I just ran into a former pal from high school, Charlie Pollock.
Charlie was in the class of '91 and I was in the class of '93, so I only hung out with him for a short while as we did a play together. Well, Leaguers, Charlie went on to broadway stardom and is now in the touring group for Urinetown.
Anyway, I was just telling my co-worker over lunch that I was going to see Urinetown on Sunday. On our way back, Charlie strolled by on his way to see a movie at the theater near my office. Weird world, huh?
It's been ten years, but it was good to see the guy. And i guess I'm going to see him again on Sunday. Only he'll be on stage this time. But, dammit! I was his understudy in our UIL production of A Midsummer Night's Dream! (Don't worry, I'm prepared to step in for him if anything goes wrong on this production, too.)
Friday, May 07, 2004
Let it be known that I, along with millions of others, watched the final episode of Friends.
I haven't really watched the show in two or three years, and my viewing has been sporadic during that entire time. And while it's not my favorite show (It's no MXC), one can certainly see how the show surpasses... oh... about 80% of the sitcoms out there. So, sure... there's nothing wrong with people liking it.
BUT (and there's always a but), in the first ten minutes, I was ready to turn off the finale for the same reason I turned off the show for the past several years. I get a weird, embarrassed feeling for David Schwimmer whenever I watch that show. Something about him or his character just drives me up the wall. I can't put my finger on it, but it's there. That, and Matthew Perry was much funnier when he was on uppers.
Most bizarre was that Friends, once again, had big emotional scenes using their airport sets. Man, those guys get an amazing amount of mileage out of the terminal sets they built for, I think, Season 2. People are always jetting off, or coming back on jets, and somehow, the airport has to be the place where they say their good-byes or "I love you's" or whatever.
Anyway, no big deal. The show is over, and I got through it without being constantly told how it had changed all of western civilization. THis is unlike the finale of Sex and the City (which I watched for, I think, 1/2 of a season in 2001), whose finale had entertainment journalists beating their breasts and wailing at the moon for a full month ahead of time.
In the next two years, we have several meltdowns to look forward to as the cast of Friends moves on to "movie stardom" and to try to get new projects off the ground. Several series are sure to follow on NBC, and if the past is any indication, they should all be outstanding successes. Ah... how we all enjoyed The Jason Alexander Show, Watching Ellie, and The Michael Richards Show. Good luck, guys!
I haven't really watched the show in two or three years, and my viewing has been sporadic during that entire time. And while it's not my favorite show (It's no MXC), one can certainly see how the show surpasses... oh... about 80% of the sitcoms out there. So, sure... there's nothing wrong with people liking it.
BUT (and there's always a but), in the first ten minutes, I was ready to turn off the finale for the same reason I turned off the show for the past several years. I get a weird, embarrassed feeling for David Schwimmer whenever I watch that show. Something about him or his character just drives me up the wall. I can't put my finger on it, but it's there. That, and Matthew Perry was much funnier when he was on uppers.
Most bizarre was that Friends, once again, had big emotional scenes using their airport sets. Man, those guys get an amazing amount of mileage out of the terminal sets they built for, I think, Season 2. People are always jetting off, or coming back on jets, and somehow, the airport has to be the place where they say their good-byes or "I love you's" or whatever.
Anyway, no big deal. The show is over, and I got through it without being constantly told how it had changed all of western civilization. THis is unlike the finale of Sex and the City (which I watched for, I think, 1/2 of a season in 2001), whose finale had entertainment journalists beating their breasts and wailing at the moon for a full month ahead of time.
In the next two years, we have several meltdowns to look forward to as the cast of Friends moves on to "movie stardom" and to try to get new projects off the ground. Several series are sure to follow on NBC, and if the past is any indication, they should all be outstanding successes. Ah... how we all enjoyed The Jason Alexander Show, Watching Ellie, and The Michael Richards Show. Good luck, guys!
Thursday, May 06, 2004
After reporting on my friend, Jeff's progress on his wedding, Nordstrom posted this chilling tale of cross-border romance and the sea of red-tape which is keeping two people apart.
I am also reminded of another true life romance I was somewhat aware of back in Austin where a guy I knew fell in love with an American girl, but discovered all too late that legal issues would keep them from being together in the US, and so she ended up moving to Mexico. She had to give up a good paying job and say good-bye to family and friends in order to be with her new love.
I am also reminded of another true life romance I was somewhat aware of back in Austin where a guy I knew fell in love with an American girl, but discovered all too late that legal issues would keep them from being together in the US, and so she ended up moving to Mexico. She had to give up a good paying job and say good-bye to family and friends in order to be with her new love.
Lately things have been sort of crappy. I don't know what the story is, but it feels as if I'm getting metaphorically kicked in the crotch quite a bit lately, and it's starting to make me edgy. Really. I'm getting really sick of it.
on the Tetsuo scale, I think I'm about right here right now...
It doesn't help that about three months ago i realized I probably am stuck in Arizona for the rest of my life as I have no clear means of ever returning to Texas, let alone Austin. And that's depressing as hell. I have a good paying job, and so does Jamie. I may not like my job, but it pays better than digging ditches, and it keeps me out of the broiling sun during the Arizona summer.
But even my job has turned from a job where I handled interesting multimedia projects into a job where I babysit faculty day in and day out as they whine about classroom space. it's chimp work and should be a minor, minor part of my job. Instead, it's turned into at least 25 hours a week of what I do.
I got my job threatened last week by one guy, another faculty called me at 4:30 yesterday to tell me he was unhappy about something we'd previously agreed upon, and he was going to pull his class from our program, effectively neutralizing the program (because he doesn't want to walk an extra quarter-mile to teach class two days a week).
My boss is asking me to create roll-away carts to create online multimedia, which seems like a splendid idea. Only I've done this before. It's a huge hassle, isn't worth the cost of what it takes to employ such a set-up, and the final product is usually pretty cheesy. In general, it's a terrible idea, and something only an engineer would dream up. No self-respecting video jock would create such a set-up as they would inherently recognize the flaws in such a set-up. Unfortunately, the video world is now run on the advice of engineers with toys more often than people who actually know a little about production work. Bleah.
There are a host of other, smaller and more annoying issues, but it seems that's all I deal with anymore. It's been a long time since I got up for work and actually was at least impassive about going. Lately it's been feeling like a real chore. And life's too short for that.
It's insane. it's 8:30 AM, and it's already a shitty day.
on the Tetsuo scale, I think I'm about right here right now...
It doesn't help that about three months ago i realized I probably am stuck in Arizona for the rest of my life as I have no clear means of ever returning to Texas, let alone Austin. And that's depressing as hell. I have a good paying job, and so does Jamie. I may not like my job, but it pays better than digging ditches, and it keeps me out of the broiling sun during the Arizona summer.
But even my job has turned from a job where I handled interesting multimedia projects into a job where I babysit faculty day in and day out as they whine about classroom space. it's chimp work and should be a minor, minor part of my job. Instead, it's turned into at least 25 hours a week of what I do.
I got my job threatened last week by one guy, another faculty called me at 4:30 yesterday to tell me he was unhappy about something we'd previously agreed upon, and he was going to pull his class from our program, effectively neutralizing the program (because he doesn't want to walk an extra quarter-mile to teach class two days a week).
My boss is asking me to create roll-away carts to create online multimedia, which seems like a splendid idea. Only I've done this before. It's a huge hassle, isn't worth the cost of what it takes to employ such a set-up, and the final product is usually pretty cheesy. In general, it's a terrible idea, and something only an engineer would dream up. No self-respecting video jock would create such a set-up as they would inherently recognize the flaws in such a set-up. Unfortunately, the video world is now run on the advice of engineers with toys more often than people who actually know a little about production work. Bleah.
There are a host of other, smaller and more annoying issues, but it seems that's all I deal with anymore. It's been a long time since I got up for work and actually was at least impassive about going. Lately it's been feeling like a real chore. And life's too short for that.
It's insane. it's 8:30 AM, and it's already a shitty day.
When you assume...
So I'd been loosely following the development of Cryptic Studios/ NC Soft's new release "City of Heroes", a massive multiplayer video game which one can play online. The basic gist is: you create a superhero and send them out into a massive virtual environment to fight crime. Sounds right up my alley.
Except I am not a gamer. Nor am I, despite my credentials, really much of a computer guy.
So I spent a good chunk of change on the game and pre-ordered it. It finally showed up at my house last night. I loaded it, all looked good.... until I realized I didn't have a good enough graphics card or even a good enough processor to play the game. In my computer I bought in December. And I have a laptop, so it's not like I can readily change out either item.
In order to even set-up the game, I had to get a subscription to the service which would allow me to play.
So:
1) I can't return the game to Best Buy because I already opened it (that's their policy in Black and White)
2) I'm not sure if when I cancelled my subscription to the service if I am getting refunded for the 6 months I was too be billed for, and may be billed for 6 months instead of the two hours it took for me to decide to forego trying to make this work and just try to sell the copy of the game.
As I mentioned, I am not computer savvy. And I know there's a snickering army of Melvins out there saying "Snort! How did he think he could play a game on an Inspiron! Snort! He might as well have been using a Apple IIe! Hynuck hynuck!"
So I'd been loosely following the development of Cryptic Studios/ NC Soft's new release "City of Heroes", a massive multiplayer video game which one can play online. The basic gist is: you create a superhero and send them out into a massive virtual environment to fight crime. Sounds right up my alley.
Except I am not a gamer. Nor am I, despite my credentials, really much of a computer guy.
So I spent a good chunk of change on the game and pre-ordered it. It finally showed up at my house last night. I loaded it, all looked good.... until I realized I didn't have a good enough graphics card or even a good enough processor to play the game. In my computer I bought in December. And I have a laptop, so it's not like I can readily change out either item.
In order to even set-up the game, I had to get a subscription to the service which would allow me to play.
So:
1) I can't return the game to Best Buy because I already opened it (that's their policy in Black and White)
2) I'm not sure if when I cancelled my subscription to the service if I am getting refunded for the 6 months I was too be billed for, and may be billed for 6 months instead of the two hours it took for me to decide to forego trying to make this work and just try to sell the copy of the game.
As I mentioned, I am not computer savvy. And I know there's a snickering army of Melvins out there saying "Snort! How did he think he could play a game on an Inspiron! Snort! He might as well have been using a Apple IIe! Hynuck hynuck!"
Wednesday, May 05, 2004
It's 1st Amendment Morning today at the League.
We don't need hooded government goons in this fair land of ours. We have CEO's with bottom line's and whatnot to worry about.
Michael Moore's new flick (sure to be boo'd by the right and overly lauded by the left) is being blocked from distribution by Disney head, Michael Eisner. Apparently, he just noticed that this Michael Moore chap, who one of his little subsidiaries works with, is a bit of a rabble rouser. He's effectively blocking release of Moore's new un-surprisingly anti-Bush documentary as he doesn't feel Disney should be entering into a political debate. Here's the story.
thanks to Nathan and Randy for pointing me to the story.
In more colorful news, the euphemism "getting your salad tossed" entered my universe late Sunday night, has popped up numerous times since then. I first heard it on, show of shows, MTV's Wildboyz. I wrote it off then, but it was yesterday, whilst browsing The Smoking Gun that I read up on Howard Stern and Jimmy Kimmel's attempts to get Oprah fined by the FCC. Apparently, Oprah had a show (pre-Janet Jackson's nipple) which was a "frank" discussion about sex. In which they bantied about terms like "tossing the salad".
Taking exception to being singled out by the FCC, Stern has been encouraging his listeners to write into the FCC to complain about the Winfrey program. ABC's Jimmy Kimmel, always one for anything potty-humored, has joined in the charge. Read about it here.
I encourage you to read the letters to the FCC. They're pretty funny. And the truth is, Stern has a point.
If anyone can locate Louis Black's anti-FCC rampage from The Daily Show from a month ago, let me know. (It's never easy explaining to your wife you know exactly what "Hot Carl" means.)
We don't need hooded government goons in this fair land of ours. We have CEO's with bottom line's and whatnot to worry about.
Michael Moore's new flick (sure to be boo'd by the right and overly lauded by the left) is being blocked from distribution by Disney head, Michael Eisner. Apparently, he just noticed that this Michael Moore chap, who one of his little subsidiaries works with, is a bit of a rabble rouser. He's effectively blocking release of Moore's new un-surprisingly anti-Bush documentary as he doesn't feel Disney should be entering into a political debate. Here's the story.
thanks to Nathan and Randy for pointing me to the story.
In more colorful news, the euphemism "getting your salad tossed" entered my universe late Sunday night, has popped up numerous times since then. I first heard it on, show of shows, MTV's Wildboyz. I wrote it off then, but it was yesterday, whilst browsing The Smoking Gun that I read up on Howard Stern and Jimmy Kimmel's attempts to get Oprah fined by the FCC. Apparently, Oprah had a show (pre-Janet Jackson's nipple) which was a "frank" discussion about sex. In which they bantied about terms like "tossing the salad".
Taking exception to being singled out by the FCC, Stern has been encouraging his listeners to write into the FCC to complain about the Winfrey program. ABC's Jimmy Kimmel, always one for anything potty-humored, has joined in the charge. Read about it here.
I encourage you to read the letters to the FCC. They're pretty funny. And the truth is, Stern has a point.
If anyone can locate Louis Black's anti-FCC rampage from The Daily Show from a month ago, let me know. (It's never easy explaining to your wife you know exactly what "Hot Carl" means.)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)