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I defy you to read this sentence out loud without laughing:
At first I was baffled about the inclusion of Tony Stewart. But now I'm wondering why it's "Sammy" the Snowman. Is Frosty under copyright?
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As with any American who was born in the second half of the Twentieth Century, I'm constantly worried about how hip I am. Am I hip enough? Could I be more hip? How can I tell?
Well, I have decided to use The A.V. Club to be the benchmark. They've conveniently generated a number of lists of the top books, videogames, albums, and probably other things of the decade. So let's see how many I've read, played, heard, or whatever, shall we?
15 Best Videogames: I did very well on this one. I played nine of the 15, including seven of the top eight. I'm up to speed on videogames, as you can tell by the fact that I spent almost all of Thanksgiving sitting on the couch playing Dragon Age: Origins.
10 Best Short-Story Collections: I've read ... none of them. I do own Neil Gaiman's Fragile Things, but I've never gotten around to opening it.
The Best Books: Let's see, I read four of the ten nonfiction books, although I didn't actually like Freakonomics, The Tipping Point, or The Wisdom of Crowds. I should stop reading that whole subgenre, I think. I did really enjoy The Devil in the White City, though, as it combined H.H. Holmes and a World's Fair. I've read four of the twenty works of fiction on the list, and I have a couple more sitting around waiting to be read.
Top 25 Comics: Eight out of twenty-five. I'm the only person who hated All-Star Superman, by the way. Everyone raves about it, but I couldn't stand it at all. In "The Archives" section, I have four of five. And I have strong opinions about some comic strip archival collections they left out. Specifically, Popeye and Bill Mauldin.
Best albums: Man. Fifty albums on the list. I've heard two of them. And I couldn't stand either of them (it turns out that your first Radiohead album probably shouldn't be "Kid A". I couldn't make it out at all!). I've heard a couple of singles off two or three other albums on the list, but for the most part, I've never even heard of these bands. I do not appear to be all that hip.
Best comedy albums: I have eight of the 22. And at least I've got opinions on the other ones. I've heard almost all the comedians, even if I don't have the albums. I feel better about my hipness now.
Best TV Series: I'm trying once more to watch "The Wire". This is because people were finally backing off on the 24/7 hype for it. For some reason, reading yet another batch of lavish praise about the show doesn't make me enthused about tackling Season 4 again. And I've got the DVDs right here! Anyway, I've watched at least one full season of 18 of the 30 shows listed. Yes, including "The Wire". But not "Freaks and Geeks".
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Today
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Nov. 9th, 2009 @ 08:24 pm
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Today, I was on vacation. This manifested itself in the following ways.
1) I finished watching the first season of The Wire. That's the third time, I think. I'm hoping to gain enough momentum to make it through the whole series, since I've never seen season five and I can't remember anything that happens in seasons 2-4.
2) I went for a walk and got a haircut. It looks like this:
I got my haircut at a place I found called "Wedgwood Barber Shop". I found it via the old-timey barber pole out in front and was delighted to see that it was decorated with Saturday Evening Post covers. And it didn't take credit cards. There's also a chance it was located in 1975 or so.
3) I watched Almost Famous for the first time. I've decided that if I accomplish nothing else this week (spoiler: I will almost certainly accomplish nothing else) I want to see five movies that everyone else has seen but I haven't. I wrote about it here. |
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Today, I went out and bought some clothes.
Then we came back home and watched some terrible movies. Escape 2000 (Turkey Shoot), Slithis (Spawn of Slithis), Slaughterhouse Rock, and The Terrornauts. My comments on them are over here. Sometimes you watch an unknown movie and it's an amazing unknown classic. This was not one of those times.
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I worked from home today, which I have learned to do with a frightening amount of efficiency. I think it's neat that I can sit on my couch and use my Mac laptop to operate my PC desktop at work. The official reason that I worked from home is so that I could demonstrate my proficiency in case the floods come to inundate the entire city Wizards of the Coast lives in, but it was also because I wanted to not bother coming all the way in today.
Now I'm going to take a week's vacation. This, again, has an official reason ("Gotta use the time or I'll lose it") and an unofficial reason ("I would like to sleep in for a week, please"). I have no idea what I'm going to do, but I suspect "watching DVDs", "playing videogames", and "falling farther behind on NaNoWriMo" will all play major roles.
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I have just been to the Grand Illusion Spook Show. At one point, an ape carried off a screaming audience member! And there was a swami who performed a seance that accidentally flung us into the thirteenth dimension. Gosh!
Here are some of the things I saw, although most of the Impressionistic Poe Adaptations and Silent French Special Effects Extravangazas are too cool to show up on YouTube. And I'm not showing you the Peruvian Madness Movie, because it would drive you MAD.
I also saw this, which is in 3-D. If you have green-red glasses, it will look right. If you have blue-red, it will look the way I saw it. It combines two things I like a lot, namely "terrible humor" and "cheesy 3-D movie with things thrust at the camera"!
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We have decorated for Halloween:
Tombstones, pumpkins, and skeletal flamingoes. Glamorous!
Tonight, Rhias and I are going to the Spook Show at the Grand Illusion. Fun! |
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On my way home, I stopped at the local grocery store. The parking lot was almost completely full, because the local elementary school had let out for the week, and there was only one spot for me to park in.
It was not an easy spot. There was a car waiting for another spot that prevented me from taking a nice wide curve into it and the parked car on the right was overlapping the line, so it took me several back-and-forths until I was successfully parked in the middle of the spot.
I got out and started to rush into the store to buy the three or four things I wanted. But there was a woman looking at me skeptically.
"Do you think I'll be able to get into my car?" she asked.
Ah. She was the driver of the car that was parked next to mine. My car was in the center of its spot, but hers was overlapping the line. I eyeballed it, and there was about ten or eleven inches between the cars. Not enough for the door to be opened all the way, but I felt she could, in fact, get into her car. So I said "Yes."
"Well, go ahead and open the door," she said. What? Why should I have to open her door? I have doors of my own to open; I can't go around opening everyone else's doors! She explained that she wanted me to prove the door could open without scratching my car. I boggled at her, then shrugged, then opened her door, demonstrating that there was a place between "shut" and "denting my car" where the door could easily live.
Then she blamed me for the lack of space. I told her (with illustrative gestures) that, in fact, it was her car that was parked too far over, and her parking job that had caused the problem. Her answer?
"So it's all right if I scratch your car?"
No! No it isn't all right to scratch my car just because you didn't bother to park in the middle of your parking spot! I know it's hard sometimes, but that's why you have to sometimes back out and try again! You know how I know that? Because I just did it. Don't complain to me, crazy parking lot lady, for the problems you have caused yourself. Just squeeze into your car, pull out, and leave me alone!
Fume!
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I woke up around noon through a combination of jet lag, laziness, and a conviction that I shouldn't have to set my alarm when I'm on vacation. I walked a it as bmile or so to the Texas Chili Parlor, where I had tasty, tasty chili. Then I walked another mile to the nearest Amy's Ice Creams, which blew my mind. I remembered it as being delicious, but this was really delicious. And it was across the street from BookPeople, which was a very impressive bookstore.
Then I came back to the hotel and collapsed. I don't know why my vacations revolve around A) Food, and B) Walking far more than I ever do at home.
I'll probably go for a swim later, then out to dinner at Ironworks. Tomorrow, the only thing I have planned is seeing Torso at the Drafthouse. Torso! Check out this nonsense:
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I started the day by going by the World of Warcraft TCG World Championships, which was weird. It looked a lot like a Magic event, except that everyone was playing a different game. I recognized a bunch of the staff, but mostly from at least five years ago. Plus, I've never actually played the game, which made the event kind of academic.
So I walked to the Alamo South Lamar, which is two miles away. Along the way, I got pretty wet. What's up with Texas raining on me? This place is supposed to be an arid wasteland, isn't it? Or at least give me giant raindrops and thunderstorms! This was just a Seattle-style drizzling.
I got to the Drafthouse and cheerfully watched Zombieland. It appears to be based on the concept that there are two basic ways to survive a zombie apocalypse: you can either be a nerd who knows all the rules, or you can be a zombie-killin' madman. So they paired up the two character archetypes to see what would happen!
After the Drafthouse, I walked back to downtown, but I am not strong enough to walk past this sign:
First of all, I love miniature golf. Second, "We Tow" has to be the best advertising slogan ever. So what kind of miniature gold course was it? This kind:
Also this kind:
And this kind:
And you know how some miniature gold courses come with a video arcade? Check it:
I didn't take a picture of the depressed teen behind the counter, but you can probably imagine what he looked like. One more thing might possibly convey the awesome rundown vibe of this place.
The sign says "Please don't smash coils. Thank you." Awwww.
Anyway, I enjoyed the golf. I got ten over par, but it's hard to do well against par when so many holes have a 2. There was only one hole where it took me more than three strokes, which is pretty good for a course I've never seen. In the rain. Don't judge me. You think you could do better? You and me: miniature golf. Anytime, anywhere!
I eventually got back to the hotel, at which point I collapsed on the bed. Eventually I got enough energy to go find the pool, which was both warm and unoccupied. Hooray! See, if you go to a hotel with a big, fancy pool, it's always full. ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) tura and I learned that last year when we went to Disneyland and stayed at the Grand Californian. Three pools that were both famous and giant, and also all constantly full. This place has a pool you have to search out (it's on the second floor, indoors, next to the exercise room) so it was much more pleasant. There was one hotel employee cleaning the exercise room, but I think she was just in there as an excuse to watch the soccer on the big screen television. All the other televisions in the hotel had American football, see, and I don't want to indulge in stereotypes, but it's just possible that some of the hospitality staff are from countries more interested in other pursuits.
AAaaaaand then I came back up here and wrote this. Now I'm thinking about eating some dinner.
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We begin, as with of my stories that involve a plane flight, pretty early in the morning. I like to get to the airport with plenty of time to spare. I once got to JFK six hours before my flight, but I should point out that they just moved me to an earlier flight so I didn't actually do that much waiting around.
Actually, the story could start yesterday, because I finally took advantage of this new thing where you can check in for your flight 24 hours early and print out your boarding pass at home. Although that's obviously nonsensical because how can you check in when you're not at the airport yet?
Okay, anyway, I got on my flight. You'd think that going to a work event five days early would mean there wouldn't be anyone from work on my flight, but sure enough, as soon as I started boarding, I ran into someone who was going to Texas early to meet up with family. Go figure.
Alaska Airlines has basically no amenities but they have a lot of things for sale. One thing they'll let you rent is the "digEplayer", which comes preloaded with a wide range of video entertainment, from Top Gear to that Wolverine movie. It also had Sita Sings the Blues, which is pretty cool of them. I didn't partake, though, because I was reading the new Terry Pratchett book Unseen Academicals. It's awesome.
When I got to Austin, I took a cab ride to the hotel. The driver's first words were "I haven't been doing this very long, but I think I know where your hotel is. Hey, are you tired?" I said I was. "I ask because I've learned that sometimes people are tired and don't want to talk." Then he talked nonstop for the rest of the ride. I learned about his previous career, his current career, two or three other careers he was planning to start, some other riders he'd had, and the various promotional ideas he had to become the most popular cab driver in the world. On the way, I learned that Austin has a great many party stores, each of which has a bouncy castle out front.
And then the hotel said I wasn't supposed to be checking until the 14th. I assured them that I was actually checking in today, and it all worked out with the careful use of credit cards.
After getting settled (and calling tura, I set out for action! All the bars on 6th were enthusiastically football-related, because UT was playing Colorado in about an hour. I ended up just eating at the sports bar at the hotel, and I quite liked the chili. I shouldn't have eaten the beef brisket sandwich first, because although it was pretty tasty, it didn't leave much chili room.
After that, I walked a couple of blocks to the Austin Convention Center, where the Texas Lonestar Rollergirls (the banked track one) was having its season championship. Sweet! I was mostly interested in the picky details of the rules differences between banked track and flat track, so here you go: they have four eight-minute periods. Each jam is limited to one minute, which means you basically get only one scoring pass no matter how fast you are. They don't run the clock between jams, and they don't start the clock until the jammers go.
When there's a minor penalty, they stop the action to employ the Penalty Wheel, where the skater who committed the infraction has to do some sort of challenge against someone from the other team (two-lap duel, tug-of-war, etc.) and loses a point if she loses. I hated this, because it stopped the momentum of the derby, and I left after the first period. This means that I missed one of the coaches skating against Andrew Wilson, who basically played that coach in Whip It, and also the Hellcats coming from behind for an upset win against the undefeated Cherry Bombs.
The roller derby was in Hall 5 of the Austin Convention Center, which I'm pretty sure is where the Flat Track Nationals were a couple of years ago when I was last here. It's also where Pro Tour Austin (the Magic tournament that's my reason for being here) is going to be next weekend. So I'm pretty comfortable with that venue at this point. Also, apparently the World of Warcraft TCG Worlds are happening over in Hall 1, so I might check that out tomorrow.
That's pretty much it so far. The only real problems so far are that I forgot my camera and that I brought some DVDs to watch and forgot to pack anything that plays DVDs. Nice going, me!
Now I sleep!
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I'm sold. |
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This morning, I made a list of things I might want to do today. It went like this:
1) See Fame
2) Library Sale
3) Stay on couch all day
4) Take dishes out of dishwasher
5) Exchange propane tank and make hamburgers
We decided to do everything but number three. Fame was kind of fun, in that it reminded me of the original sometimes. Here's my review of that. The library sale was fun, and I got in and out without filling up an entire bag. I did score a great book from 1927 called Secrets of Baseball in which each chapter is written by a baseball player of the time. Now I have tips on playing first base written by Lou Gehrig! Or, more likely, by someone who Lou Gehrig allowed to use his name! |
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I went to the Puyallup Fair today, along with tura, scalpel, and lampyridae. It was both fun and tiring. I bought an assortment of tiny things of dubious utility, like a doohickey that lets me hook a water bottle to my belt loop, and a new wallet. I also got a license plate frame for my scooter that says "Aristocrats Scooter Club", and I'm really happy about that. I did not get the shoes with giant springs in their heels, but I should have. They were really comfortable and would have made the evening much more comfortable.
( Here are some pictures! )
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Looks like there may have been some fog in Seattle today.
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When you play a song on solo drums, the crowd screams "Ringo!" I like that. |
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PAX!
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Sep. 4th, 2009 @ 05:42 pm
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I went to PAX today, and I'm really impressed with how quickly it's grown. It took San Diego Comic Con decades to get to the point where scantily-clad women stood across the street from the con, passing out invitations to "parties". I put the sarcasm quote around "parties" because I'm not sure exactly what goes on there. My guess is that it's either a timeshare presentation or an exciting new saucer cult.
So PAX is now an enormous convention, and I like it more than San Diego at this point. That's because back when I was going to Comic Con every year, I mostly spent all my time in the gaming room. My crew was about ten people strong at times, so we'd just take over one of the tables and somebody was always there to watch the stuff. It's hard to find gaming at Comic Con these days, but PAX has practically an entire floor devoted to D&D. I'm not as into video games, but I admit to a fondness for the medium. And I got to play some Rock Band: Beatles, although the bass line for Taxman is pretty complicated when you're in a room so noisy you can't hear anything.
Anyway, this is what PAX is like:
That's the toilet paper. Some might say that that's going a bit too far.
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My circadian rhythms are all out of whack now. To my internal clock, it's not 6:00 pm. Nor is it morning. Instead, it's some kind of hoary nethertime.
So here's what happened yesterday. First, we went to Rifftrax Live at 8:00 PM. Mike Nelson, Bill Corbett, and Kevin Murphy were broadcasting from a theater in Nashville, mocking Plan 9 From Outer Space. It's fun watching that movie on a big screen anyway (I'm not sure I ever connected the dots that Vampira was Bela Lugosi's dead wife -- that must have been a fun couple!) and the riffing was very enjoyable. Incidentally, it sounded like the crowd in Nashville really enjoyed the Hee Haw and Andy Griffith jokes.
So that ended around 10:00, after which we bummed around Pacific Place for a little bit before getting let in to the empty movie theater where Inglourious Basterds would be shown at midnight. So there was a bit more waiting around until Rhias's Scarecrow coworkers showed up, and we went down to sit with them.
Inglourious Basterds was a lot of fun, and I do not for a minute regret staying there until 3:00 AM watching it. Of course, it's been a long time since I spent seven hours in a movie theater. And when I got home, there was a sadly short period of time before Rhias and I had to get out of bed and get to work. At 9:00 AM.
Luckily, I had a half-day today and Rhias got off early as well. So at 2:30 PM or so, we both collapsed into bed. Ah, blessed sleep!
...for a few hours, anyway. Because what I had was more of a nap than an actual extended sleep. It seems that I also need to eat food occasionally. So I'm awake again, eating, I think, yesterday's dinner. Or tomorrow's breakfast. Either way.
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I am reluctantly willing to accept that my mental picture of myself is about fifteen years out of date. It is just remotely possible that I'm no longer rail-thin. Several years of uninterrupted gainful employment in combination with a nice couch and large television will do that.
So I realize that I need to exercise, at least a little. I've tried purchasing Miracle Workout Equipment from the Internet, but apparently you need to pick it up occasionally and, I don't know, exercise with it or something. Man, what a rip-off. They said this was a miracle breakthrough! Now I want to get some Indian clubs to swing around, but I don't know where to get them around here. Everyone says "DO NOT USE JUGGLING CLUBS", but they don't say what horrible things will happen as a result.
Aaaaanyway, I went for a walk his morning. I went down to Dahl Playfield (AKA "That giant field a few blocks away") and jogged around it. Then I came home, which let me verify that our house is, in fact, on top of the highest hill around.
So now I guess I have to do it again. A lot. And maybe throw the ol' medicine ball around. That's a thing, right?
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Tonight would be a good night to go to a Drive-In Movie.
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