Thumbs Up

Well, well, well. That just goes to show that you shouldn't judge something before you see or experience it for yourself. I actually enjoyed Mobile Home Disaster. For all the same reasons that I enjoy Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. A deserving family gets a new house and everybody in the whole show wins in the end. I thought they were going to make a ton of fun of "trailer trash" and that whole set of stereotypes, but Bill Engvall, the host, did it all very nicely. The family was very nice and completely appreciative. They could laugh at themselves and their situation.

Brian's graphics, especially for the opening montage, were really cool. One effect was where a wrecking ball came swinging in and took the screen off like a piece of paper. I guess it's hard to explain, but it was neat. Especially because I can picture Brian sitting up until 4am at his desk trying to get the shot perfect.

Anyway, if you missed it. That's too bad. Hopefully enough people watched it and you'll get to see more episodes in the future.

G'night

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Cheesy TV

Who likes campy humor that laughs at the dregs of American society?

That's right we all do.

Well, maybe not all of the time. But when it's a TV show pilot that my brother worked on, I have to check it out. Tonight, on the WB, at 8pm (CST), will be airing "Mobile Home Disaster". Think "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" in a trailer park and you're just about there.

Brian has done mostly (all?) graphics on the shows he's worked on before. Well, that changed a bit for this one. True, he pretty much did all of the effects on this show; but he was also out on location, behind the camera, doing odd jobs, and whatever else. So if you have the time and aren't addicted to "The Apprentice" check it out. Even if you end up being sorry you did, just imagine my brother being happy that so many people watched his show.

Aren't I just so encouraging?

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A Short Lived Romance...

Sorry, that should be "romance", in quotes.

Alas...it was never meant to be.

Though I wouldn't have had it any other way. The cute girl from class and I sat together in class again yesterday. At the lunch break we went together to the hotel restaurant. We pretty much talked the whole time, while I ate my juicy burger and she her turkey(?) sandwich, about all sorts of stuff--just like the night before. Except the focus of the day was relationships, with much of it about her boyfriend back in Florida. (ahhh! rats! just kidding) In the afternoon I made her smile during class a few times while trying to keep her from falling asleep. Afterwards we said good bye and good luck and I headed for the door and she for the elevator. And no, we didn't exchange any info or anything--she doesn't even know my last name.

It helped that I was by far the nearest person to her age in the class, but it's always nice to have a gorgeous woman pay you any attention at all. (guys are so stupid like that) Not to mention that she was interesting and funny. Oh, and it was fun to listen to her talk about her business as it was very different than the cabinet shop my dad is running. There are so many different ways to make cabinets out there, it's crazy.

You know what? She reminds me of comedian Elvira Kurt, with the short hair and big, funny smile. Except she's prettier, has red hair, and freckles.

Dang, now I sound like I'm obsessing. That's not it though, I'm just giving all the details. After this I can't imagine when I'd mention her again.

Anyway. I had another good run with the pup this morning. That's three mornings in a row, which breaks last week's "streak" of two.

My last day of class was pretty interesting today. I learned a lot of interesting stuff which I won't be able to use for a while but can see how the program could really help our business become more efficient. Hopefully I'll be able to figure and configure it all and get it working right.

I suppose that can be it. I've had enough small, disconnected paragraphs about random stuff for one post.

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Rock on!

Today was sweet. My class was actually pretty good. I learned a bunch of stuff that will help at my job. Then I had dinner with a beautiful girl that I met in class. And then I went downtown and got tickets to two shows at the Fine Line Music Cafe downtown for Brian and I late in May.

The two shows we're going to go see are Porcupine Tree and Kasabian. They are both from the UK and you have probably heard of neither of them. Porcupine Tree is pretty much completely awesome. They have some sweet stuff. I hadn't heard of Kasabian until Brian mentioned them this last weekend. I was able to listen to a little of their debut album and they sound much like a typical British punkish rock band. But I trust Brian's judgement, so I'm really looking forward to the show. For Kasabian we were able to get upper level reserved tickets, so that should be pretty sweet. The upper level for Porcupine Tree was sold out.

It is pretty awesome that I'm getting the chance to see a lot of live music that I really didn't know if I'd ever be able to see. I never got into going to shows, but while living out in Bozeman there were a few acts that I decided that I'd like to see if I ever got the chance. The first was Paul Oakenfold, who I got to see in July of last year. Another was Porcupine Tree, which I get to see in about a month. I'm pretty stoked about it.

Like I said, the class was pretty good as well. I didn't learn anything huge, as it was the "basic" day, but I learned some pretty good techniques and tricks that will help me work more efficiently and a few things that I didn't know I could do. I'm looking forward to the next couple of days as well.


Oh! Wait! Did I say something about dinner with a beautiful girl?
Oh yeah, I did.

So I got to class a little later than most of the people (but still before 8am) and there were only two spots left in the room. The room was laid out with 3 tables of two seats each on each side of the room with an aisle between. The two spots that were available were on either of the front two tables. At one table was a girl who was against the wall, so the open spot was the aisle seat. At the other table a guy was sitting on the aisle with the wall seat open. I of course sat down next to the girl since I didn't want to have to walk behind the guy and make a big scene.

No big whoop, so I'm sitting next to a girl in a 2-3 day class. Well, there were a couple of times where she fell a little behind in what the instructor was talking about or she didn't quite get something and who was there to help her out? Why, me, of course.

We talked a little bit during the breaks and got along alright. It turns out that she's from southern Florida where her parents own a cabinet shop and she's trying to learn all she can so she can take over the place. While she was up in our great state she figured that she had to see the Mall of America, so we headed over to walk around a little and have some dinner. We attempted a couple of places before arriving at our final destination. The first was Jillian's Fire Stone Grill. That sounds nice enough, right? Well, it was a "Dining & Entertainment Megaplex" that included a bowling alley. Not exactly what we were looking for. So then we tried Wolfgang Puck's Express (we didn't know what the Express would mean, but we wanted to see) but even though it was listed on the map it wasn't open yet. Strike 2. So I then suggested Tucci Bennuch, which is italian and which I knew was there. We had a lovely dinner, a glass of wine and just talked for the hour or so that we were there. It was really nice.

Including this dinner I can only remember two "dates" that weren't with a serious girlfriend in my entire life. The other one was dinner at a Chinese restaurant in Stadium Village at the U witha really cute swimmer girl that I met through a roommate. (and I guess, to be fair (to her) that really wasn't a date either--we just went to dinner during a break of the swim meat we were watching) I've just never been a "dating" guy, I've always been a "relationship" guy. But it was really fun to just go out and have a nice time with a cool girl tonight knowing that I'd see her at class tomorrow and then that was it.

So I had a pretty good day.

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Hi ya!

Dinner on Saturday was at Grizzly's, which was pretty good. And it was definitely more reasonably priced than say...TGI Fridays.

The movie was good, it was very entertaining. Most of it was over the top, which was the stuff that was entertaining, but then the rest was over the top of that, which was mostly groan worthy.

This is going to be a quick post because I have to get out of here soon. I have a class I'm going to near the Mall of America for Cabnetware, the software I use at work. The class is three days starting today, and hopefully I'll learn tons from it.

Talk to you all later.

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Zzzz

Did I mention this morning that I was tired? Yikes, I've been slow all day--but I was able to get a lot done. I'm actually still at work because I'm going to dinner over at my godparent's daughter's new town house tonight. That should be pretty fun. My godparents will be there, as will their eldest son, who I haven't seen in quite some time, and my parents.

Tomorrow though, a huge day is planned. I have three things on the agenda.

1. Use the work moving truck to move my stuff, with my dad's help, from storage to my brother's house.
2. Eat a delectible meal at a fine restuarant with Steve.
3. Following dinner, go watch Kung Fu Hustle.

That will all be sweet.

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I'm still okay with me

Well, the combination of sore body muscles (I swear I could feel my ears before stepping into the shower this morning) and the "late night" party last night means that I just couldn't get up early enough even for a walk. But fear not loyal readers! I will take a jaunt this evening and enjoy the crisp spring air in the light.

I can't wait until I'm at least in good enough shape to not feel so pathetic as to want to take a walk. But I'm not too proud to take this (pardon the appropriate idiom) one step at a time and build myself back up slowly and surely.

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Music Notes

This is probably more for me than anyone else, but when I started paying attention to the music I was listening to while on my run this morning I noticed a couple things. Some music is perfect for my running and other music is not as good or even disrupting. The main cause is the beat. The rhythm of music always gets right to me and I want to align everything I do along with the beat of whatever I happen to be listening to at one particular moment. This is very handy while running as it can spur my to keep up the pace as my footsteps hit the ground to the beat of the music.

I have an ecclectic mix of music on my mp3 player right now, so the songs can be quite different from one another. The first song that I noticed this morning was "Superbeast" by Rob Zombie, it was perfect. Hard and heavy, fast, and the perfect beat. Then came "I Am Hell" by White Zombie (Rob's old band) and it had the same first two qualifications of the previous song but was lacking in the third. It was slightly faster and either it was too hard to keep the pace or it just rubbed me the wrong way to have my foot steps falling off of the beat. The third song was "It's Only Rock and Roll" by the Rolling Stones. I love that song, but the beat was just too slow, I had to skip ahead. The next was "Blackest Eyes" by Porcupine Tree. Another winner, it just made me want to keep running.

After that I didn't pay too much attention until I got to Juno Reactor's "Mona Lisa Overdrive". This was another one that was well suited to my run. But hearing it made me think of something else I had realized about this song at an earlier date. It isn't quite safe to listen to this car while driving along with any speed on the freeway. It makes you want to weave through traffic avoiding bullets and cops. You may recognize the song even if you don't find the name familiar. It is the song played during the huge freeway chase scene in The Matrix Reloaded.

Goodnight, it's too late for me. Especially if I'm going to get up in the morning for a walk! I went over to Paul and Laura's tonight and ended up watching Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle. I had wanted to watch this movie for a while. It was entertaining but not a modern classic in the vein of Napolean Dynamite, Office Space, or Van Wilder. I'll try to give a fuller review another time

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Wow!

Another morning, another excursion with the pup.

That's right, I've gotten up early and got in a work out two days in a row. (check back tomorrow to see if I can make it three)

I kept the dog much more in rein today. The shorter leash and tugs on the leash helped keep him at my side. Though that presents a new set of problems whereby his giant rump often bumps into my legs. At one point we saw a couple of geese sitting on a lake and was slowly drawn towards them. But before he reached the end of the leash he realized that he was supposed to be by my side and pulled himself back. Unfortunately he overcompensated and nearly ran under my legs. That's okay though; he's such a great guy I can forgive nearly everything he does.

I'm much sorer today, which I expected. We'll see how I feel tomorrow morning, though it may turn in to much more of a walk to let my muscles recover a little but. Matt already called me "wussy bananas" (a very old Johnson Boys insult) for even thinking about just walking, but we'll see.

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Blingity Bling

I can kind of understand the whole blinging out your car craze. Not entirely, but a little. But there are cases where I cannot understand it even one bit.

One thing that I've never got, but maybe had a breakthrough thought the other day, was the whole labeling your car with giant stickers proclaiming the make of your car. Whenever I see a crappy Honda Accord with a giant "HONDA" across the top of the windshield, or a huge Honda "H" on the hood (I saw a car with both the other day) I cringe. I never got it at all--it didn't make sense. But I had a thought, maybe they want it to look like a NASCAR race car. Maybe they want to feel like Honda is sponsoring their 1992 Honda Accord LX. I don't know if that's right, but it's the only thing I've come up with.

Now, the reason I started this post...this morning, on 77/Cedar Ave Northbound I saw a minivan. No big whoop, there are literally hundreds of minivans in the neighborhood I live in alone. Wait...I can't tell this until I tell about something else that happened over the weekend.

(Here's the crux of whether you hate listening to/reading my stories or love it: I feel an irresistible urge to give every detail and fill in every item of backstory I can for even the smallest anecdote I wish to tell anyone about. The main reason is that I'm kind of a details guy and it's the way I wish people would tell me stories; I love the little details. They're what make stories personal and unique. So love it or leave it, but it's the way I tell tales.)

So, Matt, Jenny, Luke, and I headed over to Wal-Mart the other day for some such thing. I can't remember what. On the way in I happened to notice a tire/hub cap display in the row of products lined up to entice people on their entrance to the store. The tire sitting there had this plasticky, chromed hub cap installed. But that's not it, it also had a spinner part. But this isn't your $1000 a wheel gold and silver spinner built into a 22" rim for some lowered, tricked out Escalade. This was a chromed piece of plastic that could spin attached to a rod extending out from the hub cap. It looked cheap, rediculous, stupid, and I struggled to think of what kind of person would buy these for their vehicle.

You may sense where this is going...

So I see this old Dodge or Chrysler minivan driving up Cedar Ave. But what made this minivan special was that on its tires were the spinner hub caps I just described. I wish I had been able to see who was driving. The thing that struck me was how worried I became while driving near that vehicle. The spinners looked like the spinning razor blades that would come out of the wheels of a spy car in an old James Bond movie. I was picturing the cheap posts snapping and the spinner parts rolling over the hood and roof of my car like a buzz saw.

That's the story.

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Starting.......NOW!

Ahhh, breaktime...

This morning I began Operation "Look Semi-Good to the Ladies, Again".

Though it is also known by a few other names:

Operation "Get My Lazy Butt Out of Bed at a Reasonable Hour"
Operation "Stop Looking Like a Tub-O-Lard"
Operation "Enjoy a Bit of the Outdoors"
Operation "Do Something Besides Eat, Sleep and Sit Around"

It felt good to get up early and actually do something. Matt and Tom have been getting up to go workout at the club for a few weeks. To help me jump start my own workout I asked Matt to yell at me to get up when he was making breakfast. Hopefully he can do that for me a little while and then I'll be able to get up on my own without too much trouble.

I wish I could say I went on a run, or even a jog, this morning. But my fitness level has fallen to the point where I need to jog with a little walking interspersed. I also took Ole with me. (that's "O-lee", the Norwegian name, not "O-lay" the Spanish exclamation) He was pretty energetic at first and having an 85 pound oaf dragging me and making my legs move a little faster than they would have on my own helped the workout factor. It also gave my arms and hands a good work out holding on to the leash as he zig-zagged back and forth pretty much the entire time. By the home strech he was trotting right along beside me, tongue hanging out, paying attention to nothing but the goal: his house down the street. I let him in the back yard and went to get his bowl of water, but he was too thirsy to wait. He started drinking rain water out of one of Luke's toys that was lying on the deck.

I'm quite proud of myself, but I'll be even prouder if I keep this up and actually start to feel better.

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A Scary Villian

Ask, and you shall receive.

Here are some pictures of the scary villian from Star Wars: Revelations. Unfortunately she's scary for all of the wrong reasons. I feel very shallow going into all of this, but it is what it is. Maybe it's jealousy that I'm not the star of a half hour Star Wars movie.

Anyway, I give you...Zhanna, the Emperor's Hand!

Here she is going on about how she has to do stuff herself to get it done right.




Here is a 3/4 profile view.




Here is a scary side profile.




This is not what I would call an imposing presence.




Here is that super tricky light saber move you've all dreamed about seeing--the double overhead swing blocked by the double overhead parry.




Well, I hope I haven't turned you too far away from the movie if you had your heart set upon watching it. It is an impressive achievment, I'll give it that. It simply lacks in the same areas most amatuer films lack in.

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"Movie" - Star Wars: Revelations

Because I am a geeky Star Wars fan boy, I decided to download the 300+MB behemoth amateur Star Wars movie, "Revelations" . I'd give you the official link, but their servers are still down.

It completed downloading today and I just watched the first 34 minutes and 20 seconds. I had to stop for a while because I was afraid I'd laugh too loud and wake someone up. "Oh!" you're thinking, "They managed to put some humor into it!". Not so much. I was laughing too hard at the huge climactic light saber battle going on.

I won't go into too detailed of a review but you can fairly easily guess at some of the things that I am going to say. Let us think for a bit first: what kind of people would be getting together and making a half hour plus long movie set in the Star Wars universe? I bet a bunch of Star Wars geeks with props and costumes would want in. I'm guessing there are a myriad computer geeks that would love to join. Oh, and the audio/visual club has to be a part. Wow--that's some trifecta. But what could be missing?

Oh yeah, writing and acting.

(Hey, that sounds like Episodes 1 and 2!)

As one may expect, the effects are quite amazing considering that this was an amateur project. There were some nice ship designs and flying scenes and green/blue screen effects. That's the high point.

The writers had some trouble with most of the dialogue, it was trite and meaningless. Things like "There's two Star Destroyers!" Oh, thanks for pointing that out, I would have missed those gigantic death machines in the sky bearing down on us. I would say the plot has the same problem, but I'm not done yet. Maybe there's a huge twist at the end that pulls it all together and makes it all worth while. But mostly the "plot" is a vehicle for the camera to go from location to location where Star Wars geeks are done up and running around in costumes and masks.

The director (and probably cinematographer and editors) take themselves a bit too seriously at a few points as well. Long shots of the city scape drag on to show us how big and busy things are. All right! Things are crazy! We understood that after the first 15 seconds (that's a lot of screen time, just ask my brother) of the ship flying into town. Or following a character down a stairway for 10 seconds (still a lot of time). Oooo! It's the Emperor's Hand, we get it, she's important.

Don't get me started on the Emperor's Hand. Let's see here...the main bad guy of the movie. Well, I can't say that. Let's call her the main antagonist, the Emperor and Darth Vader are still badder. So we have the main antagonist, an ex-Jedi who is now the Hand of the Emperor. Sadly, the Emperor's HR department was bored the day they were hiring for that position. They must have run an ad in the Galactic Gazette that said:

WANTED
One Ex-Jedi looking to help find and exterminate the remaining light side Jedi throughout the galaxy. Pay dependent on performance. No long term benefits. Must deal with heavy breathing cyborg.
Ideal candidate's presence should strike fear into enemies, demand respect from allies, and send fan boys into convulsions. Less-than-ideal candidate will be slightly overweight, have large facial features, and an annoying, hard to place accent.
Complete badassness a plus, but not required.
Please contact D. Sidious on Coruscant.

A chubby lady with a chin bigger than Chyna (of wrestling fame) is not the first vision that pops into my mind when I think of badass villian. Oh, and she has no screen presence and her voice is rediculous. (though the lines she has to read don't help her at all) You may be thinking that I'm sexist and "weight-ist". Well, you know what? I'd love to dress up in tight clothes and run around with a light saber slaughtering Jedi, but it ain't gonna happen, you know why? I don't think I have what you'd call a "Jedi physique". I have more of a "Porkins from the Death Star run in Episode 4" physique, and that's the role I'd play. Sit me in a space ship and only show my head and shoulders.

Hmmm, this is rambling a bit, but I only have a few more points to make.

You know what else Star Wars fans like to do? They dream about all of the cool stuff that could happen with Jedi that hasn't happened in the movies. When Episode One came out people couldn't believe how cool Darth Maul was with his double bladed saber. Then in Episode Two Anakin fought Count Dooku with two light sabers! Unfortunately that fight happened to be horrible, so what would fans do? Film themselves fighting with two light sabers. And what could be cooler than that? How about two Jedi, both with dual light sabers, fighting against one another.

And so we reach the point in the film where I had to stop. The Jedi and the Hand follow the trail of a Jedi artifact to a cave that holds a secret. They all stand around watching a video recording together until it's done and then the Hand decides to kill everyone. So a huge lightsaber battle ensues, with the Hand and the main Jedi character (a woman much better fitted to her role than the Hand) running off into the caves to find each other. The good Jedi prevail over the bad Jedi and the two main characters find each other and start fighting.

They fight normally, one saber on one saber for a while. Until, inexplicably, the Hand pulls another light saber out of no where and starts fighting with it. After a couple of swings in that config, the main Jedi all of a sudden has another saber as well! What? If you're so much more deadly with two, why wouldn't you always fight with two?

It reminds me of that scene in The Princess Bride where the Dread Pirate Roberts and Inigo Montoya are fencing at the top of the cliff. They both start out left handed just to toy with the other. When Inigo realizes that Roberts is really good, he switches to his good hand. After a few swings of that, Roberts releaves that he himself is right handed as well and proceeds to easily win the fight. Unfortunately, for Revelations, The Princess Bride is a really good movie and the acting is excellent and the characterization allows that exchange to make sense.

Oh, and did I mention that neither the protagonist nor antagonist have any martial arts skills whatsoever?

So I started laughing and had to turn it off. Maybe I'll finish it tomorrow and let you know how it turns out.

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And then there was the time...

Why am I finally writing today? Over the last three weeks I've had plenty of great days where I did something fun or interesting. Not so today or yesterday. This morning I got up, took a shower, and ate breakfast. Nothing super there. Yesterday it rained pretty much all day and I had horrible allergies. Now, granted, they were the worst allergies I can ever *remember* having, so that's notable, but nothing really post worthy. (Of course if you look at the quality of my past work I guess it is very post worthy)

Hmmm, what has been interesting in my life lately? Not much.

I went out to a bar downtown with Steve last weekend. (Un?)Fortunately I didn't get drunk enough to hit on any girls and convince them that kissing me was a good idea. There were plenty of them, including the waitresses (yes, we had two, it was a miracle our tab came out right), though I had to rely on Steve to work his charm to get me the beer I wanted.

Well, at least I posted. Maybe this will be a catalyst to keep me writing. I can hope. (I was going to say "we" can hope, but that seemed a bit optimistic)

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