Calling All Geeks!

Obviously, work sucks. It sucks for everyone, for the most part. And I’ve been having a particularly difficult time lately with my job. Lots of the behind-the-scenes drama has been taking its toll on me and I’ve been feeling especially down about it lately. Throw on top of that being sick, and you have one heck of a Tuesday evening.
I feel like crap right now. My nose is running, my eyes hurt, I keep sneezing. I just feel drained. So work was a lot of fun. I just about died when I had to clean out the popcorn machine. Now, I love popcorn. I love the smell of popcorn. But I’ll tell you, there is just something about the smell of the popcorn machine at the end of the day that I think is just nasty. I know it makes no sense and I really can’t explain it, but after all the corn has been scooped out, the smell goes from great to foul really quick, in my opinion. And the stuff we use to clean it certainly doesn’t help matters much. I can’t hardly smell anything right now, but somehow that made its way through. And running around trying to get stuff done was a pain, too. I did everything way slower then usual. And I swear I couldn’t hear anything. My hearing isn’t exactly the greatest anyway, but mostly the people I work with just like to mumble. I don’t think they realize that I’m used to being around 8 running projectors all day, which is quite loud. Throw on top of that me not feeling well and now the volume has been turned down even lower.
I guess the obvious question is why do I still go in if I’m not feeling well. Honestly, I think I’m just the kind of guy who refuses to call off if at all possible. Some twisted part of my brain would rather I go to work and not only make myself worse, but also spread it on to others (Then again, I do owe Matt one for the last time I got sick. lol) then to stay home and rest. Plus, the way they’ve been cutting hours lately doesn’t really give me much of a choice unless I was an even smaller pay check then I already get.
But at least I can finally say in all honestly, I am so sick of my job…
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Shut up, I’m sick.

Alright, so I was about to freak out. When I went to get online tonight, I couldn’t get a connection to the Internet. I tried and tried but the modem was acting like it did when we first got it and it wasn’t getting a strong enough signal. I messed with it, but nothing seemed to be working. I was beginning to think we had lost our connection to Road Runner for some reason, which would royally suck.
Eventually, though, I got it going again- hence you reading this. I was quite relieved. It got me thinking about why it had acted up and I’ve come up with two theories. One, there is a big storm coming in or something, so the weather might be having some affect on it. Second, SOMEONE in this family keeps knocking the modem off of the desk and then allows it to dangle by it’s cord. Considering when I tried plugging the modem into a different cable line and it worked instantly, you can pretty much guess what I think it was. But, oh well. Its working now and that’s all that matters.

No, I’m not talking about what I paid $20 for last night in a questionable part of town. I’m talking about the latest move all the action movie heroes seem to be performing these days. It occurred to me today when I saw the Hellboy II trailer. There is a scene when Hellboy is sliding under these big rock creatures between their legs and shooting his gun up at their crotches. It reminded me of a certain solider during a climatic battle with certain robots in disguise. (Because they were weak there … apparently. I never saw how Lennox came to that conclusion.) I swear, the scene in the Hellboy trailer was straight out of Transformers. And it got me wondering if thats the new thing we’re going to be seeing in action films. How like after the Matrix we saw “bullet time” in every freakin’ action flick. (Not to mention that stupid little hand flick that Neo did when fighting Morpheus. I was beginning to think that was sign language for “fight scene starts now”.) Mark my words, its just a matter of time before all the action movies feature sliding crotch shots…

Well, I finally had my previously derailed Cloverfield/Juno double feature. I’m really glad it finally worked out ’cause both movies were awesome. I really don’t know what everyone’s complaining about with Cloverfield. At work, I hear tons of people going on and on about “nothing happens” and “the camera’s too shaky”. Now that I’ve actually seen it, I can affirm that these people just don’t get it. I loved how authentic it felt. If a monster really attacked New York, this is the kind of footage they’d be showing on the news for the months (years) to come. SLIGHT SPOILERS: Literally nothing is reviled and the ending is extremely ambiguous. But that’s how it should have been! If these random 20-something hipsters “uncovered the secret of Cloverfield” or had there been a happy-sappy ending tacked on, it would have been fake Hollywood bullshit. As it was, it really felt real. At least, as real as a giant lizard … spider …. fish monster can seem. Oh, yeah, and I for one thought the monster looked cool. SPOILERS END As much as I liked Cloverfield, though, I’d have to say Juno “won” the double feature. I really enjoyed this film, but that’s really no surprise. Between the cast and the director, I pretty much expected to love this movie. (And now that I’ve confirmed that she is old enough, I can now say that Ellen Page is cute as all hell.) Of course, Juno didn’t knock over any buildings that I noticed, so there really isn’t as much to say about it in a blog. So, I’ll say it one more time, mostly to pad this entry out, Juno rocked.
Too bad that’s more or less it for good movies until May.

A while back, my brother’s XBox 360 “red ringed”. For those of you who don’t know, it basically means it died. Luckily, you can send it back in and they will replace it. Well, after three weeks of waiting, his new XBox arrived today. And, as of just a few minutes ago, it has red ringed once again. Fuck.
My brother has been the source of a lot of drama around here lately, but I still feel bad for him. Life dose seem to keep dumping on him. Now, a lot of that is his fault. But I still feel for the kid.
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I can’t help but point out, however, that my Wii is still working fine.

Different people deal with difficult situations in different ways. Personally, I tend to make jokes. I guess I do it to break the tension and lighten the mood. Even death doesn’t seem to stop me. I’ve previously acknowledged the death of Heath Ledger, but I must admit, when I first heard about it, I couldn’t help but think of jokes. “Batman’s finally finished him off!” “Woah, God must have finally seen Brother’s Grimm.” “Who’s going to tell MATT DAMON!!!” (That joke’s told entirely in it’s delivery, and it’s kind of an inside thing at work. So sorry about that.) I honest to God mean no disrespect, but that’s just how I deal with things that make me uncomfortable.

So, with that in mind, I wanted to share something I found online the other day. It’s freakin’ hilarious and it sort of deals with mortality. If nothing else, maybe it can lift our spirits after the day’s depressing events. So, please enjoy…

Your Grandmother Is Going To Die

Ooookay, I know by now a lot of blogs and news sites and such have said it, so it’s not like I’m breaking any news here, but I just felt like I had to acknowledge the death of actor Heath Ledger. Obviously, his biggest impact on me is the fact that he was … is … the new Joker in “The Dark Knight”. I’ve also seen him in a few other films like “Brother’s Grimm” (Ehhh…) and “10 Things I Hate About You.” (Actually really liked that one.) I have not seen Brokeback Mountain, but he won all kinds of awards for it, so more power to him.

As I said before, I know this isn’t exactly breaking news as I write this, and I’m afraid I really don’t have anything insightful to say, but in my own little way, I just wanted to pay my respects to him and his family. God bless.

UPDATE: Pics are now available!

I took a bunch of pictures of the armor party last Saturday. I meant to post them at the Mercs board, but I was too tired by the time I got home on the day of, was too busy the day after at work, and now I find the topic is … well, I’d rather not bring it back up. Sooooo… I guess I’ll post them here. Enjoy…

So I finally got my new computer today. It’s nothing to fancy and I’m sure some of the more computer savvy would look down their nose at it (I’m just waiting to hear all about it from my know-it-all manager at work tomorrow.), but I’m quite happy with it. Hey, if nothing else, it has to be a step up from the “family computer”, which we bought almost four years ago. (We got it on Election Day, to be specific. My mom and I voted -sob-, got doughnuts -yum-, and then got the new computer.)
I wasn’t able to pick up a router (probably won’t be able to until at least my next pay check), so for the time being, I’m still doing my net stuff on the family computer. I’m also gearing up for the drama bound to ensue when Jared discovers my purchase. As far as I know, he doesn’t know about it yet, but once he finds out, he is going to shit himself. I can already hear him claiming the old computer as his and saying I can’t use it. The thing with that is, when we got it, we split the cost three ways, so I actually helped pay for it. (Got my money in a lot quicker then certain other parties, I might add.) My point being, I’m just as entitled to use this computer as anyone else. Still, I know he’s going to freak out. Oh, well. Maybe if he actually, I don’t know, got a job, he’d be able to afford a new computer, too.
But, no sense dwelling on the drama. I’m way to excited to let that stuff get in the way. It’ll be nice to get online with it, but in the mean time, I have plenty of files and such to transfer over from the family computer and my old laptop. In fact, I think I’d better go check on that now…

Armor party all day today at Jon’s house. It was a lot of fun, except for the parts where I was on the verge of puking, of course. (I don’t typically get car sick easily. Only when I’m trying to read and, apparently, when I’m riding backwards in the back of a van. lol.) I actually got some stuff done. Finished painting up the scope for my rifle. Thanks to Jon’s collection of random stuff, I was even able to add more stuff to it. I’m really excited how that’s turning out. I didn’t get the hinges on my shoulder, unfortunately. That is apparently going to be a much longer process then I thought it would be. That’s okay, though. And I never really got around to working on my arm shields, but I really don’t mind doing that here.
The evening got interesting when Jon got his web cam working and we began broadcasting our party to the other people on the Mercs boards. Of course, by the time that was going, we were more or less done working on our stuff so it was mostly foolishness. (My weeks of Fresh Prince watching has officially paid off.) It was a lot of fun, but I think next time we’re going to try to have it going when we actually have stuff to do.
It did get me thinking about Wortham’s Bane, though. Jon and I have talked a little bit about getting the podcast back on track and tonight got me thinking about the possibility of incorporating video. Basically, do a live show through the web cam program and record the audio from that to post online later as a normal podcast. Now that I’m finally on high speed Internet, we wouldn’t even have to get together to do it. Could be interesting.