Tag: last

Heading into the Weekend

Random Thoughts

It’s been a long week.

Have you ever had a problem that you can’t see?  You can see the effects of it, but not the direct cause.  Slowly sifting through the symptoms, ruling out possibilities.  A whole week of that and what I have to show for it is a problem still unsolved, but at least I know a few dozen things it isn’t.  Perhaps next week will shed new night.

This is also the last weekend before Script Frenzy.  I really enjoyed participating last year even if I didn’t finish.  I’m more ready this year than last.  For one, I’m not just starting a new job.  I’ve also already done my taxes AND gotten my refunds.  In just about every way possible, I’m in a better place this year.

I don’t know if you are paying attention, I know I often don’t.  But over on the right side of the page, down a bit, there are a couple of progress bars.  One of them recently moved.  Sure, the number is a complete and total guess, but I’ve actually moved forward, crossed some items off the “To Do” list and adjusted it accordingly.  Feels good.

Also have the first real meeting for the Dragon*Con staff where I’ll get to sit around with the MMO Track folks and try to figure out how to get BioWare to show up and talk about The Old Republic… among other things, I’m sure.

Overall, as March heads to April, and as Winter passes to Spring, everything is looking pretty good.  Let’s get the weekend started…

The Tipping Point

Random Thoughts

Have you ever been right at the edge of doing something potentially life changing?  Where the risk is success or complete financial ruin?

Over on the right you’ll see a new progress meter called “Business Application”.  I have an idea, and surprisingly when I searched the Internet to see if it already existed, for the first time ever I wasn’t flooded with dozens and hundreds of people already doing it.  So I have decided to pursue the idea.  As the progress meter fills, that is me approaching the last gasp.  When it hits 100% is when I’ll have to make the final decision to put real financial investment, real risk, behind the idea.  Until then its just research and design and testing, all of which is either free or can be done with tools and services I already own.  100% is when the game changes.

I look at it, at the pages of design doc I’ve already written, at the tasks ahead, and I get butterflies… I get excited.

Orcs

Reviews

I just spent the last couple of months wading through Orcs by Stan Nicholls.  On the surface, the conceit of this book is quite inventive: let’s tell a fantasy story from the point of view of orcs.  Of course, the moment you delve into the book, the orcs aren’t the orcs of Tolkien or other authors, these orcs are noble warriors who live for battle and only do evil because they are conscripted into the service of a dark sorceress.  So, immediately the book is less inventive than originally thought.  More so once the featured warband, the Wolverines, go off on their own in defiance of their mistress.

Overall, the book is a decent fantasy tale.  Typical, almost, which was a let down when prior to picking it up I was led to believe it was going to break the mold.  As the book wore on, and part of the reason it took me so long to slog through it, parts of the prose just feels like filler, as if the author wanted to get to the “cool” part but didn’t want to just jump cut straight to it between chapters and instead wrote a chapter or two to bridge the events.  It detracted from the book, for me.  I think the same story could have been told with greater effect if it had been half as long, tighter.

I’m not sure I’d recommend this book to others.  Perhaps if they were die hard fantasy fans who regularly read mediocre novels they might find this to be excellent.  But for me, it was just okay.

WALL-E

Reviews

12 out of 13 nots.
for making me care about a lonely robot… and maybe the planet too.

Every time I see a Pixar movie, I find myself saying, “They have done it again.”  I am almost waiting for them to release a film that isn’t great… but don’t get me wrong, I love the great.

WALL-E is the story of a robot (the title is his name/model), possibly the last of his kind, left on Earth to clean up the mess while humanity took off into space for a vacation while the hard work got done.  Its that ‘last of his kind’ thing that hits home, and as usual the Pixar people manage to bring life to the non-living.  WALL-E goes to work cleaning up the mess (compressing junk into cubes and stacking the cubes as high as skyscrapers) and comes home each night to watch an old musical and dream of something more than what he has.  Then EVE arrives.  Another robot, EVE is searching for something on Earth, and WALL-E is stricken with her.  When she finds what she came for and a spacecraft returns to take her away, WALL-E hitches a ride into space to be with her.

From there, the story takes some nice turns and into some crazy chases and situations.  I really enjoyed it, and so did all the kids in the theater.  Its as good as all the other Pixar films.

Oh… and don’t be late to the film.  In Pixar tradition, there is a short film before WALL-E called Presto, and it is hilarious!

Island of the Sequined Love Nun

Reviews

Another good book by Christopher Moore. Like with Coyote Blue, I didn’t laugh as much with Island of the Sequined Love Nun as I did with later books, but his writing style is definately coming together as more of the absurd creeps into this book than the last.

Short form: Tucker Case is a pilot who loses his license in a spectacular manner and leave the country to flee suspected prosecution. He gets a job as a pilot for a Methodist Missionary who is working on a tiny island in Micronesia populated by the Shark People, who got their name for their perferred food source. The Shark People are also a cargo cult, worshipping the people who pass by in planes and boats, occasionally stopping to give them gifts or trade. But things aren’t all that they seem…

Seriously, it was a good book. Put a smile on my face quite often, and its pink cover along with the title earned this skinhead-looking mofo a strange look or two on the bus every morning. Next: The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove.

1 October 1998

Random Thoughts

I’m going to see the Atlanta Braves play the Chicago Cubs in the second game of the five game series tonight. And today my loyalty was called into question. A few days back when the Cubs beat the Giant for the Wild Card position and the right to be in the playoff I proudly announced, “Cubs all the way, baby!” Mainly because I like the Cubs, I’m from Chicago originally, and.. well.. because it felt like the right thing to say.
I’m also a Braves fan… I have been for a while, even back when they were in last place (yeah, I know, EVERYBODY says that, but I always admire a last place team that refuses to give up). So I’m going to this game tonight, and personally, I don’t care who wins, because I like both teams. I’d be happy to see either one of them move on to the next level, so basically, I’m in a win-win situation because regardless of how the game turns out, I’m a fan of the winner. Is there a law that says I can’t be a fan of more than one team?
Anyhow, my loyalty got called into question when after I made the “Cubs all the way” comment and then today said I was going to the game to see the Braves beat up the Cubs. As if I had just switched sides in a war, I was being called a traitor, and that I was recanting my earlier words. Why?
Then I got raked over the coals again when I said that I was pulling more for the Cubs because the Braves get this far alot and I’m a fan of the underdog. I mean, it’s why I became a Braves fan in the first place, they were in last and I rooted for them. They’ve been on top a while. Sure they haven’t won every World Series in that time, but they have won their division for 7 straight years.
I’m flawed, and I know I’ll never be perfect… and I just get tired of seeing someone win all the time because I know that I don’t. Do I want them to lose… no. Do I want the other guys to win… yes. But then you see the problem with life in general, for people to win, someone has to lose. I don’t want the Braves to lose, but I want the Cubs to win more than I do the Braves. C’est la vie. That’s life. Deal with it.
Of course, I say all this knowing that the Braves are going to win. The Cubs are good. Just not that good. =)
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Theater Review: None.
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Today’s Song: Got You (Where I Want You) by Flys. I just dig the whole idea of this song… a guy… hitting on a girl… who really isn’t even aware that he is alive much less hitting on her… and thinking to himself, “I got her right where I want her… she’s mine.” Just cracks me up and makes me feel good.
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Today’s Movie: Escape From New York. If you have to ask why I would chose this as a movie of the day, then you need to go rent it.
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TV Highlight: I watched the original Khan episode of Star Trek last night on the Sci-Fi channel. I have always loved the movie Star Trek II: the Wrath of Khan but I had never seen this episode… truly a treat to see where it all began. Basically the whole Star Trek thing on Sci-Fi is cool, worth making time for now and again.