just wanted to take a few seconds of your time to pimp my brother's
wonderful photography site for the impending holiday season.
Three Dog Light

oh, and living in the new place is nice, but quite the adjustment.

Today, we became proud owners of the following views.
Looking South:

Looking West:


*bounce*

current mood: excited

40 years ago today, three human beings - with the help of many thousands of
others - left our planet on a successful journey to our Moon, setting foot
on another world for the first time.

Yesterday, from the comfort of the Johnson Space Center,
Meg and I watched Endeavor blast off.

Then we went to the LEGO store, where we spent entirely
too much money finally getting my birthday presents. :)

current mood: nerdy

cobalt bluebonnets
adorn highway medians
excellent spring rain

current mood: pleased

Over the past 3-4 months, I've had the pleasure of sharing Babylon 5 with Meg.
A little while ago, we finished the last episode, Sleeping In Light.
Many tears were shed and shared.

Damn that's a hard episode to watch, but it's one of the best examples of
why the show was so amazingly awesome.

This was the third time I'd seen the whole thing on DVD after having caught
most of it when it was initially broadcast. If anything, Sleeping In Light
affects me more every time.

*sob*

current mood: contemplative

Due to unforeseen circumstances, we have two spare tickets for
the 11:40 showing of Dark Knight at Alamo Village Thursday night.

First caller (poster, really) gets'em.

We'll still be at the show, plenty early, and whoever wants the tickets
should show up as early as possible to get the tickets from me.

Holy crap.
we just put 5% down on unit 7005 in The Spring.
It's gonna be a year or more before we move, assuming it all goes as planned.
thank goodness.  we have a lot of junk to sort through. :)
*boggle*

current mood: excited

RIP George Carlin

current mood: blank

Negativland, live in concert, April 18 & 19 at Alamo Ritz.
get tickets here.
I have tickets for both shows, Meg will be going Saturday.
I missed them when they were here 8 years ago, ain't missin' this one.

current mood: excited

Two word review of Doomsday: Mad Macs.

current mood: amused

stupid calendars.
I'm glad February 29 is not my birthday.
well, mostly.  the perverse streak wishes it was.
It prefers to be on the edges of the bell.

Hi there.
Long time no see.
didya miss me?

ok, he's not really a baby at 4 months already,
but we have a new kitten. Meet Jeremy. (no relation to rhinoplastique)
approriately enough, the moment I loaded icanhascheezburger.com
to show the lady at the shelter, this was the very first image.

Why a new kitteh? well, Monday last week we had to put down Snape. *sniff*

In other news, we spent M-F of Thanksgiving week in New Orleans,
where I learned that while the etouffee I've had in Austin is pretty
good, it's nowhere near as spicy. Beignets and cafe au lait at Cafe du Monde
happened... twice. Aside from entering and exiting the city, we never left
the French Quarter. I think it was our first day there, we stumbled upon
Louisiana Loom Works, run by a very nice couple with many fine shop cats.
We might have to go again, but Meg wants to fly. urgh. :)

oh and 21 days until christmas.

current mood: calm

"I here-by declare this theater to be AWESOME!"
Having a Alamo Ritz main theater full of excited people yelling that is amazing.

So yeah, Alamo Ritz opened last night with a triple feature that was, indeed,
bad/awesome/bad... at least movie-wise.

The first feature was Matango, essentially Attack Of The Mushroom People.
Except they never really attacked. The upside was we each ate about 3/4
of a pound of mushrooms each, in a mushroom feast that was YUMMY.

The second feature, No Country For Old Men, was just plain awesome.
The Coen brothers strike again. This movie opens 21 Nov. Hie thee hence.
Meg noticed one goof though. As this movie is set in 1980, they really
shouldn't have had automatic sliding doors just yet. I was too busy
trying to keep up with what was happening to notice many details like that.

The third feature, which was introduced by Quentin Tarantino, was 
War of the Gargantuas, which Q said was a direct sequel to Frankenstein
Conquers The World. I think I need to see the latter. Q also warned us
about a song, _The Words Get Stuck In My Throat_, which I'd only heard
the DEVO version previously. So this movie, with Russ Tamblyn and this
god-awful song, made me think of _Human Highway_, which has Russ & DEVO.
I didn't get a chance to bug Quentin about it, which is probably just
as well, so I'll just write to Tim League about it.

Anyway, GO SEE No Country For Old Men when you can.
I know, I say that a lot.
How about: if my opinion of a movie generally agrees with yours...
yadda.

and really, the Alamo Ritz is excellent, and true to it's history.

current mood: pleased

help me lawd, for I have been iPhoned.
The number remains the same.
shiny.

current mood: shiny

*dabs moisture from near ocular areas*
I was not crying, stop it already.

Meg and I went to see the subject this evening at a benefit for the Lone Star
Paralysis Foundation (LSPF) and the Brain Injury Association of Texas (BIATX),
hosted by UT & NFL football star Doug English, Lady Longhorns & Hall of Fame
track coach Bev Kearney (who was not there) and Bruce Todd.

Bruce said he'd gotten two e-mails about it today, one liked it, the other
disagreed with the political message/slant/something. I say that person needs
to pull their head out of their fantasy sand of an ass.

I have NEVER agreed with the Political Correctness movement.
The world doesn't give a shit about politics, and it's NOT correct. It just is.
Remember the Communications Decency Act? Maybe not, it *was* 12 years ago.
The first thing I did when I heard about it was change my handle in chat to
'fuck'.

whatever, that's history.
_In The Valley of Elah_ is now.
Most of it is not hard to watch... until it is all tied together.
Yeah, war is hell. it's even worse when done wrong, or for invalid reasons.

I support our troops.
Bring the boys back home.
Preferably not in the ever-popular flag-draped coffin.

[edit] highly recommended, if you don't mind being punched
in the emotional gut by contemporary war politics.[/edit]

current mood: cynical

You may have been wondering about our little semi-adopted feline family.
Well, that last time we saw them in our 'back yard' was July 20.
We still occasionally see them around the neighborhood though, and
it cheers us up a bit. On the down side, we never did get them fixed.

On a more sober note, I finally got around to watching all two hours of...
Zeitgeist.
Even if half of it is true, it is rather depressing.
This first third is mostly just informative about religion
and really could have been a completely separate piece.
Parts 2&3 though are about conspiracy, including the likes of 9/11
and the banking system. Basically, 9/11 (and the sinking of the Lusitania,
Pearl Harbor, and Gulf of Tonkin) were all set-ups, inside jobs.
Because hey, the markets are down, and what's better for banking than WAR?

One wonders how long such a system can remain in power.

"They must find it difficult...  Those who have taken
authority as the truth, rather than truth as the authority."
-- Gerald Massey (who would seem to be this person)

So yeah.. hi.  how are you?

current mood: cynical

well it was Roller Derby night again.
It was a very fun night, despite a decided lack of Hotrod Honeys,
especially Cat Tastrophe. *piiiiine*
The musical acts, The Sweethearts and Kepi & The Cavebats were fun.
The Sweetheats lead singer's voice reminded me a lot of Gwen Stefani.
Here's hoping she doesn't go the same route after achieving fame.
Kepi & The Cavebats were half-time entertainment and started things off
with a punk rendition of Daniel Johnston's Devil Town and then the next
or maybe third song was DEVO Was Right. Kepi is insane, BTW.
He renamed Austin to Awesome, Texas. He also used/borrowed the Sweethearts
drum kit and played it standing up, but the bass drum was BEHIND him. So nuts.
about half-way through the allowed halftime time, Kepi said "we have two more
songs..." then he checked and discovered he had 15 minutes left and announced
that after the songs would be a PUNK MUSICAL CHAIRS. It wasn't quite a mosh pit.
In fact, when there were 5 girls and one guy left, he got a 'lap dance' and then
got up and let the girl have his seat. what a sweetheart.

did I mention that Cat Tastrophe wasn't there?  *whine*
Next month though.
August 6th.  Championship. get your tickets now.
http://txrollergirls.com/
do it.

Sitting here waiting for Die Hard 4 to start,
it occurs to me that some of you would be interested
to know that Harry Potter tickets are on sale now.
I was not bale to buy tickets on-line for some unknown reason,
but we now have two tickets for the 11:40 showing, Tuesday July 10,
in case you'd like to join us.

cat news: faustian_wish really doesn't want one.
therefore the grey one is still up for grabs.
Anyone?  Anyone?  Bueller?

This is another proof-of-concept post.
This time from a PS3.
whee.
happy birthday to me.
this browser is not as good as Opera on the Wii.

p.s.: my PSN name is gev1138. shocking, I know.

So it seems that the kittens are spoken for.
Meg thinks they're only about 4 weeks old at this point,
so if faustian_wish & tekelili *really* want the kittens
they claim to have claimed, they should be ready in 2-3 weeks.

mind you, these felines are NOT ours, really.
they just kinda live around here.

current mood: mellow

So I had a birthday today.
Number 45 in a series.
survived another one.

In more exciting news, I still have excruciatingly adorable nieces.

Somewhat closer to home, we have a feline family living in our back courtyard.
We had been observing some neighborhood cats for some time when a few weeks ago
I spotted one of them making a meal of a rodent. I couldn't tell you which one
it was, but for ID purposes we have Dad, and we have Mom.

Thing is, until yesterday (Friday) we weren't even sure there was more than one.
What we discovered first yesterday was that they have KIDS.
This kids, naturally, are learning how to fight, as siblings are wont to do.
I managed to catch a good lolcat image though: "MO-OM! He's touching me!"

So, that is our exciting life for the past two months or so.
well, and a few blockbuster summer movies, Alamo feasts, etcetera.
(p.s.: lj spell-checker doesn't know etcetera)

To my shame, I've not been reading my friends list for some time now.
To my credit, I've got a gnome rogue up to level 61 in WoW.
Have I been playing too much? you decide.
that's the 20 toons I've been playing the last 6 months or so.

Things have happened on some of your lives that I totally missed until
the past couple of days. Big things. Makes me feel awful that I missed
them happening. I'm sure there are many I'm still not aware of, even if
you posted about it, and this makes me a bit sad.

Still, I'm a damn happy (and even luckier) guy,
thanks to all you people, my wife most of all.

current mood: ecstatic

this is being posted from my Wii.
Since typing by waving a Wiimote at the 
tv is tricky at best, this will be brief.
I just have to say that for a WebTV-like
device, the web browser (based on Opera)
is damned good. Even youtube works on it.

(sorry about the icon, but I had to.)

current mood: impressed

Spiderman 3 tickets have gone on sale at drafthouse.com.
We've got two tickets for the May 3 11:55 show.
Who's with us?

current mood: geeky

There are two kinds of people in the world...
Those who have posted an lj-poll and those who have not.
This post makes me one of the former.


Poll #957487
new day




Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 32







    
When does 'tomorrow' start for you?
    

    
    View Answers

    
    
    

    
    
    

        
at midnight
    
    

        
 6 (19.4%)
    
    
    
    
    

        
not until I wake up the next morning/day/time
    
    

        
 25 (80.6%)
    
    
    
    
    


    
If not midnight, what happens when you stay up all night?
    

    
    View Answers

    
    
    
    

current mood: curious

I do believe I've coined a new term.
Infomortician - one who deals with dead data.
I was inspired in chat by a discussion with a nurse friend that
mentioned informatics and I suggested he go into it and he
said "they call themselves informaticians"

current mood: pleased

er... I mean... Vorpal Bunny!
Thursday, March 22, Alamo Drafthouse is having a
Monty Python and the Holy Grail Feast!
Sure, $50 is a pricey meal, but it's always worth it.
Plus: The Feast price will also include a collector’s
goblet filled with Monty Python Holy Grail Ale. woot!
Be there or I shall say NI! at you.

note: this means we (i.e. Meg and I) will not be pubbing that night.

current mood: bouncy

well, after 36-ish hours of non-stop dealing with a 16-month-old,
I have just that much more respect for parents. I seriously doubt
that I could manage one full-time for much longer than we did.
And single parents... holy cow.
I am not worthy! 

current mood: tired

4 months and 2 days...
That's how long it took me to get Bob VII over 1000 miles.
That's 3000 miles a year...  about 1/4 the average car mileage.
Barring catastrophe, this may be the last car I ever own.

p.s.: It should be obvious by now I don't drive it just to get miles on it. :)

Also: ROLLER DERBY season opener tonight! (Sunday)

current mood: tired

My beloved wife Meg celebrated surviving another solar orbit today.
The weather was almost as beautiful as she is, and it was a damn nice day.
We started the celebrating a little early by watching the pilot of her new
Set of Star Trek: Enterprise DVDs last night. After getting up a bit after
noon today, we hit Midori for sushi lunch. Meg took a power nap after that,
and we just got home from Fonda San Miguel (nice, but quite over-priced),
and plan to continue our slug-like activities for the rest of the evening.

I so love my wife.
She's smart, sassy, and very loving.
She accepts me for who I am, not what she thinks I should be.
Plus, she's a bigger Star Trek geek than I am.
What's not to love? :)

Happy Birthday, baby!

current mood: happy

Two May/December movies in two nights. Jolly good fun.

Venus stars an excellent Peter O'Toole as not-so-dirty old man.
It occurred to me later that my theoretical Venus has not yet been born.
Jodie Whittaker is delicious and holds her own against O'Toole.

This evening's viewing of Harold and Maude was accompanied by a delicious
repast prepared by the wonderful chef Trish. Turns out she picked the movie
too, as she's a long time Cat Stevens fan, and has always loved the flick.

Rog & Joy were also at the same showing as us, and after the show
Joy said she was going to find the recipe for ginger pie (YUM).

Goodness, it's been NINE days since my last post. I really HAVE been slacking.
We did order some belated DUPLO for the nieces for their third b-day though.

current mood: full

I stole a book from a library once.  ONCE.
It was over half my life ago now.
It was also the beginning of my love affair with Stanislaw Lem.
The book was his _Cyberiad_, a fun collection of tales
of a couple robotic constructors, Trurl and Klapaucius.

I say this not to absolve myself. I haven't done it since.

But a line in the recent film _Catch And Release_ reminded me of the instance.
The film is a very touching yet humorous look at the life of an almost-widow.
Almost, because the erstwhile groom dies on his bachelor party trip. Bummer.
The rest of the story is the recovery period of the semi-widow and the guys
three best friends. During this process, the semi-widow discovers things about
her dead partner that cast a whole new light on him and lead her on a path of
self-discovery.

Kevin Smith was a pretty convincing...  well, Kevin Smith. Very funny.
Also, any shirt he wore in the film had the number '37' on it.
I'm pretty sure that's a reference back to the days of _Clerks_.

current mood: calm

Colts. Bears.
complete blowout?
could be.

Colts better crush Bears.

current mood: hopeful

conversational bunnies.
churlish bitches.
copious babbling.
concealed bits.

...confused boy.

Damn, but Inland Empire is one fucked up movie.
Ok, so this might be expected of one David Lynch, creator of Eraserhead.
This movie makes slightly more sense than Eraserhead.
Laura Dern's character looks perpetually perplexed.
If this wasn't inspired at least in part by Margot Kidder's break-down, count me
surprised. It's a movie within a movie, perhaps with yet more levels than that.
At 183 minutes in length, this is not an easy movie to complete.
One thing I'm fairly certain of, is it will not be a commercial success.

The "bunnies" were just bizarre. It was like they were in a sitcom like
Seinfeld, except they made even less sense, and the canned laughter was
always for the least humorous lines.

The best part of the whole experience (aside from bumping into _fool)
was the pre-show scene from Twin Peaks where Agent Cooper is throwing rocks
at a bottle as part of the murder investigation.

current mood: contemplative

I'm such a terrible uncle, withholding pics of such cute nieces.
They turned three on Sunday.
ok, look here for the pics.

Yes, it's kind of sad how infrequently we get to see them.
Dang ol' Wyoming is so far away.

The worst part?
We totally missed sending them anything,
nor did we even get around to calling.
sheesh.

current mood: optimistic

pub will be at the North Opal's this Thursday night.

Be there or not. 7-ish until we all get tired.

So yeah, we had a little snow and ice the night of the 15th,
morning of the 16th. The 16th also just happened to be the
release date of the World of Warcraft expansion, Burning Crusades.

Having only recently started playing in early December, I didn't
pay too much attention, and so didn't pre-order TBC. My bad.
My penance for this error was to drive around in an Ice Storm in
search of even a regular copy, much less a Collector's Edition.

I had been engrossed in the game enough that I got a bit of a late
start in my quest, not even getting to my first potential purchase
location before midnight so they were of course, SOLD OUT.

Not to be deterred, I zipped over to the next Wal*mart, the one near
Dell in Round Rock. Pretty silly idea, really. Next target, the new
location at I-35 and Ben White. Nope, long sold out. However, the nice
man stocking the other unimportant crap was nice enough to inform me
that he'd called around and only the Slaughter location had any left.

"that was my next target!" I told him...  Well, not so much. What
I *thought* was the Slaughter location was in fact the Brodie store.
So instead of an approximately 3 mile saunter, I went on a 10 mile
trek, waving at Dale & tina as I zipped by, east-bound and down, on
Slaughter Lane.

Well whatta ya know... the nice lady there has not only DOZENS of
regular copies, she has *4* Collector's Editions left. SCORE!
After grabbing a couple other things Meg wanted (presumably to add
some sort of validity to my snow trek), and waiting around on the
possibility that I'd get a text message that someone else would want
one, I was on the way home.

Except... by now, Roxy was low on gas. Fine. Hit some no-name (Murphy's,
I think) gas station, only to be denied by a non-functional gas pump
handle, I went across the street north to Texaco, who also had many
broken pumps, only to have my card denied... "see cashier", it said.
Get near the cashier window and see a sign: "Cash only". No thanks.
went across the street east to a Valero and FINALLY got a fill up.

So, 4 Wal*Marts and 3 gas stations later, I was finally on the way home.
After getting home, I noticed the 'icicles' that had built up on the sides
of the car were slanted toward the FRONT of the car. rather odd to see.

Anyway, I've bought a few software Collector's Editions, only to be mostly
disappointed. However, Blizzard did it up right. A nice big hardback book
of the Art Of Burning Crusade, a mouse-pad map (too bad I use trackballs!),
a CD of the soundtrack music, a DVD of the Making of..., some cards for the
card game version (yawn), the normal 4 disc CD install, and a DVD install disc!
the best part of the install discs? they're both mac & windows. Take note,
Sid Meier! Love the civ games, hate the cheap-ass CE's you make.

So, installing the stuff was great. same disc, both machines.
One interesting thing though, it took nearly 30 minutes for the
Windows install, and only about 12 minutes for Mac install.
The main slow-down for Windows was downloading the HUGE 2.8 Megabyte
patch. It's like nobody uses Windows to play or something.
same patch for the mac took about 10 seconds. *eyeroll*

Anyway, it was totally worth the ice storm, I think.
*I* had no problem driving, but so many n00bz did.

Oh, so yeah...  I play.
Horde on Thorium Brotherhood, and Alliance on Whisperwind.
If you're thinking of joining me on Whisperwind, you might want
to wait, as that server is probably going to get split soon.
or if you can't wait, and want to stay with me during the split,
be sure to ask to get invited to the guild. Guilds are the first
criterion for not splitting players/characters between new servers.

current mood: nerdy

Wanted to mention some nifty Alamo pre-show goodies of the last two nights.

The night of Pan's Labyrinth, the clip that got the biggest response was
part of a big dance number where three girls basically formed a triangle
by putting their faces in the crotch of the next girl and did a kind of
three-girl somersault. RAWR!

Last night before Black Orpheus they showed a clip of some big song and
dance number where some girl was singing "We're In The Money" for a few
verses, then she started singing it in PIG LATIN, almost like it was her
native tongue, it sounded so natural and flowing.

GAWD bless the Alamo Drafthouse Theaters.

current mood: giggly

ok, I know I said I'd keep y'all up to date about these sorts of things,
but I fell down. Sorry.

Anyway, Iron Chef Alamo II was a sumptuous feast for both the eyes and the
tongue. I'd not seen Black Orpheus prior to this event. What a poor soul I was.
It is such a gorgeous film, and made in 1959 even.
Totally getting the Criterion edition.

The food was totally yummy, as always.
But this time, Trish did not win. :(
However, I did vote for the winner again.  woot! :)

Here's my mention of a future event:
Harold & Maude feast, Valentine's day, Village Alamo.
We did not have this planned before the end of Iron Chef this evening,
but Trish decided that since she saw us at nearly every feast at Alamo,
she wanted to treat us to one. Three cheers for Trish!

current mood: full

Holy cow, Pan's Labyrinth is gorgeous.
Yes, we braved the Amazing Ice Storm of 2007 (!) to go see it.
Sorry, but even though my two years on Minot are over 20 years in the past,
the hysteria over a little snow here in Austin continues to make me giggle.

Anyway, go see this movie.  really.
I know I say that a lot, but this time I mean it. 

Set in Spain, around D-Day, a little girl who loves fairy tales and is not
so enamored of her new father(-figure) finds an odd rock in the road, and
is thusly led to the labyrinth by a fairy. 

Perhaps part of my love of this movie is the strong women in it.
That or the understated, but very well done effects, computer or otherwise.

current mood: ecstatic

y'all may have heard about our little bird problem this morning.
Here's the story you might not have heard.

Austin, TX -- In the predawn hours, agents of the Department of Homeland
Security scattered forty to sixty dead birds on Congress Avenue in a test
of the Bush Administration's plan to use 'bird flu' as a pretext for declaring
martial law and installing Bush as military dictator.  Austin police, health
authorities and state officials fell for the ruse completely, interdicting
the downtown street for 5 hours.

theories on dead birds:
* Accidentally nested under giant magnifying glass
* Lost fight with bats over downtown parking
* Took wrong turn into Sunni neighborhood
* Overindulged on Mentos / Diet Coke at party
* Recently published articles critical of Kremlin policy
* Forced to watch "The English Patient" on DVD
* Always wanted to burn out young and die of drug overdose
* Vectored by Brazilian air traffic control into side of building
* Went hunting with Dick Cheney

/me sings along with Prince: "This is what is sounds like when birds die..."

current mood: amused

I don't know nuthin' 'bout birthin' no intelligence agencies.
well, I might know a little more now than I did before.
I've seen reviews of The Good Shepherd that whined about it
getting bogged down in minutiae. What a load of crap, that's what
gives it most of it's CIA flavor. It's kind of creepy how stoic
Matt Damon plays his character, but he's not made completely of stone.
Angelina Jolie is almost not there, except for a couple of outbursts.
The jumpy time line can be a tad confusing at times, but on the whole,
The Good Shepherd is worth hitting a big screen for.

current mood: pleased

I guess the honeymoon is over.
This morning I was awakened by a cardboard box lobbed at me.
OK, so said box contained my shiny new black 80 GB iPod. :)
now to see how fast I can fill 74.3 GB of space.

current mood: pleased