Hmmm. I have to figure out how to clean my room (mainly get a few piles of books off the floor) and vacuum the damn thing. Difficulty rises when you realize that the whole apartment is basically full of stuff (there is one small closet which is not entirely full, and it is small. Also i do not have a working vacuum. See, the thing is we (the woman and i) are hosting my parents for dinner, and i’d prefer that my apartment says “This boy has his shit together” rather than “Look at all this boy’s shit! He can’t stop buying books and they are all over the damn floor!” My apartment apparently learned the saucy language from the bars next door. I know i didn’t teach it that.

I saw “The Four Feathers” on friday, and i have to say that of all the movies i’ve seen this year, it was the most cardboard and the most similar to a miniseries. Seriously. When you make a movie, try to interweave the plot threads. Whenever you fade to black, never let the audience think “Oh OK, he’s done now.” Make sure that there is atleast one thread that keeps going. At multiple times in the movie there were instances where i thought everyone else was dead, and the whole feather thing was wrapped up, but then when it faded back to color then reintroduced characters which i swore were dead but weren’t. I didn’t, after all, see a corpse so there ya go. And most of the cast was as lively as cardboard, but this may have been intentional, they were english.

FIRE OF AIR. Serious and intellectual, you live in the world of thoughts and ideas. You grasp things quicker than most and are a master debater. Your verbal skills are unparalleled; your conversations are stimulating. You are concerned with issues of justice. Your standards are high, so there is danger of becoming too moralistic. While truth is generally an honorable thing, chew on this: “Why Yes Herr Strudel, my neighbor IS hiding Jews in his basement!” You’re Christopher Walken in Suicide Kings.

Quiz created by Polly Snodgrass.

Is that a good thing?

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How Are You Smart?

Well. I’m logical. Is that not special?

So i’ve annoyed another school. I’m not usually given to lengthy bouts of self-pity (really, i’m not), but why do people tell me that they like me only to tell other people that they find me arrogant and difficult to work with? I mean i bust my ass for these people, clear their damn list down to almost nothing (and what is on there i can clear in a day), and what is the thanks i get? Fucked up the ass. I’m starting to wonder if this is really the job for me. I guess removing the telephone isn’t enough, and my manner sucks even when they can see me smiling at them… I guess a lonely carreer is my alternative. Oh well, hello web design.

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Looks like i’ve wasted “Talk Like a Pirate Day” by both napping and mostly not talking like a pirate. I’ve Arrrrr-ed a few times, but then I Arrrr fairly often anyway. I’ve got a Pirate Name though, and i be Black Tom Flint. I think i’ll actually start answering to that. What does this say about my piratical nature? “Like anyone confronted with the harshness of robbery on the high seas, you can be pessimistic at times. Like the rock flint, you’re hard and sharp. But, also like flint, you’re easily chipped, and sparky. Arr!” Eh, i guess i’m more of a privateer anyway…

So i watched “Empire Records” Tuesday. I have to say i found it to be a latter-day “Breakfast Club” and i enjoyed it accordingly.

I’m thinking about stealing time on the PDF writer at work and scanning all the apartment building annoucements (all three) that i’ve gotten last year. I have to say that other than the “Living without parents” thing, everything else has been utter crap. Really, the main annoyance is the lack of parking, which i have detailed several times here before. If i had a parking space of my own, i’d be pretty much happy.

I think i’m going to go practice Lau Gar for a bit, i need to get what little i’ve got smooth and flow-y. This may well take a while.

(Read the article)

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I was reading Chatty’s journal a few days ago, and i came across a link to this. The long and short of it is that fanfiction.net once hosted every type of “work containing other people’s characters” that anybody wanted to write; now they want to just host stuff without sex and incredible violence. And you know what? i can honestly say i don’t give a damn. To be blunt it is their server, and they can do whatever they please. If they want to delete every piece of fanfiction on there that has any reference to walnuts or only include stories that mention the color yellow, then they can do so.

No amount of poorly worded petitions should sway them either. Here’s a tip to everybody who wants to participate in this huge shouting match that is online democracy: If you are writing a petition, do not write it in the CGI form before you’ve first written it completely in a word processing program and checked its spelling and grammar. I honestly do not think that any place whose shtick is writing would pay any attention at all to a petition with “markied” anywhere in the text.

The fact that the petition goes on to bemoan that people are getting their “rights” trampled on. Now, i’ve read the constitution four years ago in high school government, and “The right to post Kodomo no Omocha yaoi fiction” is nowhere in the thing. i always find it especially humorous when anyone, politician or layperson seems to think that the freedoms of speech and press guarantee an audience. The only rights you are unilaterally guaranteed is the right not to be persecuted for your beliefs or broadsheets, no matter how silly or distasteful. And nobody is saying you can’t post your hentai fiction, just that one site in particular doesn’t want anything to do with it.

And that’s pretty much it.

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Yes, the 36 Fist Set was even cooler than i thought it would be. Isn’t that great? I now know such kickass moves as “The Thousand Word Fist,” and “White Tiger Pushes the Mountain.” Good lord but Kung Fu rocks my little black socks.

So, a little background on the last entry so i don’t seem like some sort of deviant. You see, as a child (and still to this day) i took pleasure in scaring the shit out of myself. I think it is somthing intrinsic to the human condition, fight or flight pretty much. And what is the easiest way to scare oneself? Horror movies. Now the problem is as a child of 5 or so, renting R rated movies posed a challenge. As i would never be able to get the family VCR away from the parents long enough to actually watch a movie i didn’t bother with attempting to rent the damn thing. The main way i got nightmare fodder was by just reading and looking at the boxes. This was more than sufficent when i was in the first half of elementary school. Later, when my friends started getting VCRs (my parent’s didn’t even buy me a NES until they had just about been discontinued), i actually would rent and watch horror flicks. This still sticks with me, and i am a devoted fan of the monster movie.

The last entry, however, highlites the old “Scare myself silly with the description of a movie” habit that rears its ugly head every once in a while. However, the average zombie isn’t really all that frightening anymore. On the other hand, either the inprisonment and systematic torture scares the pants off me, or the idea that people would make and enjoy a movie that has all the wonderful aspects of “Devil’s Experiment” scares me.

Oh well, i may post something later. Depends on how the night goes. And Florence is still on the agenda. I may be going without the woman though, as she may have to work friday and saturday. You see of the 30 people the Regal employs, almost half have requested both Friday and Saturday off to attend FallOut. They have also told the boss that if they are not given both days off to drink and go see shitty bands, that they will just not come in to work. David can’t do anything more than write them up, however, as both pay cuts and firing is done at the corporate level. Regal sucks and i wish i could find the woman a better job…

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I saw “One Hour Photo” last night, and i have to say that it was one hell of a movie. There is a care and attention to detail that most other movies don’t even bother with. Everything in the average shot has been placed so very deliberately that it boggles the mind. Yet at the same time the actors brought thought and feeling to their characters (inasmuch as they can, one being a child). My woman says that Robin Williams will be up for best actor for it because of two reasons:

1. As an actor he was did something outside his normal range
2. He cried

It is my woman’s rather cynical theory that the Oscar for best actor goes to the man who cries. Great flick though, i’d reccomend seeing it if you live somewhere where the price of a movie is below $11 per person. And i’d love to know what they wired Robin Williams up to for the “Eyes exploding with blood” dream.

Should i buy “Battle Royale?” I hear it is good, but on the other hand, i hear it is so very horriffically violent that it disgusted the entire Japanese parliment. My woman is “con” on the whole thing, citing the Japanese history of such wonderful wastes of cellulose as Guinea Pig. I am probably never going to actually see GP, because pointless violence and sadism in movies seems tacked on and annoys the crap out of me, and GP appears to be a movie that has full ringing endorsements from pointless violence and sadism. Seriosly, follow the latter link if you enjoy descriptions of pain and torture. Oh, and my woman says that anything that can shock a country that sells used underwear out of vending machines would probably unravel my white middle-class american mind. I think i may just get whatever the kids are using to transfer files and see if it can be downloaded.

No, i didn’t bother to describe the plot of “Battle…” the link should work. And on the subject of links, i’m sorry about last time’s “brutilization of women” link, if any of you clicked, were surprised by the eyeless and noseless woman, and are annoyed at the lack of warning.

Yikes, the theme for the first half of this entry is “gore.” I hope i’ve gotten no new readers, or this will probably put them off me forever. Oh well, lets plug on, and see if there’s anything work reading any further down.

On the plus side, i’m almost rolling in new comics. “Hellboy: The Third Wish (#2 of 2)” is incredible, and almost way too badass for words. Then that is Hellboy, and i don’t think i’ve ever met a HB story i didn’t like. “Powers #23″ also delivers the goods. Though i can definately say that Bendis and Oeming are getting far more comfortable with their audience, and thusly are taking us places that other crime comics fear to tread. Violence and profanity abound and show us why there really is just one incredible crime comic: There only has to be this one. I also bought the second book to the Lucifer spin off series. All i can say is it isn’t Gaiman, but it is damn close. I think that’s about the highest praise i can give a horror writer today. Well, to liken them to either the Gaiman school of horror, the Mignola school, or to thier august progenitor, H to the P Lovecraft.

I also got Sparks back from the woman, she says that it was “incredibly sweet.” And that is appropriate and high praise for the graphic novel. Honestly, it is an incredibly sweet story. And she came close to bawling at about the same time i did. I’m going to marry that girl one of these days.

Oh well. Tentatively i will be coming up to Florence next weekend. Possibly. I’m making another pronouncement with no sence of what has been planned or whatnot. However i’d dammit love to come up, and we so need to break in Zombies!!! 2, and kick some more Kobold ass.

Well, off to shower and learn 36 Fists. And clean up the Kung Fu school. Hopefully i’ll come back tomorrow and Sunday a little more badass. Hopefully. I worry that i’ll be bringing the class down as i am rather ungainly. Oh well. Also: The school is having its annual Birthday celebration on the 26th of October, so whoever can make it to Columbia to watch some of kickass Kung Fu, please come on down. Bring about $15 to get in and prepare to be impressed.

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EXTENDED BODY:

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So there we go. All data is back, volume is converted to NTFS and formatting as we speak. Well, as i type. This has been a crappy experience, so i’m more than eagre to get all of it behind me. What’s my plan? To make sure that both of the drives have the same type of partition table. Either FAT32 or NTFS, so if my boot disk recognises one it recognises all. That was the problem from before, as i booted with a Win98 disk from work and it only got the FAT32 partition on the D: drive. Oh well, live and learn, i guess.

I got the new “Pool of Radience” game a few days ago and am just now installing it. I only really bought it because it was only $20, and it was the Collector’s Edition. Yes, the box with a bag of polyhedrals, the PoR novel and the PoR Forgotten Realms module. While the book is so much steaming crap, the module looks sweet, and hell the polys would cost $6-$12 anyway, so it looks like i saved something like $30 on the whole equation, not even counting the game. I hope it is enjoyable.

Hell, i hope that Albion and StarCon 2 run on NTFS partitions… i’d hate to have to format everything back to FAT32.

Errrr… Ok. I guess. I, being a man, wear boxers. I shall have to ask the girlfriend with those are all about.

Lastly, i’ve been attempting to avoid this whole issue, but it is one year later so i think i should atleast say something. All i can really say is that it boggles my mind that someone would want to kill any and every person in this country: man, woman and child simply because we don’t live in the 12th century, or horribly brutalize our women, or because as somebody explained to me we don’t live our lives with any certain purpose. Personally, as long as a person respects the basic rights of all human beings to determine for themselves how they want to live their lives, i don’t give fuck all what they do. Oh, you want to never wear clothing, paint yourselves blue, and walk on your hands? Hey, if you don’t force me to do the same, then go to town. Ah well, i’m babbling. It is one of those things, i’m uncomfortable with strong emotion, and therefore awfully bad at putting in in writing. Aw well, i’m sure you know what i mean.

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Before i forget: Chatty, you are in danger of kicking way too much ass. Seriously. Hellboy giftart is so far beyond cool that they have not yet invented words for it

And i’ve recovered most of everything i want. I have some backup stuff to get, and my mp3’s, but most all of my work is back and in pretty good shape. Amazing what the drive never bothers to erase. I’m starting to wonder if i should give the drive the old DoD wipe and flatten it to uniform zeroes before i move everything back to it. Just so i get complete new data again. I think i’ll switch it over to NTFS regardless. That would prevent a repeat of this incident.

So i’m reading Christopher Golden’s Hellboy: The Bones of Giants and i have to say that while i can see this happening to Hellboy, i’m not sure that its entirely faithful to the source material. That’s really what had me worried. I mean i do dearly love Mignola’s creation, and this Big Red Ragnarok of Golden’s is something of a different animal. Similar, but not really the same badass… Ah well, </FANBOY RANTING>

what’s your cowboy bebop theme song?

What do you know? Now i’ll have Blue stuck in my head all day. Not a bad thing, but i have Kung Fu to learn…

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As soon as i type my maudlin little “Lament for the Lost” down there, i find a utility that will probably recover everything i’ve lost. I’m quite giddy at the moment, actually. I’ll let everybody know how this goes when i’m done scanning and copying… wish me luck.

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Yeah, also my Mom was coming back from Texas and we were celebrating my girlfriend’s dad’s birthday… all in all a bad weekend for leaving Columbia. I really should check these things before making plans, no? And its not like i don’t have multiple PDA’s to help me with these things.

So i bought Lawrence Marvit’s abso-fuckin’-lutely incredible Sparks graphic novel. I have to say that any Eisner nomination that this book recieved was very well deserved. His art really shows an animation background (particularly a Chuck Jones Studios animation background) so every posture, action, and expression has just the right amount of dynamism to look absolutely appropriate. As for the writing, well, think of a more adult version of “The Iron Giant.” The reason i say “adult” is because the movie (which i have mentioned i unashamably love, and which made me sob like a little girl) is themed on friendship, while Sparks is themed on love and all that. Basic plot rundown: Socially maladroit female auto mechanic builds “perfect man” out of scrap metal, lightning brings said to life, plot ensues. It is fiendishly well written, and again probably the most “moving” (i hate that term, but it is better than “depressing”) thing i can read is innocent life’s steadfast dedication to dignity and innocence in the face of the loss thereof. Ah well, i’m murdering an attempt at a review, so just go buy it. Fair warning, it is both weighty and expensive. It clocks in at about $35, and the author added 170 extra pages to tie the story up. It had almost twice that before he did the adding.

So i still haven’t saved anything to the 80 gig drive. I maintain that somehow i could magically ressurect all my old crap. I admit that the 80 gig thing is excessive, and that i had never even filled one solitary gigabyte up… Doing a mental inventory i really only had old webpage copies and downloaded fanart taking up space but still, there was stuff on there that i’ll be missing. Some of it i’m not sure that there is a way to replace. Here’s a list:

1. My nearly encyclopaedic EGC archives — Without pause i had the EGC from its inception about to the leaving of the original location. I have all of the Venus Tenure on this webserver somewhere. The current Diaryland location i have none of. I was quite proud of those Archives.
2. Cristal Thomson’s After the Ride chapter’s 1 - 5 — This one i think is lost most permanently. Atleast in the form that i had on my drive. I was proofing a novel that a friend of mine was writing, and it was quite cool. I think she’s started writing it again, or re-writing it, so the version i had is most likely apocrypha.
3. Chatty’s first gift fanart for me — Hey, it’s a birthday gift, i can be annoyed with i inadvertantly reduce it to zeroes.
4. All of my mp3’s — I can get those back, but geez that’ll take a while. And in the case of the wierd canadian filk, how will i remember all the titles?
5. Every webpage i’ve ever designed, including my only commercial web design — They weren’t awfully good, but still, it was a nice thing to look at and tell myself that i’ve come a long way design wise.
6. Some really kickass ADOM savefiles — i’m actually kind of glad these are gone. Gives me more incentive to beat the sucker again.
7. My Book’s preface — The internet wayback machine should be able to find this. I’ll let everybody who reads this page know. Nope, no dice. I hope that the actual written copy can be found somewhere, but what with the massive purge i did while moving i’m not so certain.

Just so i don’t look too morbid, i’ll tell everybody that i’ve caught the X-Com bug again, this time hardcore. I’ve checked some FAQ’s and found out that the alien’s that were kicking my ass so badly are the most annoying of aliens, and that my innattention to reasearch was getting my ass kicked in the first place. So i need to work on as much research as i can and get laser rifles and heavy plasma all over the place… and use the tanks more… and have more than one heavy weapons guy. Either way i need to change most of my playing style completely.

You know what the game needs, thought? Patent applications. You can sell stuff you manufacture as an arms dealer, but if you could apply for a patent on it and all that, and get a monetary income based on research that would kick ass. And of course you’d have industrial espionage by other firms seeking to either discredit or just make a buck off of your defending of the world. And if you left a UFO crash site unsecured or uninvestigated, there would be the possibility that another company would send people out there and either the illegal recovery team would get killed and make X-Com as an organization look bad, or they would research UFO Flight or something, make flying cars, and as a consiquence you would have to lease your UFO’s as well as your fighter jets. Just some odd babbling in general, but since the developers have long since gone broke, there is no need not to speculate what could have been in X-Com: Genesis.

I think i’ll stop here, and see what i can do for recovering my drive. Damn i’m preoccupied with this. I don’t have laundry to do though, so i guess i need something…

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