Last minute Father’s Day gift suggestion

Posted on June 18, 2006 by Steve


What an awesome Father’s Day gift for the family with a dog AND a dad who enjoys hockey! I stumbled upon this actual product reading my favorite comedy blogs covering history, hockey and odd movie plots (that’s a story for another day). At first I thought it was a joke because the product’s name used to be an insult on Beavis & Butt-Head. Maybe I should buy one to fling the deuces my inconsiderate neighbors leave, via their dogs of course. I know my friend Mark Brunner’s dad probably should’ve used one for an incident Mark told me about. I think my hockey fan comrade Brian would join forces with me to send a case to the Colorado Avalanche or as he affectionately calls them, The al-Qaidarado Divelanche. 
 
The website selling it is quite amusing too.

Posted in Factoids, Hockey | 2 Comments

My tale of two (D&D) cities

Posted on June 17, 2006 by Steve

CSIO Bard's Gate

Cities. They’re one the most time-consuming, annoying and difficult elements a DM has to deal with in D&D. A village, a thorp, even a small town is more manageable because the D&D equivalent of GNP (GDP?) isn’t very high, unless it’s Shadowdale, home to Elminster. What the players can purchase is also limited and at times, more “logical”; no community of 200 people has Blackrazor or the Hand of Vecna for sale. Cities are a different problem altogether for DMs:

  1. Typical D&D campaigns are modeled after the Middle Ages so cities from then are nothing like their modern counterparts. Paris is over two million today compared to the 100,000 it probably never exceeded until the 1700s.
  2. Thanks to the Third Edition rules, magic items have “price tags.” Thus, many of the cheaper magic items should “easily” be for sale in the minds of the players whenever a city is encountered. Never mind that magic items also have XP costs and NPCs aren’t too keen on giving up their XPs since the PCs won’t in my campaign. Gold is lousy compensation for attaining the next level of power.
  3. Making the map of a city is difficult since historically they’re not laid out logically by planners, especially if they’ve been around for a few hundred years or more. Even the “younger” cities of the United State and Canada are haphazardly “designed.”
  4. Cities require more infrastructure and logistics for the DM to set up; a city watch/guard, various guilds, a more formal government, an organized criminal element, etc.

All the numerous D&D publishers have provided cities over the years but they’re all hit-or-miss propositions. Often they’re too campaign specific, especially the ones from WOTC. The book on Sharn is really for Eberron exclusively due to the magic, politics and races used. Waterdeep is also impractical outside of Forgotten Realms for similar reasons. The Sword & Sorcery alliance did produce several cities for their now defunct Scarred Lands series but they worked better as destinations for adventures because they weren’t “generic” enough. For example, unless you’re running a campaign of evil PCs,Hollowfaust: City of Necromancers isn’t a setting Paladins or other good-aligned types will tolerate as a base of operations or frequent stop.

I did get some pointers from my friend Lazz on how he did maps for WOTC. Yet time remains the biggest obstacle for me. (I still haven’t found his favorite reference book either.) At least I have a plan for my additional spare time should I end up unemployed soon.

Last year, Necromancer Games produced a 3.5 version of the infamous City State of the Invincible Overlord. This was originally published in the early years of D&D (late Seventies) by Judges Guild then revamped when licensed to Mayfair Games in the Eighties. Despite JG’s books containing disappointing art and poor paper stock (it was as thin as newspaper), many gamers were fond of it. I was more excited about the release of a “generic” city I could use in my campaign to solve all my DM woes mentioned above. Well, at least there’s a map and some logistics in CSiO. I think Necromancer had their hands tied by the guy who owns the rights to the JG materials. How? Most of it just has the original NPCs and monsters updated to 3.5 but there are huge gaps of logic such as why would a Chaotic Evil Bard and a Chaotic Good Bard work together running a business? I ended up shelving this with Sharn into my storage bin since it would take a substantial amount of time to rework into my campaign.

Bard’s Gate from Necromancer Games did finally appear on Dragon’s Lair’s shelves! This city was announced years ago on their web site but it was starting to look like vaporware with all the delays, namely the update to 3.5 being its biggest one. Thankfully it was worth the wait when compared to its competition. BG does have some campaign specific elements to the main author’s world; the deities, the geopolitical struggles the city is part of, annoying prestige/core classes, etc. But the overall city isn’t chained to these concepts like Sharn or Waterdeep so it can be dropped into most DM’s campaigns. (Now if I can only find the right river for it because it doesn’t work if I put it next to a sea or ocean.) What about the essentials of a city though? They’re present: guilds, including ones for prostitutes and beggars, a city watch, criminal elements, a bard college, tax rates, fees, punishments for certain crimes, etc. The major stuff is written out for the DM yet there are plenty of intentional gaps to be filled in; the web site supposedly has various merchants and taverns posted by fans, still haven’t found them.

The Bottom Line: If you’re running a home-brew campaign and you need a good, generic city, then I recommend Bard’s Gate with only this reservation; half of its 220 pages are spent on the Appendix of NPCs, magic items, Classes and the lands surrounding the city. Even though its magic level is on the low end for most D&D campaigns, it’s not a deal breaker and can be easily adjusted. I am looking forward to integrating it into my setting with Hollowfaust and Mithril. City State of the Invincible Overlord only has maps and ideas going for it which makes its $35 price feel like a rip off. Too much of it feels like a direct transfer to 3.5 without tweaking it to function in the spirit and mood of 3.5. For example, the alignments are all over the place with little explanation and I don’t recall there being a good mix of all the core, prestige and NPC classes. I only recommend this to DMs who remember the original and don’t want pay eBay prices for the JG or Mayfair versions. Other than laminating the city’s map, I think I will be selling this book.

Posted in D & D | 1 Comment

Animusic 2 on DVD

Posted on June 15, 2006 by Steve

The long awaited sequel to Animusic has arrived on DVD. What a cool marriage of music and computer graphics, if you like that kind of thing. It isn’t quite Pixar, well, maybe it’s what Pixar used to be in the 1980s with their animated shorts featured at animation festivals. The Animusic people’s emphasis is music played by animated instruments but it’s a bit more complicated than that. Normally in animation, the music is recorded and then the animation is drawn or rendered “around” it, same way voice-over parts are done for cartoons. “Well, duh!” you’d say because we’ve all seen those making-of features on the Disney cartoon DVDs. The Animusic people do it the other way around by composing the music, feeding it through MIDI instructions to the computer and the “instruments” play the notes. Again, much like Pixar, Animusic is a software company too and the DVD is a demonstration of their product. The Animusic product is prebuilt, computerized and animated instruments that are consistent in matching the notes with how the instrument would operate in real life. For example, in a standard cartoon, some character is playing the guitar. It’s pretty unlikely the strumming and finger positions on the frets are correct, accurate and most importantly always in the same position for the same note. Doesn’t really matter anyway. With an Animusic feature, the B flat note the pogo-stick guitar plays is constantly generated from the same position with its “fingers.”

Now that I’ve covered the technical merits, how is this stuff? It’s pretty amazing and hypnotic. Especially the sequel to their most famous piece Pipe Dream shown on PBS and the now defunct Tech TV. If you’ve never seen the first Pipe Dream, it’s a song where all the notes are caused by ball bearings shooting out of tubes at various angles to strike either strings, drums, percussion instruments, chimes, bells and a vibraphone (or is it a xylophone). After the ball bearing has struck, it then lands into a receiving tube. The timing, the coordination, the physics and the lighting are all impressive, even if you don’t like the music. Pipe Dream 2 continues the wonder but the Animusic crew have put a little more wear on the drums to make it look more realistic. There’s a starship with a band of robots, there’s a gathering of pogo-stick based instruments jamming while they travel over a series of planks, there’s a temple that has various light beams project from it to illustrate its song and much more. If it I haven’t piqued your curiosity by now, then I doubt you’ll check out the free clips here.

I wonder if there will ever be a solution from Animusic to combine it with Logic or GarageBand?

Posted in DVDs, Music | Leave a comment

Douglas Coupland comes to Austin

Posted on June 14, 2006 by Steve

Last night my favorite contemporary fiction author came to Austin, the one and only Douglas Coupland. “Who?” you obviously may ask. I’ll cut to the chase. Douglas Coupland wrote Generation X which properly/improperly branded the generation of North Americans usually born after the Baby Boomers but before the Millennials; whatever the evil marketing forces label people in order to sell you crap. 
 
Outside of Generation X, Coupland has written numerous novels since his 1991 debut; Shampoo Planet, Girlfriend in a Coma, Life after God, andMicroSerfs. He also has done numerous magazine articles, the ones I have seen were in Details or Wired. He dabbles in art but at the book signing, Coupland revealed more about the pop and performance art he is very fond of and how he integrates its influences into his latest novel, JPod.

Douglas Coupland with his opening remarks.

Douglas Coupland with his opening remarks.

Book signings are always exciting. When they’re at Book People (see the Austintatious section), they’re even better because this independent store does them very well. I think the turn out was rather light because it on a weeknight and numerous authors don’t quite have the name recognition as Alton Brown, Bruce Campbell or Anne Rice (past signings I’ve attended). On the other hand, it was better to have a lower turnout so I could get more face time with the author. 
 
As always, Douglas Coupland was funny, insightful and entertaining. He enjoyed the Austin audience more than the LA crowd he saw the night before since we were laughing at his politically incorrect comments and swearing. He said LA was rather hushed and there were some puzzled looks. There was a brief explanation of the book’s nature, his discovery of pop art in 1970 which pushed him into the career he has now and how one’s 20s are really a rough, transitional period of adulthood. I certainly agree on the last statement because my 30s have been a vast improvement financially as well as emotionally. Then he read the book jacket notes that are only in the Canadian printing of the book. Mainly random phrases on instructions, graffiti or thoughts you’d overhear in an office; another nod to pop art from him. When he chose to read from JPod, Coupland chose the section he wrote himself into; the narrator meets the real Douglas Coupland on a long flight from Vancouver to Hong Kong. Vanity? Ego? Not really in my opinion, I think he wanted to see if it could be pulled off, like a dare. Nevertheless, before he read the section, he told the audience that his appearance in the book is brief and he ends up being a villain to the narrator. He was write and it resulted in hiliarity which means I will be reading this book as soon as I’ve completed the history factoid one I’m plodding through (I’m a slow reader, it’s not the author’s fault). 
 
When it came to Q&A, he also shines here by making jokes about how past Q&A’s have gone. According to him, the first question is lame. Second question goes on too long and the audience despises the questioner. Third question is a bit more awkward but the crowd loves the person asking. So he said, let’s assume we’re on the fourth question. Sadly, not many were asked. I couldn’t think of anything relevant myself and I don’t want to waste anyone’s time since the people who do, irk me. The questions were asked were about his interview with Morrissey, why all the Smiths songs, his opinion of a different pop artist and my favorite; being a Canadian, living in Vancouver and watching the US from outside, what’s his take on current events. Coupland’s answer was a bit elaborate and I can only paraphrase it. He feels many Canadians think we’ve lost our minds and there’s something nastier going on than in 1863. However, Canada is helpless to doing anything anyway thus they can only do what the rest of the world has decided; hunker down, brace for impact and hope for the best because everything America does these days affects everyone else. I sure hope he’s right.

Douglas Coupland and me.

Douglas Coupland and me.

Now for my favorite part, when he signed my book! With the low turnout, I could have some quality face time with him. I told him about our encounter in 2002, I’m the guy who works for Apple and he was right about how hot the iPod became. Coupland’s response, “Please tell me you bought Apple stock before then.” I said no, but I had 200 options that I did cash out and made $6500. He smiled and approved. We talked a little bit about Canadian v. American politics, mainly how I told him how I envied Canada’s recent two parliamentary elections versus America’s regimented cycle of two or four years. How so? With the recent accusations of Paul Martin’s past as finance minister under the Chrétien government, a “do over” can be declared instead of waiting for the term to expire. Coupland asked me if I thought Gore would run again. I said, I like the guy but he’s put to better use promoting his personal causes and being on the Apple Board of Directors. Who knows though. 
 
What did he write in my copy of JPod? “to Steve! with cheers. Douglas Coupland. 6/13/6” Be expecting a book review on it by the end of the Summer, unless I can read any faster. I know I will see if I can find the error in the 20 pages of Pi because he promised the audience that the first reader to find it wins a Groundskeeper Willie coffee mug.

Posted in Brushes with Greatness | Leave a comment

Mad Max 27 years later

Posted on June 12, 2006 by Steve

Here’s another movie from my grade-school years that I heard so much about but never got around to seeing in its entirety until now. Actually, it had more fame when I got to high school and it made the rounds through Cinemax or videotape. 
 
I had seen The Road Warrior which was great but that was years ago so I may need to re-watch it to make sure it still is. I also wasted the money seeing Mad Max, Beyond Thunderdome which turned out to be as lousy as Terminator 2 because the anti-hero of the saga became a kinder, gentler type. Well, when Mad Max began its cycle through on my Dish’s movie channels, I wanted to see the film that started it all and is considered a key film in the Post-Apocalyptic-Future genre. 
 
Once again, my younger self’s imagination must have embellished the coolness of a movie riddled with more downtime than a layover at the Delta hub in Atlanta. The overall story is that in a few years from now (aka the mid to late Eighties), roving gangs of bikers will terrorize the Australian countryside and an outnumbered, outgunned Main Force Patrol (Aussie Highway Patrol) tries to keep civilization safe (there’s nothing going on in the background to indicate civilization is unravelling though). Matters escalate between MFP and a biker gang when MFP’s best driver, Max Rockatansky, takes out a key member of a biker gang, the Nightrider. The bikers then proceed to kill another MFP officer and Max’s family. Max returns the favor by killing every member of the gang, one by one. When there’s an action sequence or car chase, Mad Max is alright despite the low-quality production values. These are really on at the beginning and end of the film. Everything else in between is the slow, tedious backstory of how Max loves his wife and child, Max wants to quit the MFP, the biker gang scheming their revenge, the biker gang raising hell in the countryside (it’s not the Outback because there’s grass, trees and barbed-wire fences) and the MFP guys getting frustrated over the System which keeps the bikers out of prison. 
 
Australia must have been pretty starved for entertainment to make this a success before the era of cable and videotape distribution. Somehow it did well enough to warrant a better sequel which is really the only one worth watching. You can skip Mad Max and just go to The Road Warrior, all you’ll learn from the first movie is why Mel Gibson’s character limps.

Posted in Movies, On the TV | Leave a comment

The Split Enz remasters are fantastic

Posted on June 12, 2006 by Steve

Last week was really all about Ethan and Kelly’s wedding so a good chunk of my energies were there starting with the rehearsal dinner. (The Al Gore movie review had been pieced together earlier, the Friday morning before the wedding was when I got around to completing and posting it.) With the festivities out of the way, now it’s time to blather on about the other cool development from last week. 

I am a HUGE Split Enz fan ever since I bought the album Waiata (the US title forCorroboree) way back in 1985. When I bought my first CD player, the first disc I purchased was True Colours. I managed to purchase their entire catalog over the years but the biggest coup was acquiring the two Australian 1993 boxed sets containing all ten of the studio albums with two additional CDs of B-sides.  

When my friend Chip at Waterloo Records told me about the new Split Enz remasters released to coincide with their Summer Reunion Tour, I had to have a set. He pulled through last year on Adam Ant’s remasters, so I knew he’d take care of me. I also have the remasters of the entire Eagles, Police and Talking Heads catalogs, most of Queen and a scattering of Peter Gabriel, INXS, Simple Minds, Sparks, Gary Numan, Eurythmics, David Bowie, Roxy Music, and Duran Duran. These are more than just CDs repackaged with an extra track or two thrown on and the volume cranked 20 dBs. Previous pressings (and usually any CD manufactured before the mid Nineties) were lousy compared to today’s standards because these were just direct transfers. Remasters are literally re-mastered recordings with time and effort expended in making these CDs sound “cleaner,” more clear and louder. Often the re-mastering is supervised by the original artist or in Split Enz’s case, the band member with the most technical expertise, Eddie Rayner. Skeptics would reply with a chorus of “so what” and “the improvements are only perceived” since there have been remaster scams in the past like the gold CDs or vinyl pressed from the master tapes. But I did some quick analysis with mine and I wanted to share my findings to make sure I wasn’t rationalizing these import CDs being $23 a piece. 

The graphic below is a screen shot from the application Amadeus II showing the first verse of “Take a Walk” from the 1993 pressing. The sound peaks or waves are rather mediocre. When listening to it in Amadeus the song was rather low, almost muffled until the volume was raised 10-20 dBs.

Now the next graphic is Amadeus showing the same section of the 2006 pressing of “Take a Walk.”

Not only are the waves and peaks close to double of the 1993 version, Neil Finn’s vocals stand out over Eddie Rayner’s keyboards. As I looped these sections against each other, it became more apparent that the earlier one had a muddied quality to its sound. Thankfully Amadeus was more useful at making the differences more audible than iTunes. 

I feel pretty vindicated over any skeptic who says differently about remasters. Now all I need is a huge cash windfall to get the XTC remasters and hope that Kate Bush re-masters her catalog.

Posted in Music | Tagged , | Leave a comment

2010 Olympics going with NHL rinks

Posted on June 11, 2006 by Steve

Over my vacation period (6/8-6/12) I read about how the IIHF has capitulated to going with the NHL-standard rink for the next set of Winter Games in Vancouver. Canada was awarded the Olympics again but due to cost overruns already, they claim they’ll save money going with the 85-foot wide rink instead of the 100-foot standard used in International competition. If Salt Lake could find a way for the US taxpayers to suck up the ridiculous costs of them hosting (thanks to Mitt Romney), you’d think Canada would do the same for their own national sport. It’s only two or three rinks used for the entire time since it’s pretty hard to get more than the traditional eight countries to pony up a half-decent team in either division (by gender). 
 
Personally, I wanted the NHL to go with the IIHF standard rink to solve the size issues with the players. Attendance declined before the lockout, what’s the loss of a couple hundred seats when it’s still cheaper to watch the game on TV.

Posted in Hockey | Leave a comment

Kelly & Ethan are now married!

Posted on June 10, 2006 by Steve

Hooray! Last night my friend Ethan tied the knot with his girlfriend Kelly and I’m rehydrated from all the drinking to finally write about it on Picyaune. What a great time it was. A very Austin wedding in my opinion which means it would be the type of celebration that would make my parents roll their eyes and mutter “hippies” under their breath.

My former Austin roommate and still my friend,

My former Austin roommate and still my friend, the ever pensive Garrett with his girlfriend Monica.

A quick background story. Ethan (Lowry) has been one of my Austin-period friends ever since I returned in 1998. We used to be on the phones together supporting Apple’s service providers and field techs. Ethan’s cube was near mine so we would talk about music, ladies (we were single then), movies, games, in addition to work-related matters. But after work, we would also hang out at restaurants, take in a movie or play video games. Ethan’s brother Michael, Garrett Kline, JoAnna Slimmer and Darren Doyle were others who would join us in our little Apple clique. We remained friends even when he was away in San Francisco for a couple years. He even got me to try fried pickles at Katz’s one evening, course it helped that we’d been drinking. I can think of a dozen stories about Ethan’s devil-may-care attitude which is probably why I’ve always enjoyed his company. Of course I was sad when he left for California to work a different job with Apple but he is more adventurous than me and it is always good to have allies at HQ. When he returned to Austin in 2003, I was excited along with his parents. I remember asking him sometime after his return, outside of CA’s ridiculous cost of living, why did he come back since Apple has a California uber alles attitude (there’s little opportunity outside CA). He said he actually missed it being hot during the summer (San Francisco is chilly and wet in July which is freaky) and it was difficult to meet women there. I found the second answer rather odd. When we went out in Austin, Ethan could outdo Trent Walker on the smooth talking. Then I remembered a joke from SF-comedian Robert Wuhl. If you’re walking down the street in SF with a male buddy on each side of you and you know neither are not gay, that leaves you! Thus, most straight women in SF probably passed on Ethan mistaking him for being gay. I don’t think he was too amused by my gag theory. Oh well, I still did enlist his fashion sense when picking out a new suit for my wedding in Las Vegas (Ethan, Michael and their dad really know their clothes). However, coming back was a good move in my opinion.

Tom, Ethan and Alaire Lowry

Tom, Ethan and Alaire Lowry

Now a quick bio on Kelly (Vuris). I actually met her too in 1998 but I was behind the concession stand (working) at the Gateway 16 theater. Probably tried to upsize her drink too. How did I know who she was? I knew the other people she was going to the movie with. Later on, Kelly joined Apple taking phone calls like me. She even gained some international fame via the Internet having her picture on an Apple-based rumor site regarding the opening of the Apple Store in Dallas (she’s at the Genius Bar).

Mildred, Kelly and John Vuris

Mildred, Kelly and John Vuris

How did they get together exactly? I don’t really know. I’ll have to ask one of them soon (they’re moving away to CA in a month). But I do admit I was adverse to Ethan dating Kelly in the beginning after he told me about it. Why? Only because Kelly was a coworker, everything else about her was great. I am just a firm believer in not fishing off the company pier (to be succinct). Then she quit Apple to return to school at an early point of their relationship so my pesky concern melted away and I’ve been giving ’em the thumbs-up gesture ever since. Tom, Ethan’s dad, revealed an even more amazing fact at the rehearsal dinner. Long, long ago, Tom used to work with Mildred, Kelly’s mom, back at the state hospital and he attended the Vuris wedding. This was mentioned during the ceremony by the gentleman who married the couple, it’s paraphrased, “…little did the parents know that some 30 years later, they’d be attending another wedding together!” Laughter filled the air with that factoid.

Yours truly with the new Mrs. Kelly Lowry.

Yours truly with the new Mrs. Kelly Lowry. Watch that hand buddy, she's married now!

Last Summer was when Ethan dropped the bombshell on us all: he proposed to Kelly and she said yes. I was like, Ethan? Getting married? Course, I was thinking of the 22-year-old libertine version I first met. The one who gave Somara and me Splinter Cell for our PS2 as a wedding present? [Which was an awesome gift, that’s how I knew being married to Somara would work out, she digs video games too while all my other ex-girlfriends would have given that passive-aggressive answer of “oh, you shouldn’t have!”] My disbelief was destroyed quickly anyway because Ethan has really grown, changed and evolved over the years I’ve known him. I should talk based upon my life story. 
 
Okay, the wedding. It was really awesome. Ethan and Kelly were born and raised in Austin, thus they wanted the ceremony here. (I couldn’t talk them into Vegas, there’s always hope with José, Garrett and David.) They had it in the huge backyard of Kelly’s parents’ home. As I mentioned earlier, it was a non-traditional wedding but I felt it reflected them and Austin’s character. Ethan’s friend Neal brought his bandmates to play Coldplay’s “Green Eyes” when the wedding party strolled down the aisle, nice touch. There were groomsmen, bridesmaids and bridesmen. Michael was Best Man and he escorted the maternal grandparents to their seats. Then came Ethan with his parents. Finally, Kelly flanked with her folks. I thought it was really cool. Very fitting because Ethan and I have always believed in our spouses/girlfriends to be partners, not some gift you have to get ceremonial permission to marry like most Christian weddings. [Don’t get me wrong though, “traditional” weddings are fine, I don’t read too much into its symbolism anyway.] Tom and Alaire, his parents, are my friends also so I know they were supportive. So supportive that we caught the Bob Branson on-air spot while listening to KUT on our drive to the wedding (the Lowrys are big supporters of Public Radio and Television).

Married for a mere couple of hours

Married for a couple of hours and making it look easy.

What’s next for the newlyweds? As I mentioned earlier, they’re moving to the SF/SJ area in a month, Ethan recently started a new position with the iTunes Store. His new department was gracious enough to let him do it in Austin until the wedding. We are all going to miss them but on the upside, there’s another reason to make a trip to CA.

Posted in News | 1 Comment

An Inconvenient Truth: Must See for Democrats, Republicans would prefer The Omen remake

Posted on June 9, 2006 by Steve

I will start off with my full disclosure on this movie review since any former national office holder is a lightning rod, even when giving the time of day. First, Al Gore is on the board of directors at Apple, my primary employer, so the Right-Wing Noise Machine will claim that I’m indirectly on “his payroll.” Second, I didn’t vote for him in 2000 because I live in Texas, a place with an inherent hatred of democracy in its DNA, thus I cast my vote for Nader with the intent to boost the Green Party. However, I was always biased toward him winning the presidency over Bush, I just knew voting for Gore wouldn’t matter in Texas due to the volume of Republicans, Dixiecrats and NeoConfederates. 
 
With the disclosure out of the way, I can focus on the film, not entirely on its lead “actor.” 
 
An Inconvenient Truth is Al Gore’s presentation on Global Warming that he has given to live audiences for years. The people behind the film’s production (Gore included) have most of one particular presentation captured to reach a wider, larger audience faster and more easily. More easily? What’s an better way to see a politician speak; in a movie theater or trying to get one of the few seats remaining at some university’s auditorium? The movie isn’t exclusively 100 minutes of Gore speaking and showing slides from his PowerBook. There are breaks covering his upbringing, his sister’s death from lung cancer, his son being hit by a car in 1989, his travels around the world giving the presentation to people outside the US and of course, the whole 2000 election debacle. The presidency being handed to Bush on a silver platter by the Supreme Court will always be tied to Gore, it’s as unavoidable as asking Seth McFarlane (creator and voice actor of Family Guy) about how he feels over his near-death experience on September 11. 
 
How well does this work as a documentary? For me, it’s pretty decent. Gore is clear, concise and pretty passionate about Global Warming. He’s even funny and uses a scene from Futurama to illustrate his overall point about the subject and the current administration’s stance. He does some name dropping of scientists (Carl Sagan being one) as his friends but then again, name a politician who doesn’t. Oh wait, when there’s indictments and convictions involved, Bush suddenly never knew Ken Lay and Jack Abramoff. Overall, it’s a documentary showing a presentation (or to Gore’s critics, a lecture) with segues about the host’s background. It just has high production values unlike the same recording one would normally see on Public Access or a college-class podcast. That’s the best impartial review I can give. 
 
Now as a Democrat, I found myself growing angry at Gore and the jackass campaign staff (namely Donna Bazile and Bob Shrum) for losing the 2000 election to a man who couldn’t even be the successful president of a frathouse. Admittedly, Gore has done this Global Warming bit for years so he’s perfected his presentation technique to show the world he’s not stiff, robotic and patronizing. Yet I honestly don’t feel his passion, concern and time are disingenuous on this. He’s a former vice president and he could be making millions more using his past to shill for numerous corporations, playing golf all day and hiding from further public scrutiny like Ford, Bush the Elder and Quayle do. Reagan only campaigned for further Alzheimer’s research because it was killing him, unlike HIV/AIDS. If Gore had only fired those handlers that only specialize in losing elections to gay-bashing, race-baiting, class-warfare Republicans and showed the American people this side of him, he would’ve won 2000 handily without having to fight over the inevitable screwing he got on Florida. Then again, what’s the point? Our lazy, celebrity-obsessed media would still follow the Republican script of saying Gore is a liar, wonk, patrician and android while Bush is just a “regular joe you’d want to drink a beer with,” if he weren’t a former drunk. 
 
I apologize for falling off the wagon on politics regarding my site. There just is no way to review this film like it were the latest X-Men sequel. Could one say the same thing of Michael Moore’s work or something sympathetic to Rush Limbaugh’s drug addiction? No. People are going to see the movie with their minds made up already. The camp I belong to are going to see this to gather ammo against the doubters of Global Warming, pretty much people who don’t listen to scientists but economists and pundits for a counterpoint because they’ve had no success finding a credible scientist. The remaining minority going to this are the usual Gore-, Green- and Liberal-haters looking for some kind of gotcha’ to use against Global Warming. I’m sure they’ll find it but it’ll be the usual imagained “fact” or something pulled out of context like Gore inventing the Internet. I genuinely liked An Inconvenient Truth warts and all. I bought the companion book to it. I will never apologize for what I try to do to help combat the Earth’s decline. The movie ends on a high note too. Gore says, political will is a renewable resource and getting the US to being a Carbon-Neutral producer isn’t as expensive or as difficult as his detractors say through a handful of little changes (appliances, power sources, etc.). The closing credits show other additional minor and major changes you can make to turn the tide against Global Warming.

Posted in In Theaters, Movies | Leave a comment

Happy 65th Birthday to Tom Jones

Posted on June 7, 2006 by Steve

…and no sign of retiring anytime soon! 
 
Tom Jones my favorite Welsh crooner (and I do know of other Welsh acts like Stereophonics and Catatonia) who continues to impress me with his musical decisions. I was also surprised to discover that his real name is Thomas Woodward, I would’ve guessed he had a really unpronounceable Welsh name. 
 
Nine years ago I had the good fortune of seeing him perform in Las Vegas at the MGM Grand. After the Las Vegas show, my interest in him has never waned because Tom was amazing. For his encore he did Lenny Kravitz’s “Are You Gonna’ Go My Way” so well, you would’ve thought he made it a hit first. 
 
One other thing I really enjoy about Tom’s singing is his willingness to work with so many different artists and styles. Whether it’s doing a cover of “Kung Fu Fighting” with Ruby for a Jackie Chan movie or the opening theme to Duck Dodgers with the Flaming Lips (he even played himself on that cartoon). The album Reload is a must have for Tom Jones and Covers collectors. It has him doing “Burning Down the House” with the Cardigans, “Little Green Bag” with Barenaked Ladies and “Never Tear Us Apart” with Natalie Imbruglia plus more. He definitely made sure he did songs with Welsh pop acts Stereophonics and Catatonia. Sadly, the album with the original tracks is import only so don’t buy the US printing. 
 
Last year Tom Jones did something even more impressive. He did an album with bandleader (and former Squeeze keyboardist) Jools Holland of early rock n’ roll-blues-boogie woogie songs. It was really a return to Tom’s musical roots because he really got started singing this kind of material. When he did an episode of the BBC show Later and impressed Holland with his knowledge of this music, Holland decided that he had to do an album with Tom Jones showcasing songs like “200 Pounds of Heavenly Joy.” And again, much likeReload, this album flew under most Americans’ RADAR. Heck, I only found out about by watching an episode of The Kumars of No. 42 on BBC America. Others may have lucked out if they caught NPR’s The World Cafe which had a great interview with him. I managed to catch some of it on my way to work at Kenny’s and he answered one of my burning questions; does he ever get tired of singing the same songs he has been known for since the 1960s? Without hesitation, he said never because as long as the audience enjoys them and wants to hear them, he’ll keep performing “It’s Not Unusual,” “What’s New Pussycat?” and “Delilah.” The interviewer even got around to talking about Tom and Van Morrison being friends since the 1960s. Take that you rock snobs how say Sir Tom has no rock credentials! 
 
I’ve gushed on about how cool Tom Jones really is for his birthday. Don’t take my word on his coolness. Celebrate by gambling 99 cents on “It’s Not Unusual” on the iTunes music store.

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The Venture Brothers Season One

Posted on June 4, 2006 by Steve

Imagine Jonny Quest being redone by the writers of The Onion, Spy, Sealab 2021, The Tick and the people who did the first several good episodes of Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law. Then throw in numerous comic-book, action-show and Sixties spy-movie references. Finally, sprinkle in funny pop-culture references over the last decade such as the death of INXS lead singer Michael Hutchence and that overweight Star Wars kid movie. This would only scratch the surface of how to accurately describe The Venture Brothers, The Cartoon Network/Adult Swim’s best new original show from 2004 and probably their only consistently funny one until Robot Chicken. 
 
The plot of is mainly parodying Hanna-Barbera’s The Adventures of Jonny Quest except it’s set during contemporary times. Instead of Jonny and Hadji, there’s the two naive, clueless twin (fraternal) brothers Hank and Dean Venture. Their father is the rather incompetent, short-sighted and strapped-for-cash Dr. Thaddeus Venture, head of Venture Industries. Some even say he’s not even a real doctor. The world still gives Dr. Venture a pass on his credentials and addiction to diet pills because he is the son of Dr. Jonas Venture (a parody of Doc Savage) who did invent incredible things and led the original Team Venture on missions against the forces of evil. (The surviving members of Team Venture appear over a couple episodes.) Despite Dr. Thaddeus Venture’s ineptitude, he still attracts the wrath of maniacal enemies with secret bases, henchmen and high tech; namely Baron Ünderbheit and The Monarch (a villain with a monarch butterfly theme). Thankfully, the Venture family has the homicidal, mullet-headed bodyguard Brock Samson (voiced perfectly by Patrick Warburton) to protect them. Next to killing the Monarch’s henchmen en masse, Brock’s other favorite hobbies are “making it” with the nearest, available woman and washing his muscle car, in that order too. 
 
This DVD set covers the show’s first season of 13 episodes plus the original pilot (done in Flash) and the 15-minute Christmas special. They should be watched in order because there is an ongoing subplot involving Dr. Venture’s recurring nightmare which is resolved in the season finale. There are also flashbacks to Brock and Venture’s pasts explaining how things got to the way they are. Guest voices from Stephen Colbert as Professor Impossible (a parody of Mr. Fantatsic) and Steve Park (the scene-stealer from Fargo) also enhance the humor of their appearances. So far my favorite episode is “Past Tense” which tells how Brock and Dr. Venture met in college while the original Team Venture comes out of retirement to save the day. 
 
Additional features outside of deleted scenes (only animatics are shown), the original pilot and Christmas special, its only bright spot is the mockumentary of how the show is made with creators Chris McCulloch (aka Jackson Publick), Doc Hammer and James Urbaniak (the voice of Dr. Venture) dressed as their characters. Unlike The Simpsons DVD sets, I found the one commentary I tried to listen through (for the pilot) to be dull, self-promoting and uninteresting as it usually is on every other movie. I’m very glad they didn’t more than a few. 
 
Currently, Adult Swim is showing reruns of this on Sunday evenings in preparation for the overdue debut of its second season near the end of June. The season finale ended with a parody of Easy Rider but with hints of the brothers’ actual origin: They’ve never known their mother and in “The Incredible Mr. Brisby,” it’s implied that Dr. Venture has cloning technology. I only recommend buying this show because it will probably be pulled off the air once the second season starts. Unless you’re a fan of all the genres the show honors through ridicule, then renting it through NetFlix or whatever means would be wiser. My main recommendation for buying it is the same for Mission Hill, to share with others who are unaware of something much funnier and intelligent than Family Guy and the last several seasons of South Park out of the water.

Posted in DVDs | 1 Comment

Feeding one of my geek addictions

Posted on June 3, 2006 by Steve

Today I renewed my subscription I think for at least the sixth time to this magazine. Those of you who don’t play D&D or other tabletop fantasy RPGS, you better stop reading, this won’t interest you. Especially those who I keep seeing at work glued to WoW day-in, day-out. For my fellow DMs/GMs,Dungeon is a must, even if you don’t like D&D but prefer the competition like RoleMaster and GURPs or the d20 variants (Iron Heroes, Conan and Arcana Evolved). As a DM, I just don’t have the time to write an original adventure complete with plot, villains, allies, monsters, treasure, etc. These magazine is a $40/year crutch that has proven to be worth every penny because it’s easier to stitch the published adventures into my overall campaign than to build it from scratch. Ever since the magazine went monthly in the last couple years, it has become even better. 
 
Yeah, this sounds like a puff piece and I’m being a whore for Paizo Publishing (WOTC sold the magazines off several years ago). But let’s be realistic. The great, original modules that introduced White Plume Mountain and the Tomb of Horrors to D&D 25 years ago aren’t going to happen anymore. The economics of publishing sadly ended this in the 1990s (if you have a gaming group of five to seven people, only one person buys them). WOTC and the S&S Alliance have slowed their output to a crawl. Outside of buying PDF downloads of those past greats (which you’ll have to convert to the 3.5 rules too), scavenging through your local Half-Price Books and getting outbid on eBay, where else is there to go to get your “module fix?” 
 
To be fair, not all the content is solid in my opinion. I tend to glance over the three rather weak comics since the A-list strips are online anyway (The Order of the Stick, PVP and Dork Tower). The columns can be hit or miss but if it’s written by Monte Cook, Ray Winninger or Sean Reynolds, it’s likely I’ll read even if I disagree. They used to have Wil Wheaton but he disappeared without an explanation, no biggie though since he does a videogame column for The Onion now. Lastly, not all the adventures work for me, especially if they involve Eberron and Forgotten Realms. However, the good easily outweighs the awful. There are my friend Lazz’s great maps (they tend to be illustrations), gaps filled in on old Greyhawk legends [Dragotha and Kyuss have appeared recently] through adventures and it’s filled with plots you can easily drop in for your own home-made campaign or world or with any of the numerous published settings. If you’re just a player though, don’t peek. That’s cheating.

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Carolina Hurricanes won a nail-biter

Posted on June 2, 2006 by Steve

Last night the Carolina Hurricanes defeated the rather injury-hobbled Buffalo Sabres to win the Eastern Conference. Well at least a division winner also nailed the conference title. Then again, it’s the third season in five it went to the Southleast Division. 
 
I will still be cheering on the Edmonton Oilers (I just realized this will be a Stanley Cup battle between two fomer WHA teams) because a Canadian team hasn’t won since 1993 (it’s their sport), their fans have been pretty devoted with or without Gretzky, they played some great hockey in the playoffs and (most importantly) it’s a team in a non-NASCAR market. I also despise most things associated with North Carolina since my year in exile there sucked. 
 
This time I feel a tad conflicted. Unlike the last time the Hurricanes went to the Stanley Cup (and got their asses kicked by the Red Wings), this team has players I like and respect: Mark Recchi (former Flyer), Rod Brind’amour (former Flyer), Doug Weight (key US player) and Justin Williams (fomer young Flyer prospect tossed away for a defenseman). This may be Mark’s last chance to win a second Stanley Cup, not sure about Brind’amour and Weight but I think they’re nowhere close to 40. 
 
I can only hope this championship will either be a 4-0/4-1 drubbing by the Oilers or at least it will be a seven-game challenge with close matches. I think the latter may be the outcome. The Hurricanes have depth and more experience. While the Oilers have more speed, grit, heart and toughness. Lastly, special teams have really mattered in the Oilers defeated all the higher seeds and it made the difference last night when Brind’amour hit the loose puck during the power play (the Sabres were mainly distracted by Williams). 
 
Go Oilers! Face off starts at 8 pm EDT on OLN. I plan to catch the first game at the Tilted Kilt. No, not for the waitresses. When it comes to the Cup, my eyes will be glued to their HD TVs with breaks to make sure I don’t spill my beer or pizza.

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Five Years for White Rock Vet Hospital

Posted on June 2, 2006 by Steve

Wednesday was the “observed” Five Year Anniversary for my Vet’s Grand Opening because I could’ve recalled that we took Miette there to be “fixed” in late April or early May of 2001. I was close. According to the celebratory materials, Dr. Todd opened earlier in 2001 and there were pictures of the opening day. 
 
Somara had to work and I did have immediate plans last night but I wanted to stop by and congratulate everyone at White Rock Vet for their success, service and whatever. I never thought I’d become an adult who enjoyed the relationship I’ve built with a Vet (or my mechanic as shown in the story about Underground VW). Yet the people there have been great to Somara, me and especially to our four cats (sometimes referred to as the little monsters): Wicca, Molly, Miette and Nemo. They even share our big hearts on helping other stray animals we’ve rescued from ugly fates: Caliban and Skid (a dog that makes me regret helping when he bit me). There is a charity fund/discount we’ve been allowed to use with those stray pets and at the same time, we’ve contributed money toward it to keep it in the black.

Dr. Todd Riggan is a graduate of Texas A&M (like the majority of vets in Texas) and is considered the leading regional authority on pet rabbits. The office has plaques and awards attributingthis. He’s pretty solid with my cats Molly and Miette too. Dr. Todd even saved Molly’s life back in 2003 when he removed a bladder stone the size of a shirt button in her. Like all cats, Molly was rather indifferent about it but I’m sure she showed the staff some gratitude with the source of discomfort removed. With me, Molly was rather angered about her roaming territory being restricted for several days until the stitches cleared (whiz on my jeans is how she expressed it). 
 
There is also Dr. Linda Gregard who Somara has more experience working with since she has been more instrumental in treating Nemo (the cat with the damaged leg). I finally got to put a face to the name at the Open House. If she works at White Rock with Dr. Todd, then I have the utmost confidence in her with Molly and Miette (aka, the Girls). 
 
So a belated congratulations to White Rock Vet! Keep them in mind if you live near Pflugerville and have pets because we highly recommend the vets and staff.

Posted in Cats | 1 Comment

Happy Birthday Anna!

Posted on June 1, 2006 by Steve

Today is my niece’s fourth birthday! She is out of school according to my brother, at her age my guess is that it was preschool. What a cool way to kick off the Summer for her. School ends and then your birthday rolls around. Then again, my brother Brian (her dad) says the semeters for elementary and secondary schools end later than what we grew up with downstate. 
 
Unlike Nick, I have never met Anna but she sounds like a real treat. One afternoon I was talking to Brian over the phone and I did hear her screaming in the background. Thankfully it wasn’t pain or danger, just Anna being her hellion self according to Brian. That’s a relief. I was afraid he’d get a pass on Nick being such a well-behaved child. Since we could be difficult children with our parents (their claim not mine), the Universe would be completely unfair if my brother didn’t have his patience tried once in a while. 
 
Her card is going to be late because this dumb uncle misplaced it and got distracted by other local events. I’m thinking of getting her a subscription to the Nickelodeon magazine to help her reading skills. Kids become more interested in abilities they need when it’s wrapped up in things they like and understand. Otherwise reading and violin lessons (she received one as a Christmas present) are torture, laborious and uncool, not mention all the complaining parents receive. Linda (her mom) said she’s in Dora the Explorer like many children her age. I wonder how Anna knows about Dora when my brother blocked out all the cool channels on the cable to keep the kids from watching TV?

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