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.

I made you a movie review, but I eated it.

Well, maybe not. I did, however, have every intention to watch a movie and review it tonight. However, my laptop’s DVD player decided to be less than helpful. Oddly enough, I could still import CDs so I’m getting some use out of it.

Indeed, this laptop is starting to exhibit signs of wear and tear after nearly 2 years of use and abuse. The battery is completely kaput and now the DVD drive won’t play DVD movies.

Enough. I have a recap. Less Than Jake was a kickass show, as usual. Concerts are so much better when it’s obvious that the performers are having a good time. Of the two opening bands, the first one, The Swellers, was better in my opinion. For one, it actually seemed like they belonged at a Less Than Jake show, given that they’re a punk band. Unfortunately, New York hip hop act Cage was sandwiched between two acts that were completely dissimilar to his own, so I don’t think he really had much of a chance to connect with the crowd. The only time I’ve seen a punk crowd really get into a hip hop act was with Jurassic 5 at the Warped Tour.

The night after LTJ, I went to see some local acts at Trees. I’m generally not a fan of radio any more, especially ClearChannel stations, but I have to give credit to KDGE for having a show for local music on Sunday nights and for sponsoring concerts like this. Last Thursday, they had The Hope Trust, This Old House, and The Crazy Ivans. I wish I’d taken notes on The Hope Trust and This Old House because my impressions of them got wiped when I had my ass blown off by The Crazy Ivans. I’d previously met half of The Crazy Ivans at the Dethklok/Mastodon show and holy crap did they not disappoint. I can’t wait to see them again on February 6th at Reno’s Chop Shop for their CD release party.

The Assassination City 2010 calendar has been released, and it is even better than I imagined it! I know that there are a lot of people that are digging on the Give It Away, Hot For Teacher, and Thriller shoots, and they are freaking incredible, but the more I leaf through the calendar the more the Freeze Frame shoot grows on me. Admitted, the video for this J Geils Band song isn’t nearly as iconic as some of the other months such as Smells Like Teen Spirit, Addicted To Love, or Whip It, but I really like it all the same.

The party itself went over pretty well too. We sold 10% of our calendars in a single night, so that’s cool. If you want to buy one, get in touch with me and I’ll get one to you come Hell or high water. Interestingly enough, at the release party I was interviewed by someone for her blog. Sadly, the picture she got of me was bloody horrible as I wasn’t expecting to have to take my fez off for any reason, but still. I kinda feel bad. Getting three relatively simple questions out of me was like pulling teeth because I’m rubbish at coming up with stuff on the fly. If you want to read it, head on over to Little B in the Big D.

I had a busy week because this post ain’t over yet. I also went to Stacy and Tony’s Christmas party and had a blast there too. You know it’s going to be a good night when someone actually gets your Jeffster! t-shirt. I got to meet a lot of really cool new people and actually got invited to another Christmas party this weekend as a result. I don’t want to sound full of myself, but I had to make a good impression to get invited to a Christmas party hosted by someone I’d never met until that night, right? Sadly, I’m taking a risk with the white elephant gift exchange. I found something that I thought was pretty great for a gag gift. It’s got the potential to be either hilarious or kinda icky. We shall see.

Well I ain’t seen my baby since I don’t know when

Last night I was all kinds of productive. Not only did I get invited as a guest on Bad Philosophy, but I also got my TABC (Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission) certification. The latter is required for derby bouts. Even though we don’t sell alcohol, the bouts are BYOB, so it’s necessary to be able to know when someone’s had too much to drink.

First off, Bad Philosophy. It was referred to as a self-indulgent episode regarding Dollhouse and I was invited to discuss it. I really wish I were more prepared, as I’d not yet seen the two episodes that were under discussion (Now that I have, holy crap it was awesome!) While I was excited about being on one of the podcasts I regularly listen to, I’m disappointed with my performance. I could have done better. You want better, you should go listen to the episodes of Bulls Deep that I was in. BJ, Billy, and I rocked the Hell out of those (episodes 3 and 7), particularly episode 7B, where we take on Maximum Overdrive. Don’t worry, I’ll redeem myself next time I’m on Bad Philosophy once the series conclusion to Dollhouse airs sometime in January.

Regarding the TABC certification. Oh, do I have a treat for you. The training program you have to watch before taking the test was nearly unbearable were it not for my love of Mystery Science Theater 3000, which provided me with color commentary making fun of the things I was hearing.

One of the most amusing things I discovered at the beginning of the course was that it’s illegal to sell alcohol to insane people and, I quote, “habitual drunkards,” I’m just amused that there’s an actual legal definition of the term “habitual drunkard.” I’m also a big fan of the term “adult beverage.”

Apparently, the act of ordering shots is an indication of lack of good judgment, which, according to the video, means you should start doing things to slow down your service to them. Maybe it’s the philosopher in me, but that act doesn’t necessarily indicate poor judgment. If a group has been drinking for hours and then they start ordering shots? Then yeah. But if a group of people comes in and orders a round of shots to celebrate someone’s promotion or something, then orders food and beer, then that’s not really an example of poor judgment. They also provide us with the gem that apparent intoxication depends on one’s “experience level” with alcohol? It’s like they turned drinking into D&D. Yes, I’m proficient in beer and rum, but not Everclear, so I’m at a -3 on to hit rolls when drinking punch. Oh, but wait, their ideas of approximating intoxication get better.

Dancing by oneself is an apparent indication that you’ve had WAY TOO MUCH to drink and should be refused alcohol service. Quick, tell Billy Idol that he’s going to be cut off if keeps up with it!

Their constant references to offering free food to people caught my eye. Apparently it’s their answer to most everything. What I think is that this was written by people that love to drink, but are cheapskates so they put stuff like this in the curriculum so they wouldn’t have to pay for food. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!

The greatest (worst) part of the training video, however, was when they were teaching how to avoid serving or selling to minors. First off, half of the characteristics they attribute to minors can easily apply to many many other people. Yeah, minors sometimes use alcohol as “alcohol courage” to lower inhibitions and overcome shyness. First off, what is this “alcohol courage” nonsense? I’ve never heard anyone use that term. Liquid courage? Certainly. “Alcohol courage,” though? Way to sound like you have no idea what you’re talking about. And minors using alcohol to lower inhibitions and overcome shyness? Isn’t that the very purpose of alcohol for a lot of people?!

As if their perception of teens wasn’t bad enough, their portrayal was worse. During a section discussing how you should be aware of current fashions so you can know how minors dress, they show a pic of a hot Asian girl in freaking fetish clothing! We’re talking zip-up latex top and elbow length latex gloves. Oh, so that‘s how minors are dressing today? Way to make me feel skeevy, TABC.

All that aside, I have to commend their diversity of actors in the training. You didn’t simply have token minorities, they had several different actors of many different colors, but better than that, they also showed different styles of people. There weren’t simply a bunch of preppy executives and Cliff Huxtable types you normally see in these things. They also had people with non-natural hair colors, lip rings, and multiple cartilage piercings. And, yes, the aforementioned fetish clothing.

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.

It’s all fun and games until someone loses a community

I finished my shift last night under a whole lot of internet SRS BSNS drama. A bit of backstory. I’ve been a secondary moderator for a religious debate Livejournal community for quite some time, at least four years. Over that time, there have been more than a few LULZ-seeking trolls, one of whom keeps coming back again and again and again.  At around 4AM this morning, I got an automatic e-mail from LJ saying that the primary e-mail address had been changed on the generic moderator account. I went to log in under that account, and lo and behold, the password had already been changed. The person in control of the account then proceeded to remove all the previous moderators and then appoint this persistent troll and all of his cronies as moderators.

It turns out, that one of the moderators didn’t like how a current moderating action seemed to be turning out (basically, our consensus to not immediately ban another moderator based on his actions not in our community, but within another community altogether), so, disgruntled and butthurt over not getting his way, handed the keys of the community over to the troll.

I’ve often watched and laughed at drama erupting in other communities. It certainly feels different when one of your own communities is the one that’s been attacked. I stopped closely following the community over a year ago as the level of discourse had stooped lower than a FARK politics thread. I intervened only when someone complained to the moderating team for intervention. Still, though, it stings to have something you’ve been a part of for several years torn asunder before your very eyes by the very forces you were trying to keep in check.

I don’t know. If LJ Abuse doesn’t return ownership of the community to the community’s creator, I may just make it a sign to retire the LJ account and only post updates to the WordPress blog, or if I’m feeling froggy, take the annual fee I pay to Livejournal and apply it to something pretty and shiny, like Squarespace. I mean, I don’t exactly follow communities anymore, and since I can follow people via RSS and login with OpenID, there’s not really anything cementing me here if the community goes tits up.

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Best. Concert. Ever.

That’s the name of Jonathan Coulton’s new live DVD/CD, and while I don’t know yet if the DVD lives up to that, I do know that last night’s concert definitely ranks as one of the most fun concerts I’ve been to.

If you’ve never been, a Jonathan Coulton concert isn’t really just Jonathan Coulton. Even though Paul and Storm are technically the opening band, they play for an entire hour and then they come back out a few times during Coulton’s set.

Really, the audience was in rare form, and we were told as much by Paul and Storm. During one of the audience participation moments, we were given a relatively loose order (DEJECTED ARRR), and when the audience members that actually acted it out, every one of us tilted our head to the same side. This prompted Paul and Storm to comment that Dallas must be some sort of capital of Method Acting.  I think the fact that the Rennaissance Faire is in town had something to do with that.

Paul and Storm played more of their full length songs than they did last time, which I think is a good thing, even though I kind of missed their rejected commercials.

JoCo’s set was good, and we were treated to two different encores. In that way, I was reminded very much of Ben Folds. The first encore was First of May, but they brought up The Bad Philosophers to do their rendition in ASL, AS SEEN ON YOUTUBE:

I’m so going to have to download some of their podcasts, you know, what with the philosophy degree and all.

Second encore was I Feel Fantastic, which has got to be one of my favorite songs that I don’t actually own on a CD. The only noticeable song missing from his set was Tom Cruise Crazy.

Overall, it was a terrific show, made all the better by a rowdy rambunctious audience. But don’t take my word for it. Both P&S and JoCo tweeted about how much they enjoyed doing the show.

jonathancoulton: Jeez Dallas. You were amazing, thank you.

paulandstorm: [P] Thank you from both of us, Dallas; and I apologize for saying your whole state smells like sweaty balls. It *is* hot here, though.

Okay, play us out, Keyboard Cat.

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sudo apt-get install blogentry

First things first. I’ve been busy installing the new version of Ubuntu (Jaundiced Jackalope) and getting it to run juuuuust the way I like. For the most part, I’ve found it ridiculously simple. The things I was most afraid of not working properly was wireless internet and, more importantly, my EVDO (mobile broadband) card. Interestingly enough, both of them worked flawlessly. There’s always the difficulties with odd things that not everyone uses, but I now have my Truecrypt volume running and a decent password manager. The strangest thing is that I had issues getting VLC to play DVDs properly. This is odd because VLC will play most anything. It turns out I just needed to do a restart. I got Miro for my video podcasts and Hulu, and am only missing iTunes because while it’s possible (albeit difficult) to use something else with an iPod, you sort of need it for an iPhone. Maybe I’ll eventually need to learn how to use WINE. GRRR.

Despite the difficulties, I’ve totally been geeking out with it and loving every minute of it. The only thing I’m missing is my old Muncie Star Press money bag from when I was a paperboy. I use that as my dice bag. Yeah, I’ve been craving pen and paper gaming as of late, mostly because of WOTC’s recent D&D podcast featuring a 4E campaign with Gabe & Tycho of Penny Arcade, Scott Kurtz of PVP Online, and TV’s Wil Wheaton. I miss that kind of comaraderie in a gaming session. It’s a damn shame that I’ve never had a gaming group last more than a couple months. Stupid real world concerns.

Now the joyousness. I’ve discovered that for the second year in a row, I and two others got screwed out of a merit raise this year. My promotion last year was their reason for denying me a raise last year, and that very same promotion is the very same reason they’re using to justify. No. Not justify. There’s nothing just about it. It’s the very same excuse they’re using to deny me yet another merit raise. The plant jackass that backstabs and lies and got caught screwing up? His measly 1% merit raise compared to my 0% merit raise indicates to me that even though the management (and everyone else) can’t stand him, he is a better employee than I and more meritorious than I am.

Okay, so denying me a raise last year isn’t entirely accurate. What they did was that they pushed the raises from January to April. I got my promotion at the end of March, so I had half a paycheck of that raise until my promotion put me at the bottom rate at a higher pay grade. So, basically, what happened is that I got a promotion raise, but I’ve been denied a merit raise two years in a row. This from the same bureaucracy that took nearly two years to get me uniforms. Maybe they’re telling me something.

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Good thing I had savings

So, I’ve taken the cat to the vet, I’ve given him a name, and I’ve spent a buttload on all the things you need when you first get a pet, such as litter box, nail clippers, pet carrier, etc.

Unfortunately the name I had given the cat in my head was pretty lame, but it’s stuck. The cat is a neutered male and named Mango. I totally wasn’t thinking of Chris Kataan’s character when I came up with that. I thought of it because I initially thought the thin hair on his back side was due to mange instead of excessive cleaning.

So far, Mango seems pretty laid back, other than getting him into a carrier to get him to the vet. That proved to be difficult. But other than that? Pretty great news from the vet. He’d already been neutered, he wasn’t microchipped by a previous owner, and he doesn’t have FIV. He seems to have been taken care of before I got him because he stops eating when he’s full instead of gorging himself and throwing up on the carpet. I’m going to have to get those nails trimmed, however, because getting a gentle pat, pat, pat on my eyes as an alarm clock isn’t my idea of a good time.

I’ve been talking too much of my cat as of late, so I give you a technology C-C-C-C-COMBO BREAKER!

There are a couple programs/add-ons I think people might like.

From Steve Gibson, I’ve found one of those programs you don’t realize you’ve been missing until you try it. Katmouse is a nifty little mousewheel utility program. What it does is relatively minor but insanely useful. It allows you to scroll on windows that aren’t on the top. For example, you can be watching something on part of the screen on VLC or Quicktime or whatever, but you can also scroll through the website that’s underneath without having to click on the browser first and thus hide the video window. I can’t believe something like this isn’t part of generic mouse software it’s so simple.

The other thing I’ve found to be pretty awesome is a Firefox add-on called XMarks. It used to be called Foxmarks, but now that it’s also available on Internet Explorer and Safari, the name wasn’t entirely accurate. Get an Xmarks account and install the add-on, and XMarks will sync up your bookmarks to their server. This is great if you surf the internet on multiple computers because your bookmarks will be the same on all the computers that you have (that are running XMarks, of course). This can also be useful if, like me, you wipe and re-install your operating system fairly often. That’s just one fewer thing I have to worry about backing up when I wipe everything.

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D-U-M-B Everyone’s accusing me

If there is one thing that defines me more than being a complete technology slut, it’s that I’m a cheapskate. So when one of my co-workers mentioned that he was getting rid of his iPhone because it didn’t support MMS (which is what Picture Mail uses), I jumped at the chance. Sure, I wasn’t going to switch to AT&T, but I’d been eyeing the iPod Touch as something to watch video on when the laptop is just too bulky. Not only that, but there are the applications.

Of course, getting the thing to work was an exercise in patience because of all the crappy things AT&T does to lock things down. First I had to restore the phone. Once it did that, it wouldn’t work without a SIM card. Of course, not only any SIM card would do. Not only did it have to be an activated SIM card, but Jose (my co-worker) had to fill out a lot of crap in my iTunes so that AT&T could verify his identity. Fortunately, once that was all said and done and once the SIM card was removed, this time it worked just fine. Now I effectively have an iPod Touch that has a camera and GPS on it, and I got it for less than half what Apple would charge.

While I’ve been sort of gluttonous with the free apps (lots of radio apps and other music stuff), there was one app I’ve actually paid for: Oregon Trail. Awwwww yeah. Dysentery is back, baby!

I’ve recently been thinking of a way to write with a little bit more frequency. One of the things I was thinking was having a list of things that identify someone as a geek. Not really a, “You might be a geek” thing, but something more substantial than that. I think it’d be fun, but I’d like to have a huge list (Yes, a “You might be a geek” list of sorts) before I started so that I could do it regularly for quite some time. That said, I’m pretty sure if I was to wait until I felt I had sufficient material, I’d never get started.