Sunday, October 15, 2006

Weekend

I did post a little over the weekend, so take a look and see the posts below, including a few photos of the new Austin house.

The weekend went well. In truth, as I'm currently jobless, there's not much difference between weeks and weekends other than my ability to call upon people. On the weekend I can call Jason and make him go to lunch. During the week I can upon businesses and services.

Example: When we moved in to our house, we bought two garage door openers as we have two garage doors. The installer finally came out, was here for five minutes and pointed out that one door was installed at an angle and the other door's rails come together near the floor. "I can install the openers," he said, "But the motors going to wear out pretty fast unless these doors are fixed."

So I called the builder to come out and look at the doors, but he said, "Well, the doors are only under a one year warranty. The previous owner should have fixed them. Also, they ran into the doors, so your warranty is void, anyway."

So now I have to call the garage door services people to come fix the doors they installed improperly the first time, and I have to pay them for it. All I want is to have a garage door opener and tro cruise into the garage without thinking about it. Instead, the whole operation is costing me time and money I don't have.

-Saturday we grabbed Steanso and headed to North Austin, visiting the intersection of Pond Springs and 183, which had once been a wee League's old stomping grounds. We popped into Austin comic shop "Thor's Hammer", which was having a massive clearance sale and table-top gaming tournament. The League does not play table-top games and must confess to being a little weirded out by the squeaks and squeals of nerdish delight coming from the gaming area. I know gamers and comic geeks may appear to share kinship to even a team of trained anthropologists, but I think we're a pedigree apart on the nerd-scale.

I bought a stack of back-issues for a dollar apiece, picked up three trades at 40% off cover, and had a moment of geekish horror when I unwittingly entered a trivia contest.

I was elbow deep in long boxes, desperately seeking out stray New Gods back issues when someone burst into the back-issue room.

"Quick! Who was the director of Empire Strikes Back?"
"Irvin Kershner!" some geek blurted. I looked around for a moment and realized the geek in question was none other than your humble League. The room was oddly silent. The other geeks looked a little stunned. The guy who had asked the question ran back out of the room.
I felt awkward, as if I had crossed some geek-trivia line and had somehow revealed myself as somehow even more of a knob than the guy yanking back-issues of old Image comics out of the stacks. I had assumed that knowledge of who sat in the director's chairs for Episodes V and VI was common knowledge in geek-circles.
A moment later, the guy asking the question shoved a DVD in my hand. "Your door prize!" I looked blankly at the DVD, turned it over in my hand and saw the title: "Star Wait". I use the term "documentary" loosely, as its really just somebody's home videos as they waited in line for the opening of Star Wars Episode II.
Not Episode I.
Episode II. When we all should have known better.

The DVD is very, very bad, and full of unpleasant geeks being unpleasantly obnoxious. I am very tolerant of Star Wars geeks for the most part, but geeks in packs are a danger more to themselves than to others. Unfortunately, when geeks mass for a geek related event, the lack of proper social acumen becomes a genuine liability. And, even worse, you may bear witness to geek-on-geek hook-ups, the most grisly of geek behavior.

Anyhoo, the trip north was good. "Thor's Hammer" was much nicer than I thought it would be, but has miles to go before its anywhere near the mecca of Austin Books. I might also point out that Austin Books does NOT cater to table-top gamers, instead using its vast space to provide a wide variety of comics of all stripes and eras. Plus, you don't have to hear some dude proclaiming his half-orc had totally made some other guy's halfling his bitch thanks to rolling a natural 20.

Some of us just want to look at our burly men in spandex in quiet.

Oh, and Ty (my LCS manager) has tapped into my utter geekness. My shop, South Side, is part of the Austin Comic Ring, owned by Thor's Hammer. Anyhoo, Ty had been called in to help with the event and had an excellent time making fun of me for heading 20 miles north in search of deals on comics.

Leaguers, Ty has only begun to scratch the surface.

-Saturday Night, Steanso and I headed to Alamo Drafthouse South to see a midnight showing of "Friday the 13th III (a New Dimension in Terror!)". I am not a slasher movie fan. I do not see the appeal. Unless, of course, there's 3D technology at work. I tell you, Leaguers, there's nothing like seeing an axe-handle protruding from someone's noggin when you feel like you could get smacked with that same handle as the victim looks surprised for a beat or two before falling out of frame. I just really felt like I was immersed in all of the blood splattering action.

As the gentleman introducing the movie pointed out: in order to provide the most out of the experience, the script was apparently written to take the utmost advantage of the 3D technology, occasionally at the expense of details like plot, dialogue and a coherent narrative.

All I can say is: ladies, when you see a dude slowly ambling toward you with a ski-mask and a spear-gun, do not make small talk. Assume the worst and flee.

-Today we met up with Cousin Sue, showed her the house, the grabbed lunch at Cherry Creek Catfish on Manchaca. Not much going on today, and even less when you take into account the hours I lost when I fell asleep on the couch reading those Superman back issues I picked up yesterday.


-Hope everyone had a good weekend.

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