This wasn't my original plan, but I totally disconnected this weekend!
It was nice. :)
I just sort of turned off and tuned out all weekend long, lol.
Brian & I watched Knowing with Nicholas Cage, Dracula A.D. 1972, Shaft (the Samuel L. Jackson version) and drank too much, lol. ;P Brian bought us pizza, and I got to try out Domino's Brooklyn-style crust! AWESOME!!! :D
I sobered-up yesterday (Tuesday), but I slept most of the day, listening to paranormal podcasts when I was conscious.
Then I wake up today (Wednesday) to discover that we have a meeting tonight!!! :O
I woke up around 5:00pm and the meeting was at 7:00pm. And it's in this little cove in Round Rock... Near because it's in Round Round (and I'm a North Austinite), far because when I asked www.randmcnally.com where it was it went "ummm..., well..., hmph..." It gave me some directions... but... I finally had to call the host of our meeting to guide me into port, lol.
Texas Spirits, I have to say, is rockin'!!! We received A LOT of positive feedback about out recent Yorktown venture -- and we have a badass investigation of the Hanging Tree of Kyle coming up! -- and still our leaders, Paula and Stephanie, keep refining the formula, strengthening the recipe to make the absolute most out of all the resources we have (namely us, the members)! :)
So it was a really inspiring meeting! :)
And driving back, I realized I hadn't eaten since I had awakened, so I stopped for some Sonic on the way home.
DUDE!!!
Allow me to paint the picture:
It's a hot, Austin summer night...
I'm in my car, listening to last week's episode of Spooky Southcoast... (I have already listened to this week's, but somehow, I missed last week's episode.)
And I'm sitting in the open air, looking at trees and brush, chomping on a tasty-ass burger and tots!!!
Michael Jackson comes over the speakers, and I'm quite surprised to discover that his music is kind of timeless, in that it doesn't date iteslf, and therefor can be played nowadays without sounding "old"...
This was a moment of sheer bliss! :D
Like receiving an email from my Gnomey-Goddess... This was heaven! :D
Then I get home to Brian and we watch some Transformers (the Bay flick, not the animated '80s show, lol) and life is good! :)
From waking up and scrambling to get to a TSPI meeting until now, I SO LOVE MY LIFE!!! :D I am truly Blessed!
I hope that in the coming days, YOU feel Blessed, too!!!
:D
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Raping the Mind's Eye...
I think it's time we, Humanity (and, of course, Huwomanity, too), begin taking responsibility for the mental images we create with our language.
Many are the Family Dinner nights when Brian & Mom and I would be dining and then Mom and Brian start swapping verbal medical maladies and I have to protest, pointing out that I'm inserting food into my mouth as they speak, and I prefer the procedure remain an intake process -- as opposed to the ingestion reversing direction midway through the meal. When I complain in this way, they always treat me like I'm just trying to censor their invigorating dialogue or whatever, and I always (always) have to remind them that words create images in my mind's eye.
I'm assuming Mom's simply not that imaginative, and I think that perhaps Brian has some shark DNA or something -- once he begins the process of eating, keep your appendages well clear of the Mastication Zone.
But I think the basic problem is as simple as this: Folks don't realize that there are some things that, once the mind's eye sees, can't be unseen! There are combinations of words that simply should never be inflicted upon human consciousness.
For example:
You see what I mean? The mental images created by the combining of these words is such an aesthetic violation that the phrases themselves could be effectively substituted for profanity!
"You wanna butt-mug my anal debris project, you pubic ejecta? Fine! But the next time you try I'm gonna bear-fondle your nasal-spewtem face into next-pants-loving-week, you mouse teat monkey pustule!"
You see what I mean? Were I the recipient of such verbal violence I think I would be curled up in a fetal ball under a desk or something, smacking my head against a the nearest hard surface, trying to knock the visuals loose and regain normal cognitive function.
So please, join me in my crusade to protect us all from the mental anguish of conversational aberrations! Send your donations to:
Many are the Family Dinner nights when Brian & Mom and I would be dining and then Mom and Brian start swapping verbal medical maladies and I have to protest, pointing out that I'm inserting food into my mouth as they speak, and I prefer the procedure remain an intake process -- as opposed to the ingestion reversing direction midway through the meal. When I complain in this way, they always treat me like I'm just trying to censor their invigorating dialogue or whatever, and I always (always) have to remind them that words create images in my mind's eye.
I'm assuming Mom's simply not that imaginative, and I think that perhaps Brian has some shark DNA or something -- once he begins the process of eating, keep your appendages well clear of the Mastication Zone.
But I think the basic problem is as simple as this: Folks don't realize that there are some things that, once the mind's eye sees, can't be unseen! There are combinations of words that simply should never be inflicted upon human consciousness.
For example:
Monkey Pustule
Nasal Spewtem
Bear-Fondling
(Anything) Gastrointestinal
Butt-Mugging
Pubic Ejecta
Pit Fungus
Pants Love
Anal Debris
Mouse Teat
Nasal Spewtem
Bear-Fondling
(Anything) Gastrointestinal
Butt-Mugging
Pubic Ejecta
Pit Fungus
Pants Love
Anal Debris
Mouse Teat
You see what I mean? The mental images created by the combining of these words is such an aesthetic violation that the phrases themselves could be effectively substituted for profanity!
"You wanna butt-mug my anal debris project, you pubic ejecta? Fine! But the next time you try I'm gonna bear-fondle your nasal-spewtem face into next-pants-loving-week, you mouse teat monkey pustule!"
You see what I mean? Were I the recipient of such verbal violence I think I would be curled up in a fetal ball under a desk or something, smacking my head against a the nearest hard surface, trying to knock the visuals loose and regain normal cognitive function.
So please, join me in my crusade to protect us all from the mental anguish of conversational aberrations! Send your donations to:
Mental-Rape
Recovery Foundation
318008 Pew King Wy
Frognot, TX, 75424
Recovery Foundation
318008 Pew King Wy
Frognot, TX, 75424
Monday, July 20, 2009
THIS Is BRILLIANT!!!
Ever wonder exactly how a song gets recorded?
I've read enough that I have some idea, but it's AMAZING to actually watch it take shape! :D
Plus, this is a monumental song that's being recorded!
The Recording of Bury Me Alive - We Are The Fallen
When all is said and done, I'm really a filmmaker at heart. I've helped produce enough short films (and failed to produce enough screenplays/novels, lol) in the '90s to know that what I love about making movies is ALL of it! :D I enjoy writing, but I LOVE CO-writing! And I spent my teens acting, but what I LOVE is just ALL OF IT! I love polishing the script (or helping to polish it), casting, getting gear and props and whatnot together, blocking, shooting, wrap parties, editing, editing for sound, and screening. It's ALL great fun!
So to see how a song comes together is really, really cool! :D
I've read enough to have a pretty cool idea. But that's not the same as actually being able to watch it happen.
AND... If you don't know anything about We Are The Fallen, it is quite a privilege to be able to watch this particular song take shape! The band would probably curse me for saying this, but "Bury Me Alive" is going to be Evanescence's "Wake Me Up", I suspect. It's like Ben Moody recognized lightening striking a second time, and he realized that fans and future fans of his work might actually enjoy watching the clouds light up, the air ionizing and the electrical charges from the ground and the clouds joining to ignite the sky! :D
Isn't it astouding, though, to watch the pieces coming together to form this immaculate whole?!!
As I kid I watched -- and re-watched and re-watched and re-watched and re-watched -- the Making-Of features on Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back and Raiders of the Lost Arc just over and over and over, marveling at how hours of filming produced shots of Harrison Ford on the grill of the Nazi truck, hanging and starting to go under, then the stuntman goes under and pops out the back, then Ford drags behind the truck and pulls himself, hand-over-hand toward the truck, and so on, until Spielberg and Lucas have 115 minutes of Action/Adventure CLASSIC for us to watch!
I recently produced a 30-second audio joke -- which is in the wrong bitrate to be able to post for free, or else I would already have it up for you to listen to, lol -- that gave me that old shot of Creator's Pride. I wrote the short script, recorded the main dialogue, got Brian to fill out the rest of the dialogue (there are several different background voices with single lines in the piece) when he was available, recordered the handful of sound effects, then cut it all together into a tight, nigh-perfect (lol, I'm not worried about "modest" at the moment, lol) piece of audio humor. Like I said, the whole endeavor took maybe 2 days to produce and last a whopping half-a-minute, and after I had finished I wondered if, perhaps, I had an idea what it was like to produce a song.
Turns out, I do know what it's like to produce a song... and I also SO DON'T, lol. ;P
I mean, if some no-name musician had tons of demos to record and needed someone who could, technically, turn those demos into something that could be sold on iTunes, I could do that. But watching We Are The Fallen work, I'm guessing it would take me twice as long to achieve 3 quarters of the result, lol.
I frakkin' love watching creatives apply their craft! I'm a bit of a nerd that way! :D
I only discovered this amazing featurette because I follow Kris Williams' Twitter posts, bless her! :) If you're on Twitter, you should totally follow her! That's one badass chick! She looks like a model, she's as funny and smart as your best friend, and stick her in a haunted prison and she's running toward whatever is making all the men in the room run away, lol! (Although, she's a member of TAPS, so the men she hangs with don't really run from spooky stuff, lol.)
Wow...
...I didn't expect this entry to go on quite this long, lol. I just wanted to pop on and share this awesome video with you. It appears that my freedom from responsibility has made me a bit verbose, lol. ;)
Hope your weekend served you well, and your work week is filled with blessed surprises that make you laugh and smile!
:D
I've read enough that I have some idea, but it's AMAZING to actually watch it take shape! :D
Plus, this is a monumental song that's being recorded!
The Recording of Bury Me Alive - We Are The Fallen
When all is said and done, I'm really a filmmaker at heart. I've helped produce enough short films (and failed to produce enough screenplays/novels, lol) in the '90s to know that what I love about making movies is ALL of it! :D I enjoy writing, but I LOVE CO-writing! And I spent my teens acting, but what I LOVE is just ALL OF IT! I love polishing the script (or helping to polish it), casting, getting gear and props and whatnot together, blocking, shooting, wrap parties, editing, editing for sound, and screening. It's ALL great fun!
So to see how a song comes together is really, really cool! :D
I've read enough to have a pretty cool idea. But that's not the same as actually being able to watch it happen.
AND... If you don't know anything about We Are The Fallen, it is quite a privilege to be able to watch this particular song take shape! The band would probably curse me for saying this, but "Bury Me Alive" is going to be Evanescence's "Wake Me Up", I suspect. It's like Ben Moody recognized lightening striking a second time, and he realized that fans and future fans of his work might actually enjoy watching the clouds light up, the air ionizing and the electrical charges from the ground and the clouds joining to ignite the sky! :D
Isn't it astouding, though, to watch the pieces coming together to form this immaculate whole?!!
As I kid I watched -- and re-watched and re-watched and re-watched and re-watched -- the Making-Of features on Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back and Raiders of the Lost Arc just over and over and over, marveling at how hours of filming produced shots of Harrison Ford on the grill of the Nazi truck, hanging and starting to go under, then the stuntman goes under and pops out the back, then Ford drags behind the truck and pulls himself, hand-over-hand toward the truck, and so on, until Spielberg and Lucas have 115 minutes of Action/Adventure CLASSIC for us to watch!
I recently produced a 30-second audio joke -- which is in the wrong bitrate to be able to post for free, or else I would already have it up for you to listen to, lol -- that gave me that old shot of Creator's Pride. I wrote the short script, recorded the main dialogue, got Brian to fill out the rest of the dialogue (there are several different background voices with single lines in the piece) when he was available, recordered the handful of sound effects, then cut it all together into a tight, nigh-perfect (lol, I'm not worried about "modest" at the moment, lol) piece of audio humor. Like I said, the whole endeavor took maybe 2 days to produce and last a whopping half-a-minute, and after I had finished I wondered if, perhaps, I had an idea what it was like to produce a song.
Turns out, I do know what it's like to produce a song... and I also SO DON'T, lol. ;P
I mean, if some no-name musician had tons of demos to record and needed someone who could, technically, turn those demos into something that could be sold on iTunes, I could do that. But watching We Are The Fallen work, I'm guessing it would take me twice as long to achieve 3 quarters of the result, lol.
I frakkin' love watching creatives apply their craft! I'm a bit of a nerd that way! :D
I only discovered this amazing featurette because I follow Kris Williams' Twitter posts, bless her! :) If you're on Twitter, you should totally follow her! That's one badass chick! She looks like a model, she's as funny and smart as your best friend, and stick her in a haunted prison and she's running toward whatever is making all the men in the room run away, lol! (Although, she's a member of TAPS, so the men she hangs with don't really run from spooky stuff, lol.)
Wow...
...I didn't expect this entry to go on quite this long, lol. I just wanted to pop on and share this awesome video with you. It appears that my freedom from responsibility has made me a bit verbose, lol. ;)
Hope your weekend served you well, and your work week is filled with blessed surprises that make you laugh and smile!
:D
Hornblower and the Crisis
I am about to begin the 4th of C. S. Forester's 11 Horatio Hornblower novels! :D
I just finished Hornblower and the Crisis, a novel left unfinished due to Mr. Forester's 1966 passing.
Though I'm all about reading novel series in chronological order, this really serves as a proper close for the series as the unfinished novel is accompanied by 2 short stories, the last -- "The Last Encounter" -- providing a wonderfully charming close to Hornblower's long and eventful career!
Still, even knowing how it all "ends", I'm excited to get back to Captain Hornblower's adventures!
As I left, he was still Commander Hornblower, waiting for retiring Admiral Cornwallis's promotion to be posted, finally making Hornblower a proper captain. Now, I know he's going to be posted captain because (as I understand it) most of his adventures are as a captain. I also know he goes on to become a commodore and retires as an admiral (living at least to the age of 72)!
Still...
It's like watching the Harry Potter flicks... I've read all the books. (More than once, lol.) I know what's going to happen. But in the "parallel reality" of the movies, Voldemort isn't defeated (in the movies) until he is, lol.
Yes, I'm well aware how big a nerd I am, thank you very much. ;P
HEY! YOU WANNA READ THE RAVINGS OF A CRAZY PERSON?!
This comic strip rules the world! Scroll down to the Voldemort strips! You'll laugh your ass off!
I also recommend his ravings about how to create a comic strip! You don't have to have any intention of writing/drawing a comic strip to enjoy the madness of his genius! (Or is it the genius of his madness? So hard to tell, lol.)
Okay, back to work for me.
OOH! I begin this weekend with no responsibilities to look forward to!!! :D It appears (as of this writing at 2:28am on Monday, July 20, 2009 and subject to change in a moment's notice, lol) that I don't have ANYTHING that I have to do!!! I have a few DVDs from Netflix that need watching, I've got the entire Plante of the Apes series that also requires watching, and then, like, 7 more Hornblower novels to be read, as well as Tiffany Johnson's latest book.
So I have plenty to do... I just don't have anything I have to do! :D
YAY!
Okay, stop reading and go do something fun. Now.
;P
UPDATE: Just getting into Chapter 4 of Hornblower and the Atrapos to discover 2 astonishing things:
(1) Horatio Hornblower outlived Admiral Horatio Nelson, namesake and (I'm pretty sure) inspiration for the character! AND...
(2) Hornblower's "mission" is to organize Admiral Nelson's funeral!!!
This is astonishing, lol! What a surprise! I swear, C. S. Forester RULES!!! What a clever, clever author!!! I mean, the mind that wrote African Queen -- both the novel and the screenplay -- is obviously a keen one, but OMG! What an amazing "adventure" for our hero to undertake, lol!
I mean, just from a Character standpoint alone, to this point Hornblower is a man of action, not a gentleman from affluence, and he seems to always be perplexed by the affectations of gentility. He would rather face a mortar shell shell at his feet with an eighth of an inch of burning fuse about to blow him, his crew and his ship into molecules than attempt to hold conversation with some high-born snob.
So to place this budding young captain -- his entire career in front of him... if he doesn't botch this assignment -- in charge of what must have been one of the largest ceremonies in history (I may be exaggerating a bit due to my very limited knowledge of Admiral Nelson) is sheer insanity! It's like having the Hulk perform neuro-surgery! :P
Plus, what a clever bit of fictitious history... Hornblower was born on the day that the United States adopted our constitution, and now his first act as a post captain is to organize and stage the monumental funeral of one of Britain's legendary heroes! (So legendary, in fact, that he inspired the character, lol.)
THIS is what I call A PARTY! :D
...you know...
...literarily speaking, lol. ;)
I just finished Hornblower and the Crisis, a novel left unfinished due to Mr. Forester's 1966 passing.
Though I'm all about reading novel series in chronological order, this really serves as a proper close for the series as the unfinished novel is accompanied by 2 short stories, the last -- "The Last Encounter" -- providing a wonderfully charming close to Hornblower's long and eventful career!
Still, even knowing how it all "ends", I'm excited to get back to Captain Hornblower's adventures!
As I left, he was still Commander Hornblower, waiting for retiring Admiral Cornwallis's promotion to be posted, finally making Hornblower a proper captain. Now, I know he's going to be posted captain because (as I understand it) most of his adventures are as a captain. I also know he goes on to become a commodore and retires as an admiral (living at least to the age of 72)!
Still...
It's like watching the Harry Potter flicks... I've read all the books. (More than once, lol.) I know what's going to happen. But in the "parallel reality" of the movies, Voldemort isn't defeated (in the movies) until he is, lol.
Yes, I'm well aware how big a nerd I am, thank you very much. ;P
HEY! YOU WANNA READ THE RAVINGS OF A CRAZY PERSON?!
This comic strip rules the world! Scroll down to the Voldemort strips! You'll laugh your ass off!
I also recommend his ravings about how to create a comic strip! You don't have to have any intention of writing/drawing a comic strip to enjoy the madness of his genius! (Or is it the genius of his madness? So hard to tell, lol.)
Okay, back to work for me.
OOH! I begin this weekend with no responsibilities to look forward to!!! :D It appears (as of this writing at 2:28am on Monday, July 20, 2009 and subject to change in a moment's notice, lol) that I don't have ANYTHING that I have to do!!! I have a few DVDs from Netflix that need watching, I've got the entire Plante of the Apes series that also requires watching, and then, like, 7 more Hornblower novels to be read, as well as Tiffany Johnson's latest book.
So I have plenty to do... I just don't have anything I have to do! :D
YAY!
Okay, stop reading and go do something fun. Now.
;P
UPDATE: Just getting into Chapter 4 of Hornblower and the Atrapos to discover 2 astonishing things:
(1) Horatio Hornblower outlived Admiral Horatio Nelson, namesake and (I'm pretty sure) inspiration for the character! AND...
(2) Hornblower's "mission" is to organize Admiral Nelson's funeral!!!
This is astonishing, lol! What a surprise! I swear, C. S. Forester RULES!!! What a clever, clever author!!! I mean, the mind that wrote African Queen -- both the novel and the screenplay -- is obviously a keen one, but OMG! What an amazing "adventure" for our hero to undertake, lol!
I mean, just from a Character standpoint alone, to this point Hornblower is a man of action, not a gentleman from affluence, and he seems to always be perplexed by the affectations of gentility. He would rather face a mortar shell shell at his feet with an eighth of an inch of burning fuse about to blow him, his crew and his ship into molecules than attempt to hold conversation with some high-born snob.
So to place this budding young captain -- his entire career in front of him... if he doesn't botch this assignment -- in charge of what must have been one of the largest ceremonies in history (I may be exaggerating a bit due to my very limited knowledge of Admiral Nelson) is sheer insanity! It's like having the Hulk perform neuro-surgery! :P
Plus, what a clever bit of fictitious history... Hornblower was born on the day that the United States adopted our constitution, and now his first act as a post captain is to organize and stage the monumental funeral of one of Britain's legendary heroes! (So legendary, in fact, that he inspired the character, lol.)
THIS is what I call A PARTY! :D
...you know...
...literarily speaking, lol. ;)
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
DONE REVIEWIN'!!!
I FINALLY FINISHED MY EVIDENCE REVIEW WITH MUCH OF THE LAST DAY OF MY WEEKEND LEFT TO SPARE! :D
AND -- more importantly -- I came up with some fascinating audio! :) I don't know if any of it will help the clients. First my peers need to review what I think I have, then they'll present any of it to the clients, etc.
Still, there were a couple of times where I'm listening, and quite frankly bored, and I got freaked out! :D
I got started late today.
I woke up to a WONDERFUL email from my Gnomey Goddess!!! Bless her! I've been emailing her my thoughts on songs and novels and movies and stuff, and she's a deep thinker, too, so she didn't tell me to take a pill and settle-the-fuck-down, lol. She and her mom have been at St. Albans -- a place I know nothing about right now, but will be learning about soon! :)
My girlfriend is SO AMAZING!!! I just can't describe her! She's just so cool! I SO don't deserve her, but I'm so thankful I have her and I am SO NOT EVER going to give her up!!! DUDE!!!
She is THE BEST way to start off anyone's day!!! :D ♥ ♥ ♥
*sigh*
Okay, back to what I was saying, lol...
Oh, "started late" is sort of relative... These past couple of weeks, my sleep schedule has flipped -- for no reason I can imagine. So I've been sleeping at night and awake during the day. So I woke up during the morning.
I GOT A NEW TSPI SHIRT!!!
I got a call from the guy who embroiders our shirts. We have Dickies and we have these polo-type shirts. When you join, you have to have to get the Dickies shirt first. That's the official official shirt. It looks nice, very official. VERY cool, really!
Cool as in "groovy" not cool as in "you can wear it during an Austin summer without sweating off 5 pounds."
This being an Austin summer, and me being tired of shedding pounds through the Dehydration Diet, I ordered one of the polo shirts as soon as I found myself with a little extra money.
The estimated time of arrival was Friday (which would be an awkward pick-up for me since I'm asleep during Business Hours) but I got a call this morning that i could pick up the shirt after 1:00pm.
So I did!
I can't wait until our next investigation. I look forward to NOT appearing beet-red and shiny in any photos I might show up in.
Since I was out-and-about, i decided to see if I could catch a showing of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince! DUDE! OPENING DAY!!! How cool would THAT be?!!
This would only be my 2nd Potter flick to catch on the Big Screen! (The first 3 I saw when they came out on DVD, and Goblet of Fire kinda doesn't count because I saw it at the Lakeline and the audio was distractingly bad.)
So I bombed around the shopping center by me...
...and ran into Mike and Stephanie! :D They were shocked to see me out in the sunlight, and I was just shocked to happen into 2 of my favoritest people ever!!! :D (Stephanie is a badass babe who akes Texas Spirits hum like the string of a finely-tuned Stradivarius and Mike is a fellow Trekkie/sci-fi nerd! AWESOME folks!!!)
I also discovered a BADASS geek-toy store! I had no idea I had a Mecca of Sci-Fi/Comic Book collectible toys so near me!
I started looking for food too late to enjoy a Rockin' Tomato buffet -- :( -- so I settled for Churches Chicken. We advertise it continuously at the station, I enjoy fried chicken parts, so why not, right?
Churches Chicken's ad campaign is "I know what good is."
I don't think they should, legally, be allowed to use that as their their tagline.
They could honestly advertise "I know what scalding is."
I wouldn't actually call it good. I've had so much better, even when we're simply talking about (relatively) cheap fast-food chicken.
Anyway, I finished eating -- very slowly, but I still have burtn spots throughout my mouth -- and checked the theater to buy an early ticket for Potter...
...and every showing was sold out.
Well, it would have been cool.
But I took this as my cue to go home and continue reviewing evidence.
But before I did... I played some of my MySpace and Facebook games.
I've recently discovered a game that calls itself Ghost Hunter. But I don't know...
Okay, the first mission you do is search for spirits in your local church. Believe it or not, there's not just tons of paranormal activity that gets reported in churches. Usually, odd things in churches get reported as miracles.
But anyway, then you progress to your second mission: "You got a call to a local bar, owner says 2 ghosts are hunting his bar. He tells you about a murder of two people in the back office."
Um... I don't believe any paranormal organization has ever been called to investigate reports of ghosts hunting a location.
Brian points out that perhaps they game makers meant to write "haunting".
That would make more sense.
But the most perplexing aspect of this game is the section called the "Battlefield". Apparently, here you can battle fellow paranormal investigators!
WTF?!!
The "Battlefield" is divided into 2 sections: "Battlefield" and "Get Revenge"?!!
I don't believe the game creators really understand much about paranormal investigation.
I would be wary of any evidence they obtained through their methodologies.
Anyway...
Drinkin' time's awastin'! I've got 5 movies from Netflix that I'm dyin' to see, and I have to do my laundry before Hazmat clears out my closet!
HOPE YOU HUMP-DAY WAS EXCELLENT AND I HOPE THE REST OF YOUR WEEK AND YOUR WEEKENED IS BETTER!!!
:D
AND -- more importantly -- I came up with some fascinating audio! :) I don't know if any of it will help the clients. First my peers need to review what I think I have, then they'll present any of it to the clients, etc.
Still, there were a couple of times where I'm listening, and quite frankly bored, and I got freaked out! :D
I got started late today.
I woke up to a WONDERFUL email from my Gnomey Goddess!!! Bless her! I've been emailing her my thoughts on songs and novels and movies and stuff, and she's a deep thinker, too, so she didn't tell me to take a pill and settle-the-fuck-down, lol. She and her mom have been at St. Albans -- a place I know nothing about right now, but will be learning about soon! :)
My girlfriend is SO AMAZING!!! I just can't describe her! She's just so cool! I SO don't deserve her, but I'm so thankful I have her and I am SO NOT EVER going to give her up!!! DUDE!!!
She is THE BEST way to start off anyone's day!!! :D ♥ ♥ ♥
*sigh*
Okay, back to what I was saying, lol...
Oh, "started late" is sort of relative... These past couple of weeks, my sleep schedule has flipped -- for no reason I can imagine. So I've been sleeping at night and awake during the day. So I woke up during the morning.
I GOT A NEW TSPI SHIRT!!!
I got a call from the guy who embroiders our shirts. We have Dickies and we have these polo-type shirts. When you join, you have to have to get the Dickies shirt first. That's the official official shirt. It looks nice, very official. VERY cool, really!
Cool as in "groovy" not cool as in "you can wear it during an Austin summer without sweating off 5 pounds."
This being an Austin summer, and me being tired of shedding pounds through the Dehydration Diet, I ordered one of the polo shirts as soon as I found myself with a little extra money.
The estimated time of arrival was Friday (which would be an awkward pick-up for me since I'm asleep during Business Hours) but I got a call this morning that i could pick up the shirt after 1:00pm.
So I did!
I can't wait until our next investigation. I look forward to NOT appearing beet-red and shiny in any photos I might show up in.
Since I was out-and-about, i decided to see if I could catch a showing of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince! DUDE! OPENING DAY!!! How cool would THAT be?!!
This would only be my 2nd Potter flick to catch on the Big Screen! (The first 3 I saw when they came out on DVD, and Goblet of Fire kinda doesn't count because I saw it at the Lakeline and the audio was distractingly bad.)
So I bombed around the shopping center by me...
...and ran into Mike and Stephanie! :D They were shocked to see me out in the sunlight, and I was just shocked to happen into 2 of my favoritest people ever!!! :D (Stephanie is a badass babe who akes Texas Spirits hum like the string of a finely-tuned Stradivarius and Mike is a fellow Trekkie/sci-fi nerd! AWESOME folks!!!)
I also discovered a BADASS geek-toy store! I had no idea I had a Mecca of Sci-Fi/Comic Book collectible toys so near me!
I started looking for food too late to enjoy a Rockin' Tomato buffet -- :( -- so I settled for Churches Chicken. We advertise it continuously at the station, I enjoy fried chicken parts, so why not, right?
Churches Chicken's ad campaign is "I know what good is."
I don't think they should, legally, be allowed to use that as their their tagline.
They could honestly advertise "I know what scalding is."
I wouldn't actually call it good. I've had so much better, even when we're simply talking about (relatively) cheap fast-food chicken.
Anyway, I finished eating -- very slowly, but I still have burtn spots throughout my mouth -- and checked the theater to buy an early ticket for Potter...
...and every showing was sold out.
Well, it would have been cool.
But I took this as my cue to go home and continue reviewing evidence.
But before I did... I played some of my MySpace and Facebook games.
I've recently discovered a game that calls itself Ghost Hunter. But I don't know...
Okay, the first mission you do is search for spirits in your local church. Believe it or not, there's not just tons of paranormal activity that gets reported in churches. Usually, odd things in churches get reported as miracles.
But anyway, then you progress to your second mission: "You got a call to a local bar, owner says 2 ghosts are hunting his bar. He tells you about a murder of two people in the back office."
Um... I don't believe any paranormal organization has ever been called to investigate reports of ghosts hunting a location.
Brian points out that perhaps they game makers meant to write "haunting".
That would make more sense.
But the most perplexing aspect of this game is the section called the "Battlefield". Apparently, here you can battle fellow paranormal investigators!
WTF?!!
The "Battlefield" is divided into 2 sections: "Battlefield" and "Get Revenge"?!!
I don't believe the game creators really understand much about paranormal investigation.
I would be wary of any evidence they obtained through their methodologies.
Anyway...
Drinkin' time's awastin'! I've got 5 movies from Netflix that I'm dyin' to see, and I have to do my laundry before Hazmat clears out my closet!
HOPE YOU HUMP-DAY WAS EXCELLENT AND I HOPE THE REST OF YOUR WEEK AND YOUR WEEKENED IS BETTER!!!
:D
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Saturday Night...
I'm enjoying a relaxed Saturday night shift.
Saturday is normally a relaxed shift, but this week has been more hectic than usual. Coming off an intense weekend, Thursday (normally a fairly hectic work day for me) proved just a hair more hairy than the norm. Then last night's shift was more challenging than usual. So now, with work settling back down to normal, my shift feels particularly refreshing.
On my way to work last night I picked up psychic Tiffany Johnson's latest book Picture Yourself Developing Your Psychic Abilities and read the first couple of chapters.
AWESOME!
I became a fan when I heard her on Spooky Southcoast, then heard her again on Beyond Reality Radio. She's not only one of the few psychics that TAPS will sing the praises of (being based in the scientific process, TAPS would rather debunk paranormal claims than call them paranormal, and they -- as an organization -- are exceedingly wary of anyone claiming to have information via sources than can't be scientifically verified), but she's disarmingly down-to-earth and "normal".
And she's hysterical, too!
Her attitude about being psychic is basically the opposite of most so-called psychics' 'tudes. She doesn't affect an accent of any sort, she'll make a joke about herself or her abilities before you even get the chance to, and she makes the whole topic of psychic-ness and the paranormal seem shockingly mundane, everyday, sort of ordinary.
So ordinary, in fact, that she firmly believes everyone has psychic abilities, and she's happy to tell us how to develop them.
Plus, I bought Chris Balzano's Picture Yourself Ghost Hunting when it went on sale, so owning a second Picture Yourself... book about the paranormal, written by another Friend Of Spooky Southcoast was appealing to me. :)
But the main reason I snatched Psychic Tiff's book last night was because Brian is the one who discovered it's out there and he's excited to read it. When I left for work this evening he was reading it. So I might not be returning to the book until after he's finished it.
Which is just as well because...
I'm finally reading C. S. Forester's Horatio Hornblower novels!!! :D
Like many people, in the late-1990s I fell in love with the character as played by Ioan Gruffud in the BBC/A&E TV movies. I had a curiosity about the character for decades because he was Gene Roddenberry's inspiration for Captain James T. Kirk in Star Trek! And if you know the character, you can actually see the similarity, particularly in the classic TV series.
And back then, I bought a few of the novels with every intention of reading them...
...I just never got around to it, lol. I think I read about half of Commodore Hornblower, and enjoyed it, but then something took my attention away from it and I just never got back around to it.
But I scored audiobook versions of the entire series, and I've made my way through Mr. Midshipman Hornblower, and am about 3/4 through Lieutenant Hornblower.
AND I'M LOVING THEM!!! :D
Whenever there's a good movies series based on a series of novels, it usually goes 1 of 2 ways: The novels are far better than the movies because the movies couldn't come close to fitting the entire world into 2-hour chunks (like any film based on a Michael Crichton novel, or the Harry Potter flicks, for instance), or -- especially if the source material is half a century old or older -- the way the novels are written puts your ass to sleep every time you try to commit yourself to the dry, stilted, fuckin' BORING prose!
At least, that's been my experience...
But the Hornblower novels are a surprise. I can't honestly say that the novels are necessarily better than the films, or vice versa! It's like the original Dawn of the Dead as compared to the remake: I love them both! I own them both! I get in the mood for one or the other of them from time to time -- not like an either/or, but I will specifically be in the mood to watch Romero's version, or I'll specifically find myself in the mood to watch Snyder's version.
This isn't to take away from either format. But Forester's writing is surprisingly cinematic in that he doesn't get lost in his prose, and he never ever forgets to show, rather than tell. He was quite an amazing writer! He uses nautical jargon without any fear of losing you, but he also never loses you! You always can sense what he's talking about, even when the terms themselves are completely alien to you.
By contrast, I tried to read one of another popular author's sea-faring tales and I found the jargon distracting and the prose exceedingly stiff. It was as though the author wanted to make sure you, the reader, knew that he (the author) is smarter than you are. I won't mention the name of the author because, in all honesty, I haven't read another of his books since and my being put-off by his writing might have just been me at that time, and not had anything to do with his actual writing style.
But Forester writes in such a way that he just sort of carries you along with the characters, and even the brutality of shipboard life in the 1800s feels home-y and welcoming -- though Forester certainly doesn't confine you to a ship in the novels!
People talk about how Hemingway never wasted a word, and his his sparse, simple style of writing was so effective. I find the same to be true of Crichton's writing. I think you could say the same of Forester. He provides flavor and texture to his world and characters, but seems to know the exact balance of what gets the feeling or image across without spending a single syllable longer than necessary in any given place or moment.
Masterful! :D
Oh, and I'm reading the books in chronological order.
There is, apparently, a debate among literary Hornblower fans about how the series should be read. One camp is (I believe, quite logically) in favor of reading the books as they happened in the timeline of the world of the characters. The other camp is (I believe, quite pretentiously) in favor of reading the books in the order in which they were published (as Forester wrote them out of chronological order).
I think that if you're, like, studying Forester's progression as a writer, then the second camp has a point.
But if you're reading the books because you want to follow a super-cool character on his adventures at see... ;P
The same argument arises among fans of the Narnia books, as Lewis wrote those out of order, too.
I think the Order-of-Publication folks are just looking for an excuse to tell you about how smart they are, lol. Their "preference" (assuming it's not a complete affectation so they can separate themselves from people who merely read novels for enjoyment, rather than as some badge of intellectual prowess) gives them something to talk about at dinner parties, but I doubt it provides any particular enjoyment beyond that.
Although I read a very wise post on a thread about one of these series (I can't remember if it was about the Narnia books or the Hornblower books) -- the thread was debating the virtues of chronological order versus publication order -- wherein the poster pointed out that he, as a kid, picked up one book because it captured his interest. I believe it may have been a gift. He loved the book, and saw (maybe at a second-hand book store) another of the books in that series. He grabbed it and read it and loved it. He continued this way, reading the books in no particular order, just reading the next one he could get his hands on, until he had read the entire series.
He suggested that the order in which the series is first read is completely unimportant to the reader who is just discovering this amazing world! These aren't chap books. Each novel is brilliant and is its own story. The joy is in the reading, not in the order of the reading.
That poster is wiser than I am. Because I will still argue with a Order-Of-Publication freak (even though to do so is just as pretentious as I'm accusing him/her of being). But I SO agree with that cat: Any Narnia or Hornblower book that is read is going to be a joy to the reader, so it's just cool that that person gets to experience that joy! :)
But really... whats' really important to me... is the fact that I'M getting to enjoy the series now. ;P
It's a really cool Summer kind of series, somehow. I guess maybe because being at sea -- surrounded by water -- is appealing to me during these super-hot Austin Summer days? Also, Summertime reminds me of when I was a kid and had the summers off from school, and so my days were filled with imaginary Adventure! And the Hornblower stories are classic adventure stories! Like Zorro or Robin Hood or King Arthur, I think the Hornblower stories are sort of the archetypal examples of their genre or niche (or whatever you would call it). They're sort of definitive sea adventures.
Whatever the reason, I'm really, really enjoying being in this world, and I'm SO EXCITED that after I finish this novel I still have 9 MORE NOVELS TO GO!!! :D
Oops! Okay, I should probably return my attention to work now, lol.
HAVE ADVENTURE!
:D
Saturday is normally a relaxed shift, but this week has been more hectic than usual. Coming off an intense weekend, Thursday (normally a fairly hectic work day for me) proved just a hair more hairy than the norm. Then last night's shift was more challenging than usual. So now, with work settling back down to normal, my shift feels particularly refreshing.
On my way to work last night I picked up psychic Tiffany Johnson's latest book Picture Yourself Developing Your Psychic Abilities and read the first couple of chapters.
AWESOME!
I became a fan when I heard her on Spooky Southcoast, then heard her again on Beyond Reality Radio. She's not only one of the few psychics that TAPS will sing the praises of (being based in the scientific process, TAPS would rather debunk paranormal claims than call them paranormal, and they -- as an organization -- are exceedingly wary of anyone claiming to have information via sources than can't be scientifically verified), but she's disarmingly down-to-earth and "normal".
And she's hysterical, too!
Her attitude about being psychic is basically the opposite of most so-called psychics' 'tudes. She doesn't affect an accent of any sort, she'll make a joke about herself or her abilities before you even get the chance to, and she makes the whole topic of psychic-ness and the paranormal seem shockingly mundane, everyday, sort of ordinary.
So ordinary, in fact, that she firmly believes everyone has psychic abilities, and she's happy to tell us how to develop them.
Plus, I bought Chris Balzano's Picture Yourself Ghost Hunting when it went on sale, so owning a second Picture Yourself... book about the paranormal, written by another Friend Of Spooky Southcoast was appealing to me. :)
But the main reason I snatched Psychic Tiff's book last night was because Brian is the one who discovered it's out there and he's excited to read it. When I left for work this evening he was reading it. So I might not be returning to the book until after he's finished it.
Which is just as well because...
I'm finally reading C. S. Forester's Horatio Hornblower novels!!! :D
Like many people, in the late-1990s I fell in love with the character as played by Ioan Gruffud in the BBC/A&E TV movies. I had a curiosity about the character for decades because he was Gene Roddenberry's inspiration for Captain James T. Kirk in Star Trek! And if you know the character, you can actually see the similarity, particularly in the classic TV series.
And back then, I bought a few of the novels with every intention of reading them...
...I just never got around to it, lol. I think I read about half of Commodore Hornblower, and enjoyed it, but then something took my attention away from it and I just never got back around to it.
But I scored audiobook versions of the entire series, and I've made my way through Mr. Midshipman Hornblower, and am about 3/4 through Lieutenant Hornblower.
AND I'M LOVING THEM!!! :D
Whenever there's a good movies series based on a series of novels, it usually goes 1 of 2 ways: The novels are far better than the movies because the movies couldn't come close to fitting the entire world into 2-hour chunks (like any film based on a Michael Crichton novel, or the Harry Potter flicks, for instance), or -- especially if the source material is half a century old or older -- the way the novels are written puts your ass to sleep every time you try to commit yourself to the dry, stilted, fuckin' BORING prose!
At least, that's been my experience...
But the Hornblower novels are a surprise. I can't honestly say that the novels are necessarily better than the films, or vice versa! It's like the original Dawn of the Dead as compared to the remake: I love them both! I own them both! I get in the mood for one or the other of them from time to time -- not like an either/or, but I will specifically be in the mood to watch Romero's version, or I'll specifically find myself in the mood to watch Snyder's version.
This isn't to take away from either format. But Forester's writing is surprisingly cinematic in that he doesn't get lost in his prose, and he never ever forgets to show, rather than tell. He was quite an amazing writer! He uses nautical jargon without any fear of losing you, but he also never loses you! You always can sense what he's talking about, even when the terms themselves are completely alien to you.
By contrast, I tried to read one of another popular author's sea-faring tales and I found the jargon distracting and the prose exceedingly stiff. It was as though the author wanted to make sure you, the reader, knew that he (the author) is smarter than you are. I won't mention the name of the author because, in all honesty, I haven't read another of his books since and my being put-off by his writing might have just been me at that time, and not had anything to do with his actual writing style.
But Forester writes in such a way that he just sort of carries you along with the characters, and even the brutality of shipboard life in the 1800s feels home-y and welcoming -- though Forester certainly doesn't confine you to a ship in the novels!
People talk about how Hemingway never wasted a word, and his his sparse, simple style of writing was so effective. I find the same to be true of Crichton's writing. I think you could say the same of Forester. He provides flavor and texture to his world and characters, but seems to know the exact balance of what gets the feeling or image across without spending a single syllable longer than necessary in any given place or moment.
Masterful! :D
Oh, and I'm reading the books in chronological order.
There is, apparently, a debate among literary Hornblower fans about how the series should be read. One camp is (I believe, quite logically) in favor of reading the books as they happened in the timeline of the world of the characters. The other camp is (I believe, quite pretentiously) in favor of reading the books in the order in which they were published (as Forester wrote them out of chronological order).
I think that if you're, like, studying Forester's progression as a writer, then the second camp has a point.
But if you're reading the books because you want to follow a super-cool character on his adventures at see... ;P
The same argument arises among fans of the Narnia books, as Lewis wrote those out of order, too.
I think the Order-of-Publication folks are just looking for an excuse to tell you about how smart they are, lol. Their "preference" (assuming it's not a complete affectation so they can separate themselves from people who merely read novels for enjoyment, rather than as some badge of intellectual prowess) gives them something to talk about at dinner parties, but I doubt it provides any particular enjoyment beyond that.
Although I read a very wise post on a thread about one of these series (I can't remember if it was about the Narnia books or the Hornblower books) -- the thread was debating the virtues of chronological order versus publication order -- wherein the poster pointed out that he, as a kid, picked up one book because it captured his interest. I believe it may have been a gift. He loved the book, and saw (maybe at a second-hand book store) another of the books in that series. He grabbed it and read it and loved it. He continued this way, reading the books in no particular order, just reading the next one he could get his hands on, until he had read the entire series.
He suggested that the order in which the series is first read is completely unimportant to the reader who is just discovering this amazing world! These aren't chap books. Each novel is brilliant and is its own story. The joy is in the reading, not in the order of the reading.
That poster is wiser than I am. Because I will still argue with a Order-Of-Publication freak (even though to do so is just as pretentious as I'm accusing him/her of being). But I SO agree with that cat: Any Narnia or Hornblower book that is read is going to be a joy to the reader, so it's just cool that that person gets to experience that joy! :)
But really... whats' really important to me... is the fact that I'M getting to enjoy the series now. ;P
It's a really cool Summer kind of series, somehow. I guess maybe because being at sea -- surrounded by water -- is appealing to me during these super-hot Austin Summer days? Also, Summertime reminds me of when I was a kid and had the summers off from school, and so my days were filled with imaginary Adventure! And the Hornblower stories are classic adventure stories! Like Zorro or Robin Hood or King Arthur, I think the Hornblower stories are sort of the archetypal examples of their genre or niche (or whatever you would call it). They're sort of definitive sea adventures.
Whatever the reason, I'm really, really enjoying being in this world, and I'm SO EXCITED that after I finish this novel I still have 9 MORE NOVELS TO GO!!! :D
Oops! Okay, I should probably return my attention to work now, lol.
HAVE ADVENTURE!
:D
Wednesday, July 08, 2009
I Should Be Reviewing Video...
Okay, so I knew going into this weekend (my "weekend" not the weekend) that I had hours and hours of footage to listen to/watch, and I was excited about it.
But then Monday came, and I slept most of it.
But since I worked and extra half-shift Sunday, I figured sleeping most of the day Monday was probably just my body healing itself after a little extra exertion, no big.
I still had Tuesday and today to review through the hours and hours of footage.
Then life got in the way.
Now, the irony here is that before yesterday I would have bet you real money that I didn't have a life! Who frickin' knew?!
I was able to get through a single 5-hour 13-minute recording, which yielded a single male's voice in a room filled with only women, and a single exhale that was heard at the time of recording and which no one in the room performed. (Is "performed" the right word? "Which no one in the room did" just sounds hillbilly, but "performed" sounds weird, too, right?)
Now don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining that 5 hours of audio only yielded an EVP and a VP (there's no such term as "Voice Phenomena", but when a device records a sound that was audible at the time of recording, it's really not an EVP). I'm EXCITED that I got 2 hits out of only 5 hours worth of audio! You can record for YEARS in, say, your own house and NEVER get an inexplicable sound! It's the nature of the job to record hours worth of footage and get, if anything at all, very little "evidence" of the unexplained.
So no complaints there! :D
However...
Okay, so after sleeping all day Monday, I woke up early -- like, Normal People Hours early -- yesterday. And my car was... well... let's just say "past the its inspection date," okay? And it was badly in need of an oild change, as well.
Now, between Brian and me, Brian is the one that's good about maintaining our cars. he has no problem taking them in and getting what needs to be done to them done. And he volunteered to get my car fixed up so it could pass a badly-needed inspection. He was going to let me stay home and continue reviewing audio, bless him!
But... he felt wierd about driving it to get the oil changed.
See, his car was a month behind on its inspection and he got a ticket. He pretty much drive to work and home, and one night he was on his way to the grocery store (the one that's close enough we sometimes walk to it when the weather isn't too hot) and got a frickin' ticket!
So he didn't really want to be the one to drive my car to get the oil changed.
I don't blame him.
So I took a break -- what would it be, 45 minutes total? -- to get the oild changed.
This was actually kind of cool because I recently aquired an audiobook version of Jaws (I've owned the paperback forever but just never gotten around to reading it, and I love the chance to read the original books that inspired badass films, and usually do so before I see the film version whenever possible) that I was enjoying. So this break would allow me to swicth out my RCA VR5220-A with my iPod, and do some listening strictly for leisure! :)
I did get to listen to some 100 pages or so of Jaws, but there's more. (The story turns quite positive before I get to the annoying part...)
If some people are luckier than others, then I am blessed to report that my luck often seems to be supernaturally good! :D I feel comfortable saying that because I know so many people whose annecdotes start out "My day was going just fine, until..." My annecdotes, more times than I deserve, often start out, "My day was already going great, but then...!"
So here's what happened with my car...
Last year, when I had it inspected, the inspector told me that 3 of my tires were worn thin, almost to the point where she couldn't pass the car. Also, my parking break needed to be tightened (or something) and just barely passed, too. Since then, 2 majoy hail storms swept through North Austin, and one of them not only ding-ed up my car severely, but it also put a hole in my left-front blinker cover.
And 2 of my tired have gone flat. (Undoubtedly, 2 of the 3 that the car inspector warned me about.)
So, going in, Brian and I guessed that I would need to parking break tightened (or whatever), to replace the blinker cover and to replace at least one of the tires before it would pass. We also figured we would need to get the car inspected twice: The first time would tell us what work needed to be done so it would pass the second inspection.
Brian went online and found a blinker cover for a decent price. He feels confident replacing it himself, so that'll save us a lot of money. (Well, "a lot of money" to us. To someone else, it might be lunch money, lol.)
The place I took my car to get the oil changed also does state inspections. They offered. I wasn't prepared for this. I took them out to the car and showed them the damaged blinker cover (intentionally failing to mention the tire and the parking breaks), and they said that the blinker cover was damaged in a place that shouldn't affect the car passing.
Whoa! Was this really happening? :D
I follow my instincts. They usually let me know about some things that are going to happen before they happen. Like, for instance, Brian's extreme warriness to drive my car to get the oil changed: I suspect that that was his instincts warning him that there was a cop out there with Brian's name just waiting to be written onto another ticket. If I get that sort of nagging "Don't do it" vibe, I heed it!
And now I was getting another kind of vibe! My gut was telling me that I might have stumbled into the perfect set of circumstances for my car to finally pass inspection this year! :D
I mean, Worst-Case Scenario: They fail it and (as Brian & I had originally planned) let me know what all needed to be done so that it could pass. And this was probably exactly what would happen.
But...
That's not what my intuition was telling me! :D My intuition was saying that I was about to get a new inspection sticker!!!
But ot pay for the inspection, and to buy 2 new license plate bulbs -- the guy who worked on my car very concientiously showed me the bulbs: one was burnt out and the other had a broken filament -- I needed more money, so I called Brian and asked him to bring me some. (Bless him! I know too many people who don't get along with their siblings, but I SO LUCKED-OUT with Brian!!! Excellent brother, excellent roommate and best friend!)
Waiting for Brian and listening to Jaws, it seemed like no time had passed before he was there with the extra money, the car's oil was changed and the car was inspected.
IT PASSED!!! :D
And the whole deal cost about $50 less than I thought it was going to!!! :D
Okay, I'm gonna get all New Age-y and airy-fairy here, but looking at the scenario in retrospect, I wonder if things didn't turn out supernaturally well! I mean, Brian felt really wierd about driving my car for an oil change -- like, maybe, his intuition was telling him not to -- and then, possibly because I'm the one that took it in if you believe in that type of thing, things turned out well better than I could have hoped! :)
So, cool! Mission accomplished, break over, back to work. Right?
Now, if you were bored by the previous story, you would shoot your computer by the mundane events of the next several hours, lol. But suffice it to say that "life" kept interrupting me, keeping me from the audio recorder, until around 7:30pm. This whole adventured started around 4:30pm.
And, like I said, I would have bet real money that I didn't have a life, lol!
OH! Another positive: When I woke up, I had received and email from my Gnomey-Goddess... She's a Young Leader for the Brownies, and Monday night she took her troop out "pond dipping" (which she made sure to inform me was nothing like skinny dipping) and searching for "mini beasts"!
Okay, how cool is that?!! :D My girlfriend is teaching young girls about forraging in the wild and stuff!!! :D She had told me that before, but I had forgotten it until she mentioned it yesterday. (I asked her if she has a uniform she wears, but she hasn't responded, yet.) So when Z-Day comes and the zombie take over the world, she'll know what berries we can eat and stuff! :D
My Baby's an action hero! :D My girlfriend is Lara Croft!!!
Okay, so, I finished reviewing the audio for the one recorder sometime after midnight, and I was wiped out. I slept, woke up around 9:00am, did some grocery shopping, ate a couple of frozen pizzas, then went back to sleep.
I'm awake again. Hopefully all night long, since I have to go back to work tomorrow, lol.
And I have at least one long stretch of video that I must -- WILL -- review tonight.
But I felt a strong need to blog about my weekend... probably as a subconscious procrastination maneuver, lol.
I hope your week is productive so far, and I hope you chance upon and amazing bit of unexpected good luck!
:D
But then Monday came, and I slept most of it.
But since I worked and extra half-shift Sunday, I figured sleeping most of the day Monday was probably just my body healing itself after a little extra exertion, no big.
I still had Tuesday and today to review through the hours and hours of footage.
Then life got in the way.
Now, the irony here is that before yesterday I would have bet you real money that I didn't have a life! Who frickin' knew?!
I was able to get through a single 5-hour 13-minute recording, which yielded a single male's voice in a room filled with only women, and a single exhale that was heard at the time of recording and which no one in the room performed. (Is "performed" the right word? "Which no one in the room did" just sounds hillbilly, but "performed" sounds weird, too, right?)
Now don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining that 5 hours of audio only yielded an EVP and a VP (there's no such term as "Voice Phenomena", but when a device records a sound that was audible at the time of recording, it's really not an EVP). I'm EXCITED that I got 2 hits out of only 5 hours worth of audio! You can record for YEARS in, say, your own house and NEVER get an inexplicable sound! It's the nature of the job to record hours worth of footage and get, if anything at all, very little "evidence" of the unexplained.
So no complaints there! :D
However...
Okay, so after sleeping all day Monday, I woke up early -- like, Normal People Hours early -- yesterday. And my car was... well... let's just say "past the its inspection date," okay? And it was badly in need of an oild change, as well.
Now, between Brian and me, Brian is the one that's good about maintaining our cars. he has no problem taking them in and getting what needs to be done to them done. And he volunteered to get my car fixed up so it could pass a badly-needed inspection. He was going to let me stay home and continue reviewing audio, bless him!
But... he felt wierd about driving it to get the oil changed.
See, his car was a month behind on its inspection and he got a ticket. He pretty much drive to work and home, and one night he was on his way to the grocery store (the one that's close enough we sometimes walk to it when the weather isn't too hot) and got a frickin' ticket!
So he didn't really want to be the one to drive my car to get the oil changed.
I don't blame him.
So I took a break -- what would it be, 45 minutes total? -- to get the oild changed.
This was actually kind of cool because I recently aquired an audiobook version of Jaws (I've owned the paperback forever but just never gotten around to reading it, and I love the chance to read the original books that inspired badass films, and usually do so before I see the film version whenever possible) that I was enjoying. So this break would allow me to swicth out my RCA VR5220-A with my iPod, and do some listening strictly for leisure! :)
I did get to listen to some 100 pages or so of Jaws, but there's more. (The story turns quite positive before I get to the annoying part...)
If some people are luckier than others, then I am blessed to report that my luck often seems to be supernaturally good! :D I feel comfortable saying that because I know so many people whose annecdotes start out "My day was going just fine, until..." My annecdotes, more times than I deserve, often start out, "My day was already going great, but then...!"
So here's what happened with my car...
Last year, when I had it inspected, the inspector told me that 3 of my tires were worn thin, almost to the point where she couldn't pass the car. Also, my parking break needed to be tightened (or something) and just barely passed, too. Since then, 2 majoy hail storms swept through North Austin, and one of them not only ding-ed up my car severely, but it also put a hole in my left-front blinker cover.
And 2 of my tired have gone flat. (Undoubtedly, 2 of the 3 that the car inspector warned me about.)
So, going in, Brian and I guessed that I would need to parking break tightened (or whatever), to replace the blinker cover and to replace at least one of the tires before it would pass. We also figured we would need to get the car inspected twice: The first time would tell us what work needed to be done so it would pass the second inspection.
Brian went online and found a blinker cover for a decent price. He feels confident replacing it himself, so that'll save us a lot of money. (Well, "a lot of money" to us. To someone else, it might be lunch money, lol.)
The place I took my car to get the oil changed also does state inspections. They offered. I wasn't prepared for this. I took them out to the car and showed them the damaged blinker cover (intentionally failing to mention the tire and the parking breaks), and they said that the blinker cover was damaged in a place that shouldn't affect the car passing.
Whoa! Was this really happening? :D
I follow my instincts. They usually let me know about some things that are going to happen before they happen. Like, for instance, Brian's extreme warriness to drive my car to get the oil changed: I suspect that that was his instincts warning him that there was a cop out there with Brian's name just waiting to be written onto another ticket. If I get that sort of nagging "Don't do it" vibe, I heed it!
And now I was getting another kind of vibe! My gut was telling me that I might have stumbled into the perfect set of circumstances for my car to finally pass inspection this year! :D
I mean, Worst-Case Scenario: They fail it and (as Brian & I had originally planned) let me know what all needed to be done so that it could pass. And this was probably exactly what would happen.
But...
That's not what my intuition was telling me! :D My intuition was saying that I was about to get a new inspection sticker!!!
But ot pay for the inspection, and to buy 2 new license plate bulbs -- the guy who worked on my car very concientiously showed me the bulbs: one was burnt out and the other had a broken filament -- I needed more money, so I called Brian and asked him to bring me some. (Bless him! I know too many people who don't get along with their siblings, but I SO LUCKED-OUT with Brian!!! Excellent brother, excellent roommate and best friend!)
Waiting for Brian and listening to Jaws, it seemed like no time had passed before he was there with the extra money, the car's oil was changed and the car was inspected.
IT PASSED!!! :D
And the whole deal cost about $50 less than I thought it was going to!!! :D
Okay, I'm gonna get all New Age-y and airy-fairy here, but looking at the scenario in retrospect, I wonder if things didn't turn out supernaturally well! I mean, Brian felt really wierd about driving my car for an oil change -- like, maybe, his intuition was telling him not to -- and then, possibly because I'm the one that took it in if you believe in that type of thing, things turned out well better than I could have hoped! :)
So, cool! Mission accomplished, break over, back to work. Right?
Now, if you were bored by the previous story, you would shoot your computer by the mundane events of the next several hours, lol. But suffice it to say that "life" kept interrupting me, keeping me from the audio recorder, until around 7:30pm. This whole adventured started around 4:30pm.
And, like I said, I would have bet real money that I didn't have a life, lol!
OH! Another positive: When I woke up, I had received and email from my Gnomey-Goddess... She's a Young Leader for the Brownies, and Monday night she took her troop out "pond dipping" (which she made sure to inform me was nothing like skinny dipping) and searching for "mini beasts"!
Okay, how cool is that?!! :D My girlfriend is teaching young girls about forraging in the wild and stuff!!! :D She had told me that before, but I had forgotten it until she mentioned it yesterday. (I asked her if she has a uniform she wears, but she hasn't responded, yet.) So when Z-Day comes and the zombie take over the world, she'll know what berries we can eat and stuff! :D
My Baby's an action hero! :D My girlfriend is Lara Croft!!!
Okay, so, I finished reviewing the audio for the one recorder sometime after midnight, and I was wiped out. I slept, woke up around 9:00am, did some grocery shopping, ate a couple of frozen pizzas, then went back to sleep.
I'm awake again. Hopefully all night long, since I have to go back to work tomorrow, lol.
And I have at least one long stretch of video that I must -- WILL -- review tonight.
But I felt a strong need to blog about my weekend... probably as a subconscious procrastination maneuver, lol.
I hope your week is productive so far, and I hope you chance upon and amazing bit of unexpected good luck!
:D
Sunday, July 05, 2009
So Guess What...
I'm gettin' me some OVERTIME, baby!!! :D
Now, I usually don't seek out OT because I can ALWAYS occupy my non-working hours (with different, non-paid types of work, largely, lol), and, technically, I didn't seek this extra half-shift out, either.
But I've gotta say that I welcome it! I can SOOOOO use the money!
AND...
...it turns out that -- this being a holiday weekend -- this extra 4 hours this morning is pretty much baby-sitting! Cake! Chillin' at the workplace, exerting very little effort and still getting the job done! :D
Now, I will be crashing pretty hard the moment I get home and be rushing back off to work the moment I wake up, lol, but when the paycheck comes, I will be very happy!
Still hoping you're enjoying your holiday weekend! I got to go up onto the roof of the station last night and watch some fireworks! I think the trees have grow taller since the last time I did that because I could really just see the tops of the larger explosions. But it was cool to get to see some fireworks from work! :)
Okay, peace out and continue enjoying your weekend! :D
Now, I usually don't seek out OT because I can ALWAYS occupy my non-working hours (with different, non-paid types of work, largely, lol), and, technically, I didn't seek this extra half-shift out, either.
But I've gotta say that I welcome it! I can SOOOOO use the money!
AND...
...it turns out that -- this being a holiday weekend -- this extra 4 hours this morning is pretty much baby-sitting! Cake! Chillin' at the workplace, exerting very little effort and still getting the job done! :D
Now, I will be crashing pretty hard the moment I get home and be rushing back off to work the moment I wake up, lol, but when the paycheck comes, I will be very happy!
Still hoping you're enjoying your holiday weekend! I got to go up onto the roof of the station last night and watch some fireworks! I think the trees have grow taller since the last time I did that because I could really just see the tops of the larger explosions. But it was cool to get to see some fireworks from work! :)
Okay, peace out and continue enjoying your weekend! :D
Saturday, July 04, 2009
I'm Back!!! :D
Back from tonight's investigation and I just finished backing up my audio files on my computer.
I was rockin' 2 RCAs and a Sony... RCA audio recorders have digital outputs, so you can simply plug your recorder into a USB port, fire up the program that comes with the recorder and transfer your files in a matter of seconds. (Well, I buy the "lower end" recoders from Walmart, and the recorder's file format is .VOC which, apparently, is compatible with NO program still in use exept for the operating system of the recorder, lol. Unless you shell out for an audio program that can convert and manipulate virtually every format, even formats created and used exclusively in the '90s, lol. So I actually have to convert the files to .WAV, but that still doesn't take too long.) However, the Sony audio recorder I own doesn't connect directly to a computer, so I have to manually re-record the file into Audacity, real-time.
But I only had one EVP session on the Sony that lasted about 35 minutes, so it wasn't too painful.
I discovered the drawback on my first client investigation, when I foolishly used the Sony recorder to cover one area of the home for an entire investigation. (I like to have at least 1 recorder sit somewhere for the whole night because it sometimes can corroborate or debunk things heard on other recorders, plus it provides a timeline for the investigation because digital audio recorders record the time/date a recording was begun.) I was forced to manually re-record the file in real-time -- the length of the investigation.
That was a long night.
So now I only use the RCAs for investigation-long recordings, and use the Sony for individual (i.e. not 4-7 hour long) sessions.
And I'm sure this information is simply riviting to you, isn't it, lol. ;P
Still, I'm excited because instead of putting off transfering the files until tomorrow -- or, more realistically, Monday, when my weekend starts -- IT'S DONE! :D So I can devote my weekend exclusively to reviewing the footage, rather than transfering/backing up files THEN reviewing footage! :)
And I've got my weekend cut out for me, too! In addition to tonight's investigation I have one camera of footage from last week's investigation. But the good news is that I'm told the investigation ran long. Why is that good news? It ran long because there was so much activity! :D Better odds that I might see a ghost! Or, you know, something moving inexplicably! :D
So I'm excited!
But now it's time for some hotdogs and fries!!! It's my lunch/dinner. My linner. My lunner?
It's my second-meal-of-the-day. :)
Back to work tomorrow, but it should be a breeze.
Hope you're enjoying your 4th of July Weekend!!! Go make pretty sky-fire for me, would ya?
:D
I was rockin' 2 RCAs and a Sony... RCA audio recorders have digital outputs, so you can simply plug your recorder into a USB port, fire up the program that comes with the recorder and transfer your files in a matter of seconds. (Well, I buy the "lower end" recoders from Walmart, and the recorder's file format is .VOC which, apparently, is compatible with NO program still in use exept for the operating system of the recorder, lol. Unless you shell out for an audio program that can convert and manipulate virtually every format, even formats created and used exclusively in the '90s, lol. So I actually have to convert the files to .WAV, but that still doesn't take too long.) However, the Sony audio recorder I own doesn't connect directly to a computer, so I have to manually re-record the file into Audacity, real-time.
But I only had one EVP session on the Sony that lasted about 35 minutes, so it wasn't too painful.
I discovered the drawback on my first client investigation, when I foolishly used the Sony recorder to cover one area of the home for an entire investigation. (I like to have at least 1 recorder sit somewhere for the whole night because it sometimes can corroborate or debunk things heard on other recorders, plus it provides a timeline for the investigation because digital audio recorders record the time/date a recording was begun.) I was forced to manually re-record the file in real-time -- the length of the investigation.
That was a long night.
So now I only use the RCAs for investigation-long recordings, and use the Sony for individual (i.e. not 4-7 hour long) sessions.
And I'm sure this information is simply riviting to you, isn't it, lol. ;P
Still, I'm excited because instead of putting off transfering the files until tomorrow -- or, more realistically, Monday, when my weekend starts -- IT'S DONE! :D So I can devote my weekend exclusively to reviewing the footage, rather than transfering/backing up files THEN reviewing footage! :)
And I've got my weekend cut out for me, too! In addition to tonight's investigation I have one camera of footage from last week's investigation. But the good news is that I'm told the investigation ran long. Why is that good news? It ran long because there was so much activity! :D Better odds that I might see a ghost! Or, you know, something moving inexplicably! :D
So I'm excited!
But now it's time for some hotdogs and fries!!! It's my lunch/dinner. My linner. My lunner?
It's my second-meal-of-the-day. :)
Back to work tomorrow, but it should be a breeze.
Hope you're enjoying your 4th of July Weekend!!! Go make pretty sky-fire for me, would ya?
:D
Friday, July 03, 2009
How Insane Is This...
I've got an investigation tonight at 9:00pm, I set my alarm to go off at 6:00pm, but I woke up around 3:44pm and couldn't get back to sleep.
Okay.
So I killed time on the PC, as per usual... You know, check email, then play my MySpace/Facebook Pirate and Street Racer games...
All fine and good.
I made myself some Fish & Chips for breakfast.
Tasty and good.
Then it's 6:00pm, I still have 2 1/2 hours before I need to leave for the investigation.
Okay, fine.
So I chill to some Dido.
Groovy.
I get a call from a teammate (tonight's team leader, Sheryl) and we talk shop for a few minutes.
FINALLY... It's 7:00pm. I can shower and get ready, and take my time, and then it should be time to leave.
...or not.
So now it's 8:00pm, I'm completely ready to go, and I still have HALF AN HOUR to kill!
Eager? Sure.
But see, usually I'm running around 5-to-15 minutes late for just about everything. I'm not used to this "being ahead of schedule" thing!
I know how to kill HOURS of time, but I don't know how to kill minutes, lol. I can get lost in Old Time Radio or audiobooks or books or movies, but I'm not particularly skilled at killing a few minutes here and a few minutes there.
And I'm also not used to having to be precisely on time. (Or, as some might call it, behaving professionally, lol.) I'm usually a few minutes late or a few minutes early. But we're meeting at the client's home, so I don't want to show up half an hour early and wait awkwardly for the others to show up while the clients peer out their window, wondering if they should call the police on that car sitting outside their house.
What to do?
I sat down to write this blog entry, hoping to kill some time, but it doesn't seem to be working... It was 7:52pm when I started, and it's only 8:03pm as I type this sentence here. :(
Hmph.
I can't start a PS2 game because time would disappear far too quickly, then, lol.
Um...
Well, I can't really continue this blog entry, because I am well out of things to talk about. Any further discussion would be eternal reitterations of the same point.
So...
I'm going away now.
Hey, I hope anyone reading this has a SPECTACULAR 4th of July Weekend!!! :D
Okay.
So I killed time on the PC, as per usual... You know, check email, then play my MySpace/Facebook Pirate and Street Racer games...
All fine and good.
I made myself some Fish & Chips for breakfast.
Tasty and good.
Then it's 6:00pm, I still have 2 1/2 hours before I need to leave for the investigation.
Okay, fine.
So I chill to some Dido.
Groovy.
I get a call from a teammate (tonight's team leader, Sheryl) and we talk shop for a few minutes.
FINALLY... It's 7:00pm. I can shower and get ready, and take my time, and then it should be time to leave.
...or not.
So now it's 8:00pm, I'm completely ready to go, and I still have HALF AN HOUR to kill!
Eager? Sure.
But see, usually I'm running around 5-to-15 minutes late for just about everything. I'm not used to this "being ahead of schedule" thing!
I know how to kill HOURS of time, but I don't know how to kill minutes, lol. I can get lost in Old Time Radio or audiobooks or books or movies, but I'm not particularly skilled at killing a few minutes here and a few minutes there.
And I'm also not used to having to be precisely on time. (Or, as some might call it, behaving professionally, lol.) I'm usually a few minutes late or a few minutes early. But we're meeting at the client's home, so I don't want to show up half an hour early and wait awkwardly for the others to show up while the clients peer out their window, wondering if they should call the police on that car sitting outside their house.
What to do?
I sat down to write this blog entry, hoping to kill some time, but it doesn't seem to be working... It was 7:52pm when I started, and it's only 8:03pm as I type this sentence here. :(
Hmph.
I can't start a PS2 game because time would disappear far too quickly, then, lol.
Um...
Well, I can't really continue this blog entry, because I am well out of things to talk about. Any further discussion would be eternal reitterations of the same point.
So...
I'm going away now.
Hey, I hope anyone reading this has a SPECTACULAR 4th of July Weekend!!! :D
Wednesday, July 01, 2009
I Like My Women Like I Like My Coffee...
I woke up (too early, actually) today remembering that Monday morning at work (my "Friday afternoon" as compared to everyone who works/sleeps Normal People hours) I had grown quite punchy just at the end of my shift and I became obsessed with this water-cooler trope.
Normally, the idea is to use this little joke as a way to flirt, using aspects of coffee as a double entendre.
I like my coffee like I like my women:...
...Sweet.
or
...Strong.
or
...Hot and Black.
But then you have stand-up comedians who take it into the surreal, like Eddie Izzard.
...In a cup.
So as I'm working, my mind is playing this little game with me wherein I try to come up with aspects of one that create a completely obtuse mental image of the other. It got so bad that co-workers were asking me what I was laughing about. (They didn't find the punchlines quite as amusing as I did, though, lol.)
I WROTE THEM DOWN, EVEN! But I can't find the list now. :( But I came up with some strange ones, though! :D
...Loaded with sugar!
...English!
...Without hair.
...Full-flavored with a hearty bouquet!
...Bent over and sweaty.
I wish I could fins the list. I had a bunch of them and some of them were really out-there.
...With brown eyes... bobbing up and down... Ew!
Although, you may need to be as punch-drunk as I was to really enjoy them, lol.
But it was a really fun way to end my work week.
I wonder if it's a coincidence that I'm remembering this today, the last day of my weekend.
Anyway, for your own amusement there are a ton of standard setup lines that you can do that with while you work:
My mother in law is so annoying...
My sibling is so dumb...
Politicians are so out-of-touch with Reality...
Okay, there are better ones than this, and perhaps you can think of them, lol. I have to admit, I started writing the above sentence (about "there are a ton of standard setup lines") and then I totally blanked on all of them. :(
And the suggestions I provided aren't really ones I would go with.
Oh wait! Okay, a cool/easy joke-generating tool is lists of things. As in:
All I need in life is a roof, a bed and a Quail Egg omelet served with Monkey Picked Tea at precisely 7:17am every morning.
...or...
My mom makes this to-die-for soup that's just peas, carrots and Chihuahua spleen.
You're just coming up with 2 normal items, then a 3rd ridiculous item.
The longer you play the game, the more and more outrageous your imagination gets! After maybe 20 minutes you'll probably be fighting back giggles, looking around to make sure your co-workers don't hear you. :)
PLUS... You might come up with a couple that are funny enough to email your friends! :D
A word of caution though: If you do share with others, just share the 2 or 3 BEST ones. I studied comedy writing back in my early 20s and learned the hard way that you can fall in love with all your own material, which is bad.
A friend invited me to help him host a late-night show at the local radio station, and I had generated all these jokes, like 25 punchlines for each setup. And it seemed a waste to narrow the punchlines down to a mere 5 or 3 or (*shudder*) ONE, so I just read them all.
Very bad mistake.
You use to see the same thing when you'd get forwarded those joke emails like "Things I Learned From Star Wars" and the like. They just go on forever, tend to repeat themselves, and even though you're laughing when you start reading the list, you usually stop laughing long before you abandon it.
Blah.
Rambling now, so I'm going away.
I challenge you to make yourself laugh today! :D
Normally, the idea is to use this little joke as a way to flirt, using aspects of coffee as a double entendre.
I like my coffee like I like my women:...
...Sweet.
or
...Strong.
or
...Hot and Black.
But then you have stand-up comedians who take it into the surreal, like Eddie Izzard.
...In a cup.
So as I'm working, my mind is playing this little game with me wherein I try to come up with aspects of one that create a completely obtuse mental image of the other. It got so bad that co-workers were asking me what I was laughing about. (They didn't find the punchlines quite as amusing as I did, though, lol.)
I WROTE THEM DOWN, EVEN! But I can't find the list now. :( But I came up with some strange ones, though! :D
...Loaded with sugar!
...English!
...Without hair.
...Full-flavored with a hearty bouquet!
...Bent over and sweaty.
I wish I could fins the list. I had a bunch of them and some of them were really out-there.
...With brown eyes... bobbing up and down... Ew!
Although, you may need to be as punch-drunk as I was to really enjoy them, lol.
But it was a really fun way to end my work week.
I wonder if it's a coincidence that I'm remembering this today, the last day of my weekend.
Anyway, for your own amusement there are a ton of standard setup lines that you can do that with while you work:
My mother in law is so annoying...
My sibling is so dumb...
Politicians are so out-of-touch with Reality...
Okay, there are better ones than this, and perhaps you can think of them, lol. I have to admit, I started writing the above sentence (about "there are a ton of standard setup lines") and then I totally blanked on all of them. :(
And the suggestions I provided aren't really ones I would go with.
Oh wait! Okay, a cool/easy joke-generating tool is lists of things. As in:
All I need in life is a roof, a bed and a Quail Egg omelet served with Monkey Picked Tea at precisely 7:17am every morning.
...or...
My mom makes this to-die-for soup that's just peas, carrots and Chihuahua spleen.
You're just coming up with 2 normal items, then a 3rd ridiculous item.
The longer you play the game, the more and more outrageous your imagination gets! After maybe 20 minutes you'll probably be fighting back giggles, looking around to make sure your co-workers don't hear you. :)
PLUS... You might come up with a couple that are funny enough to email your friends! :D
A word of caution though: If you do share with others, just share the 2 or 3 BEST ones. I studied comedy writing back in my early 20s and learned the hard way that you can fall in love with all your own material, which is bad.
A friend invited me to help him host a late-night show at the local radio station, and I had generated all these jokes, like 25 punchlines for each setup. And it seemed a waste to narrow the punchlines down to a mere 5 or 3 or (*shudder*) ONE, so I just read them all.
Very bad mistake.
You use to see the same thing when you'd get forwarded those joke emails like "Things I Learned From Star Wars" and the like. They just go on forever, tend to repeat themselves, and even though you're laughing when you start reading the list, you usually stop laughing long before you abandon it.
Blah.
Rambling now, so I'm going away.
I challenge you to make yourself laugh today! :D
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen...
Brian & I got to see it Monday!!! :D
Brian's a huge Transformers fan from back in the '80s -- he had the toys and watched the TV show and all that -- and we both loved the first flick, so it was quite amazing when we both happened to find ourselves with enough money, AND both off work, so that we could both see it on the Big Screen!!!
IT ROCKS!
I mean, if you're into those movies. I'm the one film flunky I know that does not hate Michael Bay's work -- I think his movies are exciting, and he really seems to understand the importance of what his writers do for his flick, unlike MANY directors I could name (*cough* Bret Ratner *cough* asshole jerk-off hack *cough*) -- and I thought the first flick was intensely FUN!!!
And we weren't disappointed with this follow up!!! :D Very cool!
Then we spent Tuesday catching up on Reaper! We finished off season 1 and watched the first 3 discs of Season 2.
THAT SHOW RULES!!!
I mean, I liked Season 1 a lot! I like the characters, the world, the relationships... But with season 2 it's like the writers/producers just said "Okay, we've got a great show... Now let's make it BADASS!!!: And they SO succeeded!!!
Um...
Oh yeah! I just discovered HOURS of new OTR Goodness!!!
Okay, there's TONS of OTR out there, and even those of us who are obsessed with it can continuously find shows that we haven't heard out there -- most of them 100% because they're in the Public Domain -- and just never be without audral entertainment.
But...
We're talking about radio produced anywhere from the 1930s to the 1960s, and the recording equipment back then wasn't that reliable. As you listen to these masterpieces of storytelling, you're also trying to ignore poor sound quality.
However...
I only just discovered this show called CBS Radio Mystery Theater that began (I believe) in 1974 and broadcast until 1982!!! :D Which means that the equipment used to produce and record the shows was much better! You've got great Old Time Radio that SOUNDS GOOD, too!!!
I had heard about CBS Radio Mystery Theater before, and even listened to a few episodes off sampler or genre-themed discs that I've bought in the past. But I didn't realize the show was produced as recently as it was!
And the reason is Himan Brown.
He produced radio shows back in the Golden Era of radio, and the CBS Radio Mystery Theater was an attempt to bring story back onto the radio. So he produced them with the same "flavor", if you will, as the old stuff, only with writing and acting that is more contemporary. The result was, basically, TV on radio!
While doing laundry yesterday morning, I listened to this 5-part miniseries called The Last Days of Pompeii. :) Very cool.
So I've got my iPod packed with episodes, and I suspect my podcasts may get neglected a bit over the next few weeks as I slowly plow though my new (free) gems! :D
Other than that, a bit of writing and chatting to my Gnomey-Goddess, that's pretty much what I've been up to.
OH! I have an investigation Friday night!!! :D It's a client investigation, so I won't be blogging about it, but I'm super excited!!! :D
I hope you're finding much excitement as we move into the mid-month of summer! I hope you're finding time to simply enjoy simple pleasures! But not merely "enjoy" them, but really just luxuriate in them! Treat them like they're the most expensive treat you could give yourself! :D
If this global economy isn't good for anything else, it's really useful for helping us make THE ABSOLUTE MOST out of EVERYTHING we have in our lives!!! :D
Brian's a huge Transformers fan from back in the '80s -- he had the toys and watched the TV show and all that -- and we both loved the first flick, so it was quite amazing when we both happened to find ourselves with enough money, AND both off work, so that we could both see it on the Big Screen!!!
IT ROCKS!
I mean, if you're into those movies. I'm the one film flunky I know that does not hate Michael Bay's work -- I think his movies are exciting, and he really seems to understand the importance of what his writers do for his flick, unlike MANY directors I could name (*cough* Bret Ratner *cough* asshole jerk-off hack *cough*) -- and I thought the first flick was intensely FUN!!!
And we weren't disappointed with this follow up!!! :D Very cool!
Then we spent Tuesday catching up on Reaper! We finished off season 1 and watched the first 3 discs of Season 2.
THAT SHOW RULES!!!
I mean, I liked Season 1 a lot! I like the characters, the world, the relationships... But with season 2 it's like the writers/producers just said "Okay, we've got a great show... Now let's make it BADASS!!!: And they SO succeeded!!!
Um...
Oh yeah! I just discovered HOURS of new OTR Goodness!!!
Okay, there's TONS of OTR out there, and even those of us who are obsessed with it can continuously find shows that we haven't heard out there -- most of them 100% because they're in the Public Domain -- and just never be without audral entertainment.
But...
We're talking about radio produced anywhere from the 1930s to the 1960s, and the recording equipment back then wasn't that reliable. As you listen to these masterpieces of storytelling, you're also trying to ignore poor sound quality.
However...
I only just discovered this show called CBS Radio Mystery Theater that began (I believe) in 1974 and broadcast until 1982!!! :D Which means that the equipment used to produce and record the shows was much better! You've got great Old Time Radio that SOUNDS GOOD, too!!!
I had heard about CBS Radio Mystery Theater before, and even listened to a few episodes off sampler or genre-themed discs that I've bought in the past. But I didn't realize the show was produced as recently as it was!
And the reason is Himan Brown.
He produced radio shows back in the Golden Era of radio, and the CBS Radio Mystery Theater was an attempt to bring story back onto the radio. So he produced them with the same "flavor", if you will, as the old stuff, only with writing and acting that is more contemporary. The result was, basically, TV on radio!
While doing laundry yesterday morning, I listened to this 5-part miniseries called The Last Days of Pompeii. :) Very cool.
So I've got my iPod packed with episodes, and I suspect my podcasts may get neglected a bit over the next few weeks as I slowly plow though my new (free) gems! :D
Other than that, a bit of writing and chatting to my Gnomey-Goddess, that's pretty much what I've been up to.
OH! I have an investigation Friday night!!! :D It's a client investigation, so I won't be blogging about it, but I'm super excited!!! :D
I hope you're finding much excitement as we move into the mid-month of summer! I hope you're finding time to simply enjoy simple pleasures! But not merely "enjoy" them, but really just luxuriate in them! Treat them like they're the most expensive treat you could give yourself! :D
If this global economy isn't good for anything else, it's really useful for helping us make THE ABSOLUTE MOST out of EVERYTHING we have in our lives!!! :D
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