the passing Jose Guerrero, he came to politely shake hands, and then realized that I was with the Milkman and started chatting about old times to him. Very nice.

Match Four: GLCW Tag Team Championship Defense - Demolition vs Matt 'Love Machine' Longtime and Ryan (?) McCoy

It was supposed to be a team of McCoys so one must be hurt. Another solid tag match. Demolition move good in the ring for being such big fellows. After the Demos get the win to retain their belts, some long haired blond fella and Dakota Darsow hit the ring and attack Demolition with Longtime and McCoy. Road Warrior Animal flies from the back to defend Demolition, setting up a handicap tag match at the next show. Demolition teaming with a Road Warrior? Wow!

Match Five: Women's Title Defense - Sparky (w/Eric Freedom) vs ODB

Womens matches in GLCW tend to be comedy matches and this was no different. Sparky is a thin guy and doesn't pretend to be a female. He insisted that ODB was a man and had Eric Freedom face 'him'. Haystacks Ross came to be defense. In the end, ODB won by DQ, winning the match but not the belt. Fun for the brief time it ran. More fun because it was brief.

Match Six: Armando Estrada vs Mr. Ken Anderson (formerly Ken Kennedy in WWE)

Anderson is the local boy that made good but couldn't stay healthy enough up in the 'big leagues'. Being from Green Bay, he got cheered. He and Estrada did some funny back-and-forth stuff before the match. The match started hot. A few minutes in, Commissioner Estrada made the match no count-out, no DQ. Anderson immediately slugged him with a chair. They fought through the crowd like we were in Memphis, passing by our seats to return to the ring. After a high energy, high impact match, Anderson hit his 'kenton bomb' to win.

After the match, the opponents got together to salute their friend Umaga (Estrada was Umaga's manager in WWE). Anderson brought Estrada an Umaga shirt, Estrada did his Umaga introduction one more time, and had a few sad words to say to a (mostly) silent and respectful audience. It was another very nice moment.

Match Seven: Al Snow vs Billy Gunn vs Road Dogg Jesse James with Mick Foley as special referee.

Foley warned them to behave before the match or he'd have to get involved. As Gunn and Dogg are a tag team, they turned the match into a handicap match rather than an actual three-way type match. After Gunn put his hands on Foley, Mick threw some fists around. Having had enough, Mick stopped the match and turned it into a tag match: Snow and Foley (reuniting the 'Best Friends') vs the New Age Outlaws. A ref slid in the ring and it was on! Al Snow wrestled most of the match. Once he tagged in Foley, punches were thrown, Mr Socko arrived, the Mandible Claw was applied to both members of the NAOs at once, and Snow hit Billy Gunn with Head for the pin.

Fun show. Lots of guests to celebrate the anniversary show. I got some old AWA footage and have been soaking in classic Bobby Heenan interviews today.

'Planet of the Dead'/'The Waters of Mars'

Am current on my Doctor Who watching again and enjoyed both specials. Some thoughts follow.

-Both stories separated the Doctor from the TARDIS for some period of time. I like this as many critics like to ask 'When things get bad, why doesn't the Doctor just leave?' These times he couldn't. It's not that every story needs to do this but it's nice to have plotted out at times.

-I really liked the way 'Planet of the Dead' built. There's a mystery and an event, but it seems like a small story. As it progresses, it gets bigger and bigger, until it gets huge.

-It's nice to see a creature vulnerable to bullets and bombs for a change.

-Some great characters in this story, Malcolm especially. I'm not sure what I thought of the fate of the Countess. It makes sense but, at the same time, I'm not sure I liked it.

-'The Waters of Mars' reminded me a lot of the Patrick Troughton story 'Fury from the Deep'. There's a weird force that transforms humans into its servants and uses those servants to infect others. It takes place in a 'base' set aside from the bulk of humanity. 'Fury' just has a happier ending.

-The Doctor separates himself a bit from humanity and quickly (quickly seems like an odd choice of terms because who know how many adventures he had between the two stories) he starts becoming very alien again. He swings heavily towards 'crazy Time Lord' instead of 'fun loving adventurer' and that choice costs him big time. He knows he does something wrong and immediately regrets it.

-I've been referring to 'The Waters of Mars' as 'delightfully depressing'. It's a creepy story and well told but it's very sad for most of the running.

'The End of Time' is not far off...

A Few Thoughts on Comics from The Past Few Weeks

Vincent Price Presents The Tinglers #2 (of 2) completes this sequel to an old Vincent Price film. Solid art, an interesting story, some pretty evil stuff, and a good ending make this work for me. Please note that when I use the term 'good ending' I mean 'the sort of ending that this might have if it was a movie from the late 50s/early 60s'. Nice.

Comic Book Comics #4 continues the book's fun view of the history of comics, focusing mostly on the early history of Marvel Comics and the Underground Comix of the 60s/70s. This is fun yet educational stuff with a clever art style. It's got a hint of parody to it, a bit like something from Mad Magazine. It helps keep things from getting too serious. The idea that the Star Wars comic adaptation may have saved Marvel and yet lead to things like Epic Illustrated (Marvel's attempt to compete with Heavy Metal) was a new thought for me. I feel not enough people are reading this book and it is very interesting. I hope they collect it in trade as that would make for an easy recommendation.

Doctor Who #5 continues the story of the Doctor being on the run. I am really enjoying the story now as the idea that the Doctor has 'dismissed' certain races over the years because they were 'bad' has consequences. While the Doctor might have done the right thing at the time, he may not have followed up enough to make everything as right as he could. It's an interesting thought that raises up what might be an otherwise simple story. That said, this thread gets raised often so it could be seen as a bit heavy handed as well. I'm not liking the art. The artist seems to have issues with humanoid faces. Details are rendered in a scraggly way. It's just off a bit. It doesn't flow correctly to me and my eye.

After a few years of miniseries, the Transformers have a new monthly ongoing title. It has been a couple years since the events of 'All Hail Megatron' and the Transformers still on Earth are all in hiding as humans are hunting them. It's an interesting development that makes sense considering the previous events. A early wave Transformer bites the dust and Optimus Prime makes a difficult decision. The art here is clean but a bit too detailed for my tastes. The Generation One Transformers have a 'blockiness' to them that the artist has captured but there's a lot of extra detail as well, as if the movie style Transformer faces were added. It makes familiar characters look weird. I'm not sure I care for that. I'm interested in seeing where this is going.

Last, but definitely not least, Muppet Peter Pan #3. I've said many things about the Muppet comics since they started and, as much as I enjoy them all, this may well be the best of the bunch so far. The art is excellent, with the characters looking like themselves, not stylized versions of themselves, not that I mind stylized so much. Does anyone else have the Muppet Show Book from the late 70s? The art in there looked almost like photographs. It's like that. The character voices sound correct, as I can 'hear' the characters speaking their lines. The only one that may not 'sound' right is Janice but that's only because the character tended to have a smaller role on screen and here, as Wendy, she speaks more than, well, maybe ever. The story takes a couple of twists here, ones that I'm not sure if the final issue will untwist or not. The biggest of these to me was the revelation that Peter Pan/Kermit may not be a fun loving adventurer that never grew up, but a man-child that refuses to do anything but 'play the game'. Captain Hook/Gonzo accuses Peter of seeing him as evil because he's dressed as a pirate, despite the fact that he claims to be a performer that was dressed as a pirate. I really liked this development and may still like it even if Hook turns out to be lying in the end. The issue ends with a moment very much from Peter Pan as Piggytink is left low by some harsh words. One more issue and I hope it doesn't fail me.

Florida Trip Nov 2009 - Disney's Animal Kingdom

It's Tough to be a Bug! - Once. It's an immersive show that uses 3D, air and water effects, and tricks in the seats (just like William Castle!) to tell a quick story about bugs. Educational and fun. Slightly scary for kids perhaps. The hornet stabbing me in the back was a big weird. Voice of Dave Foley = thumbs up.

Kilimanjaro Safaris - Once. We went on this right away in the morning on an overcast calm day. Lots of animals out and about. Good show.

Expedition Everest - Twice. This ride is like the Big Thunder Railroad ride at the Magic Kingdom except a lot bigger and a bit nastier. Both are very smooth rides and a lot of fun. The big climb should make me nervous about the height but it doesn't. Love it.

Finding Nemo The Musical - I didn't care for Finding Nemo the movie so much because I felt it was too long. This show with live singing and puppetry reduces the length of the story to 30 minutes. The story still makes sense, seemingly proving my point about the movie. This show is highly impressive from every perspective: song, story, execution, everything. The puppeteers made no effort to hide their presence. This allowed for one of my favorite moments, a simple little nothing of a moment that most people probably didn't notice. As Nemo's Dad and Dorry face off with the sharks and are menaced by them, the puppeteer for Nemo's Dad put the puppet behind him as he stood there, as if to protect the character. Outstanding. Sometimes the characters run in the aisles. We were sitting right on the aisle in the upper section and they passed by us a couple times. Awesome. Recommended!

Dinosaur - Once. You are to be sent back in time to see some dinosaurs. A fun day trip, nothing too scary...except the scientist in charge of your vessel has adjusted the settings a bit. Now we're going back to just before the meteors hit that kill off the dinosaurs in an effort to collect an Iguanadon that was tagged earlier on an unsanctioned trip. Once we find the Iguanadon, the scientist chappie will extend the field surrounding our craft around the dinosaur as well and bring us back. Of course nothing goes simply. It's dark. The meteors are crashing back around us. There's also a Carnosaur, a big red dinosaur with horns, that seems interested in eating us. They try to spook you with the Carnosaur near the end when they take the picture. I thought they'd get me but they didn't. I like Dinosaurs. This was fun. I'd ride it again.

Pictures!: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2044040&id=1353274305&l=b82a96a9c6

A Few Thoughts on Comics from The Past Few Weeks

Mickey Mouse and Friends #297 continues the 'Wizards of Mickey' storyline. One piece of the puzzle is resolved in this issue, much earlier than I expected but, if I know Peg-Leg Pete, he's not done yet. The art is vibrant and energetic. The story in this issue makes it feel like this is the earlier beginnings of an epic story, not unlike finishing the training level of a role-playing game and realizing you have hours and hours left to play. Bother, now I want to start playing Kingdom Hearts again.

Walt Disney's Comics reaches issue #700. It earns its 700 issues despite not being continuously published since its launch in the 1930s. The issue is extra-sized, has no ads, and is still only $2.99. Marvel, I love you, but you're getting the 'see here' dirty look from me at the moment. Humph. More Disney superheros in this issue with Super Goof getting the spotlight. I love Super Goof. A pretty standard storyline at play with a 'super machine that was split into parts to keep it safe but now we have to collect it before the bad guys do' plot. It's a Golden Age era plot. It's being told in a fun manner and it's enjoyable to read. Art's good too. We also get a short story with the ducks that's really weird, told mostly in closeups, but is clever. Very clever. This is good stuff.

Speaking of stories told in a weird manner, both Futurama Comics #46 and Simpsons Comics #160 are weird. Futurama is a 'choose your own adventure' story and the Simpsons issue is an anthology of shorter stories with the framework of the stories being told by Bart and Nelson's great-grandsons. Or something. I don't know what the heck was going on. Amusing tho.

The Assault on New Olympus begins in Incredible Hercules #138! Hera is up to no good working to cause the 'Fourth Extinction' of man and the Avengers must assemble to stop her. Clean art with a gently cartoony style to it. Some good 'oh crap!' moments. Long storylines paying off. I like! And a Agents of ATLAS backup story. Yay!

Giant-Sized Thor Finale is the end of J.M. Straczynski's run on the book, ergo the 'finale' of the title. Evidently JMS didn't want to have to deal with the other crossovers that would be soon happening with the book and left rather than deal with it. Fair enough. Considering Thor is a founding member of the Avengers and it looks like the plan is to 'get the band back together', not wanting to play in that pool seems selfish. But whatever. In this issue, Bad Things happen, Doom moves against Thor and his friends, Don Blake is left crippled again, and we find out why Volstagg is 'the Mighty'. Doom seeks the secret of the Asgardians long lives by dissection and science. Balder finds out. This shall not stand! We also get a preview of the next regular issue and a recolored reprint of the first Thor story in Journey into Mystery #83. Good stuff.

Florida Trip Nov 2009 - Universal Islands of Adventure

Huzzah for Adventure!

The Cat in the Hat - Once. Still frenetic fun.

Jurassic Park River Adventure - Once. Still very wet. Still do not like that drop at the end.

Pteranodon Flyers - Once. It's a kid ride that adults can go on with a kid. Niko and I rode. You're in a small 'pterandon' and you fly over Jurassic Park. It takes a minute or two. From the ground it looks very calm and relaxing. The view was great. Then we went around the first turn. I dunno if it always swings that wide or if it was my adult weight affecting it or what but I suddenly felt that I was fifty feet up on a bicycle attached to the track by a rope. Was not comfortable at that point. Fear of heights kicked in and I was suddenly glad that it was a short ride. Yipes!

Dudley Do-Right's Ripsaw Falls - Twice. You will get wet. Rode this just before the 50th anniversary of the first episode of Rocky and Bullwinkle, which seemed fitting. After walking through a long and silly queue filled with Jay Ward type humor, including critters in the walk that do routines, you get to the lodge. You wedge yourself into a multi-person holding log and ride the water in the 'log fume'. Dastardly villain Snidely Whiplash has kidnapped Nell again and it's up to Dudley and Horse to save her. We see mostly immobile statues of the characters as we float through in various stages of activity, tied up, escaping, about to fight, etc. The characters 'speak' as we go past, all in the correct sounding voices. We climb and fall a bit until we reach the top of the mountain and Dudley accidentally detonates a pile of explosives. Boom! And down we go! There's a fifty foot or so drop, mostly straight down, that has a brief bump up in it about three-quarters of the way down. Three people back, I got very wet. Jason, in the front of the log, got soaked. People can also pay to squirt you with water at the bottom. The best gag is after the drop. Snidely has been captured and is in jail. A dog holds the key to his cell just out of his reach ala Pirates of the Caribbean. Right outside the cell is a dish of food labeled 'crow'. He's eating crow. Ha! Okay, maybe I just liked it but it was a very Jay Ward style joke to me.

The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man - Twice. Still a fun show. There's some rumors of refurbing it to change some scenes that don't 'work' anymore. I don't have a big problem with it as it is currently. The 3d is very good and the props help sell the show.

Storm Force Accelatron - Once. Once is enough. Plenty. It's fun but not that fun.

Photo album on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2043724&id=1353274305&l=f47defec36

Florida Trip Nov 2009 - Universal Studios

Since I covered a lot of this territory back in January/February, I'm not planning to go into detail about every ride I experienced. If it was something I didn't see before or picked up a new detail about, then I'll discuss it.

In general, we didn't spend as much time at Universal than we did last time. As much fun as we had at Disney, it did feel like we ignored Universal a bit.

Twister - Once. My buddy's middle kid, Jason, was freaked out when we went on this earlier in the year. All the same, he went on it this time and seemed to get through it okay. Kid is bold. I like that.

Revenge of the Mummy - Twice. Still a fun time.

JAWS - you get in a Amity boat and take a tour around the area. The boat operator assures you that it'll be a peaceful trip but before you get too far, there's another tour boat sinking. A little further on, a fin splits the water and the boat operator freaks. He get instructions to shoot at it ('This thing's loaded?!?') and does. He slides the boat into a nearby structure with a dock but the shark breaks through. The boat gas station we go past is similarly attacked to the point it explodes and is on fire. We get to another dock but the shark attacks again. It gets hung up on a power cable and the boat operator shoots it again. One big boom later, the shark is burned and dead. The now-confident boat operator returns us to the main dock asking that we not mention the little 'incident'. It's fun and relatively quick. Jason, who did so well on Twister, didn't care for the fire or the shark and spent the ride with his eyes closed and ears plugged. Maybe I shouldn't have said it was a trained shark that rarely eats anyone.

Woody Woodpecker's Nuthouse Coaster - Once. Fun quick little coaster with some sharp turns.

E.T. Adventure - Twice. Still no Godzilla? Dang.

Men in Black Alien Attack - Once. Shooter game. Niko beat me again.

The Simpsons Ride - Twice. Still stirs up my belly a bit. When they say 'no recording' they are very serious about that. Excellent ride. I find it odd that my friends think that it'll turn back into 'Back to the Future' at some point. I understand my one friend's annoyance in that it's the same mechanics underneath both rides, that it's essentially a 'paint job' over the BttF ride. That's different. While I have nothing against 'Back to the Future', what I've seen of that ride indicates it was ready for a makeover. The Simpsons has 20 years of TV history behind it and loads of fans at various ages. 'Back to the Future' has fans but I wonder how many of them are younger than me. I suspect not many. I don't believe that BttF currently has the fan base that the Simpsons has. I'm not sure that BttF even had the fan base that Simpsons has right now, not even at their peak. I may be wrong but that's my theory.

Photos uploaded to Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2042729&id=1353274305&l=fe0319e2cf

A Few Thoughts on Comics from The Past Few Weeks

There was a BIG pile of comics waiting for me this week at the store and I've waded through them. There'll probably be a few of these entries while I catch up. I'll try to mix some 'reflections on my vacation' entries in the pile so it won't just be be talking about comics for a week.

Invincible Iron Man #20 features the title character on life support, effectively brain dead. Tony's plan to elude Norman Osborn has worked and Norman has to scramble to regain his footing in the public eye. Tony's left behind a message for his friends which largely says 'things are a mess and likely to get messier'. He also leaves them a 'reboot' procedure that should fix him, if that's what they want to have happen. This... redemption of Tony Stark story has been going on for over a year now. It's not getting the attention that the return of Steven Rogers is getting but this is also a well paced, epic storyline with good art, good writing, and good 'wow!' moments. It's not as big and cool as Cap's story but it's still good reading.

Punisher #11 begins the FrankenCastle storyline. At the end of 'The Punisher-the List' (which I didn't get) Frank Castle, the Punisher, is dismembered by Wolverine's son. He is beheaded. He is dead. His bits and pieces are found by monsters on the run from a 'Destroy All Monsters' kill squad from Japan and are cobbled together in the hopes that the revived Frank will act as their military leader to protect them from said kill squads. It's ridiculous and over the top. It's great fun. I think I'll give it a shot and see where it goes.

I've mentioned G-Man - Cape Crisis before and I now have 4 of the 5 issues. It's still funny and cute and clever and such. I've begun to notice that writer/artist Chris Giarrusso's 'voice' doesn't change much from one character to the next. Everyone gets the dialogue they need to move the story forward or be funny. This is one of the great concerns I always have with my own work; that every character sounds like me. Having made that observation, I don't think it's a problem here. This story flows like a cartoon from the '80s that was never made because it's too good to be a cartoon from that era and there's no toy line to promote. Yet it has that vibe, that fun style to it that makes you chuckle and smile. I like it.

Dark Avengers #11 features the Molecule Man. He's pretty crazy and just wants to be left alone. He dismantles the Dark Avengers, in some ways literally. Best moment: Norman Osborn in a Spidey suit being confronted by Gwen Stacy atop the bridge he knocked her from and she simply asks 'why?' Cause Norman needs to be MORE crazy, right?

The Tick has a new comic book series! It's in color, the art is good. It continues the storylines and characters of the Tick spinoff books (aka the books we didn't call 'The Tick' because we were hoping Ben Edlund would return to do issue #13 of that series but it's been 16 years so, you know, probably not going to happen) so if you've not read some of those, you will be lost. I found it humourous, as it should be. At $4.95, it ain't cheap. It is bi-monthly so at least that's only $5 every other month. NEC is in the process of reprinting all the Tick related comics in big honking collections but, again, as they're not a big company, these ain't cheap. The least expensive collection gets you 9 comics (and probably some extras) for $28. It's not a horrible price but it's a lot to have to slap down at once. The original Edlund run (12 issues but extras) is $35. Bad price? No but that's the sort of thing you expect to be hardcover from a Marvel or DC but at half the page count. I have to stop doing the math on these; I think I'm talking myself into buying them and I have a lot of the originals. Doh!

Music Monday Comes a Day Late This Week

In celebration of me watching MuppetVision 3D five times during my trip to Florida, getting to see most of the MuppetVision 3D pre-show for the first time, and the re-launching of the Muppet Channel on YouTube, I offer this entertainment.

http://www.megaupload.com/?f=XIXIOMFD

As I received free, so shall I give free.

Enjoy.

'Time for a Change' deleted scene

Some time ago I finished and released a Doctor Who story featuring the Tenth Doctor and Martha as well as my Eighth Doctor and Julie. It was fun to write. There was a scene I ended up removing from the final edit, not because I didn't like the scene, but because I couldn't make it fit the flow of emotions in the sequences around it. There was a fine Doctor rant in it but it had to go.

As a 46th anniversary of Doctor Who celebration, I present it now. The Tenth Doctor is the one in action. Enjoy!

? ? ?

“That’s the Rutans,” the Doctor spat. “Nothing matters aside from the war with the Sontarans. Has nothing changed? Don’t you want something more from life?”

“There is nothing beyond victory.”

“But what then? Say you destroy every Sontaran in the universe, then what would you do?”

The Rutan were quiet for a moment. “That information is not available at this time. Once victory has been achieved, we will be given that direction.”

“Well, there you go then,” the Doctor noted. “Nothing quite like having a goal in mind. No promises about paradises or power, just satisfaction at a job well done.”

The Rutan leader smiled. “Excellent. You now understand our purpose.”

In frustration, the Doctor sputtered. “Understand? Understand? I understand two great races spending all their time finding more efficient methods to slaughter one another. You fight for reasons you no longer recall. You fight over nothing! You have the ability to change your external form but have no interest in changing your hearts!”

How's the vacation going? Picture = 1000 words.

No Time to Solve the World's Problems Today

Been running about like a madman all week. Busy in order to prepare for a trip out of town that starts... tomorrow! Not sure how much access I'll have to the Internet so, if you don't see much of me in the next few days, blame it on that.

See you soon. Good things seem to be happening to me. Hope it's a trend.

A Few Thoughts on Comics from The Past Few Weeks

Time to get a bit caught up here.

In Punisher #10, supernaturally powered bad guy the Hood offers to revive Frank Castle's dead family if he'll just go away. As they start to revive, Frank rejects this offer...with a flamethrower to the no-longer corpses. That's Frank! While I don't have the issue, 'The Punisher: The List' shows Frank getting dismembered. By the next issue of the regular book, he'll be 'Franken-castle'. I really don't know about this development. I'll give it a try.

Simpsons Comics #159 tells the story of the Burns Backup Plan; in the event of Monty's passing, a computer program set up to respond as he would will run the plant. Homer accidentally activates the fail-safe and it makes online friends with Lisa, using Monty's money to try making Lisa's life better. The story gets points for Smithers counting in 'Milwaukees'. The point is that money can't solve everything. It's fascinating that Chuck Dixon writes this as it's totally not what you would expect from him considering his history with tough guy characters.

Bart Simpson #50 is all Sergio Aragones, both written and drawn by him. Considering the stories of his speed, he probably knocked this off in an airport while waiting for a plane. That's not meant to be an insult; this is the standard quality work I'd expect from Sergio. Man he's funny.

Speaking of Sergio, another Groo miniseries has started, 'The Hogs of Horder'. Outstanding.

Invincible Iron Man #19 leaves Tony Stark a vegetable, on life support after his plan to erase his brain and reclaim his 'hero status' succeeds. Norman Osborn wants to pull the plug on him but only his physician can make that decision, a Doctor Donald Blake! Got wake up Tony in time for 'Siege'!

Mighty Avengers #30 featured Hank Pym meeting with Eternity and finding out the truth about himself: Hank Pym is Earth's Scientist Supreme! The rest of the story, with a 'lost' Inhuman king is interesting, but seems secondary to the rebuilding of Hank Pym.

Captain America Reborn #4 may well feature the return of Steven Rogers! Or not! Evil, evil twist! Love this book! It has great art, features the end of an epic storyline, and just has twists and turns in it to tell. This is fun stuff.

Vincent Price Presents has a special story as a sequel to the film 'The Tingler'. The art is good, much better than the average Bluewater comic and the story is interesting. I would have preferred Vincent Price's character to look more like him but that's a minor detail considering I enjoyed the rest more than I expected to do.

Muppet Peter Pan #2 starts after dinner, with the narrator commenting on Sam's choice of serving turkey. Sam's declarations that turkey is a fine American meal stop suddenly once it's pointed out that turkeys and eagles are both birds. The art here totally captures the character and his moment of 'what did I do?!?'. It's a moment when you can hear the familiar voice of the character in your head as you read. It's great. The book just gets better from there. Outstanding!

Music Monday - 3

If I haven't already made it clear that I like music that's not easy to fit into a specific label, then this should help make it so. This band is full of awesome and I'm not sure how to describe it. Listen/Watch and see what you think.



This song is from the album 'The End is Begun'. It has elements of metal, but it's not metal. It's melodic. There's harmonies. It's just attractive sounding rock music performed by people who clearly have some practice at such a thing. I've been told the band is very nice and puts on a great live show but I wasn't there to see that myself. I believe the guy who told me.

'GI Joe' Movie Review

Synopsis: Damaged arms merchants and scientists come together to save the world from itself...by taking it over. An elite team of soldiers tries to stop them from using their metal eating nanobot bombs from destroying major cities around the world.

As a kid, I wasn't really into GI Joe that much, being much more interested in giant robot wars than human wars. I had a familiarity with the property, mostly through the comics. When 'Transformers' did so well, it was no shock to me that this was fast tracked. I had little interest in seeing this movie because the trailers made it look stupid and derivative. Sometimes trailers lie to you. This is not one of those times.

There is some character development but only in the most predictable of ways. The gentleman playing Duke, one of the main characters, is a bland actor who is not very convincing at anything. There is TONS and TONS of horrible looking CGI in this film. It's distractingly bad CGI. Really, really bad CGI. The mouth on Snake Eyes looks creepy and weird. Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow fight briefly but you see nothing. There are flashbacks to when they are kids and the action there is filmed better than the 'big fight' at the end of the film. This ticks me off. Ray Park's in that suit just waiting to be all sorts of awesome and...nothing.

There are some bright moments. I liked the 'reinvention' of Cobra and Joe teams in a general sense, thinking that this was a good origin for our time period. I liked the silly weaponry. Christopher Eccleston was fun as always. Jonathan Pryce has a cameo as does Brendan Fraser. There are some intentionally funny bits that are funny. Scarlett and the Baroness are both very attractive. The movie moves along at a quick pace and doesn't slow down much at all.

The subtitle of the film is 'The Rise of Cobra' and it is that: the beginnings of this terrorist outfit so don't expect familiar characters to be in their expected configuration at the beginning of the film. Maybe not even by the end of the film.

My GI Joe loving buddy watched a bit and said he was trying to watch it as an action film with some familiar names in it, not as 'Joe'. From my more detached perspective, I still think it fails. It gets a lot of the subtle things right while missing out on some of the bigger things. There's a lot of running around and shouting in front of bad CGI. The entertaining bits aren't enough to balance out the bland standard action bits. It's just not a very good film. It's not bad enough to be entertainingly bad nor good enough to be good. It's just there.

Recommendation to avoid.

A Little Nothing

This has just been one of those weeks. Occasionally I have a bunch of topics to discuss in my head and whatever happens to erase them. I've got nothing at the moment. I'm still writing on my projects, and consistently, so it's not all bad news. I know I haven't talked about comics in awhile but, to some degree, there haven't been that many worth talking about either.

I'll try to fix all this. No reason to worry. More soon.

'The Life of Newton' - in brief

My senior year of high school I had but a handful of classes. One was Calculus. There were only three of us in the class. I was taking a math class in order to stay on the Math Team (I have a high school letter... in Math) and Calculus quickly proved to be over my head. I mostly gave up on it.

The problem with this was that there were only the three of us in the class. My buddy Jesse was having no issues understanding it, balancing me out, and Chris (aka Garth) was sort of getting it. There hadn't been a Calculus class at the school in years and they wanted us to succeed or at least look good.

For the final grading period, we were given a project to do instead of more math problems. It could be anything so long as it had something to do with Calculus. The projects could be done as individuals or as a group. When our teacher said the word 'screenplay' as an option, our eyes lit up. We were making a movie. It would be 'The Life of Newton'!

We researched Sir Issac Newton, determined our main characters based on his life, threw some math in there, and wrote some Monty Python inspired material. It is ridiculous, not always in a good way. The final 'movie' runs about 23 minutes long, including some long credit sequences and a music video. One of the best scenes was not written but improvised in one long take. There are silly voices, poorly developed themes, physical comedy, and some cross-dressing. The blooper reel is longer than the movie!

It's long been my goal to 'remaster' the original 'film' from the master tape as the original edit was poorly done with a camcorder and VCR. I'd put it off since I couldn't do a 'special edition' with a commentary track. Recently, I went to convert the tape to a digital file and the tape may not have survived the process. Sad. I think I got most of it, perhaps enough of it.

Sections of this seem destined for YouTube...

Music Monday - Covers

Some bands are just over-rated. Really any band that gets 'big' gets over-rated to some degree. The level of how over-rated the band is depends on your opinion of the band. If you liked them when they were 'small', maybe you remember when they were 'good'. Maybe you think they were never any good. Maybe you're impressed by how creative the band has managed to stay. Whatever.

There are certain bands that are big but, in my opinion, they aren't all that great. A fine way to tell is when other bands cover their songs and the cover versions are superior to the originals. That's why I say I don't like the Eagles or Metallica. Bah.

As regards the Eagles, I can admit that my opinion regarding the song 'Desperado' may be influenced by the fact that their version wasn't the first one I heard. My mother has been a long-time fan of singer Johnny Rodriguez and it's his version that I'm most familiar with hearing. The phrasing in his version sounds right to me, the way that the lyrics pour from him capture the emotion of the song better than the Eagles version, in my opinion anyway. Listen, see what you think:

http://www.rhapsody.com/player?type=track&id=tra.2713081&remote=false&page=&pageregion=&guid=&from=&__pcode=cmt

It's the vocals that often make the difference. 'Enter Sandman' may be Metallica's best known song but James Hetfield's vocal sounds like it's sung by a pre-teenager compared to the growl that Lemmy of Motorhead can apply to it. It's a creepier song in Lemmy's hands.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kY8_RTe5Pz0

For that matter, Dicky from the Mighty Mighty Bosstones sounds growlier and creepy than Hetfield. How does a ska band sound more metal than a 'metal' band?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRBNuTNWHso

Covers. Man I love them. Sometimes.

Crossed fingers

Well, it's a bit mangled but seems to be okay. It still drives normally and there were no puddles of fluid beneath the car this morning. It might be okay. Okay enough anyway.

Blasted animal...

There's a stretch of Brookfield Road that's a bit dangerous. It's one lane each way, woods on either side so it's a bit cramped, and there's a steep hill involved. Despite it being dangerous, it's also a bit fun. My stomach drops out on it like it does when I ride a roller coaster. Going downhill is an exercise in careful driving and it's impossible to keep to the speed limit without tromping down on the brake.

Tonight I was on that stretch of road while heading for the Compound. I was gently braking as normal to keep the car under control. A car was heading uphill, causing our headlights to duel and cast glare all over. As our cars went to pass each other, a deer darted between our cars, crossing the road.

Is this what young deer do on Halloween? Sit in the bushes, smoke deer cigarettes, and wait for cars to cross on a nearby road so they can tell their buddies 'Watch this guys!' and run? I could believe it if true.

My light braking became more intense. With an oncoming car, I had nowhere to swerve to, only braking to save the day. I bumped the deer on it's back hip as I came to a halt. It scurried away. After a moment, I drove on.

It doesn't look too bad. The hood has a bit of a bump in it but, if that's the worst of it, I made out okay. There's also some deer hair stuck in my hood as well. Tomorrow I'll have another look at it in the daylight and see how it looks, as well to see if the car's leaking anything. Hoping for the best.

It's a good story, but not as fascinating as the one my buddy Kevin has told. Years ago while driving from Madison to Milwaukee, the car ahead of him on the freeway smacked into a deer. The legs of said deer detached themselves from the rest of the deer and flew back towards Kevin's car like hoof tipped missiles. He changed lanes to avoid them and punched it to get away.

Hopefully it wasn't late night trick or treaters dressed as a deer. If it was, it would serve them right.

'And Another Thing...' Review

Stories get continued until they don't. It's like the joke they made on Simpsons ages ago: the show continues until it is no longer profitable. I'm paraphrasing the line to make it fit better, no need to correct my verbiage in the quote. It's funny because it's true. We get sequels to movies because someone somewhere believes that the already familiar characters will draw more people to the theatre than new characters in an interesting new environment. Maybe it'll be nostalgia that'll bring in the folks or wanting to see an old familiar character with new special effects. Maybe we'll just remake/restart a previously popular franchise and see if there's still some money left in it. It happens all the time.

For most of these stories, there's no one person to look to as creator. That happens more in music. Maybe your favorite band breaks up and you hope they'll reform some day and then one of the band dies and you know they could reform, but it won't be the same. For movies you don't often get a singular vision like that. Directors are important to the process but so are actors sometimes and sometimes producers and sometimes writers. Who is most responsible for a movie character you like? The casting director? The director? The writer? The actor? All of them? The lines can blur.

With a book, there tends to be a more singular vision. There's an editor that may well be a useful influence but a book is generally one person's view of a world, whether their own or not. It's much more difficult for someone to take over that singular view and replicate it as there own. If you add into that a particularly singular view of Life, the Universe, and Everything then it becomes an even dicier effort to take over that view.

Yet, someone somewhere said 'Let's try for another Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy book even though Douglas Adams is dead'. Someone else decided there could be money in it and, hey look!, I've got this book sitting next to me now, all read and everything. Eoin Colfer, writer of the Artemis Fowl series that I am in no way familiar with apart from knowing it exists, had the task of continuing the adventures of Arthur Dent, Ford Prefect, Trillian, and Zaphod Beeblebrox. My original intent was to re-read the original five books in the trilogy before reading this one, to see how well the new book fits in. Instead the new book arrived and I plunged in immediately out of curiosity.

Is it funny? Yes, funny enough. It's full of wit, silliness, and oddly named characters who don't need to appear in the story itself, just as asides.

Does it... feel like a Hitchhiker's book? This is a trickier question to answer but I'm going to say No, it doesn't.

Under these circumstances 'No' is always the easier answer to give. 'No, of course not,' is an easy response to questions like 'Are Muppet productions post-Jim Henson like the ones with him around?' I still find joy in new Muppet productions and some are quite good. Many miss the combination of weirdness and character and emotion than the 'original' productions have, even if some of our reaction to them is knowing that the major component in their creation is missing and, therefore, they are different to what we saw before now. It doesn't necessarily mean that the characters are useless without the Jim Henson component; it just means that things will change and might be differently good.

That's part of why I'm saying this book isn't necessarily bad but I had a hard time agreeing that it was a good continuation of the series: I kept feeling the absence of Douglas Adams. Now, before you go 'So it's all in your head then, is it?' I'll respond with 'There's a reason, in the book, that I feel this way.'

Arthur Dent is missing for most of the book.

By 'missing' I don't mean 'lost as part of the story and the rest must find him' or 'isn't written properly so it's like he's not there' or anything like that. There are long sections of the book where Arthur doesn't appear at all. He's not important to the story. This is hard for me to take because, while I'll not argue much about the different versions of the story in different media, one thing is for certain: Arthur Dent is the main character. He's the character you play as in the text adventure for Zark's sake. Without Arthur anchoring the story, the book becomes a collection of silly named characters and odd asides, all entertaining, but missing the point. Who is the main character? Zaphod. It gives me the impression that Eoin said to himself 'I love these books but I can't write Arthur in too much and have it remain funny so I'll focus on this idiot character to keep things silly'.

I believe this was done with good intentions. It is a funny book. It is an entertaining book. It just didn't come together for me. My recommendation is to wait until you find it on sale for $5 somewhere and give it a try then. I paid more than that and I honestly don't think it was worth it. It's fun but it's not 'right'.

Rambling about the elderly, tires, and shoes

Yesterday I'm in Target wandering about in the electronics section. There's something about being out in the middle of the day and that something is elderly people. I have nothing against the elderly and am happy to see people of advancing age still be somewhat functional. I do ask that they try to stay out of my way when I'm in a hurry. Beyond that, we're cool.

One of the disadvantages of age is generally poor hearing. One of the advantages is not giving a care and, to be honest, that's the thing that makes me look forward to being old or hoping I make it that far anyway. This probably explains why they get in my way when I'm in a hurry. Hmm.

Anyway, there was this older couple wandering about the electronics section as well. They were irritating me and I made sure I wasn't in the same aisle as them. It's not that I didn't want to be helpful to them, it's just that I ascertained that they weren't going to ask me any questions; they were just going to be loudly ignorant. My friends that work at certain stores see it every year about this time: people in the store for the first time since the year before looking for something for little Johnny, have no clue what Johnny wants, and wander around the action figure aisles trying to figure out what a 'Spider-Man' is. These are clueless people and, unfortunately, most of them are not good-natured but ignorant, they're just ignorant and annoying. I'm not sure what the older couple I saw and heard yesterday was: ignorant or ignorant and annoying.

I know they were at least ignorant because I heard this statement: 'Blu-ray. Whatever that is.'

Now, do I expect the elderly to be up to date on home theatre standards? No, not at all. It did sound funny to hear. I wandered off quickly because I wasn't sure I could stand another gem like that.

I was in Target to kill time while my car was getting new tires at the nearby Fleet Farm. I think most drivers don't think much about their tires unless there's a problem. You just drive to where you're headed and back home. Now, I knew my tires were getting old so they were on my mind to some degree. My dad had a look at them the other day and said 'You know how I said you needed new tires last winter and you didn't get them? Yeah well, you need them now. Like, right now.'

Once you have new tires on your car, its like getting new shoes: you suddenly realize how bad the old ones were. I haven't traveled that far yet but the car seems to ride smoother, the handling is better, I'm hoping for better gas mileage, it just feels right. I am glad I took care of it despite it not being cheap to do.

It also made me aware that I need new shoes. New insoles anyway. Walking to and from Target made my feet hurt. Not good.

Music for Monday

On and off of late I've had people increasingly asking me about what I listen to, or impressed by the size of my music library (about 250GB and always growing), or just expressing boredom with what they're listening to and looking for something new. It occurred to me to try something new, to try highlighting some of the things I like and that others might as well. I've no idea if this will work or not. The goal at this point is to mention a song, album, or band I like and provide a legal link to a sample. Officially I'm all about legal samples.

Since I needed to pick something to start with, I'm starting with Blur's 'The Great Escape' album. Check out some streaming audio: http://www.last.fm/music/Blur/The+Great+Escape

Now, you might be going 'Blur...Blur... why do I know that name?' You might be remembering 'Song 2', which is on every sports compilation since it was made; you know, the 'woo-hoo!' song? Lead singer Damon is also the lead singer for the Gorillaz.

Why do I like this album in particular? The songs don't all sound the same from one to the next. There's an range of styles, an experimentation going on, yet, there's a familiar quality to the sound, making it more accessible. The album varies between slow songs, fast songs, silly sounding songs, serious pondering songs, simple good-natured guitar rockers, string lead swooping orchestration, electro-pop. The lyrics are biting, sounding sweet, but have an edge the more you listen to them.

Cheerful sounding 'Country House' with its silly, Benny Hill like video, tells a story of a rich man in a comfortable house that can't understand why he's not happy. 'Charmless Man' tells the story of a stuck-up fella, the rich privileged type, explaining how irritating and fake the man and his friends are in their actions. The energetic music, combined with the 'na, na, na, na' chorus, gives the song the sound of a schoolkid's revenge.

There are quieter songs as well. 'Best Days' sounds like nostalgia for now, or at least the now of when the album was released. People would laugh at you if you said these were the best days of your life, the song notes, seeming to ask if you might be right. Is that good or bad? I'm still not sure I know what 'The Universal' is all about. I love the orchestration and get distracted by the 'A Clockwork Orange' styling of the video.

Is it the greatest album ever? No but it's my favorite Blur album to date. It hails from the age when I would still listen to albums beginning to end. It was the sort of album where I didn't have to skip boring songs because there weren't any.

That's just my opinion. Listen and see what you think.

Dr Howard, Dr Fine, Dr Howard

Got a different dresser today and spent most of the last few hours getting it in place and then filling it with t-shirts. Holy Hannah I've got a lot of t-shirts. There's t-shirts I keep as mementos of specific situations, t-shirts from concerts, t-shirts from wrestling, t-shirts I keep around to paint in, t-shirts for wearing around the house, t-shirts for normal wearing around, and t-shirts for 'special' occasions. No I do not have one of those tuxedo t-shirts but that would be cool.

Nor do I have any Three Stooges t-shirts oddly enough. I picked that line as the title because I've been watching Weird Al Yankovic music videos and that line is used as a reference at the beginning of 'Like a Surgeon'. Weird Al turned 50 the other day. For some reason that seems, well, weird. Not that Al shouldn't still be around or still shouldn't be full of fun, I think it's more of a 'if he's getting older, then I am too' sort of thing. I'm not sure I like that. Or do I not care? I don't remember.

Forgetful, eh? Must be getting old.

'Anthropophagus' Review

Synopsis: A small group of people take a boat ride to a small island in the middle of nowhere, unaware that a madman stalks that island.

Good: The movie works to generate a mood. The creep factor builds slowly. The really gross moments are still really gross. Shock value remains high. Makeup is good. The characters are drawn well enough, even the villain.

Bad: The building of mood is almost too slow. The 'bad things' don't really kick in until about an hour into the film. For something that was banned as a 'video nasty', I expected it to be more consistently nasty as opposed to a couple moments. I've seen the lead actress, Tisa Farrow, in 'Zombi' as well and here she looked a little unwell around the eyes.

Bad? No. Nasty? Not as much as I expected. Recommended? No, not really.

Must Be Practicing for the End of this Month

I went to the Milwaukee Public Museum today (I know, big shock). I went by myself. Amongst other things, one of the long broken exhibits was up and running again and I wanted to see it mobile once again.

At one point later in the day, I was in the Streets of Old Milwaukee exhibit, leaning up against a lamppost, scrawling thoughts on my pad before they could escape me. A family walked past, but not at the same time. I heard a mom and kid go by, then a dad encouraging his son to catch up and then a kid shuffling past. I heard a soft voice say something to the effect of 'Do you talk too?' I turned and saw a young boy that was probably not even five staring at me wide-eyed. I smiled and grunted at him. He hurried to catch up with his dad, who was chuckling. 'Did you think he was a dummy?' asked the dad. I smiled. I'm pretty sure the answer was yes.

Even later in the day I was in the nearby European Village. The museum was starting to clear out and I was alone in the exhibit. Completely alone. I took the opportunity to take some pictures, using a wall to balance my camera on. Kneeling behind the wall, I lined up the shots on the viewscreen and snapped away. As I went to take the last shot, I heard approaching footsteps and rushed to finish. I took the picture without flash and waited to see if the young couple walking at a brisk pace had walked through my shot or not. They hadn't. I stood up. The young lady jumped and squealed. I'd been so still lining up the shot that, in the dark, she hadn't seen I was real. I apologized for scaring her and we all laughed a bit.

Too much fun.

Hell's Kitchen Episode 15

Hell's Kitchen Episode 15 aka 2 Chefs Compete

As I noted in Episode 14, there's a season long recap at the beginning of this episode. This is normal for the finale and I'm not going to write it all out. It would take too long in my style. The important note is that Dave and Kevin were both injured early in the competition on the same day. Kevin's ankles healed up a bit as things went on and weren't mentioned often, so they must not have been as much of a factor. Dave's wrist was reinjured a couple of times and has almost sent him home a couple of times. That they are the final two is impressive.

Before I start with the actual programme, a few thoughts on the finalists. One, I've no problem with these two being the finalists. Some seasons you'll see someone get hosed near the end or someone's in the final because they were the best of the bunch but they don't seem very good in general but these two guys come across as good chefs. Neither is perfect, nor would I expect them to be. Ariel had a shot at this but her performance in the last three or four episodes dropped off, not horribly, but noticeably. Tennille made a good comeback to reach the final four but her skill level didn't seem high enough for the final two. Kevin is unusual to see in the final two only because generally guys that come in to Hell's Kitchen saying that they are the best and will win everything and very full of themselves and quickly find out that they aren't that good. Kevin is good. He has largely been able to back up his statements which brings to mind the question 'Is it still bragging if its true?' He doesn't seem like a complete creep and knew that there was a game to play here. Dave is no different but is manner is more relaxed so he doesn't come across as braggadocios as Kevin does. I'd like to see Dave win if nothing else because he played through so much pain and I respect that. That said, if Kevin wins, I believe he earned it as well. There is no clear-cut winner here from my perspective.

And now, the conclusion of Hell's Kitchen.

Chef Ramsey lays out the final. As normal, the restaurant will be split in two, each chef designing the style of the look and menu themselves. The best performance will win. They also need to go change and be ready to leave in the limo waiting for them.

They are taken to the roof of a hotel in downtown LA. It's about midnight. Chef Ramsey meets them there. In the courtyard below is a group of screaming fans. Their final challenge begins now! They have 45 minutes to create a dish for the judges that are waiting below in the crowd. And go!

As normal, they cook right up to the time limit. Five highly regarded judges come out to test their dishes. Three votes will carry the day. Dave's venison dish is relatively simple compared to Kevin's lobster with corn pudding and potato. While both dishes are complimented, Dave gets a quick 2-0 lead. We go to commercial before the 3rd vote can be cast.

Kevin gets the third vote. I'm not that surprised. I'm guessing all five votes will get cast. It's like wrestling, a 3 fall match always goes to 3 falls, rarely does anyone win 2 straight falls. As I type that, Kevin gets vote 4 to tie it up. The five judge is someone from Gourmet magazine. Ha! Your magazine is gone now!

The winner is... Dave! Hmm, he was the first named finalist as well. Momentum from Dave or is this a dodge to make us think he's winning so that Kevin will have to worked harder in service and win?

Yes I'm approaching this like it was scripted. The competition may well be real but that doesn't mean the presentation isn't scripted to build drama.

It looks like they aren't remodeling the restaurant like previous years. The economy is getting to everyone, huh. The guys get a few hours of sleep while the restaurant is reconfigured, develop their menus (Dave notes his will be unpretentious and simple good food, we get no hints toward Kevin's plan), and head downstairs. Kevin's in the Red Kitchen with Sous Chef Heather (who, again, has lived through a final in Hell's Kitchen) and Dave's on the Blue side with Sous Chef Scott. Chef Ramsey asks the chefs for some help unloading the 'special delivery' out front and it's a truck with a number of eliminated contestants in it for the teams. No surprise to me there. I always wonder about the chefs when they go 'I never expected that' as often the 'twists' are similar from season to season. Sometimes I think the chefs just haven't watched the show before. It occurred to me here that the guys are running on about five hours of sleep, perhaps have been for a couple days, if not the past month or so, and are distracted by the million things they need to get ready. That would explain a lot.

Suzanne, Ariel, Amanda, Sabrina, Robert, and Van have returned for the final. As Dave won the challenge, he gets to pick first. Am surprised that Tennille didn't return and that Robert and Amanda did as they seem to have been eliminated ages ago and Tennille only left a day or two ago. Am guessing Suzanne will be the last picked. She does as well. Dave picks Ariel, Robert, and Suzanne. Kevin picks Van, Amanda, and gets Sabrina as who's left. Wow, slight surprise there. Dave points to the challenge they won as a team as part of his motivation there. They take their teams off to educate them on their menus. Kevin's team is struggling to pick up his complicated menu. Dave's team picks up his simpler menu quickly.

Chef Ramsey notes that Kevin's menu is beautiful and artistic but may be too complicated. Dave's is more rustic and simple (also referred to as 'classic') but can't be sloppy. Execution will be the key. I'm inclined to think that Kevin's menu will be too tricky for a team to pick up at the last minute. I think Dave has an advantage in that regard.

Just before service, Chef Ramsey calls Kevin and Dave over and notes that there's something that's been bothering him that he needs to take care of before they start. Commercial.

Chef Ramsey has Executive Chef jackets for them both. They change and Hell's Kitchen is open!

Among the guests in the restaurant are head chefs from Canada, including the chef that will be the winner's employer. First order comes in to Kevin. He has to push his team to respond. Dave's team immediately responds.

Despite getting orders first, food is slow to emerge from Kevin's kitchen. Dave does not have this problem. Amanda is working fish and meat stations. She has issues with scallops and slows Kevin's kitchen to a crawl. Chef Ramsey encourages him to move her about if need be. As Kevin cries out for someone to get him some scallops, a plume of fire erupts from one of Amanda's pans. Commercial.

Kevin swaps Van and Amanda. She's clearly crushed but this works and food comes from the kitchen.

On Dave's side, appetizers are almost complete when they run low on mushrooms for the risotto. Dave tells Robert to dial down on the mushrooms in order to get through the last few tickets. Robert dials down too far so that there aren't enough mushrooms in it. Chef Ramsey catches this and gives Dave a hard time. Dave responds that he hadn't gotten a chance to see this and wouldn't have sent them out. He restates his directive to Robert, who sees this as being thrown under the bus and gets annoyed. He immediately starts messing with Dave in little ways to get some revenge. Petty certainly but somewhat entertaining.

Dave's still in the lead for delivering food that's appreciated by the customers. A risotto returns to Kevin's kitchen for being crunchy. Who made that? Amanda. He asks Van to help her out. Van becomes Kevin's go-to guy to crank stuff out. It works and they start making progress.

Ariel overcooks a venison for Dave. He catches it and has her try again. Take two is successful.

Food is now streaming from both kitchens. Kevin gets the ticket from the hotel head chef. He gets more tense. He calls out a temperature for this ticket. Amanda double-checks the temperature 'medium-rare or medium-well?' Kevin says 'well', then 'rare'. Amanda gets confused and gives him the wrong one. Everything crashes to a halt. More fire in a pan. Commercial.

Before he explodes, Kevin takes a deep breath and rallies the troops calmly. He explains himself and what he needs to Amanda. He makes sure that the team is working to support on another. Excellent move! The entree gets to the chef from the Araxi restaurant and he likes it.

Dave has four tables left and Kevin has six. Kevin tries to do two tables at once to catch up. Dave's kitchen sputters with Ariel suddenly unable to kick out fish or meat properly. Robert is assigned to assist and he tries to rally the troops as well. This allows Kevin's team to catch up. Both are at four tables remaining.

Both sides push. One table apiece. They finish at about the same time. Dave and Kevin thank their teams for their hard work. Nerves kick in. They've done what they can and now they have to wait to see who won.

The winner will be determined by customer comment cards and Chef Ramsey's observations. We see him thinking. Then the phone rings for Dave and Kevin to hear the result.

In Chef Ramsey's office, he congratulates them both. He states this has been the closest race ever in Hell's Kitchen. They approach the doors. One will open and that person will be the winner. They congratulate each other. They place their hands on the door handles. At the count of three, they will turn their door handle. Commercial.

The winner is... Dave!

As normal, Dave freaks a bit. Kevin sits there in shock for a moment. Chef Ramsey gives him a hug and Kevin decides he needs to show his son that its okay and he can lose like a gentleman. Chef Ramsey points to Dave's skill, palate, and his gutting through the injury as reasons why he won.

During the credits we get bloopers. Hilarious moments cut from the season. Van beating Chef Ramsey in arm wrestling. Dave dancing to amuse customers in the restaurant. JP getting sprayed by children. Robert breaking something in the dorm. Chef Ramsey repeating Joseph's 'ain't nobody's [female dog]' line.

- Good season. No problem with the winner. They had ads for the last couple weeks for 'casting' the next season so I guess there'll be another. I may do this again. If so, I hope I get better at it.

Hell's Kitchen Episode 14

Hell's Kitchen Episode 14 aka 3 Chefs Compete

- Recap: Vegetarian challenge with the kids is won by Tennille but has a horrible night on fish, Dave's wrist causes more pain for him, Dave begs to stay, Tennille goes home, family and friends visit the remaining three.

The chefs return to the dorm all recharged from seeing their family and friends.

The next morning, Dave is up early from nerves. It's one of the very few times we see him without a hat on. He's got a full head of hair so it just must be his style.

Challenge: each chef is randomly given the cuisine of a specific country to emulate. They each have 45 minutes to create an entree in the style they receive, using the special ingredients in the storeroom, which are clearly labeled as belonging to each country.

Ariel gets China. She's happy as she expresses a love for Chinese food. Dave gets India. He's nervous as he's unfamiliar with Indian food. Kevin gets Mexico. He notes that everyone's cooked Mexican food so this should be a snap.

As normal, it's a race to complete with contestants bringing their dishes to the front as time elapses. Dave has admitted he's no idea what he was doing with Indian food so his declared plan is to prepare something he knows how to do and give it an Indian flair. Kevin and Ariel do not have this issue and plow through the process, able to work within familiar structures in their head.

After the cooking is done, Chef Ramsey informs them that he has three chefs to help grade the dishes, each an expert in a specific cuisine. The Indian expert, Vikas, was on one of the American episodes of Kitchen Nightmares. Neat! No one sweats more at this information than Dave, who also reverses his dirty apron to make it look clean again. First impressions are important, so probably a good move.

The Chinese dish goes first. Ariel is incredibly nervous, stammering and stumbling as she tries to explain her dish. Thomas, the Mexican expert, feels her plum duck and noodles isn't balanced. Vikas liked the sweetness of it. Eddie, the Chinese expert, felt it was a good try but that the sauce was too watery. As a result of this lukewarm feedback, Ariel feels she could have done better.

Kevin is next. This doesn't surprise me. Having seen Dave's reaction through the challenge, his is the story, either to succeed or fail entertainingly. I'm guessing we'll get a commercial break before seeing the expert reaction to his dish. Kevin is confident in explaining his dish but, when questioned by Chef Ramsey, he realizes he forgot to add the mole chocolate sauce he made to go with it. Commercial. Sooner than I expected.

Thomas agrees that a nice Mexican style sauce would have done it and that the dish lacks without it. Eddie and Vikas both enjoy the dish.

Dave is still rightfully nervous. Upon presenting it, he admits this is his first attempt at Indian food. He selected pork as he seemed to remember that the cow is revered in India. Vikas informs him that there are also a lot of Muslims in India so pork wasn't the greatest choice either; chicken or seafood would have been better. Apart from that, Vikas seems to have enjoyed it, 'for first try: amazing'. Thomas is impressed, especially since Dave was unfamiliar with the spices going it. Eddie also enjoyed it.

Chef Ramsey calls for the experts opinions: all three vote for Dave. Wow! He's shocked but thrilled.

Reward: each of the experts will make their signature dish for Dave. And a set of cookware as used in Hell's Kitchen. Punishment: prepping for tonight's service and getting the restaurant ready.

Kevin is confident that he would have won had he remembered his sauce. To 'rub in' the reward, the experts are cooking in Hell's Kitchen while the punished clean. Dave's sister and fiancee get to join him for lunch, making the price that much greater. Each chef brings Dave over to see what they are cooking and giving him pointers on each dish. The punished are fuming, not so much at Dave, but just out of jealousy. After lunch, Dave returns to the dorm to amp himself up for dinner service. Commercial.

Just before the pre-service meeting, we get a brief video package of the eliminated chefs removing their jackets to leave Hell's Kitchen. I liked that. During the meeting, Chef Ramsey explains that each chef will get a turn leading the kitchen at the pass. Playfully, he explains how it's done by all the things he wouldn't do, an explanation that's intercut with video of him doing those very things during the course of this season. Ha!

Sous Chefs Scott and Heather will be helping out as there are only three chefs working tonight and, at times, one will be on the pass. It also lets Chef Ramsey test the chefs while at the pass. The Sous Chefs have a habit of 'messing up' while in this situation to see if the contestants will catch it. The service starts well and Kevin is soon called up to work the pass. In Interview he notes that this is no different from any other night as he always leads the kitchen. He starts well, spots the halibut that Sous Chef Scott 'accidentally' brings to the window instead of sea bass, and decides Ariel's order of lamb isn't good enough. She gets annoyed with him after the second attempt is also rejected. The commercial break comes with them giving each other the stink eye.

Third time is the charm but Ariel is now flustered and annoyed. Kevin is released back to cooking and Dave is brought up to the pass. He yells, swats his towel, kicks things, and gives suggestions where he shouldn't, such as to Sous Chef Scott. It's really weird to see him like this but he does keep the kitchen going. Sous Chef Scott 'accidentally' makes a risotto with the wrong puree (same color but different flavor) and Dave doesn't catch it, even after tasting it. He also misses that a tuna order that's not prepared with the correct seasonings. Both failures get him politely chastised by Chef Ramsey. He then catches a poorly cooked tuna and some poorly seasoned vegetables thereby 'bouncing back' from his earlier failure. Food continued to flow from the kitchen. Dave is returned to cooking and Ariel is brought up.

This time it's Sous Chef Heather's turn to have an 'accident', substituting parsnip puree for mashed potatoes. Ariel doesn't catch it even after tasting it. Sous Chef Scott brings up a salmon order instead of sea bass and Ariel catches this 'mistake'. She calls out three orders at a time, confusing the kitchen. Kevin gets totally thrown off. Ariel looses control of the kitchen. Chef Ramsey ends up yelling out priorities as we go to commercial.

Ariel tries to take control back and blames Kevin for dragging her down now. She then questions the quality of an order of scallops he prepared and he fixes it. The rest of the service completes without incident.

In the post service meeting, Chef Ramsey says things went well. They all had their ups and downs on the pass. This will be a difficult decision. He asks them to go away and for each of them to pick out one person that they feel should be the one to go home tonight.

As they return to the dorms, Dave doesn't know who he should vote for tonight. Ariel asks if Kevin intentionally dragged down the scallops order while she was on the pass but we don't see him directly answer her question. The answer we get is: 'This is a competition of skill, not cheating.' Difficult decisions but, since Ariel and Kevin seem to be feuding at the moment, I wonder if Dave will slip through? If I had to pick, I'd vote for Ariel tonight. She had issues with lamb, not completely her fault but still, and she lost it the worst of the three when at the pass.

As they stand before Chef Ramsey, he notes that he could see them all winning. He begins collecting their votes. Kevin's vote: Ariel, doesn't feel she's quite ready. Ariel: Kevin, as he didn't have her back while at the pass. Dave's vote...commercial.

Dave's vote: Ariel due to her performance at the pass.

Chef Ramsey notes that their votes haven't helped him and that this is a tough call. He has another question for each chef: why do you belong in the final?

Kevin states that he's a strong person and that there's nothing he can't do when he sets his mind to it. He is certain he can succeed at the head chef position. Ariel points to how she's grown over the competition, believes she has the correct skills, and notes her youth and creativity. Dave says he's run himself, he's grown tenfold over the competition, and that he'll run the kitchen rather than letting it run him.

Two video screens suddenly drop from the ceiling of Hell's Kitchen. The first to advance is Dave. The second finalist is Kevin. Ariel is eliminated. Dave and Kevin shake her hand and hug her goodbye. Chef Ramsey calls her over to compliment her and tells her to keep her jacket. Nice!

Ariel is disappointed that she didn't win but says she learned a lot while in Hell's Kitchen. She's pretty calm and collected so I'm wondering if she may have expected this as well.

Dave and Kevin have 30 minutes to get ready for their limo ride!

The episode feeds directly into the next so it doesn't really stop or have a trailer for the next episode. Instead there's a recap of the entire season, focusing on the different conflicts that occurred. We'll stop here and review the final later.

The moment when things get creepy

I went to the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago last Friday. As the trip home didn't involve seeing bloody Indiana, I thought for a moment that there was no story to tell from the trip but pondering on it has reminded me differently.

We took in an IMAX film near the end of the day, entitled 'Mysteries of the Great Lakes'. Now, as we'd got an IMAX in Milwaukee, I might have been inclined to argue against seeing a film. Why 'waste the time' doing something we could normally do when we're out on a special trip? The movie had played in Milwaukee and it had been missed. If we could catch it here, we should.

The movie wasn't without interest but using the word 'mystery' in the title had made me think that the movie would be about weird events that had gone unexplained for ages and we now being cleared up. Not so much. Most of the film was about the 'rebirth' of the sturgeon fish. Briefly the film brought up bald eagles and the Edmond Fitzgerald but it was mostly about the fish and this scientist fella that had figured out a way to restore them to rivers they had traditionally lived in.

The climax of the film (and I use that word under protest) involves the scientists catching fish as they come to spawn and capturing some of their, well, necessarily reproductive fluids and juices. Part of the problem is that our scientist fella has been talking about this 'special' fish on and off through the movie, gets a bit too excited when he finds her, and then proceeds to ... well, massage her belly until she releases her eggs. In the next scene we see him mixing the eggs with some sperm that hopefully came from a fish. Thankfully they didn't show them harvesting that.

I'd no idea the movie would be fish porn. It was ridiculous.

An Open Letter to that Random Scammer

I don't know how you got ahold of my bank account information and that displeases me to no end. Considering the letter I got a month ago, I'm guessing it was part of a larger database break-in when you stole a number of bits of account information. Or maybe you just bought the information from another jerk with too much time on his hands and limited ethics. Whatever.

Thanks for stealing my information and signing up for some sort of pornographic website. Very nice of you to make me put on my adult shoes and run to the bank to stop all this nonsense. This was a fun way to spend my early evening. Lovely.

Eat a rock and die you jerk.

Love,

-Steve

Home Theatre Update

Since someone did care before, let me express where I am now in the process.

I fixed the issue I was having with audio in XBMC. I'd tinkered with a setting that evidently didn't work as I expected. Turning it back off fixed the issue. For a week or two I worked with that setup again. I didn't really care for it.

There were two parts to the problem as I saw it: my TV and the programme. My TV is old enough to not interface as well as it needs to with the computer signal. The video quality was good but, the more I watched different things on it, the less I was pleased by it. Items shot originally on video tended to have a hazy quality to them, as if they had been badly reprocessed to try to look like film. I couldn't tinker around with the settings on the TV to improve this enough. Also the programme didn't like ejecting disks from it while it was running. In order to change disks, I had to shut down XBMC, eject the disk, restart the programme, and insert the new disk. This may have been more of an issue with the Mac Mini than the programme or just how the two interfaced but it irritated me. Due to these issues, I never got the Mac Remote.

I started looking in other directions, as I had decided that this was going to be a temporary solution to watching TV. In the future I may return to it or just hope that my current TV will last until the next wave of awesome TVs come out and hop on that wave. For now, as concerned as I was with price before, you might think that I would look towards something simple but inexpensive with enough options to please me for the time being. I would have thought that as well. The responsible part of my brain is still mad at the rest of me because I didn't make that decision.

I bought a PS3. A used PS3 of the type that is backwards compatible with PS2 and PS1 games. It was more expensive than I wanted to pay but not nearly as expensive as it was originally. It just arrived yesterday and is working well so far.

The primary disadvantages are: more expensive than I would have liked and not (as far as I know) region code free and PAL compatible.

The advantages? I can finally use the component input on my TV for something. It plays media files as I wanted. I have the option for Blu-Ray (handy as I got a Blu-Ray disk in a multi-pack last week, but this is likely also a disadvantage as it may increase my interest in getting Blu-Ray disks). The option to get PS3 games (the controllers for Rock Band and Guitar Hero aren't compatible with each other on the Wii but are on the PS3 meaning I can have one set of controllers and play both games if I want. Please note that this should also be a disadvantage as it will increase my interest in getting these games).

A perfect solution? No, of course not. Was it something I was likely to get anyway? Yeah, pretty much. Was it a good idea to get it now? Probably not. Is it cool? Heck yeah!

I have more playing with it to do before I settle on how stupid an idea this was for me, at least at the moment.

El Muerte Rojo is coming for you next!

Everyone had to start somewhere and, for Edward Zagodinski, this was it. He'd come to the ring tonight a relative unknown but would be leaving it a known commodity. Win, lose, or draw, he'd make the name of 'Flying Eddie Z' known to everyone in attendance. There was no way he could fail with this plan.

The crowd reacted negatively as his opponent's music began to play. Eddie's family thought he was nuts, even Karen. That hurt a little. He'd expect his wife to understand this was for the best. Life doesn't always hand you opportunities, he had explained to her, sometimes you have to make your own breaks.

The curtain parted as the man in the red fright mask emerged. The negative reaction from the crowd increased. The boys in the back though Eddie was crazy as well. Had he actually watched any of this man's matches? They were violent. There was a good chance he'd get seriously hurt. Eddie was confident in his abilities. Would there be pain? Sacrifice? Blood? No doubt. Long term injury? Not a chance. He knew he could do this; he knew he would survive to thrive.

While Eddie stretched and tried to stay loose, he kept an eye on his oncoming opponent. As the man grew closer and more visible, a truth became clear to Eddie. His opponent was staring at him, no, rather staring through him. There was no expression on the man's visible face; just a cold stare. Coupled with the sterile beat of the industrial music that was his opponent's theme, Eddie shivered. Even before it began, the match was over. Just like that, El Muerte Rojo was in his head.

Even so, Eddie still tried to follow through on his plan. As El Muerte Rojo entered the ring, Eddie attacked. Punches, sledgehammer attacks to the back, kicks, all the sorts of things that may have been effective had their power not been blunted by Eddie's fear. All these attacks were easily shaken off. Eddie now received the full effect of the cold stare in the eyes of El Muerte Rojo. The stare remained focused on Eddie apart from a brief glance towards the referee, triggering the man to ring the bell, starting the match.

Eddie was promptly overwhelmed by the rush of El Muerte Rojo's attack. Forearm shots to the face. Punches. Kicks. Chops to the chest. Stomps. Elbows driven into joints. There was nothing particularly fancy in El Muerte Rojo's attack: no flashy moves, no jumping from the top rope, no playing to the crowd. There was only a precise, calculated attack that quickly dismantled Flying Eddie Z. Eddie was winded, sore, and unable to defend himself. Falling face first to the mat, he gasped for breath in the middle of the ring.

Then there was pain. It overwhelmed him, shocked him to a degree that he could only scream. El Muerte Rojo had Eddie in some sort of leg-lock that put pressure on his legs and lower back. Once a measure of clarity returned to Eddie's mind, he quickly tapped out, signaling with his hand his desire to submit the match to his opponent. The pressure did not cease. Not only that but the pressure increased. Eddie continued to slap at the ring, begging to be released from the hold, begging for the pain to end. An eternity later, he was finally released.

Face down on the mat while not in a painful leg-lock was not the worst place in the world to be. Eddie gasped for breath and checked in on the status of his pain. His lower back was tight, so he may not know the full impact of that pain yet. His legs were sore in general but it was his right knee that concerned him the most. A sharp, stabbing pain continued to afflict that knee even now. Trying to move the knee proved to be a mistake, causing the pain to increase.

The referee leaned down next to Eddie. “You okay?” Eddie reported the pain in his knee. “Just a knee?” the referee checked. “You got lucky.” Quickly, expecting to be needed, the paramedics rushed out, checked Eddie, and helped him from the ring. As Eddie hobbled to the back, he wondered if he'd be able to wrestle again. If he couldn't, would that really be such a bad thing?

(this is post #600)