Go Go Gadget Google
So, I manage www.torcpress.com for my boy Joseph Morris. It's his self-published superfly comic book company that's almost better than ninjas. Cause Ninjas are rad. At the end of every month I send him a huge email about how excited I am over this month's visitors stats. This month? You guessed it. Google.
We got 40 hits from Google searches. Granted, most of them went directly to his blog, but at least a third of those blog hits spent some time at the site, and the web comic is definitely growing in popularity. Tomorrow I'll post the start of a Christmas season web comic special. But I digress. What's the coolest thing about the Google searches? A few of them are for things like 'Joe Morris', 'torcpress', and character related stuff. Whoot. My favorite? "what did gwar do to lacy peterson" Go blog power.
Finding Neverland
We saw this flick Saturday night. Woulda blogged it yesterday, but Sunday's are either packed with sick people or football. Yesterday was football. Unfortunately the Vikings won, but luckily the Seahawks lost. That means that even if the Packers win, my Rammies are still in the running in their division. It means the Pack does need to win to stay in it, though. Guess I'm rootin for the Pack tonight. I was hoping the Vikings would lose and Wendy and I could get a good Rams Vs. Packers Celebration going tonight. I guess we still can for the sake of great sex later.....
Anyway, onto the movie. For those of you that don't know, Finding Neverland stars Johnny Depp and Kate Winslet. Depp is J.M. Barries, the creator of Peter Pan. Winslet is Sarah Llewellyn Davies, widow and mother of four kids. She and her children are Barries' muses for the play, especially her son Peter, the third and most hard hit from his father's death before the movie begins.
Acting wise, everyone did an excellent job. I personally think that the boy playing Peter stole the show. Not sure when all the flicks get the Oscar nominations, but if this kid doesn't get some nod for being the most believable character in the movie, I'm gonna lose a lot of faith in the seleciton process. Any kid can play the too-intelligent, hyperactive rascals of his brothers, but Peter's was one of maturity and emotion, mixed with a need to be accepted by a missing father. Not necessarily an easy thing in the pre-teen years.
Special effects were meant to represent the period, and they did. Costuming was beautiful, evidant in the number of times Wendy whispered, "I NEED that dress."
Music was great in that many scenes were made by the soundtrack. Kudos there.
Script and directing were spot on. Overall a damn good movie. Originally, we were to have a third person with us, but she was sick. Wendy said she see it again with Stephanie before even seeing it, but I was skeptical. After seeing it, though, I'd pay the $16 over to see the flick again with Wendy and Stephanie.
Dogfighting Volume 1
Immediately following the church assault, our heroes were summoned to a meeting tent. Those heroes, once again, were Brucilus Ar'Wayne - spellflinger, Ollie (I can't remember the last name, as I'm a bad DC punster) - ranger, and Tren Erdsmith - talespinner and embedded reporter. In the tent, they were greeted by their commander, Sarlissa of Heironus, their holy commander. She informed her team that she'd been reassigned and they were temporarily sans leader. To compensate for the lack of her strong sword arm, she introduced a new team member. Shamus Potts. A halfling.
No time for introductions, though. The team had a matter of hours before they had to fly out. While the army was pinned down their air corps had been sent to a different battle and had not returned yet. Our heroes were being assigned the possibly overwhelming task of flying ahead of the main force and clearing obstacles on the road. Only the road. Through modern magical technology, the army wouldn't be that far behind them utilizing a combination of forced march and magical gates.
With no leader, the team quickly erred from its course. Shortly into the journey, they began spotting random, but perfectly circular areas of dead forest. Veering off the road to investigate one that was relatively close, Ollie deduced that these areas had simply stopped living. No photosenthisis. No water recovery. Just death. There were no traces or detection of evil, arcane magic, or negative energy of any sort. Investigation was stopped short, though, with the arrival of a few beautiful(butt ugley) nekkid flying women we in the DM business like to call Harpies.
Of course, the first thing the harpies do is start to sing. Having essentially snuck up on the heroes, despite the fact that Ollie was the only one grounded, the music goes to work fast. Bruce finds himself the only hero not captivated, but even his damn hippogriff has fallen in love, meaning he's a wizard on a speeding bullet of doom. His constant barrage of spells is just enough to keep the harpies slightly occupied, meaning none of the team falls prey to any kind of auto kills, just toying glancing blows that cause a lot of pain.
Now, I can't remember Bruce's spell list, but it's extensive. He pert near depleted it. Burning Hands in spades, a fireball that wiped out Tren's eyebrows, and almost Tren, and the aid of a summoned Giant Eagle kept the party alive. Fortunately for all, one harpy had enthralled almost everyone, and the death of that bitch brought a countersinging bard back into the fray, as well as a still grounded ranging with a beautiful longbow. Once she was gone, the team became a short order cook of harpy killing. (Good thing for them I didn't fill like looking up the "attacking a helpless victims" rules.)
After a nap by Bruce (short one), and a thorough reaming by some grunt at HQ, the party set out again, only to be set upon by a couple of spixor Manticores from some serious cloud cover. Now, having a wizard with maybe two spells left and a party full of "I just wanna shoot with my bow" types means the mantis get a few spike shots off in short order. Bruce takes some serious spikes the face, as does his mount. Shamus charges in boldly and feels a few tail arrows, but manages to dodge his mount around them. In the meantime, Tren, composing a sonnet the whole time, and Ollie whip some arrow action into varioues flying porcupines. Bruce reaches a point of desperation, whips out a scrolle and fireballs the shit outta one manticore, melting his wings and sending the beastie plumetting to his doom. Nearly dead himself, he lands as well.
After much flinging of spikes, some fly-by claw attacks from all involved, and a couple of broken bow strings from both Ollie and Tren, our ugly ranger Ollie, puts on a burst of hippogriff speed, comes in close and starts some serious bird-mammal on spiny beast grappling action. It takes less than ten seconds from Ollie's steroid pumped hippogriff and his longsword to cut the summabitch into pieces.
With one horribly crippled halfling's hippogriff and one nearly dead wizard, the party makes a call to HQ, and are informed to return to the new camp. Fortunately on this front, the army is still pretty well-stocked, so there is much healing to spread around. (Boy did I make a mistake there.)
Next day finds the crew back in the air. Within site of the target city, the fly upon a barricade set up near the last of the serious cliffs. A flaming sphere dropped from on high wrecks the first of the unmanned wagon walls, but then a swarm of goblin mounted Giant Bees erupts from some unseen caves.
Split into two flanks, the bees come at the heroes from both sides. Two lightning bolts later, Bruce has knocked the foes down to one staticy goblin, mounted, and two unmounted bees. The unmounted bees fly as fast as their damaged wings can get them outta there. The last goblin goes suicidal and aims right for Brucilus Ar'Wayne, BeeCorp Destroyer. Sure, he's gonna die in the process, but not before his bee manages a sting, pumping Bruce full of some serious poison. Before that takes effect though, a color spray knocks little goblin boy unconscious and off his mount. Bruce and Shamus both dive to catch him, posessing Rings of Feather Falling and wishing for some tactical info from the little worm.
Shamus reaches him first, but both Bruce and Shamus realize they're falling a bit too fast for the rings to take effect in time. Shamus, being a monk, manages to utilize the cliff face to slow himself enough to pull the rip chord on his ring and save himself. Bruce does not. With his life flashing before his eyes, he feels a set of eagle talons rip into his shoulder as Ollie's mount pulls steeply out of a life saving dive. Unfortunately, his pack and flesh rip out from the g-forces, and Bruce hits the ground hard, but alive. Alive, but with a nasty bone proturding from the front of his leg, and severely poisoned by some angry giant vermin. Oh, and covered in goblin goo, cause Shamus dropped that bastard like a rock to save his own life.
Tune in about two weeks from now for "One-legged No Limit Air Corps Hold 'Em" or "Hop Along Panty Raid?"
Turkey on a Grumpy Morning
Not sure which side of the bed I woke up on, but it was definitely the wrong one. That's unfortunate, as this has been one of the most enjoyable weeks I've had to date. Although I've gotta say the next fucking cat that banks off the couch in a full on run, like a wall on an outside corner at Bristol Motor Speedway is gonna get chased down and flung hard.
But I digress. Thanksgiving was awesome this year. Wendy played an excellent hostess, and everyone pitched in to help out where it was needed. Nick even let me contribute enough to the turkey that I feel I helped, but did very little damage. Somehow, he managed to ignore everything I read online (pretty much) without really shooting down my suggestions. Good job, Nick.
Despite having worked the night before, and getting home at 7:30am, I managed to stay awake until after lunch, except for a 20 minute nap whilst Nick ran and looked for his cards, and a 10 or 15 spot during a lull in the football.
The company was awesome. Katie and Anthony are always fun, and Nick provides enough grossness that I can get by without being the only asshole at the table. I'd give Rachel props for dealing with Nick and I in tandem, but if you come with Nick, you already know what you're getting into.
Menu is at Wendy's blog. ladyroy.blogspot.com I'm lazy this morning, and, as I said, Grumpy. What's worse, i just choked on my tea. And I think I'm gonna get one of those little indoor kennels you use to punish puppies with for my cats. Bastards. Nothing pisses me off more than when they do something they KNOW is wrong, then run and hide at the first indication you know.
On a different note, dig this trailer at www.casshern.com. Awesome Japanese flick based on a 70's anime title. Visually stunning. Wish I knew Japanese. Regardless, I scored it on eBay for $14. Figure that's less than I'd spend in the theater here, so why not buy the DVD based on an awesome trailer? That's American consumerism at it's finest, just outsourced, cause the guy I bought it from lives in Hong Kong (yes, it's $14 WITH shipping from HK, original price was $8).
Also, so Matt doesn't have to ReRead September's Archives, it's http://store.animearigato.com for the cheap ass imported anime.
I'll post a D&D report tonight or this afternoon during laundry. Nother great game last night. Lots of ideas for adventures. I gotta figure out a few that let other people shine, cause Brucilus Ar'Wayne is just bad ass.
42. And some D&D.
http://hitchhikers.movies.go.com/ Here's a teaser to the answer for the meaning of life. What's the question?
On the D&D front, we got a game in last night. I'd made the adventure for 4 people of roughly lvl 7, but found out the day before that one was out, so I quick rolled up a Paladin to act as a leader and come in if needed. She was needed.
Our mission was sniper removal. A couple of wizards had holed up in a church bell tower, using a new Wall of Force artifact to defend themselves and were taking various magical potshots at every opportunity. Trouble was this church was at the gate the army needed to use to get to another objective, and sidetracking around the town would delay this particular force by about a week as they moved to ford a different part of the river. That time's not happenin, cause this force is part of a three-pronged attack happening very shortly. So, in comes a unit of hippogrif "special" forces. The special, of course, meaning a freshly made unit of pseudo outcasts assigned simply for the purpose of removing the new wave of embedded reporters from anything important. If this failed, upper level co's would have probably just ordered a super magic attack on the church, but they wanted to try saving the structure first. After all, no point in destroying a shrine to the God of Harvest and Nature during a wartime trek through the mountains.
So, our heros make a high-altitude insertion during the night. The ranger, Ollie, and bard, Tren, land on the church roof and float down to the front door. Actually, Tren kind of mistimes hitting his ring of feather fall and careens into the inside of the force wall, but still manages to land on the roof, slightly dazed, but still not alerting the thugs in the tower. In the meantime, Bruce takes on bat form with his cloak and flutters into the tower to roost and observe the enemy. He finds a 1/2 orc sorcerer and human wizard, watching the streets for victims.
Downstairs, Tren and Ollie enter the church and walk up the aisle between the pews, only to find they've walked past some serious hill giant skeleton action. They mistook them to be statues in the dark... Battle ensues. Bruce flies down the bell tower and rushes into the church to help out, but triggers a door alarm on the way in. In the meantime, Ollie plants an arrow into a giant eye whole, but a giant club sends his ass flying across the church. Tren takes a claw and retreats a bit, while Ollie recovers, draws his longsword and heads in. He hacks down one skeleton just as Bruce's Flaming Sphere incinerates the other. But then, a gargoyle swoops down from the ceiling, ping ponging from end to end. Bruce drops the flaming sphere and lightning bolts the bastard damn near into nothing, and a few well placed arrows from Tren and Ollie take Stone Boy out completely. Or maybe another Flaming Sphere did. I can't remember.
So, while Bruce's 2nd flaming sphere sputters out, the team recovers a bit, and sets an ambush for any guards reacting to the Alarm. Nothing. While they're waiting, they call for Paladin back up, and she starts to fly in. Bruce becomes a bat and heads back to the tower, to find the magies awaiting our heroes, but pretty sure that the beasties downstairs can handle it. Tren and Ollie head up the tower, narrowly avoiding a falling stairs trap, then are joined by the Paladin, Sarlissa. Another stair trap leaves Ollie hanging by his fingers and Sarlissa/Tren working together to rescue him.
The heroes reach the door, and let Bruce know via telepathy. He flies to the roof and asks for a distraction. Noise ensues and he drops a fireball into the tower, only to find the enemy has gone invisible. Everyone enters.
The 1/2 orc pops visible scorched real good and pops a True Striked Melf's Acid Arrow into Bruce. However, Bruce had the foresight to cast a Minor Globe of Invulnerability on himself, protecting him from the MAA. Sarlissa drops the half-orc double quick.
Not to be outdone, the wizzie drops a Reduce on the heroes, but only Bruce and Tren are affected, no major setback to the fighting skills. But the wizzie's got Improved Invisibility, so he stays hidden. He brings out a Fiendish Wolf to attack Sarlissa, and Bruce counters with a celestial Badger. Sarlissa kills the wolf, and the wizzie hits her and the badger witha lightning bolt. Sighting on that spot, Ollie makes a mad dash at where he thinks the wizzie is and takes a serious chunk of meat out of his hide.
Seriously wounded, but not dead, the wizzie drops a Fly spell on his ass and leaves the tower. He brings in a few dire rats, but even the singing bard finishes one off in a matter of seconds. A few tanglebags later, the wiz decides he's done and hurtin, so he soars in, grabs his bag of gear, pops visible and takes off. Arrows fly, all miss and the bad guy gets away, but it's enough to finish the job.
Most of the fun on this came before the adventure, when the boys were trying to score before flying out. Ollie ended up settling for a gelatinous cube, cause it was warm... Much spell based innuendo was passed around, Bruce/Nick enjoyed a Magic Mouth, and that was that.
Friday, we play again. This time as scouts.
game 1:Nezumi Boomstick RL vs. Crane Dueler
This is the first in a duo of gaming posts today. Last night we got in a quick L5R game waiting for John to arrive, then knocked out a bit of D&D. I'll post D&D tonight when I have more time.
As for L5R, I won this game pretty soundly. With no honor meta, and the only duel meta being three Kharmic Strikes, I figured Nick would own me. Not so. I'll try to recap as much as possible.
Believe it or not, I got a third turn Ratling Raiders. Popped a village token and a 1F Rat Guide on the main raider and attacked on turn 4. Despite having the -2 ranged guy that's duel happy, and the Dragon chic that reacts by forcing a duel when on is refused, Nick opted to not defend, so I dropped a From Every Side and took the prov. Brought out a Yoe'trr and Ep'kee.
Next turn, Nick built up the -2 ranged guy with a Kenishen and the 0/2 weapon that's 2/2 on a samurai, then brought out the chic from old school that can permantly boost force or chi after a peep wins a duel. Pop a village token on Epkee and attack again for me. Sneak, range to Kenishen from Yoe'trr, Nick drops a delayed terrain from old that ends the battle before resolution, I Nezumi Techniques his sword, he duels Yoe'trr away (I think), and I peasant vengeance his duelist. Everyone goes home unbowed thanks to the terrain. I bring out another Yoe'trr and Dg'rnki.
He duels down both Yoe and Dg, and somehow I lose the main Raider. He brings out a 2/8 dueler and another damn -2 ranged guy. I attack again. Can't remember how he defends, but I pop another province and bring out Htach and Erchichek I think.
NExt battle has Htach and Epkee on one prov, Erch with CPR and 2 raider guys on another prov. He defends against Htach, duels Epkee dead, I send hom Htach. Tireless Htach into the undefended prov and take it.
I think he bowed next turn, in part to John showing up, but in part to me having Htach, Erch, 2 raider tokens, pulling a 2nd raider (only one in my deck, but that's Tomorrow Sensei love for you), and another rat out, and him only being at 20some honor. Somewhere in there he dueled out Ik'krt, too.
Nicks favorite combo - Iaujatsu lesson, I refuse, bow the Monk for her reaction, I lose 7 honor and 1 peep. Oh well, he doesn't gain 5 honor that way.
My MVCard - Tomorrow Sensei and Path of Wisdom. PoW let me run the sensei every turn for free. Sensei sped me up and got me Epkee, Yoe'trr, and Dgrnki for 1, 1, and 2 respecitvely off the ratling village. That's love.
Fourth Time's a Charm?
Well, here's yet another attempt at a post this week. Thrice before I've tried to post on a variant of this topic and thrice before I've been thwarted. Twice, Blogger was updating the servers or something, and once, Explorer just crashed completely. So, this time, I'm posting only half of those previous posts. The important half. My hope is that it was the movie rumors that were cursing my post. To summarize those (and in fact not post only half of those posts), Nicholas Cage is a lock as Ghost Rider, the director of Bourne Identity is stuposedly directing Watchmen, due out summer 2006, and Van Wilder is negotiating to play Flash, because Deadpool is just too hard for them to make a movie right now.
The rest of the post pertained to my animation projects at the moment. What I've decided to do is post little images and occasionally small, low quality clips of models/animations that I'm working on here for comments from you guys. In the first of the three failed posts, we had a discussion about which project to proceed on; the short, heavy lip-synched project to enhance my reel, or the long, no lip-synching, but lots of technical difficulty project meant for film festivals. Thanks to you, my readers, and the power of the internet to bring a conclusion to a conversation that never happened, we decided to enhance the reel one final time, in a huge way before jumping into the film festival project.
One of the reasons we decided this was the hope that one of the larger projects I could get into would kick into gear. The absolutely most likely of these is for Big Country to wrap up his recording studio, lay down some toons, and Joe and I to kick together an animated Gorillaz-esque band. Only instead of circulating the videos on MTV, we'd hit the peer-to-peer channels and offer up a CD/DVD combo.
Second to that project is the slim chance I can organize an animation/art team to put together a teen animated series for public television. You see, I've recently started working with a former executive producer for the regional public television channel. Not only did she used to run most of the channel, but she's positive she could easily help me get funding for a project like that, provided she was interested in it and thought it would do well on a local or national level. Trouble I've hit there is that none of the animators I've approached are interested. Or have time. Still got a couple of people to ask, but the reality is I myself may not have time. If the response I get continues to be negative, I may just develop a working relationship with her and keep that in my back pocket until I get an idea that absolutely has to go.
So, look back here for some Work In Progress updates from me, as well as a recap of some upcoming D&D games this week.
dang lost posts
Well, I had a beautiful report written about Nicholas Cage being Ghost Rider, which starts filming in January, and Tom Cruise being in/maybe producing War of the Worlds, which is being directed by Steven Speilberg. I'd added a bit about how I'm gonna start posting my animation works in progress from time to time as feedback. How I wanted you guys to kick me in the ass over that and keep me working.
Then blogspot's updater crashed and left me with nothing. And now, as I try to write again, a slew of patients come in. And a phone call. One guy's bleeding. Prolly somehow cut himself playing basketball. We get that a lot being across the road from a major university. Damn college kids. And here comes number three. Yay. So much for today's post.
Good news, depending on who you talk to. Johnny Knoxville and Sean William Scott are Bo and Luke Duke. Why's that good? Ashton Kutcher and some other teen heartthrob were originally casted for them. Of course, Ashton Kutcher was stupposedly gonna be Superman, too. I think he's becoming the present teen generation's Keanu Reeves. Chics dig the hell out of him, but he really doesn't act well. From what I've seen. Regardless, slim hope for the movie now, although I still don't think Daisy Duke is as hot as the original. That's a hard bill to fill, and I don't see goin the pop singer route to be the right road.
In other news, Joe and Wendy will be disappointed, as Tom Hanks is slated to play the lead role for the Da Vinci Code. That book's still selling like hot cakes. Directed by Ron Howard, can't remember the producer.
Fantastic Four comes out on the Fourth of July next year. Looks good. Cinematrogaphy in the trailer reminds of me of the first Xmen. Acting might be a bit cheesy though. The Invisible Woman is damn hot, though.
DAMMIT!
He didn't make it.
:(
That's the hard part of the job.
Review: Saving someone's life
Saving someone's life. That's an odd thing to review, but until today I'd never realized how much I've done that in the past few months.
See, the hospital I work at has two campuses, both with emergency rooms. In the past, I worked on the west bank of the river, and over there the patients are primarily mental health or cold symptoms. Generally, when you're dealing with mental health patients as a registrar, you get nothing but attitude from a whiney kid that expects special treatment because his/her parents are divorced and he/she doesn't like mom's new boyfriend. Sometimes girlfriend up here. Or you get tons of homeless people during the winter that know if they claim suicidal ideas, they get 72 hours worth of warmth and free meals, all on my dollar. Needless to say, it's easy to build up a level of cynicism.
Especially when you're like me. Parents divorced. Never liked dad's new girlfriend. Worst I ever did was run away once. I got about a mile down the road. Consider also that several of my closest friends deal with some of the serious stuff that most people seek psychiatrists and anti-depressants over, yet none of us even remotely consider such things as viable treatment (we just suck it up and get on with life, sometimes a good Watchdogs pep talk is needed, but that's the worst of it). Mental health isn't the best of fields for me.
However, the east bank campus is vastly different. Rarely is a mental health patient seen here. Still enough cold symptoms to feel my limit of tolerance for welfare abuse, but that's any ER I think. No, at this campus, we're associated with the state university, and we're one of the world's leaders in transplants and very respected for cancer treatment and cardiac care. Here, there's an obvious result in a job well done. People live. Not only do they live, but they don't come back three days later with the exact same story.
So, today a patient was brought in only semi-concsious and severely wheezing. A caretaker was with him, but couldn't identify a specific problem as the patient was non-responsive. With nothing more than a name and birthday, I got the patient registered and ready to go before the doctor/nurses had him in a bed. With no medical history, they didn't have much to go on, but I was able to find that for them right away. Good thing, too. He had an allergy to a usual treatment for cardiac arrest. We managed to save him, bring his heart rate back to normal and prevent the normal bad things that go along with serious heart attacks. That's a good feeling.
They could have done it all had I not expedited my end of the process. My end only deals with billing and insurance. The only thing they need from me is some numbers in the computer so labs and things can be ordered, but by getting that done quickly, I let the care givers focus on taking care of the patient, instead of worrying about whether the lab and Xray know they may be needed. I let the HUCs focus on securing on call doctors or specialists. I get the nurses the labels they need so the patient's records and/or blood work doesn't get mixed up with another's. I may not save his life, but I make it easier for the people that can to do it.
I hadn't realized all of that until the doctor and the HUC (health unit coordinator) thanked me. Usually the doctors don't bother with the registrars. We normally fly under their radar. But when the doc said thanks, and I said "no big," he stopped to let me know how much getting the job done quickly really helped. He outlined all of the above. I take a considerable amount of pride in being the fastest registrar on our team. It's nice to see it does make a difference.
Sugarcult, New Found Glory, Green Day
Last night we caught the above band at the Target Center in Minneapolis. I thought the venue was bigger, being the stadium the Timberwolves play in, but it's surprisingly small. We were on the floor. Worth the price of admission, even though Ticketmaster did feel the need to charge EIGHT fucking dollars in fees for EACH damn ticket.
Sugarcult was uninteresting. We picked our spot for the entire show early, and didn't budge for any of the youngins that tried to press us forward. Make the little unbathed masses flow around us. And they did. Funniest part about this thirty minutes was the amount of children that wanted to stare me down, cause I was their size. I stare well. Not as good as Nick, but better than any damn junior high or high school kid full of angst and hating his/her parents. Besides Sugarcult being one of the most boring stage shows I've seen next to Rufus Wainwright, I was disappointed with their leather and goth makeup mixed with preppy, popular punk tunes.
That being said, I think everyone else in the crew liked them. Wendy and Katie certainly danced up a storm, despite the crowding, and Nick was pretty vocal about digging them. Not sure about Matt or Anthony, but they didn't complain.
New Found Glory was pretty rockin, and I didn't mind this 45 minutes or so. Can't say I was terribly excited about them, but I did know one song. I think it was in The Girl Next Door or something. Regardless, they have a fat man in the band that played topless. I dug that. The band interacted with the audience, there were some boobies shown by young girls in the crowd, and Wendy and Katie continued to groove out. This was a good opening band, but I'm prolly not buying any CDs. The highlight of this part of the show was that my left foot didn't leave it's spot in the congealed puddle of beer I chose as my home through the entire set, despite all the kids that wanted through. At least the kids were 16-18 for this set...older than the pre-pubescant crowd following Sugarcult.
Then came Green Day. Green Day rocked. Lots of crowd interaction, including pulling three musicians out of the crowd at random to play a song. They even gave the kid that played the guitar that very same guitar. That little SOB's getting laid every day for the next two weeks at least. Three of the girls near us knew him and almost creamed themselves. Then there was "We Are the Champions" near the end of the show, which Nick thought was appropriate. By midway through the show we were surrounded by a pretty decent crowd that understood to squeeze Wendy in a press of human flesh, cause I have pointy fingers and elbows. Early on though....I'll get to that later. Green Day scores in firmly at #2 on the best concerts of Shafe's life...right after Presidents of the United States of America, and solidly before Rammstein. I just wish I could have seen.
Had to take my glasses off early. Before the show, there was this loud guy in front of us talking about how he was 220 pounds of full redneck/polok and he wasn't moving for no one. Of course, he did bout shit when both Wendy and I threatened to kill him if he elbowed her. Something about a 5'7" 120 lb dude smiling while he says "You do that again, I'll knife ya, friend," and a 5'1" skinny chic saying something "I need breathing room if you want to keep breathing."
Turns out he was a pussy. Not sure exactly how it went down, but right before Green Day started, I looked over and a dude that I wouldn't have put about 205 (forever on called Mr. Drunk), was staring down Mr. 220. Mr. Drunk popped Mr. 220 in the face, and Mr. 220 not only backed down right away, but did indeed move to a different part of the stadium, if not left entirely.
Then Green Day started. Next thing I know, Mr. Drunk is all over Nick. Now, it's fucking crowded as the line to get into hell, and this dude's flailing like a little bitch. He gets Nick a couple times in the face, Nick gets in a shot or two, and grapples him to a point that Nick's taking and giving belly shots, but more importantly no innocent 15 year old fan girls are taking wild shots to the back of the head. Big points for Nick on that move. Never being one to let my friends rumble without back up, but being WAY to small to end it by getting in between them, I let loose to help my boy Nick out. First of all, he probably didn't need my help, but all I knew was he's not been in a ruckous for about 10 years, and even then, there weren't many. So I helped out. Free kidney shots all around. I got in a good kick to the nuts on him, then right as Nick took him to the ground in the best take down I've seen in awhile (and either smashed Mr. Drunk's face into Nick's knee or the concrete) I got a nice monkey stomp onto the back/side of Mr. Drunk's knee. Then, about four guys grabbed everybody, so I helped break the battle up. All told, I saw Mr. Drunk land maybe four solid punches, while Nick not only maintained control of the fight, but got in a good dozen shots of his own. Two kicks and a flurry of kidney shots from me, and I'd say the dude simply got rolled.
He came back two songs later. No flailing this time, he tried to take the grappling straight to Nick. Nick scored big again. The novelty having wore off, I just helped break this one up, but even bigger props to Nick for the smoothest fucking head butt I've ever seen. If the somebody else didn't have their hand on Mr. Drunk's face trying to pull him back, it would have broke Mr. Drunk's nose flat out. Good job Nick. Again Mr. Drunk faded into the crowd wearing his "I'm a Crazy SOB that'll kill ya" stare, which just kind of made us laugh.
And he came back a third time. Each time, Mr. Drunk took the first swing, each time Nick returned one or two. This time, that was it. One shot from Drunk, two shots from Nick, 5 of us pulling them apart. That was the last we saw of Mr. Drunk. I wonder if he can see or breath. I wonder if he's pissed blood at all today. I wonder if he can walk. I wonder if he ever found his girlfriend (which is apparently why he assaulted everyone). I hope he can't reproduce.
All in all, a damn fine concert. :)
Review: The Incredible
Caught this movie Friday, with two lovely ladies, I might add. Another complete success by Pixar. Hopefully, we're all aware that they aren't renewing their contract with Disney, so next years release "Cars" will be the last flick under the Pixar/Disney tag team, unless what's his face steps down as CEO/Pres/whatever of Disney and whomever replaces him breaches the gap between the two.
Back to the movie.
What Pixar did here is make it believable. Sure the characters are superheroes, sure they're trying to fit into the world around them and hide their powers. You can believe it, though. You can see how someone would sue Mr. Incredible for stopping his suicide, followed by a string of lawsuits from "victims" of a prevented train wreck. You can picture our present government hiding the "supers" and forbidding them from saving people... Well, with our present administration, I think they'd just deny any culpability in the problem of superheroes entirely. Possibly produce some fake evidence of ties between the heroes and Al Qaeda, lump them into the Axis of Evil, call them Weapons of Mass Destruction, and then fail utterly to do anything about them, but I digress.
Once again, the guys at Pixar showed us what they're good at. Observation. You could probably say the initial parts of the film are a slight statement about the transformation of American society from what it once was to what it now is. You could, but I'd rather just be entertained by a movie, not psycho-analyze it to the point that the heroless society the nation becomes mid-film represents the womb and the Incredibles are actually man trying to return to his pre-birth state by being accepted for who they/he really is.
Regardless, good film, many laughs, a few points I actually choked up over (come on, we've all been there, when we thought we'd failed someone we looked up to), and another score wherin Pixar looks at something we deal with everyday by taking it entirely out of its box. Me recommends.
Review: 76 hour week
Well, Joe posted the 10 jobs worse than sawmilling, and mine weren't on there. Individually, neither of them suck that bad. In tandem, and with my schedule aligned as it is, every other week is gonna suck hard, crusty ball sacks.
You see, at the hospital, we're on an 8/80 overtime schedule. That means if I work more than 8 horus a day, I get OT. 80 hours in two weeks nets the same. 40 doesn't mean shit. They take full advantage of that, with three of the four of us working 7 or 8 days in a row, and me working 6 days in one week, with Friday off. Our schedule runs Monday-Sunday paywise.
At Barnes & Noble, the schedule runs Sunday- Saturday, which always manages to screw me on the schedule front. For instance, this week, I had Sunday, Friday and Saturday off, but "next" week I work Sunday, so even though they're nice and only schedule me four days, I still work five days at B&N during my hospital week. Make sense?
So, my schedule this week was/is Monday - Thursday, 8am-11:30pm, B&N meeting Friday that ran 9a-1p, Saturday 3pm-11:30pm, and Sunday 9am-11:30pm. I get off at 1pm at B&N, then have 2 hours to run home, shower, eat, and hit Fairview by 3pm.
How do I manage? A good woman. Don't think I'm kissing ass here, cause Wendy doesn't even read my damn blog. She's got two jobs herself, but barely hits 50ish hours a week most of the time (although coming into Christmas, that'll pick up for her). Despite that, she still manages to keep the apartment clean, take care of the cats, keep leftovers on hand for me to eat, and wash laundry. If not for that, I'd be spending $12-$17 a day on food, cause Minneapolis restaurants have an $8-$10 delivery minimum, plus lunch in a mall, PLUS I'd be wearing dirty clothes, and the cats woulda starved to death.
So, I guess this is more of a review of a good woman than a review of a 76 hour work week. Sorry for the misnomer.
Happy late Halloween and L5R x 2
Yep, I missed it, so Happy H-Day pizeeples. It's a zoo hear at the hellspital, so please, forgive any derailed trains of thought with this post.
So, great Halloweeny, here if you consider great to be a day of shopping and gaming. That's a typical great day for me, but seems like a lackluster All Hallow's Eve to me. Regardless, a great day.
Got Wendy's character made up last night, so things are starting to move on the Greater War campaign. I won't mention what she made, on the off chance that one of those gamers actually reads this thing, but things are shaping up to be interesting. On a similar note, today I picked up a couple more prospects for that, so welcome to the fray John and Andrew. You'll find my late night break downs of the world environment in the September Archive.
As for L5R, Nick and I got a couple of games in. We had time for three, but decided to mix it up instead of doing a best of three, so we went with random match ups.
First game saw a rematch of Unicorn vs. Crab, but we'd both revamped out decks a bit. I traded a few Senpet Scimitars off of Nick and was rearing to use em (sorry for the bad horse joke....prolly no one even noticed the rearing thing, eh?) This game was fast and intense. It's a shame it was first, as it was way more exciting than the next game, but I don't remember much of it. I think we traded province for province once, then I lost a lot of peeps and Nick took two more of mine. Heck, I might have taken one, then he took three a few turns later. Bottom line is it was a smooth play by him and I ended up down 1 province to 3. A lucky defend left him bowed except for one unit, and me with enough force and cards in hand to take two provinces. So we were at 1 province a piece, with honor minimal on us both. One of us attacked and I lost all but one person, with Nick sitting pretty at 2 beefy people and a cav unit in his province. Now, for some reason, he didn't attack. He should have. He would have killed my last person, but not taken the province. He should have just kept attacking until I flipped a holding, then taken the province, but he didn't. So, on my turn I pulled a 2nd person. Next turn he pulled his cav personality. I followed by attacking with enough force to take the prov if he didn't defend. I won that battle by 1 force, so he kept the prov, but lost the units. Next turn he flipped a holding. I shoulda lost that one, but he didn't attack. *shrug*
The next game saw his Phoenix deck vs. my revamped Dragon deck. It's no longer enlightenment, instead shooting for a water samurai type of thing, using the two weapons stronghold. If the dragon sensei I have on eBay doesn't sell, though, I may revamp this one into a water monk with House of Tao. *shrug* Regardless, I opted for securing personalities instead of taking provinces in the 3rd round, and that left Nick to sit back and build a few shugs that could lay waste to my forces. In the end, I hit 40 honor, he attacked, spells and kihos were slung, and I one with one province left. Boring as shit game that took too damn long.
Now I have to go eat before I have to register another patient. Screw it, I'll register this last one, then go eat. Cream-style corn and apple roasted pork. Thanks Wendy. Glad I'm engaged to the perfect woman.
