Today I made it to the 4000-mile mark for my cumulative mileage on an exercycle. Not bad, did it in about three months (3000 was June) despite skipping a bunch of days in July and August. Going at least 14.3 miles/day contributed heavily as this projects out to 100 miles/week. Should I maintain this, I think I’ll bump up to 14.45 miles/day to creat 101 miles/week.
Closing in on Cork. By the end of the year should be a lock unless I break something and/or end up in the hospital.
Everyone’s favorite robot with a live Eric Cartman inside was spotted somewhere. I blurred the lady’s face to protect her identity. A personal favorite episode of South Park because it was actually funny and not filled with Libertarian (translation, tone deaf rich people) humor. It’s also giving me inspiration for a Plan B Halloween costume since I’ve run out of time for my original Plan A which is a secret.
Saw the sad news this morning on IMDB and a couple Twitter accounts of Star Trek actors. I had no idea he was around my age but then again, he was rather short like all the people cast to play Ferengi. To his credit, I didn’t mind his role as Nog, Rom’s son. He and Armin Shimmerman contributed heavily toward making the failed ST:NG nemesis (see “The Last Outpost”) more than comic relief and two dimensional. It’s not a spoiler alert after a couple decades; Nog becoming the first Ferengi applicant to Starfleet Academy was a nice touch too. As the writers got more adept at finding a place for these commerce-obsessed aliens, it was good to see examples of them not being con artists, merchants, smugglers, etc. Now if they ever get around to doing this with Klingons, I’ll be impressed because even their society must have an economy to pay for all those battle cruisers.
Aron also appeared at least once on Voyager as a Kazon (sic?) of sorts. Sadly, Voyager never did find a way to utilize these aliens well.
Farewell Aron. Thanks for all your work and enduring hours on end wearing an appliance and dentures to fix an idea Roddenberry hadn’t thought through. We owe you all a debt for making the Ferengi more than cartoonish buffoons obsessed with gold.
In their defense, Iron Maiden has had a visual trademark via Eddie, but could Stern find a non-dinosaur act (*cough* Rolling Stones, *cough* Aerosmith) that hasn’t been flogging a dead horse over the last 30 years to immortalize? And no, I don’t think a Duran Duran or Talking Heads machine would be very good neither. B-52s? Hell yes! C’mon, everyone would be amused by Fred Schneider’s voice yelling “Rock Lobster!” or better yet, “Rawk!” when the ball is in super bumpers mode! Now as I’m writing this, why isn’t there a Weird Al Yankovic pinball game? He’s the ultimate…oh wait, most people only know the parodies and this makes my pitch a licensing nightmare. I doubt I could count on the newer generation of fans to make it feasible through his originals.
Anyway…did I play this? I was in a hurry at the original Pinballz, so no. I will though. Sometimes the worst themes make the best games. In my experience, I can’t say my favorite movies have. It took a while for anyone to get Star Wars right.
Earlier this year, I score two of those killer sailing vessels that WizKids made for D&D. Now I have armaments so they can go on the attack or defend themselves from pirates and evil navies (Pan Tang quickly comes to mind!).
First up is the catapult, the artillery of choice since the Ancient World until gunpowder was readily available. Feel free to chime in if you know but the earliest culture I can recall to utilize catapults would be the Romans. Maybe the Persians or Egyptians did. I would rule out the Greeks initially due to their home turf being too rocky so infantry (hoplites) and light cavalry were more practical. These will have to be on the top deck to be practical against any foes my players encounter.
Pathfinder has the Gunslinger class in 1E which would allow these puppies onboard. Cannons will work well in the first lower deck of my ships because there are portholes to fire these from. Even if my Fantasy campaign has limitations on gunpowder, cannons could still be used as a magical focus or special item that fires lightning, icicles, compressed water and obviously everyone’s favorite offensive spell…fireball.
It doesn’t sound too impressive but it means I have set a target to beat next year.
Let’s see if I can push it to 300 and make 2020 a nightmare!
It is sad when most people die unless they were war criminals (St. Reagan, Bush the Elder) or monsters (Charles Manson, Wayne Gacy) or absolute shitbags (David Koch, Richard Scaife-Mellon) but I also have little pity regarding the demise of this “reporter.” Cokie was a fixture on NPR who helped it evolve and find its voice when she wasn’t shilling on ABC.
However, there is a dark side to her which highlights the cancer eating away at America. Cokie represents what is wrong with this country and has been lately throughout the Baby Boomers’ Reign of Error. Despite being a “journalist,” a term for her I find comical, she was really a member of the political class which helped give rise to the Orange Foolius squatting in the White Horse
Cokie really didn’t get to where she was by talent alone, her father was Hale Boggs, Democratic Majority Leader of the House until his untimely plane crash in 1972. Given that our republic is supposed to hate aristocrats, Cokie’s mother inherited the seat for another 18 years. Plus she was raised in the posh schools of the elite and had a super-long WASP name (six compared to us peasants’ three) even though her family is Catholic. The nepotistic connections didn’t end with Cokie. Her sister was mayor of Princeton, NJ and her brother whores for K Street (lobbyist). Cokie’s media career via nepotism paved the way for other undeserving shitbags: Chelsea Clinton, Meghan McCain and Jenna Bush.
Her in-the-bubble upbringing added up to her “holier-than-thou” lecturing on NPR about how we peasants, rubes and unwashed ignoramuses in Flyover Country don’t know shit about governing. This smugness is how she rationalized being appointed to the Council on Service and Civic Participation by war criminal President Dubious or serving on the board of Kaiser Permanente’s PR distraction; KP has been investigated numerous times for fraud and patient dumping. Cozying up to the GOP and Wealthy assholes is what her kind call bipartisanship and purports the myth of everyone in DC getting along as people when they put aside their rabid positions. What her behavior revealed is that in the end, people with money, power and connections belong to a third party, the Plutocrats. They’ll band together to screw the rest of us over to protect their privileges.
So if there is a Hell, I do hope Cokie is there to cover it and share her worthless “expertise” on Satan’s political machinations to over Trumpkins, Ammosexuals and Randroids.
I wanted to spend an extra day regarding the Ric Ocasek’s death since he and The Cars were a huge part of my teenage life and musical education.
Having grown up in downstate Illinois, I didn’t hear any Cars music until their hit “Let’s Go.” It was definitely played ad nauseum in 1979. Then I hadn’t heard about The Cars again until early 1982 with Shake It Up thanks to syndicated TV programs Solid Gold, Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert or America’s Top 40 with Casey Kasem showing these new video music things. I bought the album for my brother as a birthday gift at Apple Tree Records, the place I got hooked on vinyl at. We both loved Shake. It was the first album we had ever bought that was all killer, no filler…and wasn’t a greatest hits compilation or a 45/single.
During a class trip to the Springfield public library, I spotted two of their earlier works, The Cars and Panorama. I didn’t have the time nor permission to check them out but when I looked at the covers, I wasn’t sure if this was the same band. They didn’t quite resemble their pictures from Shake, their videos or from a recent appearance on Fridays.
The move to Houston is what spurred the change for my brother and me. In large metropolitan areas with AOR-based FM stations, their 1978 debut The Cars was a staple in that six of its nine tracks were often played alongside Led Zeppelin, Talking Heads, Heart and Duran Duran. As one anonymous writer once wrote, The Cars was the album everyone could agree on because it was a fusion of New Wave, Rock and Power Pop. Translation, The Cars were one of the few New Wave bands on MTV you could like without the Burnouts (often Arena Rock/Metalhead bullies) calling you a faggot.
During MTV’s golden years, when it was a visual radio station, not the crapfest it has been for three decades, The Cars were one of the earliest American bands to have videos ready to play which gave them an edge in being in my generation’s musical lexicon. It certainly became rather obvious by 1984, more on this later.
After releasing four albums over a four-year stretch (1978-1982), Ric put out his first true solo effort Beatitude. I feel it was not just a preview of what would become his masterpiece (1984’s Heartbeat City) nor his future career as an in-demand producer in the Nineties, but Ric trying out new ideas and working with other musicians: Stephen Hague (New Order, OMD), Jules Shear (Reckless Sleepers, songwriter), Darryl Jennifer (Bad Brains) and Antonio DePortago (Ministry). Beatitude sounds like The Cars but wasn’t…except for Greg Hawkes playing some keyboards.
As our closing days in Houston arrived, Heartbeat City hit the airwaves and MTV. “You Might Think” was a textbook example of how spectacular a music video could be. Today, the special effects appear crude and cliché. By 1984 standards it was pretty impressive and the band employed the same whacky production company behind The National Inquirer‘s weekly commercials. Even if you found the rumor-mongering tabloid crap, their ads made you laugh and got your attention. It also paved the way for other well-remembered “video of the year” winners on MTV when having something matching the song’s spirit or “story” lining up with the visuals mattered.
Throughout 1984, you couldn’t escape Ric’s other hits: “Hello Again,” “Magic,” “It’s Not The Night” and probably what is the band’s most memorable song “Drive.” The last one to me is perfection because the bass line, harmony and tempo nail exactly what the song is trying to “paint” for the listener: someone giving an unrequited, probably passed-out, crush a ride home and all through its core/harmony, the music is recreating what a car sounds like while its in motion on a paved road. I had the great fortune to first hear and see “Drive” when The Cars were on SNL. Benjamin Orr’s singing captured the emotional essence it conveyed. I knew it was going to be the hit it remains today. The video sadly…sucked ass.
Despite Indiacrapolis being a typical Midwestern cultural backwater that only had aging Arena Rock or Metal bands come through, The Cars did play a pretty packed Market Square Arena around August 1984. My brother and I had the great luck of getting tickets to see them! It was my fifth concert and Brian’s second. Opening act Wang Chung went over better than I expected with the ‘crapolis crowd. Sadly, the Cars blew! They had no presence or much crowd interaction. They just stood around to play the hits, get us to admire their elaborate stage and leave. What a pisser (until I saw an even more disinterested New Order). It didn’t have any negative effect on either of us enjoying their music. A year later, we moved to North Dakota, and during a shopping trip in Winnipeg, Brian spent most of his money completing his Cars catalog .
While I was at Marquette, The Cars had a greatest hits with the obligatory single to make completists buy it alongside the fair-weathered. Ric had a second solo album which got some play on the university’s “radio station.” Ben Orr’s single “Stay The Night” was a much bigger hit and could be heard constantly alongside the Bangles and Wang Chung while I crammed for my first college-level final exams.
Sadly, all the energy, excitement, novelty and whatever else made The Cars great was absent when 1987’s Door to Door debuted. “You Are the Girl” was phoned in and sounded like a carbon copy of “Tonight She Comes.” Brian felt otherwise when he played “Strap Me In” for me. He was right but the damage was done. When the band couldn’t sell out a venue in their home turf of Boston, Ric dissolved the band.
Most know Ric went on to be a successful and popular producer. Weezer owes a huge debt to him as he prevented them from sounding like yet another Nirvana clone. I do like what he did two years later for Nada Surf yet it proved to be a bad match since “Popular” hemmed them in for half a decade. He wasn’t limited to just these acts, he produced other genres: Bad Religion (Punk), Bad Brains (Punk/Reggae), Motion City Soundtrack (Emo, allegedly) and Guided by Voices (Indie/Garage).
Around 2006, The Cars sort of reunited. Due to bassist/vocalist Ben Orr passing away in 2000, he had to be replaced, enter Todd Rundgren which may have been why Ric had no interest, same for drummer David Robinson. He may have also had the veto power to prevent the name usage as this new combo of Todd on bass/vocals with Elliot on guitars, Greg on keyboards and Prairie Prince on drums (The Tubes) was called The New Cars. They made a couple new songs which had some of the trademarked sounds via Elliott and Greg but lacked Ric’s wordplay. Todd Rundgren is incredible in his own way with Utopia and solo, just not trying to be Ric Ocasek. It’s Alive is padded with The Cars’ catalog live.
Five years later, The “real” Cars did re-unite sans Ben as Greg took on the bass duties. Their return, 2011’s Move Like This was fantastic. It was as if they picked up where they left off in 1984, recapturing the excitement and sound I loved on Shake It Up. How I wish they did a couple more albums before Ric died.
Now I’m inspired to make a Cars tutorial mix for my younger friends. (Going through my hard drive of digitized CDs.)
Farewell Ric. Thanks for all the great music you made directly and indirectly! Thanks for being on the soundtrack of my youth!
In preparation for D&D’s upcoming campaign involving Avernus, one of the nine planes of Hell, the minis people created this helltank which is really an armored personnel carrier (APC). But who cares! It’s awesome. It’s covered in spikes. Metallic all over. Coming from the Nine Hells, it’s probably searing to the touch. It’s a pretty cool mini too. Unlike Games Workshop’s Warhammer line, I didn’t have to assemble or paint this and I have a feeling I paid much, much less; it retails for $70.
Some good guys trying to stop the helltank
Given I prefer the Pathfinder rules and utilize its campaign world, now called Lost Omens because I’m guessing it was easier to market than Golarion (the planet), this could easily be repurposed by the devil-aligned nation Cheliax! Get a minor devil or tiefling as the driver and hell knights as the troopers.
My coworker loaned me an Azer as the driver. Not evil but it is a fire elemental of sorts.
The picture above shows how the driver’s compartment detaches so you can put in a mini to represent the driver. It’s not a self-driving tank which I guess would make it less evil than the Uber responsible for killing someone in Phoenix. Being from the Nine Hells, I could make the argument of it being alive though.
Tried to find some evil types to put inside as Hell’s troops. Crab people! Crab people!
The final picture above this paragraph demonstrates another removable “lid” for me to put in evil, hell-bound troopers. In league with the sentient argument, I could argue this compartment is where the vehicle’s guts and brains are stored, similar to Cylon star fighters in the 2003 version of BSG.
Can’t wait to spring this on my players. Whenever we get the Plan A campaign back on track, the adventures of Opal & Seilu!
Now, when you go to a physical LEGO Store there is a special kiosk in which you place down your palm and it will tell you which minifigure you are. I was really hoping for Benny, Lucy or the Pizza Guy(s). No dice. I’m the cheerleader. Could’ve been worse, a monster or something bald.
Tell me what you get should you have the chance!
Tarantino returns to the 20th Century with his love letter to the “golden days” of Hollywood as the inevitable Manson murders lurk around in the backdrop. The core story involves aging Western/Action movie star Rick Dalton and his stuntman caretaker Cliff Booth trying to get by on TV guest star roles; aka, the villain-of-the-week gigs. Why is Sharon Tate’s horrible fate in this? She and her rapist husband Roman Polanski are Cliff’s neighbors.
Overall, it’s a good movie but it would be a great movie if QT would finally remember that more is less. I don’t have a problem with long films. I have a problem with them when there’s meandering bullshit eating time. Here’s how I would describe it best without spoiling the surprises. There’s a sequence of Cliff driving home from Rick’s house in a posh LA neighborhood to his trailer behind a drive-in theater in not-so-nice Van Nuys (famous home of the US porn industry). Beyond getting a sampling of what the LA area used to look like 50 years ago, it doesn’t serve the story via the medium. If this were a novel, then it would’ve been perfect as the author lists the sites all while telling the reader what Cliff is musing about.
I want to address the elephant in the room too. Sharon Tate’s presence. We all know about her horrible fate alongside the other four victims at the hands of Manson’s followers. It’s about as tasteful as watching a movie involving the four planes and passengers that died in the 9/11 attacks. So you sit through this waiting for “the other shoe to drop” moment when QT has a much better, more entertaining story happening. A struggling Has-Been trying to cling to his addiction of fame, public adoration and the lifestyle acting in movies provided him for it’s the only life he knows.
However…see Once for it is a work of fiction interspersed with cameos of historical figures played by actors: Bruce Lee, Steve McQueen, Squeaky Fromme and Mama Cass. Ergo, QT plays hard and fast with the truth as you will see in the last act. He also has a defensible stance against someone in The Guardian who took him to task for violence against women. When it comes to anyone in the Manson Family, regardless of gender, violence in self defense against those garbage people is justified.
In closing. I would say the movie QT ripped off this time is harder to pin down. Django Unchained was easily his version of The Skin Game. Somehow I keep coming back to James Garner since the movie which made me associate Once with something else was 1988’s Sunset starring a not-as-famous Bruce Willis playing silent-movie cowboy star Tom Mix and James Garner playing an aging Wyatt Earp during Hollywood’s infancy. Together, they try to solve a murder with the ever awesome Malcolm McDowell playing the villain. I was in college when it was originally released so I don’t know if this was a flop or modest hit. I did see this years later for I am a huge Garner fan and it’s quite interesting given Blake Edwards directed. I could sit through crap like Tank or Fire in the Sky just to watch Garner chew the scenery. Same goes for the majority of Edwards’ work. Good job finding something more obscure to rip off QT.
Alamo Extras: A explanation of movie cameras using a chimp; What’s the point of movies through channel surfing. Numerous movie trailers which help set Once‘s mood/mindset:
Stuntman stories from legendary stuntman Gary Kent:
How appropriate on the anniversary of 9/11, the day Americans lost more of their freedom and civil rights. Plus the country continues to piss away billions on its 18 years of futile wars against whack-a-mole enemies.
Somara and I tried to have a civil discussion on how things were going to be divided but it broke down over the expected so now I will be lawyer shopping. Plus all further discussion will cease because that’s the smart thing to do.
There won’t be any mention of the divorce until it’s over.
I will close with this. We aren’t going to be friends let along have anything to do with each other at this point. Bums me out but such is life.
Local music hero Daniel Johnston passed away yesterday. Most of you all who don’t live around Austin are probably asking, “who?” I’ll go with the easiest answer. You may remember Kurt Cobain wearing a shirt with this weird frog on it saying “Hi, how are you” That was something Daniel was known for alongside being one of Kurt’s inspirations.
He did get a brief revival after Nirvana was the biggest act on the planet but it never translated beyond cult status.
I knew about Daniel on the peripheral of my mind yet never saw him perform. Hell, I don’t have any clue what his music sounds like beyond him being a musician’s musician (see Big Star, Velvet Underground, Vic Chestnut). Maybe we’ll get a stronger idea because death is sadly a good career move in sealing immortality before mediocrity sets in: Kurt Cobain, Jim Morrison, Amy Winehouse, etc.; or can lift others from obscurity: Stevie Ray Vaughn, Nick Drake, Ian Curtis.
Tim and Company came out to show off what everybody expected. A new iPhone, a new Watch and a new iPad alongside what some of the OS features would be. The cooler stuff which impressed even a grizzled support veteran were the TV network and video game offerings. Both are going to be cheaper than all competitors per month ($5/month). The bigger surprise was the Apple Network will be free for a year to anyone buying a new product be it as cheap as the Apple TV to a kick-ass MacPro. I think parents trying to save some money will definitely be on board for the Arcade service and it’s an incentive for me to save up for a new portable. I’m keeping the one I’m writing this on for legacy reasons. I’ve been a double-portable guy before. Now the tricky part will be finding a new backpack capable of safely carrying two.
Next up. Scheming to move up to the Watch Series 5! Already proposed with my friend Rev. Kathy who is the wearer of my original and needs better battery life.
This morning, I went in for my six-month checkup to see how I’m doing after that big, tow-hour physical examination. It was mainly a blood draw which contained fantastic news. Well, the news that seemed to matter to the doctor. The LDL part of my cholesterol is down from 142 (so so) to 113! As she said, the exercise is working keep it up.
With the divorce underway, I had to get the referral details myself to coordinate the other thing she insisted on. A colonoscopy, aka a tube in the ass, to make sure I don’t have colon, gut or ass cancer. FUN. Maybe I can get my friend Rev. Kathy to drive me home so I don’t have to wait around for the local anesthetic to wear off.
I also learned that my jeans alone weigh two pounds.
