my mental sieve...
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| Evil Wayne my mental sieve... |
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Monday, March 24, 2003 Ummm... It's been driving me nuts. I'm not really sure what to comment on the war. I can't stand that monkey in office. I mean, I really can't stand that monkey in office. He's managed to take the events of 9.11 and flush world support down the toilet. And then, he's pissed all over it. I mean, for the first time in my life, I'm almost ashamed to be an American. What the hell is that?!? Thank you Mr Bush, for taking American hubris to a new level. Now get off the stage. Last night Michael Moore put it best: "When the Pope and the Dixie Chicks are against you, it's time to go." http://winstars.free.fr/english/bush.html (Sidenote: Even though her hair was all up in a tight do, Nicole Kidman is still one of the most beautiful women in world.) posted by Evil Wayne | 4:10 PM 0 comments Tuesday, March 11, 2003 My Day is Sucking Along I left my sunglasses here at work yesterday. So, of course, this morning the sun is out full-freakin' force. So I have to drive to work squinting like mad all the way. Which gives me sort of a headache when I have to squint like that for long periods of time. Plus, I'm still very tired so I keep yawing as I'm flying down the highway. This makes my eyes water. So I've got tears coming out of the tiny slits I'm using for eyes and everything's fucked up. I have to keep wiping my eyes just so I don't end up a flaming wreck on the 6 o'clock news. Plus, I keep closing my eyes, sort of like an extended blink, and I think my brain starting taking micronaps and that can't be good. I really need to take some time to actually sleep. On top of all this I've got a cold. Another fucking cold. This has been the single worst year for illness in memory. This makes it like the eighth time I've been ill in the last three months, I think. At least this feels like a minor cold, but damnit all, I'm getting really tired of this. Someone's been sick, I think, for the last three months. Spring cannot get here fast enough. I can't wait to open the windows and let some real air in. Flush out all the crappy stale Winter and bring on the freshness... Plus we need to de-mold the house. Some places seem bad this time around too. I'm sure it's been the cause of infinite woe this year. We should buy up some hard-core brutal enviromentally hostile chemicals that will wipe out everything living thing it touches. Yes, it's time to declare war on the germs. Time to take back what was ours. And this time... It's personal. Anyway, so far this day bites. posted by Evil Wayne | 12:40 PM 0 comments I got nothing today. I'm pretty tired and it's past midnight. I just feel so used up lately and staying up late is just not working the way it did in my 20s. This is stupid, why am I even bothering to write anything for today? King of the Hill is on. It's the very first episode and the animation is so raw. There's so much of Beavis and Butthead still in there. Plus the voices are all off and whatnot. First season always suck in retrospect. I remember when this premiered and thought it was the most unfunny thing I had ever seen. Mostly because it wasn't Beavis or Butthead and not The Simpsons which it followed. But lately, it's a damn funny show. Sometimes funnier than The Simpsons. Hank's realtionship with his son, Bobby is one of the funniest on TV. He's just so mortified by the boy all the time. The best was when he signed up Bobby for a rose growing contest. "If you promise not to squeal like a girl..." And goddamnit do I love shit like this: The Why? Files posted by Evil Wayne | 12:22 AM 0 comments Sunday, March 09, 2003 ...before you die, you see the ring... Holy crap. Lemme say that again, but this time with a little emphasis: Holy fucking crap! We watched The Ring last night and I'm still creeped out. I can't really recall the last time I watched something so creepy. Probably The Blair Witch Project back in '99 and that was mostly tension. Most horror movies have a scene or two that are freaky, but this was one long drawn out 2-hours of unending dread (well, that undoubtedly an exaggeration). I actually had to force myself to dwell on something else when I went to bed. It was that creepy. (Seriously, the last time I felt like that was the Blair Witch. I was home alone after that one, and I think I left the hall light on). It was a total freak job. I think I had shivers running down my spine in every other scene. Very well done. Almost every shot -especially any establishing shots- had lots of visual depth and the film would always return to these shots so you knew there was going to be something in the background. Only, a lot of the time there wasn't. So you'd start to get comfortable with that and that would be eerie. I really don't want to blow anything. And I don't really care that lots of people won't like it. It's a good film (even if it's a remake of a Japanise film Ringu, which is supposed to be superior. Don't care. I've never scene that film, I saw this one. And this one rocked). A lot of people hated Blair Witch, and some of the slams were spot on, but it was still a damn good film. Both films are less about gore and more about the actual story. If you only find slasher films scary, then this isn't for you. The horror is mainly dervived from the possible horrific consequences the main characters have to face and the idea that they're unavoidable. Characters, desperate to not to be done in, begin to feel that no matter what they do, they're heading for that end. Although characters in The Ring decided to do what the can anyway. And hell if I don't like the end of The Ring. (And I mean the end-end). Possible Spoilers; or How To Have Some Fun with DVD: The main premisis of The Ring is this video tape. You watch the tape and it full of disturbing and odd imagery. Then, as soon as you finish, you're phone rings and a voice tells you, "Seven days...". Seven days later, you die. Okay, so via Internet Movie Database, I found that the DVD has a little easter egg. You hit Left once, then Down twice. The cursor disappears and you hit Enter. Now you view the videotape in it's entirety. Now, here's the fun part. Christine was more than a little freaked out by the movie. She knows it's still a movie, but it is creepy. I dialed our home phone on the cell, but left it hanging on, so all I had to do was his the Call button and it would dial. I put the phone in my back pocket and waited about a half hour or so before bring up the easter egg. So we're gonna just sit thru it, because it's short. I had previously set up the living room so the cordless phone was on the desk and I stood between it and Tine on the couch. I'm standing up, one hand on the remote, the other in my back pocket on the phone Call button. Video plays and as the end static blurs, I finger the call button. Ring! Ring! Now, granted this was a day later, in the morning sunlight so the effect was minimal. I picked up the phone and pretended to be scared, but I couldn't hold it and laughed. To which Tine said she was oddly uncomfortable when the phone rang, but didn't feel any real dread. We tried it again later when Michael woke up, but I must have misdialed the phone, because it didn't ring on cue and a quick exit-and-redial wasn't that effective (besides, I'm not sure he would have actually connected the end of the video and phone - some kids...). So I figure that the single best way to make this work is to have some friend on stand-by when you've got other over to watch the movie. You tell this person to dial your home when they hear their own phone ring only once. Then you do the same trick I did, dial up thier phone on your cell, but keep it from going thru. Then, after the movie is over and it's still freaking dark out, you have everyone sit thru the easter egg video. As it nears compeletion, you fire off your call and your friend calls back and scares the bezeeus out of everyone. Yeah, I know. It's only going to work on teenagers, but what the fuck. It would have worked last night, if I had previous knowledge. I take it back, I think anyone who lets the film get to them in any way, shape or form would at least jump if the phone rang right after viewing. It's a damn creepy movie and you should see it. And this is sort of useful if you've just come in contact with some kind of toxic-space-ray that's given you optional super powers: Lee's Useless Superhero Generator. posted by Evil Wayne | 8:53 PM 0 comments Saturday, March 08, 2003 Battlefield: 1942 So I've been playing a lot of Battlefield: 1942. It's a very solid multiplayer experience. I absolutely love the simplicity behind the operation of just about everything within the game. With very little training, you can jump right in. Run your infantry ass over to that Jeep and drive it to the Tank and use it to bombard the enemy or shoot down enemy planes with the machine gun on top. Or dive that Submarine just to periscope depth and fire off torpedoes to sink the enemy battleship. Desert, island, and city maps. There's so much to do, and so little time to do it in. I haven't had it long enough to fully explore all the maps. If you're into this kind of thing, you're actually hurting yourself, by not rushing out and buying this game. I kid you not. At the very least, you should jaunt over and download the multiplayer demo. Do it. Now! Don't get me wrong, I have my grips. You can't enter any structure that's not open (e.g., you can't open closed doors), and flying the planes take a lot of practice. Weapons, do not cause damage to buildings or terrain. It would be groovy if a building could be leveled with tank fire, but it can't. And I don't quite have the feeling my machine gun is actually hitting the enemy sometimes (It could be a range-issue. I don't know for certain, but they could be trying to somewhat accurately portray the weapons of the time and that would mean I'm not getting the same range as weapons in Team Fortress. Or it could just be that I suck.) However, on the whole, it's completely taken over my on-line FPS fix. Hell, it's taken over almost all my computer time. I'm spending way too much time on it and, consequently, not getting near enough sleep at night. Because I always have to see what the next map is. And it's usually one I haven't played yet, so I want to run around a bit and check it out. Last night it was "Berlin". Those smashed cities maps, with scant areas to move in, piles of rubble and half-building facades are some of the best I've played so far. Some have tanks (Oooh Russian tanks) and those look downright scary when you run yourself around the corner and there's one sitting there. Plus all the great sniper and ambush positions. Fantastic. So all this got me to thinking about WW2 and how there's always this idea of What If Germany Won WW2. It seems like a cliché. But, as I dwell on it, I can't ever recall actually reading any alternative-history books where that was the premise. I know there is the Philip K. Dick story, The Man in the High Castle, but seriously, beyond that, what is there? I've got a hanker-for-a-hunker to see something. I know I've watched a few things on TV, mostly the Twilight Zone, where Germany or Japan wins WW2, but that's not what I'm looking for. Or maybe it is. I wouldn't mind seeing either fiction or non-fiction possibilities on how the war could have gone differently. I know it's all speculative, but I'm interested. Can you point me to book or short story where this is the case? Something? posted by Evil Wayne | 2:56 PM 0 comments Friday, March 07, 2003 I Hate Footnotes Damnit, do they suck. I'm setting a book today that a triple-threat (or should I color-code that? Sepia? Mauve?). High number of figs, footnotes and equations. Equations alone totally suck-ass because balancing the pages after placing art makes flushing out the extra space somewhat difficult. Then, on top of that, I keep forgetting to set the footnotes. So, I've got 10 or 12 pages set, balanced and looking sweet then -BAM!- I spy, with my little eye, a subscript number 8. Damnit! Flip back and see that the last footnote I set was No. 5. So I've got to go back to No. 5 and start a Search-and-Rescue mission starting with No. 6. And that's just blows out my nice, sweet, well-balanced pages. Ventura is so flunky when it comes to automatic footnotes, especially if you've got math. Man, does it ever hate math. Writing out files cause this puppy to crash and burn. And that can hose a whole day's work if you're not careful. So it's much better to manually input footnotes when you've got so much going on. But when you screw up, it's a royal bitch to have to go back and start over. Needless to say--but I'm gonna anyway--this is all labor intensive. I'm still stuck in Chapter 01 of this book and I've been hacking at it all day. Back and forth. The art blows and some of it won't import correctly, but that's a part I'm just glossing over at this point. It's just one of those projects where nobody's getting out alive. posted by Evil Wayne | 5:36 PM 0 comments It Really *IS* a Marshmallow World We Live In It snowed like the Dickens last night. It's real purdy now, because the bright sun is out. The sky is a cool blue and the snow looks so pristine. Its very Kodak in an almost surreal way. But the snow suck-dilly-ucked last night. It was so bad, there was a 100 car pile up on 95. That's the kind of thing you hear about in Texas or some other South-of-the-Mason-Dixon-line state where they panic when it drops below 40 or something. But it just goes to show that Mass drivers hold no special awards because we live in the Northeast. They let us out early and I took my sweet time getting home. Most people seemed to know enough to keep the speed down and a few car-lengths between each other. But there's always some asshole in a truck or SUV who thinks he's special because he spent the extra bucks on 4-wheel drive. Sure enough, one chump zipping along weaving in and out of traffic like it's a cartoon or something. The worst part is, these pinheads don't ever actually get in the accident, they just panic everyone around them causing the crash. I really just want to fire off the rocket launcher, you know? But who would get in trouble? Me. :::Sigh::: Anyway, it looks nice out there now. It's gonna warm up and everything's gonna melt and that's gonna suck more as the street floods out. God, I can't wait for Spring (and it better not be that 2-days of Spring and hop right over to Summer for 5 months or ... Mmm, can't really do anything about that, can I? Fuck!) posted by Evil Wayne | 10:23 AM 0 comments Thursday, March 06, 2003 Mr Wong Is All Right So I thought this was worthwhile, but before anybody charges me with a single racist comment, I'll have you know this was suggested to me by my very Chinese friend Hans. He's the biggest buff of bad Chinese humor and would be happy as Godzilla munching on downtown Tokyo kids if you laughed your ass over this... so that makes it A-OK. It's all Flash animation, so the files are small: Mr Wong "Cotillion!" posted by Evil Wayne | 10:10 AM 0 comments Wednesday, March 05, 2003 I'm Sorry. Well, actually I'm not that sorry, but I do feel the necessity to apologize from the outset. I'm terrible at journals. I'm terrible at keeping any kind of schedule. I mean, it's 10:30 on a Wednesday and I'm starting a blog. I mean, I'm dead tired from the day and I still feel like this is a good idea. I am fucked in the head. So, let's just get this part out of the way. I am very likely to write here for a few days then, skip a few. Then come back for a bit and promptly disappear for months. But I do come back. Eventually. So, it's a sporatic fun-fest and it's so not worth it at this point; I mean, I really have no idea what I'm doing or why. posted by Evil Wayne | 10:46 PM 0 comments |
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