Hoju

Watching the last act of 2001: A Space Odyssey to Pink Floyd's Echoes is great fun. You should try it.

I can die a happy man.

http://alderaanshotfirst.ytmnd.com/

My life's work is finished.

Call me a dork all you want, but I finished Babylon 5 last night at Rich's house at 2 AM. I was completely moved by everything. I'm not gonna go into any kind of details because

A) You don't care
and
B) It's too much to write!

Needless to say, Babylon 5 is right now my favorite televsion show of all time, excluding Eva, but that's a given. I'm also inspired now to watch other TV dramas instead of just the same cartoons over and over, which I will still do, but even right now, I'm watching The Lost Room. I plan on watching Firefly, Battlestar Galactica, some other stuff... I had forgotten how good it feels to watch the last episode of a show you had put so much time and effort and emotion into watching. Anyway, I suggest Babylon 5, but be warned that it is dorkier than Star Trek, despite its realism. For instance, a ship going INTO hyperspace enters an orange wormhole, while a ship EXITING hyperspace leaves through a blue wormhole. Dopplar! Also, the station itself spins to produce centripidal force to create gravity. Etc etc etc. Oh, also, depending on the atmosphere inside a ship, when it explodes, the explosion is a different color.

Man, what a great show. Thank you, Rich.

Haven't posted in a while, meh. Just watched The Crow for the first time with Rich and Alex. Jokes were made a plenty, despite how good of a movie it is. I finished the book about a half hour before invading Rich's house and forcing him quite against his will to watch his own copy.

We made up the follow Crows:

- Abe Lincoln
- Jesus
- Captain Jean Luc Picard of the U.S.S. Enterprise

In his sketchbook, Alex basically drew these characters of fiction and gave them the Crow makeup. Humorour! I hope he posts them to his LJ, they are quite the fancy-tickler.

After watching most of Dune today, I need this as a bumper sticker.

"My other car is a Guild Liner."

Cape Cod was nice. :)

Real-Sounding Pokemon names me and Joe came up with the other night.

- Skinflute
- Spearow Agnew
- Hezbollah
- Menopause
- Sars

Feel free to add your own Fake Pokemon (c)2006.

She revolves like a trans-Neptunian dwarf planet or satelite with an eccentric orbit similar to that of Charon or UB313, Nix, or Hydra, and with about 18% the mass of Earth

But she's always a planet discovered in 1930 called Pluto by some little girl,

To meeeeee....

Well, it's been a long summer for me, thus far, physically and emotionally. S'all good though. I'm going to Cape Cod in two weeks, I asked a girl out the other day, and I started reading comic books. Things are finally starting to look up, I think. :)

More importantly, euphemisms for crapping I came up with in the past two months:

"It sounded like a shotgun going off under water!"

"It sounded like ripping a wet newspaper in half!"

"New England Clam Chyowdah!"

"It's like the Cold War is in my ass, and the Ruskies just let fly with the nukes!"

"It felt like I was shitting out a human head, but it got caught up on the brain pan so just the jaw came out!"

Try eating cereal while thinking about that last one.

My how things change in a week.

Things sure can change in a month, yes? DC was a very cool trip. I love the Metro. It's like going into the future, but it only costs a dollar.

I suddenly have this craving to watch 2001: A Space Odyssey.

This dorkiness is actually a very artistic and visionary bit of news. The other day I finished listening to the audiobook of A Wizard of Earthsea, by Ursula K. Le Guin, and realized how truly wonderful the book is. The first time I'd read it, I enjoyed it, but hearing it again for a second time really made the messages sink into place and I can't wait to reread them all again.

So after I finished listening to it, I went to imdb.com and looked up the miniseries that came out last year, that absolutely butchered the books. The characters were all white instead of brown like in the books, changed major/minor characters, etc... Destroyed a classic, basically. Then I see a link that another adaption has been made and is awaiting release. Who is the direct, you may ask?

Hayao Miyazaki.

I watched the trailer for it (comes out in July in Japan) and despite that fact that the characters are white still, it looks infinitely more loyal to the original vision of Le Guin's books. The pieces are all in place, the settings look gorgeous, the design is very true, the one song that plays in the trailer is absolutely gorgeous to listen to, etc etc etc... So many things look right with this that were wrong with the American miniseries. Hearing about this has really inspired me more to get back into drawing and painting. I still cannot do it for a living, but I have been doodling and daydreaming more and more lately, and that is always a good thing.

And then at the opposite end of the fiction spectrum, I am reading Starship Troopers and that has got me drawing again too, the powered armor they wear are such a nerds fantasy.

For example, this is pretty close to how they are described in the book:

http://fs6.deviantart.com/i/2005/041/9/5/Starship_Troopers_preliminary_by_rubendevela.jpg

Hopefully anybody that wants to can see that, because it is an incredible picture. Kudos to the artist, brava, and soforth.

Also good news is that the trip to Washington DC to see Brian's graduation is in a few weeks, and DC is such a cool town, very fun place to be. The subway there is so cool looking. WAY better than the NYC ones. Clean and warmly lit. It looks like something out of a Heinlein novel, anyway.

Then even better news, Cape Cod trip confirmed! Mid-August, I cannot wait!

I think that's all, besides that Ryan is back to work after using up all his sick and vacation days because his foot is broken, it is good to have him back. Za ha ha ha.

Also, beat Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes, and am currently engrossed with Knights of the Old Republic II.

Ah, life is good, and this was boring to anybody but me. Also, happy birthday Alex! Phew, almost forgot. Whatever, he does not have an LJ anyway, hah.

Happy Easter and all that jazz! I forget what was in my last post besides that book passage, but also congrats to everybody who did anything in Java Jive! Rockin'. Mr. Reid should come out with a CD, I am not kidding. Even if only for students and those of other such stature.

Went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Wednesday, it was gorgeous. I can't try to describe anything that was there, you just have to go for yourself. I wish I could get to museums more often, they are so inspiring. I respect the church a lot more after seeing so much of the medieval and Ren. art. Gorgeous. Takes all kinds, I guess.

I started, read, and finished The Da Vinci Code. It was a lot of fun. Not the best book in the universe, but definitely a good read. Now I am on Crypotonomicon, which is retardedly long, but very interesting. I am going to give it a hundred pages or so to decide if I am going to read it on one fell swoop or if I'll seperate it into large chunks and read smaller books in betwixt.

I'm out of banter, happy Easter!

"By the third year at Kathhad Havzhiva knew a great many things that distressed him. The old knowledge had been difficult but not distressing. It had been all paradox and myth, and it had made sense. The new knowledge was all fact and reason, and it made no sense.

For instance, he knew now that historians did not study history. No human mind could encompass the history of Hain: three million years of it. The events of the first two million years, the Fore-Eras, like layers of metamorphic rock, were so compressed, so distorted by the weight of the succeeding millennia and their infinite events that one could reconstruct only the most sweeping generalities from the tiny surviving details. And if one did chance to find some miraculously preserved document from a thousdand millennia ago, what then? A king ruled in Azbahan; the Empire fell to the Infidels; a fusion rocket has landed on Ve... but there had been uncountable kings, empires, inventions, billions of lives lived in millions of countries, monarchies, democracies, oligarchies, anarchies, ages of chaos and ages of order, pantheon upon pantheon of gods, infinite wars and times of peace, incessant discoviered and forgettings, innumberable horrors and triumphs, and endless repetition of unceasing novelty. What is the use trying to describe the flowing of a river at any moment, and then at the next moment, and then at the next, and the next, and the next? You wear out. You say: There is a great river, and it flows through this land, and we have named it History.

To Havzhiva the knowledge that his life, any life was one flicker of light for one moment on the surface of that river was sometimes distressing, sometimes restful."

Man, I am liking the book I am reading! Take that, crappy other sci-fi!

Also, Happy Belated Saint Patrick's Day! Hope everybody's blood alcohol level is back to the legal limit!

Also, Damn Yankees was great! Congrats to everybody involved!

Jack Nicholson: "And the award for Worst Oscar Jokes goes to... Bachor and Joe, get up here you crazy coots!"

( Read more... )

^Terrible joke

Awesome, only 350 mores days til I'm 21 and can legally go "Nah, I'll just get a Dr. Pepper/root beer." And then, like in a PSA, they will FORCE me to drink. I recieved the Star Wars box, which is always good. Me and Joe while watching it simply quoted it and made every obscure reference imaginable. Thanks to everybody that came over on my birthday, was muchly appreciated. :D

Bjork was in my store, I told her the information desk is not a register.

After Crash won Best Motion Picture, Brokeback Mountain and Memoirs of a Geisha had butt sex.

Oh well, I'm forgetting a lot of stuff, but screw ye. It's only 9:30 in the AM. I'm supposed to be asleep right now. Also, now I want to see Walk the Line even more. And Brokeback Mountain.

"Learning what you know about black people from Craig is like learning what you know about cars from Knight Rider."

Also, I want a pony.

Hey folks. I swear, I'll never ask this again. Promise. But my birthdays' comin' up, and I HATE to ask for things for something that isn't Christmas. But I want a copy of Chrono Trigger for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, circa 1995. Somethin' fierce. Would niggas be willing just to gimme like, 5 or 10 bucks if ye can spare? It costs like, 45 on eBay, that's usually the starting price. It's close to 200 for a copy in the box with the booklet and map and all, hah. I figure if like, 6 people gimme 5 bucks, I'd pay the rest of it of course, but it would be REALLY appreciated. It's one of my faves of all time, as seen on my previous post, heh. But sadly I do not have a copy. :( I have only played Johns, and the emulator. If not, it's all good. Just figured I'd toss that out there. 20-ness March 1st, woo!

Also, just noticed, doens't it look like my icon is taking a little poop? Teehee.

Well, I got Knights of the Old Republic like, 2 weeks ago, and beat it today. Something like, 37 hours? I told Ryan at work today, he started laughing. "Dude, that's a work week." What a great game, seriously! I can't wait to get to the second one, but I still have other games I got for Christmas to go through first. Point in case, Shadow of the Colossus.

My balls have shriveled, died, and fallen off. That was the best game I've ever played, I think. This might be a premature assumption, but if not, then it's at least in my top 3 of all time. Including the good old SNES days. I have to play Ico now, because it is the same developers, and is supposed to be equally, if not more beautiful.

For those not in the know, meaning: Not Joe, Not Alex, and Not Danie:

Shadow of the Colossus is a video game with a very simple premise. You ride around on horseback, guided by your magic sword, to enemies the size of office blocks that lay across the dead countryside. When you find them, you must gain their attention, and find ways to climb up their bodies to their soft spots. Then using your magic sword, you kill them. There are 16 of them. They are huge. Some of them represent certain animals, such as bulls, horses, birds, dragons, several serpants, minotaurs, lions, and a few others I forget. The graphics are as near to perfect as the PS2 can handle, the music is increidbly well written. There is no dialogue until the end of the game when the plot is unveiled. Up until that point, you only fight and fight and fight, because at the beginning of the game, the gods "promise to bring your love back to you". She is dead, and you are not, and you have a magical sword. Simple enough task.

The thing that makes the game so perfect is the emotion that pours out of every godamn polygon. The landscape is so dead and lifeless, and you are there by yourself with your horse, trying to bring your only and true love back to life. And to do it you have to destroy these beautiful and majestic creatures of the earth, these titans that could easily crush you underfoot without even noticing. But you fucking kick their asses! I would buy a PS2 just to play this game if I didn't already have one, in all honesty. Or at least pull a Rich and buy the game and abuse friendship rights with somebody with a PS2. :P

Bottom line is that this game made me cry when I beat it. It's that good. It takes a lot for a video game to make a man cry. Well, not cry, but really godamn mistyeyed.

I still gotta do the Ico thing, finish Prince of Persia 2 eventually (it got pretty boring after they give you choices of which temples to go through, etc... too many hard enemis/puzzles, nothing to interest the player, though I'm sure that changes down the road), Metroid Prime 2 I have on the shelf, gotta get to that as well. And then, down the road. Knights of the Old Republic II. The first is not in the top 3, but certainly in the top 5. I guess right now I'll try to make a list of my favorite games, just to remember down the road. This is MY journal after all, isn't it? Get the hell off my internet.

- Shadow of the Colossus
- Chrono Trigger
- The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
- Final Fantasy VI (USIII)
- Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
- Grand Theft Auto

Alright, it's 6, but screw ye. I can't decide! I'm assuming Ico will be on there soon enough. I will have to make like, a Definitive Top Ten list, not too unlike the guy from High Fidelity. What a great book/movie. I wanst John Cussac's baby. If I spelt his last name right, that is.

*ten minutes later update* I forgot Halo, so it's like, what... ... ... 6 + 1... shit. Fuck, I know this one- seven! It's seven. Phew, that was close.