Author: Jason

Welcome to 2007

Random Thoughts

So, how did you ring in the New Year?

Me? I went to my brother’s house because he and his wife were having a party. I was introduced to Dead Rising, which, honestly, was just plain mean since I don’t own an Xbox 360… now I’m going to have to go buy one. And I got to witness the Wii in person… now I’m going to have to go buy one of those too. There was food and drink, and there was karaoke. All I have to say is… I rock. We watched Dick Clark count in the last seconds of 2006, and mostly we were, as always, amazed by his recovery and saddened by the fact that he’s now a huge buzzkill for festivities.

Now that it is 2007, what does that mean?

Well, it used to mean putting the wrong date on my checks for a couple months, but I’ve switched over to electronic billing for everything but my garbage collection, and I only have to pay them every three months. As with every year, despite my loathing for New Year’s Resolutions, I’m still making a couple… mostly the same ones I always make. But I figure, if I have almost a dozen friends and family who have decided to quit smoking, I think I can manage working out three times a week and eating a little less crap.

Also in 2007… I think I’m almost done with PC games. Frankly, the alure of MMOs is finally wearing off. New games just don’t appeal to me much. WoW has been fun, and I still might pick up the expansion to play around, but most games on the horizon my computer can’t play (I’m in the Vanguard beta, or rather, I got accepted but I haven’t been able to log in and actually create a character), and rather than paying two thousand plus dollars to upgrade my and my wife’s machines, I think I’ll just invest that same money into a Wii, a 360 and an HD projection TV. And hey, bonus, the new TV makes watching movies and television shows better too. The list of non-MMO PC exclusive games has practically vanished, and with the consoles you never have to worry about compatibility issues.

I’m still interested in MMOs as a theory and design, but nothing out there for the next year is really gripping me. Largely it looks like the same old grind, and if I’m going to play in a fantasy world, I’d rather be sitting around a table with a half dozen friends these days instead of staring at my monitor pushing buttons for rewards.

It looks like 2007 is also going to bring a flood of superhero books to the market. I’m guessing the successes of Hollywood and both Marvel and DC’s initial forays into paperback books have paid off enough that it seems like a new book is coming out from somebody each week. Though, the landscape is still lacking in original material. Its all book adaptations of existing characters from the comic books. Perhaps in 2007 I’ll work toward changing that and actually finish a writing project or two.

And on the business front… lets just say that aught seven is looking pretty good.

Finally, we come to the end of my ramblings and musing, and I welcome you, heartily, to two thousand seven.

Enjoy!

Another Year Over

Random Thoughts

2006 draws to an end tonight, and I’ll be celebrating with family and friends, as I hope you all are.

So, looking back, what did this year bring me?

The best thing of the year for me is easy… I bought a house. Sure, I saddled myself with a mortgage that I’ll likely be paying for 30 years, but owning a home is just… cool. I have a big back yard and I really look forward to working in it and on it in the coming years. The dog likes the yard too. The house is big… really big. I used to live in a 2 bedroom, 3 floor townhome apartment, and this place puts that thing to shame. Oddly enough, its also cheaper to maintain. My electric, gas and water bills have gone down despite the fact that I have more stuff, a larger place to cool and heat, and a yard to water. Its weird and awesome.

The worst thing of the year… that’s alot tougher. Overall, this has been a pretty good year, but in the end I’d say the worst thing has been having to watch my wife choose between leaving a job that was almost literally killing her and her best friend. Its a huge horrible mess that I won’t go into detail on, but lets just say it was bad. Hopefully next year will bring some healing here.

That’s me… what about you folks? You, if you are reading this, let me know… what was your best and/or worst thing about 2006?

I could go into a long post about events in the world, but mostly the year was pretty sad… this, however, I find disgusting. Please, don’t buy those.

Stuff on the Net XV

Stuff on the Net

Christmas Edition!

Proof that Saturday Night Live can be funny: A Special Christmas Box (Not Safe for Work)

Song played on Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.

The Original Crazy Frog sucked… and so does this… and this.

Some of these are funny… some aren’t.

One of the best Christmas specials ever made… Ziggy’s Gift: Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.

Animated 1971 A Christmas Carol: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4, with voice work by Alastair Sim from the original Scrooge movie (1938).

Claymation Christmas: Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.

Billy Idol put out a Christmas Album this year. You can sample songs and videos on his MySpace page.

… and I’m out. Merry Christmas everyone!

Edit: Removing links as they die.

The Spirit of Giving

Random Thoughts

I’ll admit, when it comes to gift giving occasions, like birthdays and Christmas, I usually phone it in. That’s not to say I don’t get the person something they want or something they need, or that they don’t appreciate the gifts, but… I usually play it safe. You like movies, here is a movie; you like console games, here is a console game; you have a wish list at Amazon, here is an item off your wish list at Amazon.

This year though, I think for a couple of people, I’ve finally managed to pull off “the good gift”. You know the one I mean. The thing they didn’t ask for, the thing they think no one will buy them, the thing they forgot that they wanted but that you remembered them talking about… and now I’m all full of excitement about Christmas morning on a level beyond the norm.

Damn, I should have been doing this all along. But I’ll give credit where credit is due… I couldn’t have done it without Amazon.

One of the problems you run into with giving gifts is trying to remember thing people have said they wanted. Usually, you don’t really think about it until the time to give in near and so the main thoughts in your head will be of stuff they’ve talked about recently. But Amazon introduced Gift Idea Lists this year. You can add a person, then add gifts to that person… they’ll even give your three recommendations for gifts based on the list (I do wish this was larger, three just seems to not really be enough). So now, not on some scrap of paper I can lose, whenever someone I know mentions something they want, I can go drop it on their Gift List and save it for when I need to buy them something.

It’ll even keep track of gift giving days for each person… so guys, sorry, but you’ve run out of excuses for forgetting anniversaries.

Hellboy: The God Machine

Reviews

Finally finished reading Hellboy: The God Machine. The length of time it took to read had nothing to do with the content of the book, but more to do with the time available to read. The Holiday season is always rough.

But I did finish, and it didn’t disappoint. Like the other Hellboy books I’ve read, this one, written by Thomas E. Sniegoski, had a style all its own while still retaining the nature of the Hellboy universe. I think that’s what I enjoy most about these books. Each author has a slightly different take on the narrative, but it doesn’t mess up the fact that its a Hellboy book. Its like having a bunch of different painters paint the same bowl of fruit.

This book is about a group of people led by a man who speaks to God. Well, I should say god, little ‘g’, although its close. God wants the man to build a machine to bring him to the world so that he can help them make it a better place. Or at least that’s what the voice says. In reality, the god isn’t God but Qemu’el, one of three archons created by God (big ‘G’) to destroy the world if the world needs destroying. Only God decided he liked us humans and put the archons to sleep for eternity since he didn’t want the world destroyed. Two of the archons went quietly, while one, Qemu’el, managed to rip a tiny hole in the fabric of reality so he could stay awake and monitor the world, just in case God was wrong. And of course, he thinks God was wrong. Humans are messing up the planet and don’t deserve God’s gifts, so Qemu’el wants to do God a favor and wipe out the world so that it can be started again.

Meanwhile, Hellboy and his team are on the trail of missing artifacts of worship, and it just so happens that these items are being stolen by the group mentioned above to power their God Machine.

I enjoyed the book. Sniegoski has a good writing style, and while its not as good as the Tim Lebbon book I last read in the series, its good enough and certainly worth the read. I give this book a thumbs up.

American Movie

Reviews

This is one of those movies that people will tell you that its one of those movies you either love or hate, there is no middle ground. Only, I kinda found the movie to be… meh.

I suppose I can see their point. Much of this film is irritating, and its the kind of irritating that either you laugh at or that you go see a doctor about. If you don’t know what American Movie is, well, its a movie about this guy who wants to make this movie called Northwestern, only for some reason he feels he needs to make this short film called Coven (that’s pronounced “koh-ven” so that it doesn’t sound like “oven”). Northwestern is supposed to be the excellent drama type film, while Coven is a horror flick.

These guys, they are stupid, and their lives are stupid, but only in an “Hi, I’m an average American” type way. Its not that they are actually mentally deficient, but its like that friend of yours who insists that he’s good at basketball despite losing every game he’s played, of which no one you know has actually witnessed so you can’t be sure he’s ever even played at all.

The best thing about this movie is the feeling that if I had the money he had access to, I’m sure I could make a better movie than Coven… or even American Movie. Unless you are interested in the painful telling of not quite making it, I’d suggest you pass on this one.

The Holiday

Reviews

Last night I saw a sneak preview of The Holiday which opens today.

If you like romantic comedies, this is right up your alley. Kate Winslet plays Iris, an English woman who has spent too many years loving a man who doesn’t love her back. Cameron Diaz is Amanda, an American woman who spends all her time on her career and not enough on her relationship. When Iris’s man becomes engaged to another woman and Amanda breaks up with her boyfriend, the two of them, separately, decide to go on holiday, they meet each other through a website and agree to swap houses for two weeks over Christmas.

Both Amanda and Iris end up meeting men (Jude Law and Jack Black, respectively) and learning how to get over the things that are blocking their lives.

Yeah, its a chick flick, but its extremely funny and completely worth the price of admission. Go see it, and take a date.

WriMo Results

Random Thoughts

November is a horrible month. At least it usually is for me. The holiday and other family stuff, Christmas preparations, and my job aligned against me to foul my plans.

Mostly it was the job. Thanks to the traditional December code freeze (which they introduced for Y2K and just haven’t bothered to remove), everything has to get done before then. Rush, rush, rush. Blah.

Anyway… I managed to write about 2,000 words. Maybe 3,000. Far short of the 50,000 word goal of the contest. Better luck next year.

The Da Vinci Code

Reviews

I read the book. It was pretty good. I enjoyed Angels & Demons more.

I just saw the movie. It was slow.

Not every good book makes a good movie.

I enjoyed the book.

And that’s all I have to say about that.

Black Friday

Random Thoughts

It’s not just for Fridays anymore!

Seriously. The last few years, the wife and I have gone out and fought the crowds to do some shopping on the Friday after Thanksgiving. And amazingly enough, we usually find some good deals. For instance, this year was a slew of DVDs for under $4 each. A few years ago, getting up at 4 A.M. was usually enough. Its just not anymore.

Yesterday, you know, Thursday, we were driving home from Thanksgiving dinner, and we decided, on a lark, to swing by the local Best Buy store. They were closed, but it was 6:30 P.M. and there were at least forty people lined up outside. Seeing as how forty people is enough to exhaust all the available Nintento Wii’s, PS3’s and every front page special from their ad, we decided not to bother. We’d just come in the morning like usual.

Right.

So at 4 A.M. we finish getting McDonald’s breakfast and head to Best Buy. There had to be easily more than five hundred people in line. The Best Buy is in a strip mall… Best Buy, Office Depot, PETsMART, and Sports Authority. The line went all the way down the strip, down the outter wall of the Sports Authority, out into the parking lot, and wrapped one time around the TGI Friday’s.

Target, on the other hand, had about twenty people in line. We went to Target.

Luckily, we didn’t really have our hearts set on any super-mega deals. We just wanted to pick up a few items at a deep discount, and we did. Score! We even went to Best Buy, after the line was gone, and managed to find all the items we wanted still available. Score again!

The only problem was the 2-pack of Ice Age and Ice Age: The Meltdown we bought… I mean, come on, who puts out a 2-pack where one movie is in Widescreen while the other one is in Full Screen. Idiots. So we need to return that. Or not. It was like $8. We might just buy another single copy. No big loss.