DATE NIGHT!
:D
Have a busy SL schedule that keeps you running from one project to another, one event to another, and doesn't allow time for you and your Better Half?
Or maybe your schedule doesn't mesh as well as you would want with your Online Other's.
Date Night is the answer!!!
My SL gf and I have been missing each other quite a lot lately, so for the past week or so we've been looking for the most opportune day for a date.
TODAY WAS THAT DAY!!! ALL DAY!!! :)
We started around 4:00 pm today (about the time I woke up and got online) and it wasn't over until just before midnight! :) We checked out an in-world art museum, went to a place called The Exploritoreum -- apparently constructed to commemorate some significant luna elipse, with elaborate and quite breath-taking displays! -- and did other stuff :)
It was FANTASTIC!
The next time I have a girlfriend I'm DEFINITELY instituting a date Night!!! It's just too easy to miss people in your life, and after a while that just becomes the norm -- you're coming, she's going. And then after a year you're wondering where all the love has gone! And why you haven't had sex for a year! lol
So I've had a GROOVY day!!! I can't afford to go on dates in RL... even if I HAD a girlfriend! So I just ENJOYED THE HELL out of TODAY!!!
Best date I've ever been on. EVER. (And I've been on some pretty amazing dates before today, too!)
I also got to catch up on an anime series I own called ELFEN LIED. I bought it many, many months ago, but haven't had the time to watch it.
OOOOHHH...
And Brian and I cooked up some salmon steaks, shrimp scampy, mashed potatoes and garlic bread! So I ate like a king today, too!!!
Now I'm trying to decide which of 2 Chinese horror flicks I want to watch tonight: THE EYE 2 or A TALE OF TWO SISTER. THE EYE 2 is -- obviously -- a sequel, which in America would mean it's less likely to be good... However... Asian filmmakers seem to take as much care with their sequels as with the original. (At least, in the films I've seen... which are, admitedly, few.) So THE EYE 2 can't be ruled out immediately.
Then there are a couple of classics I'd like to rewatch before my vacation is over: ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK and ESCAPE FROM L.A.. Don't scoff. You've got YOUR guilty pleasures, too!
And I'm curious about GARFIELD: THE MOVIE. I've got it from netflix and Brian didn't hate it, so I'm curious. Actually, I got it because I was curious: The sequel is in theatres now. IN THEATRES. I knew they were making a sequel, but I figured it would be straight-to-dvd... And probably animated. But they got Brekin Meye (sp?), Jennifer Love Hewit and Bill Murray back, so it can't suck too bad. Also, the fact that they made a theatrical sequel suggests that the first one wasn't necessarily bad. (I know, I know, you're gonna point out that there's a third THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS playing now. But I read the Garfield comic strips -- and comic strip collections -- religiously between the ages of, like 10 and 13... So I have a soft spot for the character.)
I still have some OTR to listen to, too, but I watch movies less frequently than I listen to OTR, so I may just follow the mood and pop in a flick :)
AND TOMORROW IS SATURDAY!!! I've enjoyed today as though it were Saturday... It's FELT like a Saturday! BUT IT WASN'T! :)
Okay, so I'm off for now. Hope you enjoy your weekend!!!
Friday, June 30, 2006
Thursday, June 29, 2006
Summer Vacation: Day 5
Sorry I haven't been keeping up :) Part of being on vacation for me is letting things slide ;D
Okay, so my last post was... Let me check...
OH YEAH!! Sunday!!!
Okay, so after I described my wonderous walk, Brian and I went in-world and played around for a while. We actually treked across a considerable swath of SecondLife! I don't remember exactly how it started...
He was asking me about this device I have called a Host Watch. It keeps in-world time, but it also has a slew of other abilities, as well! One of them is the ability to rez object -- like vehicles -- on other people's land.
Here's the significance of that: Let's say I want to go driving around. But I don't have a stretch of road next to my property. I fly around until I find a stretch of road, then tell my watch to "rez" my car. (If you've seen TRON, rezzing is the opposite of derezzing. If you're too young to have seen TRON, go back and watch it; you may be surprised by some the concepts and how they've actually come to be -- in different forms -- in the ACTUAL evolution of computer programming. And while you're at at watch Michael Crichton's LOOKER! There's A LOT there -- in reguards to HOW marketing works -- that came to pass a long time ago; even though we're much farther from duplicating humans in the computer than they thought we would be by now.)
Anyway, I was testing out my Host Watch, seeing just where all I could rezz my vehicles, and I ended up sailing a strecth of water I hadn't sailed before. I was sailing not too far off from some of his land -- a patch that we use to build stuff on. He noticed that if I followed the waterway I was on, I could land no too far from where another patch of our land is -- a patch that contains the Whitelight Entertainment building.
It's my vacation... I had the time :)
So I went sailing, and Brian decided to catch up with me and we sailed together! (He has very generously moved the best computer into the dining area, so I get to use it... But that means he was on the eMachine... So I navigated and he just followed me and prayed the computer he was on didn't crash.) After we landed we discovered we were just a sim ("sim" stands for "simulation" or "simulator", in SL terms, and describes a HUGE square of land... and everything on it, and above it, including the sky -- ALL the way up) away from out land. So we decided to continue the trek on foot.
We played around with using vehicles, but they got stuck several times, so we just walked the rest of the way. (We could have easily just flown, but that would have violated the spirit of this trek.)
Just as we're arriving, my SL gf logged in and IMed me! She hadn't seen the Whitelight building, so I offered her a teleport to where we were and showed her around. Afterward we went to a store called Omega Concerns and both she and Brian bought their own Host Watches.
Brian noticed a patch of land with a tribute to the Twin Towers, so we all went there and checked it out. (The Twin Towers have profound personal significance for my SL sweety.) Also on the land were automated horse-drawn carriages and some horses; my gf and I hopped in a carriage and Brian hopped on a horse.
And from the Whitelight building to the store to the carriages, we had the MOST ASTOUNDINGLY FUNNY coinversation I've been a part of in a VERY LONG TIME!!!
See THAT'S one of the things I love MOST about SL!!! You can be flying attach choppers or dancing or just whatever you can imagine, and if you've got cool, smart, funny people with you you can find yourself enjoying HOURS (literally) of just GREAT conversation!!! It can be profound, it can be intelligent, or it can make you roll on the floor laughing! I mean, the three of us could have had that conversation in the living room, no ploblem (except my baby doesn't live around here) but the fact that it took place as 2 of us were riding a horse-drawn carriage and the other of us was on a horse circling the opposite direction to us just ADDED to the atmosphere! (AND the jokes! Burnt-out situational comedy writers need to spend some time in SL!) I actually saved the conversation, it was SO FUNNY, but I wouldn't feel right publishing it.
So anyway, the last half of my Sunday was just SPECTACULAR!!!
Monday... Umm...
Monday Mom took Brian and me shopping :) That's always fun!
I believe I played 2 or 3 levels of BUFFY, too :)
I don't remember SL being particularly memorable... excpet that I sold a couple of my Superman avatars that I designed to look like the movie Superman(s). The other one I've seen in-world is more like the 1950s/1960s comic book incarnation. But with SUPERMAN RETURNS coming out this summer, I figured some people -- like myself -- would want a movie incarnation.
And I was correct, apparently ;) More on that in a sec.
I also got to IM with my daughter for an hour or so! That was cool!!!
TUESDAY...
Tuesday was THE DAY!
You may recall that on Uber Friday I reported having purchased a couple of tickets to the 10p advance screening (BEFORE OPENING DAY) of SUPERMAN RETURNS...
Well yesterday WE SAW IT, BABY!!!
Don't worry (Tommy) no spoilers here ;P And I don't want to overhype the movie, either, BUT I LOVED THIS FLICK!!!
Listen, if you're into the Superman movies and are waiting till the weekend to watch it, or waiting until the crowds die down (like next weekend, when PIRATES opens) go ahead and watch the first 2 SUPERMAN flicks again! One, it'll prime ya for how much further sfx and screenwriting have come in the last 20+ years, but more than that it'll prepare you for some very clever nods in this flick to its predicessors! (Is that how you spell it?)
I notice that one of the big differences of Superman in film and recent TV, and all the other incarnations -- THE ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN, any animated series before 1997, the radio series and even most of the comics themselves -- is that the film medium concentrates on Superman's humanity. See, it's hard to care about an imortal man who is invulnerable. It's hgard to emotionally invest in The Man of Steel.
But what Richard Donner and Tom Mankiewicz showed us is that just because your body is invulnerable to pain doesn't mean your emotions are! And Bryan Singer and Michael Dougherty & Dan Harris (the screenwriters; Singer came up with the story with them but Dougherty & Harris wrote the actual script) are smart, smart cats! They get what makes Superman work in the film medium and they tailored this movie to give us the most bang for out buck!
I seriosuly LOVED it! And Brian did too! We had so much fun talking about it afterward that we had to pop in the 2nd flick to catch up on stuff we weren't sure about! (He's been playing the first flick since Friday, when I got I and II in the mail. So it's fresh in both our minds.)
I started reading the novelization of the movie because I couldn't wait for the movie to come out. I got about halfway through it. Now I'll be finishing it because I want to re-experience the movie!
And today, Day 5...
Um...
Woke up with an itch to animate, so I began creating the head of my first character for a quirky little short I may or may not finish. (It took me all day today to get a single chicken head in 2 possitions, lol!)
I got to spend time with my sweety!
I also got to help Mom out!
I emailed her a copy of our short script "The Caretaker" but she doesn't have Acrobat Reader. So I took a copy in doc format to her place and printed it out for her. I also tried to salvage the short stories that she had written over the last few years, but it wasn't possible. Some new hoity-toity version of Microsoft Word corrupted the pre-Windows-XP files and now they're gibberish! So basically, my mom's gonna have to REWRITE THE STORIES SHE WANTS TO KEEP!!!
I don't get why programmer creating what they think is the Next Badass Program can't avoid trying to reinvent the wheel!!! If it's NOT BROKEN than don't friggin' "fix" it!!!
My friend Tommy spent I-Don't-Know-HOW-MANY months shooting his adaptation of "The Tell-Tale Heart" -- his first baby, his first masterpiece! But he made some post-production choices that didn't work out (he was WAY ahead of his time tenologically) and after he had learned a better way to approach it and went back to recut the original footage, he discovered that the codec he used to store the raw footage NO LONGER EXISTS!!!
What happened to Tommy and my mom is the result of someone, like, figured out a more efficient way to store money than banks, and then they burned down all the banks in the world... Without giving people a chance (or a mean) to withdraw their money BEFORE the banks were burned down.
Blah.
I'm on vacation. Rant over.
Anyway, Mom sent me home with homework: I got to burn her first mix cd for her tongiht :) It's really cute! How many mix cds include Captain & Tennille and Sonny James?!! :D (She's got some Phil Cillins and Elvis in there... I'm NOT saying my mom's square or anything.)
OH! And while I was burning I got to listen to Lux Radio's adaptaion of THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL!!! believe it or not -- Sci-Fi geek that I am -- I just haven't gotten around to watching the movie yet! But I got to HEAR it this evening!!! :)
ALSO, today alone I sold 5 Superman avatars!!! (If you're not initiated into SL, wearing a Superman avatar would be like wearing the costume... as well as the body. You've got the hair, the muscles the blue eyes... ALL of it. And in SL you can already fly!)
I put the avatar out for sale a couple of weeks agao, and I sold, like, 3. But then I sold one Monday, 2 yesterday and 5 today! :D AND... I supect that after more people see the movie, more will want to buy the avatar! ;) (It's a GOOD movie!)
I think that brings us pretty much up to date.
Brian's building stuff in-world on the cool computer, so I may steal the PS2 away from him and try to get somewhere in Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness. (I'm so used to using the keyboard with Laura Crogt that the PS2 controler is just awkward...)
Hope your Hump Day went well, and I hope the rest of your week IS EVEN BETTER!!!
Okay, so my last post was... Let me check...
OH YEAH!! Sunday!!!
Okay, so after I described my wonderous walk, Brian and I went in-world and played around for a while. We actually treked across a considerable swath of SecondLife! I don't remember exactly how it started...
He was asking me about this device I have called a Host Watch. It keeps in-world time, but it also has a slew of other abilities, as well! One of them is the ability to rez object -- like vehicles -- on other people's land.
Here's the significance of that: Let's say I want to go driving around. But I don't have a stretch of road next to my property. I fly around until I find a stretch of road, then tell my watch to "rez" my car. (If you've seen TRON, rezzing is the opposite of derezzing. If you're too young to have seen TRON, go back and watch it; you may be surprised by some the concepts and how they've actually come to be -- in different forms -- in the ACTUAL evolution of computer programming. And while you're at at watch Michael Crichton's LOOKER! There's A LOT there -- in reguards to HOW marketing works -- that came to pass a long time ago; even though we're much farther from duplicating humans in the computer than they thought we would be by now.)
Anyway, I was testing out my Host Watch, seeing just where all I could rezz my vehicles, and I ended up sailing a strecth of water I hadn't sailed before. I was sailing not too far off from some of his land -- a patch that we use to build stuff on. He noticed that if I followed the waterway I was on, I could land no too far from where another patch of our land is -- a patch that contains the Whitelight Entertainment building.
It's my vacation... I had the time :)
So I went sailing, and Brian decided to catch up with me and we sailed together! (He has very generously moved the best computer into the dining area, so I get to use it... But that means he was on the eMachine... So I navigated and he just followed me and prayed the computer he was on didn't crash.) After we landed we discovered we were just a sim ("sim" stands for "simulation" or "simulator", in SL terms, and describes a HUGE square of land... and everything on it, and above it, including the sky -- ALL the way up) away from out land. So we decided to continue the trek on foot.
We played around with using vehicles, but they got stuck several times, so we just walked the rest of the way. (We could have easily just flown, but that would have violated the spirit of this trek.)
Just as we're arriving, my SL gf logged in and IMed me! She hadn't seen the Whitelight building, so I offered her a teleport to where we were and showed her around. Afterward we went to a store called Omega Concerns and both she and Brian bought their own Host Watches.
Brian noticed a patch of land with a tribute to the Twin Towers, so we all went there and checked it out. (The Twin Towers have profound personal significance for my SL sweety.) Also on the land were automated horse-drawn carriages and some horses; my gf and I hopped in a carriage and Brian hopped on a horse.
And from the Whitelight building to the store to the carriages, we had the MOST ASTOUNDINGLY FUNNY coinversation I've been a part of in a VERY LONG TIME!!!
See THAT'S one of the things I love MOST about SL!!! You can be flying attach choppers or dancing or just whatever you can imagine, and if you've got cool, smart, funny people with you you can find yourself enjoying HOURS (literally) of just GREAT conversation!!! It can be profound, it can be intelligent, or it can make you roll on the floor laughing! I mean, the three of us could have had that conversation in the living room, no ploblem (except my baby doesn't live around here) but the fact that it took place as 2 of us were riding a horse-drawn carriage and the other of us was on a horse circling the opposite direction to us just ADDED to the atmosphere! (AND the jokes! Burnt-out situational comedy writers need to spend some time in SL!) I actually saved the conversation, it was SO FUNNY, but I wouldn't feel right publishing it.
So anyway, the last half of my Sunday was just SPECTACULAR!!!
Monday... Umm...
Monday Mom took Brian and me shopping :) That's always fun!
I believe I played 2 or 3 levels of BUFFY, too :)
I don't remember SL being particularly memorable... excpet that I sold a couple of my Superman avatars that I designed to look like the movie Superman(s). The other one I've seen in-world is more like the 1950s/1960s comic book incarnation. But with SUPERMAN RETURNS coming out this summer, I figured some people -- like myself -- would want a movie incarnation.
And I was correct, apparently ;) More on that in a sec.
I also got to IM with my daughter for an hour or so! That was cool!!!
TUESDAY...
Tuesday was THE DAY!
You may recall that on Uber Friday I reported having purchased a couple of tickets to the 10p advance screening (BEFORE OPENING DAY) of SUPERMAN RETURNS...
Well yesterday WE SAW IT, BABY!!!
Don't worry (Tommy) no spoilers here ;P And I don't want to overhype the movie, either, BUT I LOVED THIS FLICK!!!
Listen, if you're into the Superman movies and are waiting till the weekend to watch it, or waiting until the crowds die down (like next weekend, when PIRATES opens) go ahead and watch the first 2 SUPERMAN flicks again! One, it'll prime ya for how much further sfx and screenwriting have come in the last 20+ years, but more than that it'll prepare you for some very clever nods in this flick to its predicessors! (Is that how you spell it?)
I notice that one of the big differences of Superman in film and recent TV, and all the other incarnations -- THE ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN, any animated series before 1997, the radio series and even most of the comics themselves -- is that the film medium concentrates on Superman's humanity. See, it's hard to care about an imortal man who is invulnerable. It's hgard to emotionally invest in The Man of Steel.
But what Richard Donner and Tom Mankiewicz showed us is that just because your body is invulnerable to pain doesn't mean your emotions are! And Bryan Singer and Michael Dougherty & Dan Harris (the screenwriters; Singer came up with the story with them but Dougherty & Harris wrote the actual script) are smart, smart cats! They get what makes Superman work in the film medium and they tailored this movie to give us the most bang for out buck!
I seriosuly LOVED it! And Brian did too! We had so much fun talking about it afterward that we had to pop in the 2nd flick to catch up on stuff we weren't sure about! (He's been playing the first flick since Friday, when I got I and II in the mail. So it's fresh in both our minds.)
I started reading the novelization of the movie because I couldn't wait for the movie to come out. I got about halfway through it. Now I'll be finishing it because I want to re-experience the movie!
And today, Day 5...
Um...
Woke up with an itch to animate, so I began creating the head of my first character for a quirky little short I may or may not finish. (It took me all day today to get a single chicken head in 2 possitions, lol!)
I got to spend time with my sweety!
I also got to help Mom out!
I emailed her a copy of our short script "The Caretaker" but she doesn't have Acrobat Reader. So I took a copy in doc format to her place and printed it out for her. I also tried to salvage the short stories that she had written over the last few years, but it wasn't possible. Some new hoity-toity version of Microsoft Word corrupted the pre-Windows-XP files and now they're gibberish! So basically, my mom's gonna have to REWRITE THE STORIES SHE WANTS TO KEEP!!!
I don't get why programmer creating what they think is the Next Badass Program can't avoid trying to reinvent the wheel!!! If it's NOT BROKEN than don't friggin' "fix" it!!!
My friend Tommy spent I-Don't-Know-HOW-MANY months shooting his adaptation of "The Tell-Tale Heart" -- his first baby, his first masterpiece! But he made some post-production choices that didn't work out (he was WAY ahead of his time tenologically) and after he had learned a better way to approach it and went back to recut the original footage, he discovered that the codec he used to store the raw footage NO LONGER EXISTS!!!
What happened to Tommy and my mom is the result of someone, like, figured out a more efficient way to store money than banks, and then they burned down all the banks in the world... Without giving people a chance (or a mean) to withdraw their money BEFORE the banks were burned down.
Blah.
I'm on vacation. Rant over.
Anyway, Mom sent me home with homework: I got to burn her first mix cd for her tongiht :) It's really cute! How many mix cds include Captain & Tennille and Sonny James?!! :D (She's got some Phil Cillins and Elvis in there... I'm NOT saying my mom's square or anything.)
OH! And while I was burning I got to listen to Lux Radio's adaptaion of THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL!!! believe it or not -- Sci-Fi geek that I am -- I just haven't gotten around to watching the movie yet! But I got to HEAR it this evening!!! :)
ALSO, today alone I sold 5 Superman avatars!!! (If you're not initiated into SL, wearing a Superman avatar would be like wearing the costume... as well as the body. You've got the hair, the muscles the blue eyes... ALL of it. And in SL you can already fly!)
I put the avatar out for sale a couple of weeks agao, and I sold, like, 3. But then I sold one Monday, 2 yesterday and 5 today! :D AND... I supect that after more people see the movie, more will want to buy the avatar! ;) (It's a GOOD movie!)
I think that brings us pretty much up to date.
Brian's building stuff in-world on the cool computer, so I may steal the PS2 away from him and try to get somewhere in Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness. (I'm so used to using the keyboard with Laura Crogt that the PS2 controler is just awkward...)
Hope your Hump Day went well, and I hope the rest of your week IS EVEN BETTER!!!
Sunday, June 25, 2006
Summer Vacation: Day 2
The day is, in some ways, just beginning and it's already been really cool!
I sort of pre-woke up, meaning that I became conscious, but was nowhere near ready to begin my day, around 2:30 pm. To ease myself into consciousness, I listened to the first episode (of 52 or so) of HORATIO HORNBLOWER. Not as powerful as the A&E movies, but not a bad listen at all!
Then Brian & I did the road-trip thing w/Mom. We found the outlet mall she was looking for, then decided to just go straight back home and get food there. Sonic! Very summer-y :) Brian ordered a double cheeseburger and a foot-long Coney, and it sounded so good I copied him! Talk about "summer-y"!!! For some reason that meal just screamed SUMMER for me.
AND... I'm STILL full! I have a case of cool, refreshing beer in the fridge, and I can't even think of popping one because I know it'll just make me feel heaviER. (I learned never to drink when I'm stuffed... Bad juju!)
But here's the cool part...
My car's Check Engine light is on, so I dropped it off at the autoshop that has fixed this car since my Dad first bought it. It's maybe a quarter of a mile from the apartment. It's right around dusk. And I WALKED HOME.
Okay, maybe that statement doesn't convey the sensations I'm trying to communicate, so let me try another tack...
It's a warm, but mild, 80+ degrees outside. Slight breeze. Just enough to soften the air and prevent me from breaking a sweat as I walk.
I've got my ZVUE in my pocket and my earphones in. (Not those silly earbuds; I'm talking crystal clear sound.)
It's Sunday night. Everything in North Austin is buzzing in that sort of suburban way: Plenty of movement, but not too much, just enough to make your surroundings feel ALIVE... but not oppressive. I wouldn't say North Austin has a buzz, but sort of a gentle, unobtrusive hum about it. I am by no means the only cat cruising around this evening, but everyone else is so far away from each other that none of us intrudes on each other's private little stories.
The sky is dark blue above and purple nearer the horizon, and orange right at the horizon.
Also, the North Austin sky is BIG. Much bigger than the Central or Downtown Austin sky. But not as big as, say, the Odessa sky. North Austin has few buildings over 3 stories, and in my little neck of the woods the buildings are nicely far apart. So you can see the whole sky around in many areas, and still enjoy the plentiful trees.
The first song I listen to is Red Hot Chili Peppers' cover of "Roller Coaster", the extended and unedited version. This is such a joyful tune that it not only matches what's in my soul right now, but nurishes it, feeds it, grows the feeling to the next stage.
I rarely ever hike, but hiking is in my nature. Despite the fact I have the tummy of an inactive person, my legs are built for power and distance. Despite the fact that I was asthmatic for the first 12 years of my life, and the fact that I am a smoker, my lungs keep my oxegen levels plentiful. I seriously seem to have been constructed for the purpose of walking A LOT. (Not running, mind you; running hurts and is annoying, unless I'm being chased... or am chasing ;D)
Moreover, I SO enjoy feeling tiny! That is to say, I'm a biggish dude. My drivers liscence says I'm 5' 9" but everyone tells me I must be 6 feet. And my wieght never seems to get below 200 lbs, and my heaviest seems to be about 230 lbs. So I'm not a little dude. But when I'm hiking around an environment with tall buildings and tall trees and the distances between them and me are such that they look small -- though I know they are not -- I just feel GREAT PLEASURE in that. No idea why, but I do! It's actually not that I feel tiny AT ALL, but I get a sense of how much BIGGER everything else is than I am. And somehow, I enjoy that feeling :)
So Red Hot Chili Peppers' extended and unedited version of "Roller Coaster gets me across the highway and under the overpass, past the Starbucks and some sandwich shop and past the Chase Bank drive-thru island. And as I enterthe parking lot of what used to be the Showpalace 6 -- the building has still not been rased or leased by someone else after a decade, at least -- Dido's "Take My Hand" begins its slow pulse through my brain and veins.
I cross this vast, empty parking lot where trees break the asphault here and there (as they've always done), past a couple of cop cars parked next to each other for whatever reason. I walk past a high school Track track which encircles a football field to my right, while a small fire station hoses off one of its engines to my left.
Dido builds and builds and BUILDS to an orgasmic cresendo which levels out and continues cruising along for a while longer, and the skys grow so subtly darker -- but not nearly oppressively so :)
I pass the high school tennis courts and it's VAST parking lot (this is a physically LARGE high school) and "Take My Hand" finally eases to a close a couple of yards before I get to my street, where I'll be turning right. As Dido fades away I hear the crickets chirping and decide I'll enjoy the natural ambience for the last leg of my hike.
The last leg was the shortest, but it was still immensely pleasurable!
I wish EVERY Sunday night could be like this!!! I mean, I'm sure it could be, but knwoing I'm going back to work the next day tends to make other activities seem more pressing.
Although... When I do get back to work I'll have a new schedule... Wherein I'm off Sunday through Tuesday...
So a Sunday walk would be the BEGINNING of my weekend...
Hmm...
Anyway, what I've described is just a flash of a glimpse of the wonderful experience I had. Never the less, I wanted to capture it for you, and for myself sometime later.
I SINCERELY hope your Sunday was as pleasant and fulfilling as mine is so far :D
I sort of pre-woke up, meaning that I became conscious, but was nowhere near ready to begin my day, around 2:30 pm. To ease myself into consciousness, I listened to the first episode (of 52 or so) of HORATIO HORNBLOWER. Not as powerful as the A&E movies, but not a bad listen at all!
Then Brian & I did the road-trip thing w/Mom. We found the outlet mall she was looking for, then decided to just go straight back home and get food there. Sonic! Very summer-y :) Brian ordered a double cheeseburger and a foot-long Coney, and it sounded so good I copied him! Talk about "summer-y"!!! For some reason that meal just screamed SUMMER for me.
AND... I'm STILL full! I have a case of cool, refreshing beer in the fridge, and I can't even think of popping one because I know it'll just make me feel heaviER. (I learned never to drink when I'm stuffed... Bad juju!)
But here's the cool part...
My car's Check Engine light is on, so I dropped it off at the autoshop that has fixed this car since my Dad first bought it. It's maybe a quarter of a mile from the apartment. It's right around dusk. And I WALKED HOME.
Okay, maybe that statement doesn't convey the sensations I'm trying to communicate, so let me try another tack...
It's a warm, but mild, 80+ degrees outside. Slight breeze. Just enough to soften the air and prevent me from breaking a sweat as I walk.
I've got my ZVUE in my pocket and my earphones in. (Not those silly earbuds; I'm talking crystal clear sound.)
It's Sunday night. Everything in North Austin is buzzing in that sort of suburban way: Plenty of movement, but not too much, just enough to make your surroundings feel ALIVE... but not oppressive. I wouldn't say North Austin has a buzz, but sort of a gentle, unobtrusive hum about it. I am by no means the only cat cruising around this evening, but everyone else is so far away from each other that none of us intrudes on each other's private little stories.
The sky is dark blue above and purple nearer the horizon, and orange right at the horizon.
Also, the North Austin sky is BIG. Much bigger than the Central or Downtown Austin sky. But not as big as, say, the Odessa sky. North Austin has few buildings over 3 stories, and in my little neck of the woods the buildings are nicely far apart. So you can see the whole sky around in many areas, and still enjoy the plentiful trees.
The first song I listen to is Red Hot Chili Peppers' cover of "Roller Coaster", the extended and unedited version. This is such a joyful tune that it not only matches what's in my soul right now, but nurishes it, feeds it, grows the feeling to the next stage.
I rarely ever hike, but hiking is in my nature. Despite the fact I have the tummy of an inactive person, my legs are built for power and distance. Despite the fact that I was asthmatic for the first 12 years of my life, and the fact that I am a smoker, my lungs keep my oxegen levels plentiful. I seriously seem to have been constructed for the purpose of walking A LOT. (Not running, mind you; running hurts and is annoying, unless I'm being chased... or am chasing ;D)
Moreover, I SO enjoy feeling tiny! That is to say, I'm a biggish dude. My drivers liscence says I'm 5' 9" but everyone tells me I must be 6 feet. And my wieght never seems to get below 200 lbs, and my heaviest seems to be about 230 lbs. So I'm not a little dude. But when I'm hiking around an environment with tall buildings and tall trees and the distances between them and me are such that they look small -- though I know they are not -- I just feel GREAT PLEASURE in that. No idea why, but I do! It's actually not that I feel tiny AT ALL, but I get a sense of how much BIGGER everything else is than I am. And somehow, I enjoy that feeling :)
So Red Hot Chili Peppers' extended and unedited version of "Roller Coaster gets me across the highway and under the overpass, past the Starbucks and some sandwich shop and past the Chase Bank drive-thru island. And as I enterthe parking lot of what used to be the Showpalace 6 -- the building has still not been rased or leased by someone else after a decade, at least -- Dido's "Take My Hand" begins its slow pulse through my brain and veins.
I cross this vast, empty parking lot where trees break the asphault here and there (as they've always done), past a couple of cop cars parked next to each other for whatever reason. I walk past a high school Track track which encircles a football field to my right, while a small fire station hoses off one of its engines to my left.
Dido builds and builds and BUILDS to an orgasmic cresendo which levels out and continues cruising along for a while longer, and the skys grow so subtly darker -- but not nearly oppressively so :)
I pass the high school tennis courts and it's VAST parking lot (this is a physically LARGE high school) and "Take My Hand" finally eases to a close a couple of yards before I get to my street, where I'll be turning right. As Dido fades away I hear the crickets chirping and decide I'll enjoy the natural ambience for the last leg of my hike.
The last leg was the shortest, but it was still immensely pleasurable!
I wish EVERY Sunday night could be like this!!! I mean, I'm sure it could be, but knwoing I'm going back to work the next day tends to make other activities seem more pressing.
Although... When I do get back to work I'll have a new schedule... Wherein I'm off Sunday through Tuesday...
So a Sunday walk would be the BEGINNING of my weekend...
Hmm...
Anyway, what I've described is just a flash of a glimpse of the wonderful experience I had. Never the less, I wanted to capture it for you, and for myself sometime later.
I SINCERELY hope your Sunday was as pleasant and fulfilling as mine is so far :D
Summer Vacation: Day 1
This day owes me nothing :)
I'm SO enjoying vacation!!! In fact, just before I woke up I kinda-sorta woke up and looked at the clock and it was 2:00 pm, and I thought I might as well get up and get started with my last work day before vacation... Then I remembered that I ALREADY DID THAT YESTERDAY!!! THIS IS VACATION!!!
I actually threw my arms up from under the covers, forefingers and pinky fingers poking out, like I'm at a rock concert!!! I was THAT happy :D
Brian and I just finished watching SYRIANA! Good flick!
Earlier we wactehd THE LIFE AND DEATH OF PETER SELLERS. Also very cool :)
But more than the fact that they're good movies, I'm so stoked that I actually GOT TO WATCH THEM! I haven't had time to watch movies for a while now. And as a result I have to budget my movie-watching time carefully. Which means that I only watch (a) big movies that I HAVE TO see on the big screen or (b) big movies that on dvd that I so love I HAVE TO own them. I can't risk watching movies that might not be that great or that might be a downer, because what a waste of time THAT would be! That's 2 movie-hours, and I might not get 2 movie-hours again for a month and a half!
So I have to be careful.
But for the next 10 days, I don't have to sweat it!!! I have 16 hours in my next several days (assuming I sleep a full 8 hours, and also assuming I only sleep 8 hours) that I get to do with as I please!!!
Naturally, I got som SL time in :) Lots of it! So much that I was bored with it!
I got to spend soem time with my SL gf! Not as much as I would have liked, but QUALITY time!!!
I also got to create pop-out monsters. I commishioned this device from an in-world scripter that makes things jump out at people. I've had it for a while, but I hadn't gotten to test it and figure out exactly how it works.
Today I created 6 pop-out monsters for a future Haunted House (or something)!
Ooh, I also got to help my gf with her offices! That's cool!
And I played a level and a half of BUFFY! (I still haven't gotten past Level 8, but today I started back at the beginning and just played until something else caught my attention.)
I haven't dived into my Old Time Radio yet, but that's fine for now :) I still have 10 days!!!
And now I'm about to retire... BECAUSE I WANT TO!!! (Not because I have to!)
Really diggin' on life right at the moment! Hope yours is treating you well, too :D
I'm SO enjoying vacation!!! In fact, just before I woke up I kinda-sorta woke up and looked at the clock and it was 2:00 pm, and I thought I might as well get up and get started with my last work day before vacation... Then I remembered that I ALREADY DID THAT YESTERDAY!!! THIS IS VACATION!!!
I actually threw my arms up from under the covers, forefingers and pinky fingers poking out, like I'm at a rock concert!!! I was THAT happy :D
Brian and I just finished watching SYRIANA! Good flick!
Earlier we wactehd THE LIFE AND DEATH OF PETER SELLERS. Also very cool :)
But more than the fact that they're good movies, I'm so stoked that I actually GOT TO WATCH THEM! I haven't had time to watch movies for a while now. And as a result I have to budget my movie-watching time carefully. Which means that I only watch (a) big movies that I HAVE TO see on the big screen or (b) big movies that on dvd that I so love I HAVE TO own them. I can't risk watching movies that might not be that great or that might be a downer, because what a waste of time THAT would be! That's 2 movie-hours, and I might not get 2 movie-hours again for a month and a half!
So I have to be careful.
But for the next 10 days, I don't have to sweat it!!! I have 16 hours in my next several days (assuming I sleep a full 8 hours, and also assuming I only sleep 8 hours) that I get to do with as I please!!!
Naturally, I got som SL time in :) Lots of it! So much that I was bored with it!
I got to spend soem time with my SL gf! Not as much as I would have liked, but QUALITY time!!!
I also got to create pop-out monsters. I commishioned this device from an in-world scripter that makes things jump out at people. I've had it for a while, but I hadn't gotten to test it and figure out exactly how it works.
Today I created 6 pop-out monsters for a future Haunted House (or something)!
Ooh, I also got to help my gf with her offices! That's cool!
And I played a level and a half of BUFFY! (I still haven't gotten past Level 8, but today I started back at the beginning and just played until something else caught my attention.)
I haven't dived into my Old Time Radio yet, but that's fine for now :) I still have 10 days!!!
And now I'm about to retire... BECAUSE I WANT TO!!! (Not because I have to!)
Really diggin' on life right at the moment! Hope yours is treating you well, too :D
Friday, June 23, 2006
And Thus Begins UBER FRIDAY :D
When I get off work tonight (Sauturday morning for the rest of you) I will be beginning an 11-DAY VACATION!!!
I am SO READY for a break, too! I'm not brunt-out, per se... But there's so much going on that work kind of distracts me from. So It'll be REALLY NICE to be able to choose where my attention goes for the next 11 days!!!
Got some fun stuff already planned...
Mom wants to drive to San marcus w/Brian and me Sunday. (She has to go there -- for some reason she refuses to divulge -- and she wants Brian and me with her on a test run so she knows where to exit and stuff on the day.) And we'll do our weekly Family Dinner thing in San Marcus.
Last night I bought 2 tickets to the 10:00 pm June 27th early screening of SUPERMAN RETURNS!!! So Brian and I are DEFINITELY going to see that!!! (BTW I'm, like, 180 into the 330+ page novelization of the flick, and it's gonna be GOOD!!!)
Brian and I are developing 2 feature-length screenplays now! (The one that is good-to-go first will be the one we make next year.) So it'll be GREAT to have the time to just toss ideas at each other and watch these stories grow!!! :D
I have some Old Time Radio to listen to, also: I got the complete HORATIO HORNBLOWER radio series, 2 discs of LUX RADIO movies adapted for the Theatre of the Mind, and a disc of Sci-Fi Favorites!
Moreover, I think I found a Savegame for BUFFY, which I will try to get onto my PS2 memory card during this vacation. (That way I can play all the levels and just skip those annoying-ass Boss Battles!) And even if I can't get the Savegame onto my memory card, I'll most likely spend a day or so just replaying BUFFY from the start, just 'cause I love it so!
I have some movies to watch, too!!! I just recently aquired this Chinese horror flick called A TALE OF TWO SISTERS... Looks COOL! And I haven't seen THE EYE 2 yet! (Although, I'll probably want to rewatch THE EYE before I do... Just to refresh my memory.)
Also, when I return to work I'll be on an overnight schedule. So I'll be able to reset my sleep schedule over the course of this next 11 days. (I'll need to start going to bed at 10:00 am so I can wake up at 6:00 pm. FULL-ON Vampire Hours now.)
Originally, I asked for this time off so Brian and I could drive to Florida and watch our good friend Chuck's production of Othello... But I realized at the beginning of the month that we wouldn't have the money :( So that's kind of bittersweet. And I'm hoping I'll be able to get a hold of him sometime during this time off.
Still, it feels almost like the last day of school before Summer Vacation :D
Except for the fact that I will be working my ass off -- probably for all 10 hours of my shift -- from the time I get to work until sweet, sweet release tongiht (tomorrow morning).
But stilll... 11 DAYS!!! :)
I am SO READY for a break, too! I'm not brunt-out, per se... But there's so much going on that work kind of distracts me from. So It'll be REALLY NICE to be able to choose where my attention goes for the next 11 days!!!
Got some fun stuff already planned...
Mom wants to drive to San marcus w/Brian and me Sunday. (She has to go there -- for some reason she refuses to divulge -- and she wants Brian and me with her on a test run so she knows where to exit and stuff on the day.) And we'll do our weekly Family Dinner thing in San Marcus.
Last night I bought 2 tickets to the 10:00 pm June 27th early screening of SUPERMAN RETURNS!!! So Brian and I are DEFINITELY going to see that!!! (BTW I'm, like, 180 into the 330+ page novelization of the flick, and it's gonna be GOOD!!!)
Brian and I are developing 2 feature-length screenplays now! (The one that is good-to-go first will be the one we make next year.) So it'll be GREAT to have the time to just toss ideas at each other and watch these stories grow!!! :D
I have some Old Time Radio to listen to, also: I got the complete HORATIO HORNBLOWER radio series, 2 discs of LUX RADIO movies adapted for the Theatre of the Mind, and a disc of Sci-Fi Favorites!
Moreover, I think I found a Savegame for BUFFY, which I will try to get onto my PS2 memory card during this vacation. (That way I can play all the levels and just skip those annoying-ass Boss Battles!) And even if I can't get the Savegame onto my memory card, I'll most likely spend a day or so just replaying BUFFY from the start, just 'cause I love it so!
I have some movies to watch, too!!! I just recently aquired this Chinese horror flick called A TALE OF TWO SISTERS... Looks COOL! And I haven't seen THE EYE 2 yet! (Although, I'll probably want to rewatch THE EYE before I do... Just to refresh my memory.)
Also, when I return to work I'll be on an overnight schedule. So I'll be able to reset my sleep schedule over the course of this next 11 days. (I'll need to start going to bed at 10:00 am so I can wake up at 6:00 pm. FULL-ON Vampire Hours now.)
Originally, I asked for this time off so Brian and I could drive to Florida and watch our good friend Chuck's production of Othello... But I realized at the beginning of the month that we wouldn't have the money :( So that's kind of bittersweet. And I'm hoping I'll be able to get a hold of him sometime during this time off.
Still, it feels almost like the last day of school before Summer Vacation :D
Except for the fact that I will be working my ass off -- probably for all 10 hours of my shift -- from the time I get to work until sweet, sweet release tongiht (tomorrow morning).
But stilll... 11 DAYS!!! :)
Monday, June 19, 2006
Stuck in the Old Quarry
I can't (yet) get past Level 8 (of 12) in BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER: CHAOS BLEEDS.
I've gotten THROUGH the level. I've gotten to the Boss Battle. and around 5 am this morning I came REALLY CLOSE to defeating the Boss... But I'm not there yet.
ALSO...
I broke down and had to get the novelization of SUPERMAN RETURNS... I couldn't wait until the 28th, I HAVE TO know the story NOW.
I'm so lame, lol.
I did the same thing in 1989 with BATMAN.
I just wish there were a novelization of PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MAN'S CHEST!!! I would LOVE to read that!
Plus, that would be a great series of novels anyway! After the 3rd movie comes out, you could keep reading the adventures of jack Sparrow and Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann! How great would THAT be?!!
They have a juvenile series about young Jack Sparrow. That looks cute, but I want and adult series! Like the Horatio Hornblower novels, only with supernatural stuff, too! I can't believe Disney isn't already working on this! (They probably are, only they're holding off on the release of the series until after the film series is complete in some clever marketing strategy.)
Blah.
DUDE!!! I've seen a trailer for both the PIRATES game and the SUPERMAN RETURNS game, and they should both be OUTSTANDING!
How geeky am I?
It's fine though! I LOVE summers!!! I love having things to geek-out about! The anticipation is so fun, and the pay-off when the movie/game/whatever is as good as I hoped, and the breathless conversations before and after with others of a similar geek-like bent :)
I'm able to geek-out with both Brian and Kel about SUPERMAN RETURNS, and I can geek-out about PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MAN'S CHEST with Brian and.. EVERY WOMAN I KNOW :) Women who NEVER like the kinds of movies I like LOVE the PIRATES movies. (I wonder why that is... lol)
Okay, I'm gonna wrap this up and get back to SUPERMAN RETURNS. Lex Luthor looks like he's up to no good... Let's see what happens...
I've gotten THROUGH the level. I've gotten to the Boss Battle. and around 5 am this morning I came REALLY CLOSE to defeating the Boss... But I'm not there yet.
ALSO...
I broke down and had to get the novelization of SUPERMAN RETURNS... I couldn't wait until the 28th, I HAVE TO know the story NOW.
I'm so lame, lol.
I did the same thing in 1989 with BATMAN.
I just wish there were a novelization of PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MAN'S CHEST!!! I would LOVE to read that!
Plus, that would be a great series of novels anyway! After the 3rd movie comes out, you could keep reading the adventures of jack Sparrow and Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann! How great would THAT be?!!
They have a juvenile series about young Jack Sparrow. That looks cute, but I want and adult series! Like the Horatio Hornblower novels, only with supernatural stuff, too! I can't believe Disney isn't already working on this! (They probably are, only they're holding off on the release of the series until after the film series is complete in some clever marketing strategy.)
Blah.
DUDE!!! I've seen a trailer for both the PIRATES game and the SUPERMAN RETURNS game, and they should both be OUTSTANDING!
How geeky am I?
It's fine though! I LOVE summers!!! I love having things to geek-out about! The anticipation is so fun, and the pay-off when the movie/game/whatever is as good as I hoped, and the breathless conversations before and after with others of a similar geek-like bent :)
I'm able to geek-out with both Brian and Kel about SUPERMAN RETURNS, and I can geek-out about PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MAN'S CHEST with Brian and.. EVERY WOMAN I KNOW :) Women who NEVER like the kinds of movies I like LOVE the PIRATES movies. (I wonder why that is... lol)
Okay, I'm gonna wrap this up and get back to SUPERMAN RETURNS. Lex Luthor looks like he's up to no good... Let's see what happens...
Sunday, June 18, 2006
Happy Fathers' Day!!!
Around 10:00 am I got a call that sort of nudged me into consciousness, but didn't fully drag me out of my dream.
Around 2:00 pm (MUCH closer to my regular wake-up time) I got a call that dragged me back into this world enough for me to get up and check the number.
It was TISHA!!! That woke me up!
I listened to the message she left then called her right back. I got her voicemail, so I left a message, and just as I was wrapping up I heard my other line beep, so I swicthed over and it was her, calling me back!
She wished me a Happy Father's Day! :)
Which is REALLY COOL for a couple of reasons:
First, her DAD is my ex-father-in-law. What I mean by that is that he's there EVERY DAY, raising her and taking care of her and laughing with her and arguing with her and teaching her. This is a function he has served as far back as she can remember. (I only raised her had her for the first couple of years.) So I'm the "biological father". And functionally, I'm kind of like that wierd uncle that she sees a few times a year and swaps IMs and text messages and emails with.
So it really touched me when she called me to with me Happy Father's Day!!! That's not a title I feel I've earned, but one she very generously has granted me. You know? (It's the old "E" for Effort grade, if you're old enough to remember that. I'm not, just old enough to have heard that it once existed.)
The other reason her phone call was a great way to start off this Fathers' Day is because this is my second Father's Day without my pops. I mean, I don't believe for a second that I am WITHOUT him, he's here. I feel him sometimes :) But this is the second one since he passed away. And I've been wrestling with what to do to remember him today, or if I should really DO anything besides just spending some private time with him, talking to him.
It's kind of a wierd thing, you know? How the living interract with the dead. I'm not a cerimonious person. I'm super low-key when it comes to expressiong my emotions in that I like to keep it between me and the other person involved. At Dad's memorial service I had ZERO desire to stand up infront of everyone and tell them how I felt about dad. That's between me and my pops.
So to start off my day with a phone call from my daughter wishing me a Happy Father's Day turn a potentially downer day into a VERY positive, celebratory one! :) Tisha set the tone for my day (and I wouldn't be surprised if my Dad had somethign to do with that ;) )!
Around 2:00 pm (MUCH closer to my regular wake-up time) I got a call that dragged me back into this world enough for me to get up and check the number.
It was TISHA!!! That woke me up!
I listened to the message she left then called her right back. I got her voicemail, so I left a message, and just as I was wrapping up I heard my other line beep, so I swicthed over and it was her, calling me back!
She wished me a Happy Father's Day! :)
Which is REALLY COOL for a couple of reasons:
First, her DAD is my ex-father-in-law. What I mean by that is that he's there EVERY DAY, raising her and taking care of her and laughing with her and arguing with her and teaching her. This is a function he has served as far back as she can remember. (I only raised her had her for the first couple of years.) So I'm the "biological father". And functionally, I'm kind of like that wierd uncle that she sees a few times a year and swaps IMs and text messages and emails with.
So it really touched me when she called me to with me Happy Father's Day!!! That's not a title I feel I've earned, but one she very generously has granted me. You know? (It's the old "E" for Effort grade, if you're old enough to remember that. I'm not, just old enough to have heard that it once existed.)
The other reason her phone call was a great way to start off this Fathers' Day is because this is my second Father's Day without my pops. I mean, I don't believe for a second that I am WITHOUT him, he's here. I feel him sometimes :) But this is the second one since he passed away. And I've been wrestling with what to do to remember him today, or if I should really DO anything besides just spending some private time with him, talking to him.
It's kind of a wierd thing, you know? How the living interract with the dead. I'm not a cerimonious person. I'm super low-key when it comes to expressiong my emotions in that I like to keep it between me and the other person involved. At Dad's memorial service I had ZERO desire to stand up infront of everyone and tell them how I felt about dad. That's between me and my pops.
So to start off my day with a phone call from my daughter wishing me a Happy Father's Day turn a potentially downer day into a VERY positive, celebratory one! :) Tisha set the tone for my day (and I wouldn't be surprised if my Dad had somethign to do with that ;) )!
Thursday, June 15, 2006
Yes... I Know... I'm A Dork...
Okay, I officially an uber-geek:
I have a girlfriend in SecondLife!
I've been abstaining from admitting this for a very long time now, because I TOTALLY get how it sounds. But I can't deny it any longer, I'm head-over-heels for a chick I'll never meet in RL, who has a realy life outside the game!
Okay, but before you pass judgement let just give you some perspective...
For the past 9+ years I really haven't been able to "get out there" and try to find Miss Right beause of my going-on-14-year pursuit of a career in filmmaking. And I'm actually okay with this fact. It's a choice, and one I make consciously and consentually: Would I rather spend my time and energy trying to find the woman who will date a broke divorceee who can't afford to take her out and will respect my career as a writer and filmmaker BEFORE I HAVE the career, or would I rather pursue a career as a writer/filmmaker and pray that there will be a woman out there for me when I finally have the money to start having a social life?
The fact is that after 14 years, I don't know how to NOT pursue my dream. I have lost faith in the possibility of it happening, but even then I couldn't stop pursuing it. I am I, Don Quixote...
And this reality is what lead me to the frustrated blog entry around January or February when I wonder aloud why I can't just enjoy a virtual relationship in which I get to enjoy the flirting and the fawning and feel desired and have an object of my desire, even if I don't get the more substantial -- carnal -- bennifits of a relationship. I believe I posited that if I have to wait for another decade, at least I should be allowed to enjoy partial fulfillment.
Well...
Turns out that if you wait long enough in SL... You just MIGHT bump into your virtual soul mate!!!
This woman is just SO COOL!!! I mean, I drive to work now with this big, giddy grin! It's like an actual relationship in many ways!!!
Okay, fine, poke fun. I'm an easy target right now, I know.
But...
Ya gotta admit... This poses some interesting questions about the nature of Reality. I mean, I have not met this woman face-to-face, and yet when she tells me I'm sexy I believe her! (As opposed to when my girl-friends do it: They're basically saying "No, you'll never see me naked, but SURE you're sexy.") I actually believe she means it when she says it.
Now, one could argue that it's easy for a woman who will never see me in person to say that she thinks my pic is hot. HOWEVER... If you dared me to PROVE that she's telling me the truth I would dare you to DISprove it. Her actions (to my knowlege and in my experience so far) support her claim that I am hot.
Granted, all this "evidence" exists merely in the SecondLife... BUT THAT'S KIND OF THE POINT! As far as the reality of SL, she is into me.
But let's say it's just a game: Does it matter? Half a year ago I was talking about how I'd just like to be able to pay a monthly fee and have email conversations, as though I were in a relationship, just so I can get the emotional "sustinance" that the human psyche needs.
Well...
The way this woman treats me goes WAY above and beyond anything I might have proposed paying a subscription fee for! AND... No fee! She does for my psyche (and ego and insecurities), for free, MORE than I would offer money for!
And according to her, I do the same for her!
"Okay," you say, "But it's not REALLY real. It's just an online game."
Sure, okay. But what is REALITY? If I experience joy on a daily basis from this unorthodox relationship, are those emotions not real emotions? A very wise woman schooled me lame dismissal we guys sometimes throw out there of a woman's emotions when we say "I'll bet it's just That Time of the Month." She said, okay, maybe it is That Time of the Month... Does that make the pain or frustration she's feeling LESS VALID? And if so, how is that fair? She's still FEELING those emotions!
So if I'm feeling happy about something that is somehow illusory, are the emotions an illusion? Am I actually not feeling them? And if not, wtf AM I feeling when i think I'm feeling those positive emotions?
Okay, but here's the flip side: I know a lot of Worriers. I know A LOT of people who spend a lot of their time thinking about the negative things that might happen. They experience discomfort and negative emotions because of bad things that have not happened yet (if ever). Some of them cry because of how bad something might become.
This behaviour is not consicered wierd. You yourself are probably thinking "Well, that's just normal. That's just being smart and being prepared for the future and being intelligent." And yet, what about the negative emotions. Extended negative emotion leads to PHYSICAL health problems.
And positive emotions behave conversely -- producing physical bennifits to one's health.
I mean, it's a great deal more complex that that. If you just run through it in your head you'll see that you tend to be nicer to people when you're in a good mood, you tend to be more generous with time/resources when you're in a good mood, tend to sponteneously think of OTHERS when your in a good mood, and thinking about things that make you happy tends to put you in a good mood. Conversely, when was the last time you were in a bad mood and sponteneouly thought "My wife might like some flowers for no reason"? Okay, when is the last time you were in a bad mood and your wife asked you to do something you had already said you would do a week ago, and yet you felt attacked by her when she asked "Are you going to get around to that this week?" And thinking about things that make you unhappy tends to put you in a bad mood.
Prove me wrong.
I'm not really trying to teach a Psyche course here, I'm just trying to make this point:
If it's perfectly aceptable for someone to fret over bad things that might or might not happen and put themselves into a bad mood over them, what is so wierd about me accepting a virtual relationship for what it is and experiencing the psychological, emotional and spiritual bennifits of that relationship?
But if the emotions experienced are real, how "fake" could a virtual relationship be?
What IS Reality? What would define a REAL relationship for YOU? What criterion would have to be satisfied before you could enjoy the relationship as real?
What IS real?
I have a girlfriend in SecondLife!
I've been abstaining from admitting this for a very long time now, because I TOTALLY get how it sounds. But I can't deny it any longer, I'm head-over-heels for a chick I'll never meet in RL, who has a realy life outside the game!
Okay, but before you pass judgement let just give you some perspective...
For the past 9+ years I really haven't been able to "get out there" and try to find Miss Right beause of my going-on-14-year pursuit of a career in filmmaking. And I'm actually okay with this fact. It's a choice, and one I make consciously and consentually: Would I rather spend my time and energy trying to find the woman who will date a broke divorceee who can't afford to take her out and will respect my career as a writer and filmmaker BEFORE I HAVE the career, or would I rather pursue a career as a writer/filmmaker and pray that there will be a woman out there for me when I finally have the money to start having a social life?
The fact is that after 14 years, I don't know how to NOT pursue my dream. I have lost faith in the possibility of it happening, but even then I couldn't stop pursuing it. I am I, Don Quixote...
And this reality is what lead me to the frustrated blog entry around January or February when I wonder aloud why I can't just enjoy a virtual relationship in which I get to enjoy the flirting and the fawning and feel desired and have an object of my desire, even if I don't get the more substantial -- carnal -- bennifits of a relationship. I believe I posited that if I have to wait for another decade, at least I should be allowed to enjoy partial fulfillment.
Well...
Turns out that if you wait long enough in SL... You just MIGHT bump into your virtual soul mate!!!
This woman is just SO COOL!!! I mean, I drive to work now with this big, giddy grin! It's like an actual relationship in many ways!!!
Okay, fine, poke fun. I'm an easy target right now, I know.
But...
Ya gotta admit... This poses some interesting questions about the nature of Reality. I mean, I have not met this woman face-to-face, and yet when she tells me I'm sexy I believe her! (As opposed to when my girl-friends do it: They're basically saying "No, you'll never see me naked, but SURE you're sexy.") I actually believe she means it when she says it.
Now, one could argue that it's easy for a woman who will never see me in person to say that she thinks my pic is hot. HOWEVER... If you dared me to PROVE that she's telling me the truth I would dare you to DISprove it. Her actions (to my knowlege and in my experience so far) support her claim that I am hot.
Granted, all this "evidence" exists merely in the SecondLife... BUT THAT'S KIND OF THE POINT! As far as the reality of SL, she is into me.
But let's say it's just a game: Does it matter? Half a year ago I was talking about how I'd just like to be able to pay a monthly fee and have email conversations, as though I were in a relationship, just so I can get the emotional "sustinance" that the human psyche needs.
Well...
The way this woman treats me goes WAY above and beyond anything I might have proposed paying a subscription fee for! AND... No fee! She does for my psyche (and ego and insecurities), for free, MORE than I would offer money for!
And according to her, I do the same for her!
"Okay," you say, "But it's not REALLY real. It's just an online game."
Sure, okay. But what is REALITY? If I experience joy on a daily basis from this unorthodox relationship, are those emotions not real emotions? A very wise woman schooled me lame dismissal we guys sometimes throw out there of a woman's emotions when we say "I'll bet it's just That Time of the Month." She said, okay, maybe it is That Time of the Month... Does that make the pain or frustration she's feeling LESS VALID? And if so, how is that fair? She's still FEELING those emotions!
So if I'm feeling happy about something that is somehow illusory, are the emotions an illusion? Am I actually not feeling them? And if not, wtf AM I feeling when i think I'm feeling those positive emotions?
Okay, but here's the flip side: I know a lot of Worriers. I know A LOT of people who spend a lot of their time thinking about the negative things that might happen. They experience discomfort and negative emotions because of bad things that have not happened yet (if ever). Some of them cry because of how bad something might become.
This behaviour is not consicered wierd. You yourself are probably thinking "Well, that's just normal. That's just being smart and being prepared for the future and being intelligent." And yet, what about the negative emotions. Extended negative emotion leads to PHYSICAL health problems.
And positive emotions behave conversely -- producing physical bennifits to one's health.
I mean, it's a great deal more complex that that. If you just run through it in your head you'll see that you tend to be nicer to people when you're in a good mood, you tend to be more generous with time/resources when you're in a good mood, tend to sponteneously think of OTHERS when your in a good mood, and thinking about things that make you happy tends to put you in a good mood. Conversely, when was the last time you were in a bad mood and sponteneouly thought "My wife might like some flowers for no reason"? Okay, when is the last time you were in a bad mood and your wife asked you to do something you had already said you would do a week ago, and yet you felt attacked by her when she asked "Are you going to get around to that this week?" And thinking about things that make you unhappy tends to put you in a bad mood.
Prove me wrong.
I'm not really trying to teach a Psyche course here, I'm just trying to make this point:
If it's perfectly aceptable for someone to fret over bad things that might or might not happen and put themselves into a bad mood over them, what is so wierd about me accepting a virtual relationship for what it is and experiencing the psychological, emotional and spiritual bennifits of that relationship?
But if the emotions experienced are real, how "fake" could a virtual relationship be?
What IS Reality? What would define a REAL relationship for YOU? What criterion would have to be satisfied before you could enjoy the relationship as real?
What IS real?
Monday, June 12, 2006
Just Defeated the High School!!!
Had a groovy day today. I build a Moon Base in SL for Brian's, like, 5th store. He really liked it :)
He had build this huge box that looked like you were walking around on the moon, and he wanted to put a store there, but he was running low on ideas. So I created this sort of Retro-Futuristic building with bay windows that looked out onto his moonscape, so that inside it, you get a sense that your actually in a structure on the moon!
Then he and I listend to Allison Dubois' second book WE ARE THEIR HEAVEN together! Some very great stuff in that book that spoke to us personally -- particularly reguarding our late father :)
I spent plenty more time in SL. Got to listen to some FIREFLY while I was in-world as Brian was watching it in the living room... Exposure to Joss Wheadon is ALWAYS a good thing!!!
Brian helped me figure out the next 5-10 pages of our feature screenplay. I kinda knew where I was headed, but he got me there :D
More SL...
Then I wrapped up my day by KICKING LEVEL 7's ASS!!! That's the BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER game I'm refering to. I had mastered the level, but it ends with a boss battle. (Evil Anyanka, the vengence demon.) And it's just REALLY a pain in the ass!!!
But Brian watched as I played, and he gave me INVALUABLE tips each time I died, so that I finally was able to beat the level!!!
But then I realized that I had misses one of the 2 secrets!!!
In order to unlock all the extras -- such as interviews with Joss and the actors -- you have to get all the secrets.
So I replayed the level and, like a trooper, Brian sat right there with me and provided moral support!!! (THANK YOU, sir!!!)
And now I intend to fall asleep listening to some more of Mrs. Dubois' wisedom and insight.
:D
He had build this huge box that looked like you were walking around on the moon, and he wanted to put a store there, but he was running low on ideas. So I created this sort of Retro-Futuristic building with bay windows that looked out onto his moonscape, so that inside it, you get a sense that your actually in a structure on the moon!
Then he and I listend to Allison Dubois' second book WE ARE THEIR HEAVEN together! Some very great stuff in that book that spoke to us personally -- particularly reguarding our late father :)
I spent plenty more time in SL. Got to listen to some FIREFLY while I was in-world as Brian was watching it in the living room... Exposure to Joss Wheadon is ALWAYS a good thing!!!
Brian helped me figure out the next 5-10 pages of our feature screenplay. I kinda knew where I was headed, but he got me there :D
More SL...
Then I wrapped up my day by KICKING LEVEL 7's ASS!!! That's the BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER game I'm refering to. I had mastered the level, but it ends with a boss battle. (Evil Anyanka, the vengence demon.) And it's just REALLY a pain in the ass!!!
But Brian watched as I played, and he gave me INVALUABLE tips each time I died, so that I finally was able to beat the level!!!
But then I realized that I had misses one of the 2 secrets!!!
In order to unlock all the extras -- such as interviews with Joss and the actors -- you have to get all the secrets.
So I replayed the level and, like a trooper, Brian sat right there with me and provided moral support!!! (THANK YOU, sir!!!)
And now I intend to fall asleep listening to some more of Mrs. Dubois' wisedom and insight.
:D
Saturday, June 10, 2006
I Am Living In A Magical Time
I'm writing this entry for me ;)
I just got off the phone with my friend Kelly in L.A. (actually, my phone ran out of juice and died) and he was telling me about the days he has had working for M. Studios. We were in the midst of a VERY COOL conversation about the new Superman movie, and the previous (donner-directed) ones.
The first time he called I was on the phone with someone special to me.
At work, earlier, I got a call from my friend Kal who is back in Texas for the time being -- he has spent the last several years in L.A. -- which is in really good timing with Tommy and Brian and I shooting this summer's short and next year (hopefully) shooting our first professional feature.
Before that I took a break from work to talk to the above-mentioned Someone Special.
And now, as I type this, my brother's asleep on the couch in the living room with THE TICK on the PS2.
I'm writing this because I will look back on this in a few years with fond memories of "where it all began". Things are coalescing (sp?) in my life, and I can sense it. Puzzle pieces, sought after for more than a decade, are coming together, showing me where they should be placed.
And a few years from now I will ask myself "What was the Starting Point? Where did it all begin to come together?"
And I will have this entry in my blog to remind me.
I invite anyone reading this to examine the quirky details of their life, the last couple of months, and see if maybe they're at an important intersaection of their lives that they may want to remember. You know if you are. Listen to the quiet whispers in your ear and trust what they have to say. Not the noisy cacophony of voices, but the really quiet ones. I'll bet as you read this, events and circumstances are converging in such a way as to reveal a long-hoped-for path that you may not have known you could travel.
Hope you have a GREAT weekend!!!
I just got off the phone with my friend Kelly in L.A. (actually, my phone ran out of juice and died) and he was telling me about the days he has had working for M. Studios. We were in the midst of a VERY COOL conversation about the new Superman movie, and the previous (donner-directed) ones.
The first time he called I was on the phone with someone special to me.
At work, earlier, I got a call from my friend Kal who is back in Texas for the time being -- he has spent the last several years in L.A. -- which is in really good timing with Tommy and Brian and I shooting this summer's short and next year (hopefully) shooting our first professional feature.
Before that I took a break from work to talk to the above-mentioned Someone Special.
And now, as I type this, my brother's asleep on the couch in the living room with THE TICK on the PS2.
I'm writing this because I will look back on this in a few years with fond memories of "where it all began". Things are coalescing (sp?) in my life, and I can sense it. Puzzle pieces, sought after for more than a decade, are coming together, showing me where they should be placed.
And a few years from now I will ask myself "What was the Starting Point? Where did it all begin to come together?"
And I will have this entry in my blog to remind me.
I invite anyone reading this to examine the quirky details of their life, the last couple of months, and see if maybe they're at an important intersaection of their lives that they may want to remember. You know if you are. Listen to the quiet whispers in your ear and trust what they have to say. Not the noisy cacophony of voices, but the really quiet ones. I'll bet as you read this, events and circumstances are converging in such a way as to reveal a long-hoped-for path that you may not have known you could travel.
Hope you have a GREAT weekend!!!
Thursday, June 08, 2006
Vexing Ad Language
I spend WAAAAAYYYYYY too much time airing comercials!!! I work at a TV station, so even though I don't watch TV at home, I'm still bombarded with mind-numbing crap.
Like this one comercial...
You see hot girls wandering around outside and having their pictures taken while hot music plays... Then finally a silky female voice says "Why settle for just 15 minutes of fame? BOGO: Buy One Get One Half Off."
WHAT?!!!
WTF is that SUPPOSED TO MEAN?!!!
Have you seen this? Is this just a regional ad?
How is the act of buying 2 pairs of shoes going extend one's "15 Minutes of Fame"?!! It's like the so-called "writer" of that commercial believes that just buy placing that sentence (well, that clause) behind that question will somehow magically create some sort of logic or meaning!
I mean, don't get me wrong... The BOGO campain has been doomed from the start. The first commercials featured Star Jones (a woman famous for... Why is she famous again?). And even the term "BOGO" shows that the advertising firm is WAY-lazy! "Buy One Get One... half off..."
And when did Dairy Queen become "DQ"?!! I mean, I know WHEN... but did calling the place "DQ" ACTUALLY make it a hipper place to eat? Are Tweens and Teens and College Students suddenly going "I need me a Hungerbuster, Yo!"?!!
And "KFC", too! Are the Cool Kids now hanging out at KFC on Saturday nights because the franchise dropped the "entucky ried hicken"?!!
Another way-stupid name: "Smart Start Healthy Heart"... WTF?!!! The box says it may -- may -- help make your heart healthier. It's a perfectly legal claim that, in fact, promises NOTHING to the purchaser of the product. NOTHING. Moreover, the claim goes on to include "in addition to a healthy lifestyle".
So... If you live a healthy lifestyle AND eat this Smart Start Healthy Heart, then you MAY have a healthier heart.
?!
However, I can make the claim that if you life a healthy lifestyle AND ready my blog religiously, you MAY have healthier bowels. And my claim is ABSOLUTELY AS VALID as the Smart Start Healhty Heart claim.
Advertising language is designed to be sue-proof, and the only way to be completely free from litigation is to SAY NOTHING. If you never want to get sued, don't say, do or think ANYTHING... and you may have a chance.
But what's the point of advertising if you're not really telling anyone about your product?!!
The point is (a) to tell you that the product exists -- and, ideally, tell you while you're riding the high of watching your favorite programs -- and (b) to HOPE YOU'RE NOT LISTENING. Seriously, sue-proof language relies on the assumtion that YOU, the viewer of the ad, is not paying close attention to what is ACTUALLY being said. They want you to hear "healthy heart" and not "may". They want you to hear "get one half off" and not hear "buy one".
There's another one, and I'm pretty sure it IS regional (not national), and I can't remember what they were trying to sell me. But the commerical starts off with the question "Would you like to potentially increase your income by 50%?"
And my response is always -- and sometimes out-loud, 'cause the ad vexes me SO -- "No!"
You caught that, right? "Would you like to potentially increase your income by 50%?"
If they asked if I would LIKE TO INCREASE my income, they might (MIGHT) have my attention. But these wieners don't even have the balls to offer me that! They ask if I want to POTENTIALLY increase my income!!!
Now, the fact that someone paid to have this spot aired a billion times over the next however-many months suggets that they want my money. Somehow, someway, they want me to pay them.
But they're not even offering me anything. ANYTHING! They're offering me the POTENTIAL to earn more money. I can buy a book about business for half price (or less) at a used-book store and possess the POTENTIAL to increase my income by up to 50%. Hell, I can by a $0.25 business book at a garage sale and possess the potential to increase my income by 400%!!!
But you remember what your parents said about potential? "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush."
So why am I gonna give someone my money for potential? A dollar buys me the potential to become independantly wealthy... Why don't I just sink my dough into the lottery?
Ad agencies believe that the reason I'm going give them my money isbecause I'm going to hear what I want to hear, and not hear "potential". Because I'm a mindless consumer, and I don't understand the language I speak well enough to understand what ALL the words they use mean together.
Blah!
Sorry. I just... This is how I earn my paycheck, listening to this crap for 40 hours a week. And the writing stands out to my ear in particular because when I hear it I'm thinking "Somebody GOT PAID to write those words while I'm sitting here getting paid to listen to them".
Don't get me wrong, I don't want to write for ad agencies. Not that it isn't a noble occupation. Lawrence Kasdan wrote for an ad agency before he wrote RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK -- a screenplay that is STILL studied for it's brilliant and innovative craft.
But I am annoyed that Payless Shoes heard "BOGO" and didn't say "WHAT?!!! Try a little bit harder, you fucks, or we're hiring someone else!" kinda makes me nuts. You know?
I guess what annoys me most is this: If you can't legally make a claim about your product, then DON'T. It's pretentious to try to be all cool and hip, or to take yourself seriously at all!
Before X3, my brother and I watched this GREAT Sprite commercial...
It's many differnt brain-bending scenarios intercut, but one of them is 2 big-ass Sumo dudes, one painted yellow and one painted green. They're in the middle of this obviously fake forrest at night, running in intense slow-motion toward each other. Between them is a Napolean-Dynamite looking dude wearing a powder-blue, Disco-era tux, just sitting obliviously on a rock. These Sumos keep charging each other until, finally, their big ol' Sumo bellies collide... AGAINST THE GEEK-DUDE'S FACE!!! His face is SKWISHED between the Sumo Bellies...
...AND THEN HE'S REFRESHED!!! Having his face pancaked by a giant yellow and a giant green Sumo Stomach refreshed him! WHY? Because this is an ad for Sprite!
And I laughed so hard that a couple of kids sitting next to me asked "Are you okay?" And in a very high-pitched voice between tummy-torturing laughs I said "I don't think so".
But see, Sprite goes "Look, we're not gonna make you healthier, we're not gonna make you richer, but we're Sprite and we want your money. So here, laugh for 30 seconds."
Now, I still drink the generic version because I'm Po' Folk, and I prefer the after-taste of diet colas anyway.
BUT... Sprite's not insulting my intelligence, treating me like some mindless livestock.
Blah.
Okay, I'm done ranting.
Just had to get all that out of my system before it festered.
Like this one comercial...
You see hot girls wandering around outside and having their pictures taken while hot music plays... Then finally a silky female voice says "Why settle for just 15 minutes of fame? BOGO: Buy One Get One Half Off."
WHAT?!!!
WTF is that SUPPOSED TO MEAN?!!!
Have you seen this? Is this just a regional ad?
How is the act of buying 2 pairs of shoes going extend one's "15 Minutes of Fame"?!! It's like the so-called "writer" of that commercial believes that just buy placing that sentence (well, that clause) behind that question will somehow magically create some sort of logic or meaning!
I mean, don't get me wrong... The BOGO campain has been doomed from the start. The first commercials featured Star Jones (a woman famous for... Why is she famous again?). And even the term "BOGO" shows that the advertising firm is WAY-lazy! "Buy One Get One... half off..."
And when did Dairy Queen become "DQ"?!! I mean, I know WHEN... but did calling the place "DQ" ACTUALLY make it a hipper place to eat? Are Tweens and Teens and College Students suddenly going "I need me a Hungerbuster, Yo!"?!!
And "KFC", too! Are the Cool Kids now hanging out at KFC on Saturday nights because the franchise dropped the "entucky ried hicken"?!!
Another way-stupid name: "Smart Start Healthy Heart"... WTF?!!! The box says it may -- may -- help make your heart healthier. It's a perfectly legal claim that, in fact, promises NOTHING to the purchaser of the product. NOTHING. Moreover, the claim goes on to include "in addition to a healthy lifestyle".
So... If you live a healthy lifestyle AND eat this Smart Start Healthy Heart, then you MAY have a healthier heart.
?!
However, I can make the claim that if you life a healthy lifestyle AND ready my blog religiously, you MAY have healthier bowels. And my claim is ABSOLUTELY AS VALID as the Smart Start Healhty Heart claim.
Advertising language is designed to be sue-proof, and the only way to be completely free from litigation is to SAY NOTHING. If you never want to get sued, don't say, do or think ANYTHING... and you may have a chance.
But what's the point of advertising if you're not really telling anyone about your product?!!
The point is (a) to tell you that the product exists -- and, ideally, tell you while you're riding the high of watching your favorite programs -- and (b) to HOPE YOU'RE NOT LISTENING. Seriously, sue-proof language relies on the assumtion that YOU, the viewer of the ad, is not paying close attention to what is ACTUALLY being said. They want you to hear "healthy heart" and not "may". They want you to hear "get one half off" and not hear "buy one".
There's another one, and I'm pretty sure it IS regional (not national), and I can't remember what they were trying to sell me. But the commerical starts off with the question "Would you like to potentially increase your income by 50%?"
And my response is always -- and sometimes out-loud, 'cause the ad vexes me SO -- "No!"
You caught that, right? "Would you like to potentially increase your income by 50%?"
If they asked if I would LIKE TO INCREASE my income, they might (MIGHT) have my attention. But these wieners don't even have the balls to offer me that! They ask if I want to POTENTIALLY increase my income!!!
Now, the fact that someone paid to have this spot aired a billion times over the next however-many months suggets that they want my money. Somehow, someway, they want me to pay them.
But they're not even offering me anything. ANYTHING! They're offering me the POTENTIAL to earn more money. I can buy a book about business for half price (or less) at a used-book store and possess the POTENTIAL to increase my income by up to 50%. Hell, I can by a $0.25 business book at a garage sale and possess the potential to increase my income by 400%!!!
But you remember what your parents said about potential? "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush."
So why am I gonna give someone my money for potential? A dollar buys me the potential to become independantly wealthy... Why don't I just sink my dough into the lottery?
Ad agencies believe that the reason I'm going give them my money isbecause I'm going to hear what I want to hear, and not hear "potential". Because I'm a mindless consumer, and I don't understand the language I speak well enough to understand what ALL the words they use mean together.
Blah!
Sorry. I just... This is how I earn my paycheck, listening to this crap for 40 hours a week. And the writing stands out to my ear in particular because when I hear it I'm thinking "Somebody GOT PAID to write those words while I'm sitting here getting paid to listen to them".
Don't get me wrong, I don't want to write for ad agencies. Not that it isn't a noble occupation. Lawrence Kasdan wrote for an ad agency before he wrote RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK -- a screenplay that is STILL studied for it's brilliant and innovative craft.
But I am annoyed that Payless Shoes heard "BOGO" and didn't say "WHAT?!!! Try a little bit harder, you fucks, or we're hiring someone else!" kinda makes me nuts. You know?
I guess what annoys me most is this: If you can't legally make a claim about your product, then DON'T. It's pretentious to try to be all cool and hip, or to take yourself seriously at all!
Before X3, my brother and I watched this GREAT Sprite commercial...
It's many differnt brain-bending scenarios intercut, but one of them is 2 big-ass Sumo dudes, one painted yellow and one painted green. They're in the middle of this obviously fake forrest at night, running in intense slow-motion toward each other. Between them is a Napolean-Dynamite looking dude wearing a powder-blue, Disco-era tux, just sitting obliviously on a rock. These Sumos keep charging each other until, finally, their big ol' Sumo bellies collide... AGAINST THE GEEK-DUDE'S FACE!!! His face is SKWISHED between the Sumo Bellies...
...AND THEN HE'S REFRESHED!!! Having his face pancaked by a giant yellow and a giant green Sumo Stomach refreshed him! WHY? Because this is an ad for Sprite!
And I laughed so hard that a couple of kids sitting next to me asked "Are you okay?" And in a very high-pitched voice between tummy-torturing laughs I said "I don't think so".
But see, Sprite goes "Look, we're not gonna make you healthier, we're not gonna make you richer, but we're Sprite and we want your money. So here, laugh for 30 seconds."
Now, I still drink the generic version because I'm Po' Folk, and I prefer the after-taste of diet colas anyway.
BUT... Sprite's not insulting my intelligence, treating me like some mindless livestock.
Blah.
Okay, I'm done ranting.
Just had to get all that out of my system before it festered.
Monday, June 05, 2006
Halfway There!!!
I have made it through "Downtown Sunnydale" (Level 5) and "Sunnydale Hospital" (Level 6) and am about to enter the "High School" (Level 7 of 12)!!!
I am SERIOUSLY kicking vampire-, demon- and zombie-ass!!!
Life is SO SWEET!!!
OH!!!
And Brian and I saw X-3 last night, too!!! Very cool flick. A thought-provoking end to the series!
OOH, OOH!!!
AND...
We saw SAW 2 the other night! That was really great because Brian and I are working on a horror movie, and the SAW movies are SPECTACULAR examples of how to write horror flicks! Scary and smart! Entertainment with something to say!
:D
This is a GOOD summer ;) Life is happy :) I am fulfilled :D
All of this in addition to a rich and fulfilling SecondLife ;)
Tommy's out of town this week for work, so I don't get to hear what he thinks about the feature film idea yet. But I'm redoing some of the pre-pro stuff on the short, so that's still moving along.
I just kinda feel like I've got all my bases covered!
I wish CLERKS 2, SUPERMAN RETURNS and PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MAN'S CHEST were out already... But other than that, my summer is coasting sweetly along!
Hope yours is going well, too!!!
I am SERIOUSLY kicking vampire-, demon- and zombie-ass!!!
Life is SO SWEET!!!
OH!!!
And Brian and I saw X-3 last night, too!!! Very cool flick. A thought-provoking end to the series!
OOH, OOH!!!
AND...
We saw SAW 2 the other night! That was really great because Brian and I are working on a horror movie, and the SAW movies are SPECTACULAR examples of how to write horror flicks! Scary and smart! Entertainment with something to say!
:D
This is a GOOD summer ;) Life is happy :) I am fulfilled :D
All of this in addition to a rich and fulfilling SecondLife ;)
Tommy's out of town this week for work, so I don't get to hear what he thinks about the feature film idea yet. But I'm redoing some of the pre-pro stuff on the short, so that's still moving along.
I just kinda feel like I've got all my bases covered!
I wish CLERKS 2, SUPERMAN RETURNS and PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MAN'S CHEST were out already... But other than that, my summer is coasting sweetly along!
Hope yours is going well, too!!!
Thursday, June 01, 2006
Squeezing Blood from a PS2
This morning I completed the 4th level of BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER: CHAOS BLEEDS!!! The 4th of 12!
I'm kinda kickin' ass :)
That means I conquered "Magic Box", "Cemetery", "Blood Factory" and "Magic Box Revisited". Next I'm going to be tackling "Downtown Sunnydale".
I friggin' LOVE this game!!! Somehow it's like being IN the show AND it's like watching a Summer Blockbuster version of the show.
Don't aks me how that makes sense, it just does.
It's DEFINITELY summer, though, because I'm SO jonesin' to play videogames.
Not SL... That really doesn't feel like a videogame to me. that's hanging out with cool people and building stuff. The videogame "feel" is fast and exciting and makes my palms sweat. SL sometimes makes my palms sweat, but for a VERY DIFFERENT reason ;)
Okay, I'm at wor and I should probably get back to it. Just wanted to share my ecstacy with you! yesterday before work I completed the 3rd level and today I completed the 4th. I'm on a roll, baby!!!
I'm kinda kickin' ass :)
That means I conquered "Magic Box", "Cemetery", "Blood Factory" and "Magic Box Revisited". Next I'm going to be tackling "Downtown Sunnydale".
I friggin' LOVE this game!!! Somehow it's like being IN the show AND it's like watching a Summer Blockbuster version of the show.
Don't aks me how that makes sense, it just does.
It's DEFINITELY summer, though, because I'm SO jonesin' to play videogames.
Not SL... That really doesn't feel like a videogame to me. that's hanging out with cool people and building stuff. The videogame "feel" is fast and exciting and makes my palms sweat. SL sometimes makes my palms sweat, but for a VERY DIFFERENT reason ;)
Okay, I'm at wor and I should probably get back to it. Just wanted to share my ecstacy with you! yesterday before work I completed the 3rd level and today I completed the 4th. I'm on a roll, baby!!!
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