Something wicked clever should go here

My abbreviated work week is over. This is a good thing, but not nearly as good as the reason it was abbreviated. I got to add another state that I’ve never been to when I went with Assassination City‘s travel team to Taos, New Mexico. I can’t help but rave over the weather there. While I was there, the highs were struggling to get past 80ºF and in the mornings, it got down to the low 60s.

However, despite the amazing weather, I don’t know if I could live there because the cell phone reception is pretty crappy. 3G isn’t anywhere to be found, and even the EDGE network is kind of spotty. I can’t complain about the view, however. It’s positively gorgeous and I actually took several pictures, which is something I’m not particularly accustomed to doing. Normally I’d rather be seeing the sights through my own eyes instead of through a lens, but hey. You can see some of the pics here, and here’s an example of one I took:

The main damper on my weekend was that someone got my credit card info and my bank froze the card for safety purposes. I didn’t find this out until I was already on the road and thus have to survive on very little money until Friday, when I get paid. I really hope I can get comped for the gas I paid for on the trip to Lubbock back in June. I paid for the gas, I drove all the way back, but it wasn’t in my car, so I’m not sure I’ll get comped. Sadly, I didn’t know that was a rule until just last week. Otherwise, I’d not have paid for gas.

Part of the reason I’m more broke than usual is that I bought some new glasses. It’s not a cheap thing for me to get glasses because of my prescription, but I thought nearly a decade without getting new glasses was long enough. I’ll have pics up later when I can get a pic that looks halfway decent.

I’ve been playing Psychonauts an awful lot lately. I bought it back when Steam had it on sale for $2, and I’m just now getting around to it. Holy crap is it an amazingly creative and fun game. Then again, it’s a Tim Schafer game, the brilliant mind behind Day of the Tentacle, Secret of Monkey Island, and Grim Fandango, so I shouldn’t be surprised at just how original and clever it is.

A little glass vial? A little glass vial!

I’ve been keeping up with a few things over the holidays. I hung out with Guillermo and his roommate over Christmas and played WoW for a significant portion of that time, and then went to a New Year’s Eve party where everyone completely forgot about midnight (my favorite kind of NYE party; the other kind are just too depressing).

Regarding World of Warcraft, I’m finally in a guild. It’s a small guild, but everyone in the guild knows someone else in the guild in the real world, so it’s mostly a  local North Texas guild. I can get behind that. I also now have a character at level 80 (max level). It’s kind of funny just how much stuff Blizzard has for the end game. I have no actual data to confirm, but I think there’s as much stuff to do from levels 70-80 as there is for the first 70 levels. And once you have a level 80 character, holy crap does it become a butt-ton easier to get other characters up to that level.

To recap, the GoGirl gift went over great for the Christmas party, so my fears were unwarranted. A tenuous plan has been made to watch the Rifftrax of Twilight and then New Moon at a dollar theater so we can all make fun of it. However, color me skeptical. I’m not very trusting of set in stone plans, let alone tenuous ones. That said, I’ve learned a few things about that. Sure, I’m being a selfish prick, but no longer am I going to allow someone else’s flaking out affect my having a good time. Since I give any plans a 75% chance of having one or more people flake out on them, I’ve chosen to take the approach that I’m going regardless. If people decide to show up, that’s great, and if they don’t, it’s their loss.

Example: a couple hours ago I just came back from a shadowcast of REPO: The Genetic Opera called Amber Does Dallas. I knew several people getting extremely excited about it when I mentioned it, I sent out periodic reminders to the derby fora, and yet when I got there, I didn’t see anyone I recognized. That doesn’t mean they weren’t there, but if they were there, it’d have been nice to meet up with them beforehand or afterward. As for the show itself, I thoroughly enjoyed it. It’s like seeing a movie with your hundred closest friends, yelling out at the cast and at the characters on screen. This is good if everyone’s already familiar with the movie, not so much if the movie’s new. If you’re a fan of the movie, I’d highly recommend going to see it at the next midnight showing, Friday night, February 12th, at the Lakewood Theater on Abrams.

There are a few other things I think people should be aware of going on in Dallas in the near future. Tonight (2/9) is the Dead Rock Star Party at the Barley House. It’s Assassination City’s pre-bout party. It’s going to be great, and it’ll be even better if you dress up as a dead rock star.

Toward the end of this month on Saturday the 30th, 7:00 PM, there’s the actual bout at Dad’s Broadway Skateland, 3022 Moon Dr. in Mesquite. Come out once as a spectator and we hope you’ll leave as a fan.

Non-derby stuff? Well, there’s Jonathan Coulton and Paul & Storm on February 4th at the Granada, Henry Rollins at the Lakewood on 2/24, and the Amour Burlesque Show at the Lakewood on 2/27. Flogging Molly’s playing the House of Blues on 2/9, and the Dropkick Murphys are playing there on 3/1. Like I said, lots of stuff to do, and this doesn’t even count the local music at Trees on Thursday nights.

Oh! I’ve put in to be transferred to a different water plant than the one in Carrollton. I’ve put in to be transferred to Sunnyvale. Even though it’s in the middle of nowhere, it’s still a lot closer to everything I do on my days off than where I currently work and live. Too bad I’ve got to endure city bureaucracy. If I’m very very very lucky, I’ll be transferred before my 6 month lease runs out in May. I’d be able to celebrate with a scone and a large house blend.

Oh, final thoughts. Midnight movies at the Inwood on Fridays and Saturdays. Check it out, they’ve got some good ones coming, namely Black Dynamite next weekend and The Evil Dead at the end of February. That’s not even considering other awesome flicks like Vertigo and The Jerk.

The name of the band is

What on Earth is happening to me? Two weekends in a row and I’ve actually been busy? Poor Mango. Despite my best efforts to play with him a little bit each day, I feel that he’s becoming a widow to something that under normal circumstances might actually resemble a social life.

This was my four day weekend and I actually spent a lot of it out of the house.

On Wednesday, I went to go get my tickets for Cowboy Mouth. I got 4 comped tickets out of it. Apparently the girl at the ticket booth wanted me out of the way so the hot guy in front of me could continue to hit on her. For the rest of the day and the next until just before the show I was trying to get rid of the extras, to no avail. By 5:00 Thursday evening, I was pretty much convinced that I wasn’t going. I honestly was feeling like the kid who needed his parents to tie a slab of meat around his neck to get the pets to play with him. Then, I saw that a friend of mine, Stacy, got comped tickets as well, and she too was completely fruitless in getting rid of her tickets as well. So much for the “wanting to get me out of the way” theory.

In any event, it was a Cowboy Mouth show. Of course it was freaking stellar. I lost my voice after the first two songs and was pretty much just croaking after that. For those of you who don’t know, Cowboy Mouth is a rock band from New Orleans that is pretty much constantly on tour, like 200 days out of the year. Their drummer, Fred LeBlanc, is also their lead singer, and his kit is right up front and center. Fred does not allow any emotion from the crowd other than raw unadulterated exuberance. The man knows how to work a room and Thursday night was no exception. I’ve been to shows where it’s obvious that the band really doesn’t want to be there. Every time I’ve seen Cowboy Mouth, it’s exactly the opposite. It’s so obvious that they’re all having a blast that you can’t help but enjoy yourself. They’re a 4 piece Tenacious D that rocks 8 times as hard.

Thursday night I was wearing shorts. Friday I was in flannel pajama pants. I needed the day to recoup, and with the weather being what it was, I decided to make chili instead of the cottage pie I was considering. I don’t know why, but I always fail to put enough meat in my chili and always go overboard on the vegetables. It’s still good though. I went to bed early (for me) so that I could be on a day shift for the Werewolf game Saturday.

Game was okay, and I got home around 5:00 wondering what I was going to do. Every time we had game in the afternoon before, it was because of my schedule, namely because I had to be at work that evening. I was completely unused to getting home from an afternoon game and I didn’t know what to do with myself. Lo and behold, I get a text from someone I’ve not seen or heard from in well over a year asking me if I wanted to hang out at Trinity Hall. Being that it’s Trinity Hall, and how even a fake Irish pub is still pretty cool, I took her up on the offer.

It was good catching up, and the cider was flowing, but who should I run into there but Sloane Gunman of Assassination City. Small world, eh? Apparently there were a few of skaters over at the Lakewood Bar and Grill and I was invited to come. I’m not going to lie, I really wanted to go. I don’t  think it has anything to do with my dropping one set of friends for another, newer set of friends; I just think it’s an age thing. I’m more comfortable and get along better with people who are closer to my own age or older than me. But, I didn’t go as I see Ass City ladies on a fairly regular basis. Instead, Sam and I cut out of there and went to see Zombieland.

Woody Harrellson was great, and there were parts that were absolutely riotous, but ultimately, I felt it fell flat. Maybe it was becuase I was subconsciously comparing hi, to Shaun of the Dead, but I just really really did not like the lead character. Throughout most of the movie, I was hoping he’d get eaten and it’d just be Woody Harrellson kicking zombie ass for 90 minutes.

A couple more things.

Wednesday, December 9th at the Granada Theater, Less Than Jake. Be there. Go go Florida ska.

Off topic: I can now discern Mango’s, “I’m not feeling so good and am about to throw up” meows. While being able to discern those meows is a good thing, his throwing up is not. Fortunately, I’ve been able to wrangle him onto some area with linoleum instead of having him urp on the carpet.

Dem der netterwebs

So, I’ve been out of the loop and off-line for some time.

Catching up on my RSS feeds is promising to be a daunting task, but this post-PAX post by Mssrs Paul & Storm makes up for it. It really makes me wish I had gone to PAX. Seriously. That post is filled with videos that are so filled with geek joy and pure unadulterated WIN that it’s hard to not get caught up in it, and that’s just secondhand from crummy YouTube videos.

I’ve been gaming quite a bit as well. Yes, World of Warcraft. I’ll get tired of it in a few months because the characters I’ve got on my main server are pretty much on their own because everyone I know that plays is on a different server and playing end game content. I’m on Korgath, but apparently some people I know play on Icecrown, Korialstrasz, and Gnomeregan as I have some lowbie characters on there but I don’t know why. And there’s the RP server Cenarion Circle. At least I know who’s on that server. But it’s really hard to just up and switch servers. I have so many characters on one server and they all mail stuff back and forth to each other because they all have different secondary skills. All the lowbie herbalism mats that my 59 Rogue got in doing the Exploration Achievements went to my Inscription toon, Voudoun, and any and all loot drops that I can’t use get sent to Jägermonster for disenchanting. I wish I could ship all my toons on one server to another server for a single price instead of having to pay $15 for a single character. I mean, I could start a Death Knight on another server at level 55, but they’re about as fun as Warriors and Paladins, and I’d have to start from level 1 playing anything fun, like Warlocks, Rogues, and Shamans.

Other gaming? I picked up The Beatles Rock Band. I said it on Twitter, but I’ve got to give my congratulations to Paul, Ringo, and Yoko for allowing Harmonix to make the game, and for making sure it was even better than Rock Band 2. Hell, I was playing the Ed Sullivan stage and it gave me freaking goosebumps. Sure, it’s not like being there, but it’s a hell of a lot closer to being there than the old fuzzy black & White video everyone has seen. My parents are coming to visit from Florida next week and I think they’ll get a bigger kick out of it even more than the original Rock Band.

Ahh, and because I couldn’t just pass up on it, I went to the Pirate Punk Pre-Bout party at the Barley House last night. I enjoyed the everloving crap out of it, finally met someone from the Livejournal face-to-face (who’s far cooler than she lets on), and was thanked again and again for helping out and helping take down stuff. I’m helping, Bizarro! Feeling useful rocks. It’s going to be even better next weekend for the pirate themed bout, given that not only will I be there, but my parents as well (and hopefully my co-worker that goes to Scarborough Faire as part of a pirate troupe). From what I’ve discovered is that it’s hard as hell to actually get people to come out to see a derby bout, but relatively easy to make a fan out of someone once they’re there. I’d love to see my parents become derby fans, even if their home teams would be Tallahassee and Panama City. Even if they aren’t local fans, the more fans there are nationwide, the better it is for everyone.

Mystery Music Theater 2600

Sometimes I really like the way fortune occasionally smiles. I decided to hit up Café Brazil, as I wasn’t feeling like cooking up anything. Fortunately for me, I’d forgotten my iPhone so I was relegated to getting a copy of the Dallas Observer to occupy my time while I waited for my food. Lo and behold, guess what I found out? Available starting today are tickets for

MASTODON AND DETHKLOK

at the House of Blues on Wednesday, November 11th. Say what you want about the House of Blues being corporate trash, but it’s no more corporate than the Palladium Ballroom considering the House of Blues actually allows you to buy tickets at the box office with no 30% “convenience” fee. Sure, it’s no Granada, but there haven’t been any concerts I’ve wanted to see since Jonathan Coulton and Paul & Storm.

I’ve not seen Mastodon in concert, so I can’t speak for them, but I have seen Dethklok in concert, and they put on one hell of a show. Just like Metalocalypse, their live show perfectly blends comedy with melodic death metal insofar as the audience is pretty much put into the plot of a Metalocalypse fic that unfolds during the concert. Anyone who wants to go, give me a heads up because I’m sure as shit going to be there.

Shifting gears sort of abruptly, I put down my pre-order for Rock Band Beatles today. Holy crap. I was going to get the full set so I could get some new wireless equipment. Unfortunately, it isn’t $180 as I thought it would be, but rather $250. Forget that noise. With that $70 markup, I’ll get the game alone, thank you very much. Oh, speaking of the game, it was $65 instead of the $50 or $55 I was expecting. That must have been one hell of a price Harmonix paid to get the first digital versions of Beatles songs. No, seriously. Apple doesn’t have their stuff on iTunes and Amazon doesn’t have their original stuff in their MP3 store either. Eh. Until the game comes out next month, I’ll be busy with new downloadable stuff that I’d not seen. Another Weezer pack (with My Name is Jonas and Pork & Beans), a Rancid pack (2 songs off of …And Out Come the Wolves and one off of their new album), and a decent Spinal Tap pack that has classics such as Stonehenge, Big Bottom, and Tonight I’m Gonna Rock You Tonight.

Finally, for those of you who are fans of MST3K, on Thursday, August 20, the three guys from Rifftrax will be broadcasting a riffing of Plan 9 From Outer Space. It’s kind of similar to how This American Life occasionally broadcasts a live show to theaters throughout the country. Only, you know, MST-ified.

Holy moley! An entire post where I didn’t mention roller derby.

…crap.

When I turn the hat around, it’s like a switch

Where shall I begin?

I’ve laid off the DDR for the past week as I do believe I’ve injured myself. Not seriously, but I think all the jumping around has given me shin splints so that it really hurts to continue more than a few minutes. This is what I get for not taking it easy and not bothering to see the clock to see that hours had passed by playing it the night before I discovered my shins killing me the next morning. Maybe I need to hit up the Thighmaster.

Speaking of Torgo, I recently picked up Sims 3. There are a lot of things I’m not too fond of, like the nickel and diming micro-transactions for cool furniture that should have been included in the game in the first place, but the game as a whole is pretty spiffy. I ordered pizza with one of my characters and a Torgo Pendragon was the person who delivered it to me. How cool is that?

I’ve also taken to using Sims 3 to create my co-workers with all their issues. For example, with only a few character traits, I can actually re-create the co-worker who digs through everyone’s trash, has been caught sunbathing nude at work on the weekends (not while I was here, thankfully), leaves rotting food setting out on the desk so he can add them to his compost heap at home, and maintains a stack of newspaper clippings that make John Nash (A Beautiful Mind) look sane. These people are ripe for parody, as am I. Sadly, there are no fezzes available for wearing. Yet.

As for the rest of the weekend, I’ve got Derby tomorrow in North Richland Hills. I’ll see how it compares to Assassination City. I’m trying to maintain a non-bias, but I’m finding it difficult considering how I like the laid back attitude of Assassination City. Actually, it’s not laid back, it’s just the lack of OMG SRS BSNS that takes over some of the other leagues I’ve seen. You know how some people can take something they love and turn it into work to the point that it’s not fun anymore? AC Derby still knows how to have fun while they’re busting their and other people’s asses.

Tonight, though? I’ve got a couple DVDs from Netflix that I need to watch. First, I’ve got the first giant robot anime that I’ve enjoyed since Evangelion, Code Geass. I got to admit, I’m not typically a fan of CLAMP, but this is really well done so far and sooooo not cutesy. Of course it goes without saying that the character designs are beautiful. The second movie? DEATH BED: THE BED THAT EATS (Thank you Patton Oswalt).

And if I want to save those until work on Sunday, I did stop by Movie Trading Company and picked up Road House and Over the Top for the glory that is Mike Nelson’s Rifftrax of those two movies.

OH, and holy crap these past few weeks have been awesome for weather. It’s been unseasonably cool. Like not even reaching 90°F for a number of days. It’s amazing. Although one of the thunderstorms killed my VOIP router, so my Vonage should probably be cancelled. Maybe I should switch to a Skype account with a WiFi phone considering that I now have Google Voice and can have people just call that from now on.