I am getting slack. It is depressing really. The schools are still being hectic, though, so i can be excused. They don’t really calm down until the middle of September, or so i hear from the people at work.

Kung Fu keeps kicking ass, literally and figuratively. I’ve learned 26 different hand strikes, and moved on into actual Hung Ga. I’m starting with the La Gar form, and hopefully i’ll learn the rest of it tonight.

I’m leaving tomorrow (yes, on a jet plane) to Texas in order to attend a cousin’s wedding. I’m planning on posting something to this page from there, but you never know what circumstances might bring. I mean they might have dial up for God’s sake… you never know what you’re dealing with when it comes to my Aunt…

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So you’re playing Breath of Fire 3 (As i was, until i found out that i had completely neglected the Masters System until level 20 and had ostensibly wasted 20 levels of experience gathering. I’ll be starting over once i’m bored to tears), and you’ve just gotten Momo, the kickass bunny-chick with the bazooka and robot (we immediately know who’s my favorite. She’s cute, she has a robot, and is packing a bazooka. What am i made of, stone?) and of course you gleefully pack her into the party. First battle she strides confidently out, draws her huge cast-iron bazooka, and lets fly with a volley of (undoubtedly) kickass ammo… hitting nothing. Its ok, i bet everybody misses sometimes, right? Wrong. She misses again. And again. And again. And you get the idea. She can’t hit anything. Rampaging mammoths go unchecked and there’s nothing she can do about it. She becomes a second tier magic user, right next to the 5 year old princess. *Sigh* Another brilliant character wasted because of inability to use her own weapon… but wait! In the dump you uncover an item. Artemis’ Cap, a piece of headwear that is supposed to “Raise to-hit chance” and appears to be exactly Momo’s prescription strength. She starts being able to hit things. Then all of a sudden she’s a useful character again, and its about time. Now where the hell is that little purple-haired bastard that we’re looking for…

So Artemis’ Cap gets 5 stars. It honestly changed how i played an entire character, and thereby an entire game. For the few hours i used it, it was undoubtedly the most useful item i had heretofore uncovered that didn’t radically change one of my main characters forms.

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And here we have a fairly interesting and fairly enjoyable “jump out and spook you” horror movie. I did like alot of it. The Book of Evil is probably the best tome i’ve seen since the Necronomicon Ex Mortis. The actors themselves are well-chosen for their roles (more or less. As the children are fairly good saccarine children, the black chick is a fairly good sassy black chick, that guy who reminds me of Boone is a fairly accurate representation of Boone, etc). The ghosts are fairly creepy archetypes, and the house itself is creepy. “If you love it so much, why don’t you marry it?” You ask… well, it has a drinking problem, and it beats me (but only because it loves me).

Whatever else it is, at its core Thirteen Ghosts is Scooby Doo. Think about it. Tony Shaloub is Fred, the black chick is Daphne, Boone is Shaggy, the Spritual Reclaimation person is Velma, and the kid who is always getting himself lost is Scooby. Boone is constantly trying to run away from the titular Ghosts, and Tony Shaloub ignores the creepiness of the house and of his uncle, then suggests that the group split up in an undead filled basement, getting half of the group trapped. Not in a net, mind you, but damn close.

There are a few (glaring) (annoying) issues with the movie. Half the ghosts don’t do anything. Not that i’m expecting a brace of showtunes from the Torso, or some improvizational dance on the part of the Great Child, but we only really have contact with the Withered Lover, the Juggernaut, the Hammer, the Torn Prince, the Jackal, and the Angry Princess. This leaves the Torso (which twitches), the Bound Woman (Who giggles and jerks), the Dire Mother/Great Child (who sits in a chair), the Firstborn Son (Who stands in one place), the Pilgrim (who i didn’t even remember until i checked the webpage a second ago), and another which honestly slips my mind at the moment, though i guess the Great Child and the Dire Mother count as two. So yeah, they are kinda creepy in a Tool video sort of way, but they lack a certain something.

For example, the amorphous Evil in the Evil Dead were creepy because of the Lovecraftian overwhelmingness of faceless evil, while these have to be 12 certain and “personal” horrors. This misses because of one incorrect confluence of scenes. There is a “Spiritual Reclaimation Expert” who shows up to set the ghosts free, and she brings the Tome of Evil with her (along with a healthy amount of the exposition), and tells us all about the Black Zodiac and its 13 symbol-spirits which infest the house. Then the Boone-esque guy has a seizure and tells us that the ghosts were “Hand-picked” and specifically designated to be the 12 of 13 in the house. Then they go off on a tangent and never explain who the ghosts are, why they are handpicked, and what they are doing in the house. This makes the ghosts only scary when they are doing anything, rather than adding any dimension of creeping horror. (The movie becomes more of a “AH! Look, he’s got a bat or something, and he’s a ghost so that’s scary!” rather than “Holy god look at that basement, i hope something doesn’t come out of nowhere, like that one half bloody serial killer who used to wait in ambush for people when he was alive… AH!”)

Other than that it was a really solid little three star movie. Really middle of the road, and i got exactly what i was expecting when i went in. Atleast i thought so until i talked to someone who had seen the original in theatres. Apparently the audience was given 3d glasses with the flick. The actual actors weren’t in 3d, but the Ghosts were. The ghosts and only the ghosts, and if you took the glasses off, you didn’t see anything. I can honestly say i have no idea how that was done (Research commencing… now). But it sounds very cool. There is only one way to redeem this… a killer dvd, and i know exactly how to do it. Packaging. I’m sure everone has seen the Basic Instinct DVD. Ice clear packaging with an icepick pen jammed in it makes it instantly recognizable, even to someone who was bored to tears by the film and wants badly to forget its existance. Here’s how we package the 13 Ghosts DVD. Clear plastic slipcover with only the title of the movie in embossed ink on the cover. The slipcase slides off to reveal a smaller mock-up of the Tome of Evil from the movie. The Tome is actually a book with some parchment-filled pages of runes, the Black Zodiac, and the House’s floorplan. The last few pages are hollowed out as in the movie to house the DVD, where the Tome was hollowed in the flick to hold spells on reel-to-reel. I actually think its one of my better ideas, and i may grab a dvd case and some parchment, make a mockup, and send it to the film people to see if they’d like it. Here’s hoping they wouldn’t screw me like Sony screwed that Aibo Guy.

So 3 stars. If you remind me of the presentation of the original, 2 1/2 or even 2 depending on how i’m feeling about originality.

And who has more acting credits than anyone but F. Murray Abraham? C. Ernst Harth. The Great Child, an obvious typecast

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Guess what i’m typing this up on! Wait… same computer that a few of you have seen, and same keyboard i’ve been using for the better part of eight years. Hmmm… how to phrase this. Ah! Guess what i’m currently using for a pointing device! The Microsoft Trackball Optical. You know, the dark grey thing with the thumb ball (not the silver one with the ball on the front). I have to say that it is taking some getting used to but i’m adapting very quickly. I think i could stand to use this for now atleast. Wanna know how i obtained it? Apparently HP liked the fact that the school district had bought something like $10k worth of networking equipment, then sent back more orders, so they sent us a box of “we love you” hardware. There was one of the silver trackballs, an HP CD-R, a creative DVD-RAM device, a DVD with decoder, and this trackball. We divvied up the l00t amongts computer services, and i got one trackball. Pretty sweet, huh?

Damn i need a new keyboard.

So i had an epiphany a few days ago. I just haven’t had time to post it because work has been getting crunchy (they traded all our schools around so i’ve been having to deal with an entirely new problem set.) and life has been getting more complicated (running all over town to get things done). But aside from that, guess what i recieved in a flash of insight. (damn, lots of guessing in today’s post). Well, i realized that i am a Kung Fu computer programmer. This, i can tell you, makes me very happy. Now, in Kung Fu, we are working on honest-to-god rolls. Seriously. Some guy attacks you, you are in Reverse Bow stance, you turn around, do a summersault, then jump back up in Reverse Bow. It kicks alltogether too much ass. And then there are the Cartwheel Kicks. I can’t do one, as i’m still working on Regular Cartwheels, but soon i’ll be able to. Then almost all will fear me.

So i also went on another buying spree recently. I scored the new paperback version of Pratchett’s The Last Hero, an utterly kickass work (but then it is Prathett after all), the “Clerks” cartoon DVD, and the “Hellboy” RPG. So nobody in the gaming group has to buy HB the RPG. It looks interesting, but i’ll have to read more of it first before i pronounce it fit for human consumption. It is GURPS, so you have to be careful with these things.

I found that circuit board bookmark again. That damn thing dissapears as often as Brigadoon (the city and ISP) but appears more often too.

I’ve recently become addicted to buying Kubricks. Not the sets, and not the identified ones from eBay, but rather the plain boxes from Heroes. Something about the uncertainty really piques my intrest.

Speaking of comics, i’ve been reading lots. Here’s the reviews in short form:

• Transformers: Armada :: You get one more shot, Dreamwave. If the next issue is as boring as this one i buy no more of your Transformers stuff. You’re starting to annoy me.
• Thirty Days of Night :: I can’t tell if its the dark and claustrophobic arctic setting or the tiny band of survivors, but there is something i like about this one.
• Bulletproof Monk :: Really cool name, and Oeming as an artist, but the “Soon to be a movie by John Woo” and the “No Bendis” should have tipped me off that it wouldn’t be very good.

Oh, and last post i forgot to say that i’m planning on scarring my eventual progeny with “His Dark Materials” but they’d have to be rather older to get the “killing God” angle. So the aforementioned three will be inflicted when they are pre-elementary school. Yes, even the Gaiman. And should a 22 year old man be able to discuss this so easily? Isn’t it against the Man Code or something?

I’ve also bought a few art books, but as it is five, i should get on with what i’ve got to do today.

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So, i’ve taken the “Last Year’s Entry” thing away. Turns out it isn’t dynamic or based on viewer’s system date/time, but rather on the rebuild’s date and time. So yeah, it is interesting, and would be germain if i updated every single day, but we all know how likely that is. So buh-bye bright blue box. We hardly knew ye.

Sorry about last weekend, guys. I had way too much working and subsiquent exhaustion piled together. It wasn’t much of a weekend, really. On Saturday i got up at 10 and spend about an hour and a half trying valiantly to clean the lot behind the Kung Fu school in hopes of having various Kung Fu related outdoor activities in the future. No real dice as the backlot is more than overgrown, it is a demi-jungle. If jungles had piles of sodden cardboard, broken glass, and questionable weave intersperced with the monkeys and killer plants. So between that and my mom’s birthday on Saturday, the whole damn day was a wash.

Sunday wasn’t much better as my woman was working, but i spent the whole damn day asleep. Told you i was exhausted. Seriously, i accidentally woke up at 7:30 in the morning, because of some noise or something, and i swear i thought that it was 7:30 at night. I wasn’t really surprised that i would have slept from midnight to 7:30. I was that tired. I went back to sleep and woke up around 4. I did get a copy of Neil Gaiman’s Coraline though, so go me.

I am now reading the standard setup of two books. One for daytime at work reading (while shit is rebooting and whatnot) and one for nighttime before i go to bed reading. Eric Nylund’s A Signal Shattered is the former, the aforementioned Coraline is the latter. Just because crypto-cyberpunk isn’t really before-bed reading, and distinctly creepy children’s stories are certainly bedtime stuff. If you are insane.

I just realized that between Pratchett’s Amazing Maurice, Coraline, and Baaa any children i ever have will be really fucked up. Hmmm.

Oh, and i got something else. A little something that goes by the name of Zombies!!! 2: Zombie Corps(e). I know, “Hell fucking YEAH!!” and all that. I am literally beside myself with glee and eagreness to play it. Between the “Motor Pool” location that allows you to get infinate move-doubling (which lasts for one turn, but is renewed every time you step in) to the Gov’t Enhanced Zombies (the Glow-in-the-Dark guys who need a 5 or better to kill and move two spaces each zombie move turn) to the kickass Rocket Launcher (a weapon that removes a tile from the game, nets you all zombies on the tile, and sends all players back to the Town Square), to the rest of the action cards that just make your characters into solid badasses. We really need to get a Zombies!!! game running now. It would be worth the 10 hour drive now. *laugh*

I really should get a CD-Burner from work, i need to make some CDs. Wait i have one. Time to make some CDs.

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So, i’ve done two little things recently, both of which astound me that people thought of them. First off i added another one of my little boxy-things (i need to make up a term for them, it would make explaining them much easier.) full of a plugin courtesy of one Brad Choate. It displays the any entries that happen to fall on the same date as the current system date/time last year or the year before. Pretty slick. I’ll be looking at it and seeing if it actually adds to the Feng Shui.

Other than that, i’ve done something that really makes alot of sence and takes alot of work off of me (and you know how i’m a big fan of not working. My amazingly annoying experience with Addr changing my user directory on the server and completely hosing movabletype has me doing pretty consistant backups. Now as i’ve mentioned, i’m lazy and dislike openning all of my templates and saving them all to disk, so i’ve found a way around that. I created another directory on the host, and used the “Link this template to a file:” blank to output a copy of each template’s HTML to that directory. Now to make backups all i do is export my entries, point my FTP program to that directory, and download the whole shebang. Its quick, its easy, and damn but i think everyone should do it.

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Ya know, now that i’ve made my categories viewable on the bottom there, i notice that a whole lot of my entries are “cat-misc.” I guess i do a whole lot of pointless rambling… I suppose one day i’ll figure out the secret of pointed rambling, but today is not the day!

I downloaded Anarchy Online Sunday afternoon, and i haven’t had time to register and all that. I think it would be a good idea as the woman is working tomorrow and the next day. It would give me some time to mess with it and all that. I’d just love to know how to locate everybody else so i’m not floundering around on my own. The main issue is i have to put my credit card in before the free week or whatever, and that bothers me. I don’t like people being automatically able to debit my account if i don’t figure out i don’t like paying $140+ a year for a computer game. Damn that looks like alot of money. I’ve got Diesel Sweeties Books and Feng Zhu art prints to buy…

So everybody who knew about it and read the page (Jason, Tuten, Chris, and Kristen, if the latter two read this POS) might be interested in how that “talk” the woman and i had on Sunday went. Lets just say that there are people that would aspire to be as good at those little talks as i am. At 11 she didn’t know if she loved me and wanted to leave the relationship, and by 12:30 she was in my arms and we were listening to German techno versions of children’s songs. I am the Teflon Boyfriend.

I’d better not start talking about relationship stuff too much or this will either become all whiny or all syrupy, and we can’t have that.

So no Kung Fu last night or tonight… they are redoing the roof down at the school, and that is far more necessary that people let on. The roof was kinda falling in. So Patrick and I ran into Sifu and some guy named Josh (John? I’m damn horrible with names) and we did some metaphorical workout stuff. Mainly “Lifting The Motorcycle.” Patrick says i’m near to learning actual Hung Ga forms… up until now its been all hand strikes, blocks, and insane standing positions.

That’s alright with me though, this whole Kung Fu experience has been nothing but positive. The more i mess with the martial arts the more i enjoy myself. I don’t feel like i’m standing still as much as i used too, i feel like i know sonewhat how i’m moving (abstract concept, but i assure you it makes sence), and i’m honestly learning how to move all over again. I love it.

If anybody knows where i can go to get instruction in Schaivona fencing (16th century Italian and German cut-and-thrust sword. Most similar to a straight-bladed sabre) that is anywhere near where i live now, or plan to live in the future, i’d be so happy if you’d tell me. I love the sword, and i’d also love an excuse to buy one. Somwhere on the East Coast. I may move about for the masters, but that is three or more years down the road (full time work does not make for fast schooling). I’ll be pretty along in Hung Ga by that time so it may be ok to start diversifying to european martial arts.

Finally, i don’t know what i was thinking. My radar was apparently down at the gun show, and i missed the Thompson. And it wasn’t like it was a Tommy with the straight clip and stock for military use; it was a drum mag version cut down for a violin case (violin case included). The whole damn affair was $1500. I mean that was a tiny bit less than half of what i had at the time, and it would have pushed the buying-a-car plan back a few months, but its a Tommy Gun in a violin case for God’s sake! Even my mom would have said “You bought a machine gun! Dammit Brooks! Wait, that’s pretty cool.” I don’t even think it would take much to bring the woman over to the Dark Side.

Now i go, because i have laundry to do, it is 9:30, and i haven’t eaten. I took way too much nap today…

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Most right-brained people like you are flexible in many realms of their lives. Whether picking up on the nuances of musical concerto, appreciating the subtle details in a work of art, or seeing the world from a different perspective, right-brained people are creative, imaginative, and attuned to their surroundings.

People probably see your thinking process as boundless, and that might translate to your physical surroundings as well. Some people think of you as messier than others. It’s not that you’re disorganized, it’s just that you might use different systems to organize (by theme, by subject, by color). Straight alphabetization and rigidly ordered folders are not typical of right-brained behavior.

You are also more intuitive than many. When it comes to reading literature, you probably prefer creative writing or fiction over nonfiction. And when it comes to doing math, you might find you enjoy geometry more than other forms like algebra.

Yeah, i guess you could say that…

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So i stayed up way too late last night, and caught the test run of XXX. Nope, not porno (I don’t work at TW anymore and so it wouldn’t be free). Rather the Vin Diesel spy movie. I have to say that it was completely insane. I mean we found out that the most explosive substance known to man is, in fact, cocaine as we it explode in raw form on the vine (plant?). I also have to say that the giant American flag parachute is just one of those punch-to-the-face wisecrack things that we’ve always wanted to see super undercover operatives do. I have, atleast.

So yeah, see it if you think you’d like it, or if you need a good decompression movie. If you don’t like completely insane movies, then i wouldn’t bother. And yes, that is a compliment.

I’d love to get one of those Matrix: Reloaded teaser posters with the holographic imprinting, but i don’t want to pay eBay’s $45 pricetag. Of course i don’t want to wait for the movie to either come out or be denied to the Regal to jump on the backbiting bandwagon of politicing that always follows an attempt to get anything out of that hellhole.

Sorry Jason, i’ve got some sort of Kung Fu meeting thing going on tonight so that can’t work… and e-mail me your phone number, i need to get in touch.

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Seriously. Work is just getting more and more hectic as school starts up again. Everyone, it seems, has either completely ignored the suggestion that they test all of their systems in advance to make sure everything is working and to give us in computer services time to answer problems; or they have attemted to all check their systems simultaneously, melting the post offices. Well, not melting but really messing them up.

About Memento… That certainly was a movie, wasn’t it? I don’t really know what to say. It definately affected me, the plight of the characters really did get to me. And the way in which it was presented gave me a sence of what it must be like for the main character with no short term memory. For those who don’t know, the movie is presented in reverse. First the last scene with someone you don’t know being shot, then a scene from before, then a scene from before that, and so on. Until, of course you understand what’s going on. Then they mix it up a bit more. I do think that it was a decent movie. And i may even buy it one day. But i think not now.

In more movie related news, go see Signs. If you’ve seen it once, wasn’t most of the movie damn cool? The ending really didn’t grab me like Sixth Sence, or screw over one of my favorite characters as in Unbreakable, and it just seemed a little too… i don’t know. The rest of the movie was damn near incredible. I’ve always wanted to see the other side of an invasion story. The part with Joe Normal reacting to alien whatnot, rather than the story of the Brave Scientist and Busty Blonde beating the baddies. Really creepy bits to watch for: the most bone-chilling test pattern ever, and the best farmhouse basement stuff since Night of the Living Dead.

Really not much else has been going on. Working hard, watching movies, and sleeping alot. Oh, and the government is trying to take my apartment and sell it at auction to pay back taxes. I always love to find that out.

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