Movies That Suck Sunday II

Conquest (There is a trailer but it is unfortunately NSFW)Quote of the Night: "Speeeeeeeeeeeeed!"

There was also much rocking.

Ramblings (Just Post Something Please! Edition)

I've been daydream shopping again. The daydream part involves me having any musical talent at all. The shopping though has been rather realistic. I've found myself wanting a miniKORG. See, that's reasonable. It's fairly cheap and small enough to fit into my apartment. I'd also need a drum machine but I need to research that a little more. Part of me thinks that I might be able to somehow piece together a simple synth-dance-pop track after maybe five years. Why am I the only one in the family that didn't get the musical gene?

The Cubs are en fuego. Unfortunately, so are the Brewers.

This Sunday there will be another Bad Movie Night. I think there needs to be a more clever official name to this event other than Bad Movie Night.

I only have three more visits to the physical therapists office. I'm really down about this. I can't wait till I'm wealthy enough to hire a full time masseuse. My back aches just thinking about the lack of massages.

Is it only a month till Anne Marie moves out here?

For the first time in almost four years I wrote actual pages for a script.

I've found this lack of psoriasis is affecting my spending. Not having to wear a hat everyday has to not only needing to get my hair cut, rather than cut it myself, but products like face lotion with sunscreen. Things that were unneccessary before. I also have gotten over the phantom hat pains. For the first month or so I would constantly reach to remove or adjust a hat that wasn't there.

I'd like to recommend a free computer program called Simplify Media. You know how you can listen to other peoples iTunes that are on the same network that you are like school or work. Well simplify media allows you to do this and not have to be on the same network. So I can listen to Mandy's iTunes, or I can listen to the music I have on my home computer while at work. The only problem right now is that you can't listen to protected files like the ones you buy from iTunes. They apparently are efforting a way around that. Did I mention it's free?

Finally, I am Flunky the Clown.

Simpson Me...kind of

So Perhaps It's Not That Bad

Much like the Kubler-Ross model on grieving, I'd like to offer the Iten model for physical therapy. To help with remembering them they all begin with the letter "A."

Awkwardness: I've already covered this first stage here.

Acceptance: This is clearly when you come to terms with the fact that a stranger is touching you and that they sometimes have to touch you in inappropriate areas (i.e. buttocks). You also come to accept that these strangers will have to observe you while putting you through exercises and sometimes these exercises will put you in uncomfortable situations. The key to reaching the acceptance step is that you actually start feeling better. The joints don't hurt as much. You start being able to move around a little easier.

Addiction: I've found myself reaching this step last week. The highlights of my week now are that hour and a half every Tuesday and Thursday. That's right I look forward to having someone touch me. I think it's more than me being completely infatuated with my physical therapist. It's also more than not having my back lock up after I brush my teeth or wash my face. I think it is also the fact that I believe it is enhancing my socializing skills. Try carrying on a conversation with someone while your butt is flapping in the breeze let alone a stranger massaging it. It's like training camp when they fire blanks over the recruits while they scurry under the barb wire. If I can carry on a thirty minute conversation under those circumstances, I can do it anywhere. The point is that for all the reasons stated above I'm dreading the point where the doctor says I'm finished with physical therapy.

My Favorite Movies of the First Half of the Year 2007

Public Embarrassment No. 235

During my last year in the rare five year program at Cedarville I had the pleasure of taking a cake class called History of Rock Music or Modern Music or something like that. Maybe it was just History of music because I'm pretty sure they covered more than rock n roll and Cedarville would never allow a class called History of Rock n Roll. I think it was the first time the class was offered. Anyway, my thinking was that a class where all you did was listen and talk about music seemed like the perfect class to boost my grade point average up to the Mendoza line. Also, the professor once toured as the trumpet player for Three Dog Night. That clearly put him in the top five professors at Cedarville.

It was a great class except for one thing. The final project you had the option to either write a paper or give a speech. Because I'm a master at public speaking *cough* I decided to do a speech. Yeah, I have no idea what I was thinking. We had our choice of any subject to choose from. I chose to give a speech on the history of the rock band Journey. Yes, go back and read that last sentence. Are we finished laughing? Good. Let us proceed. I had recently bought the Journey box set. I'll wait again. The problem is this isn't the embarrassing part. Let me remind you I was still in my infancy in learning about music. In that box set was a booklet detailing the history of Journey. I was thinking this was perfect. I just change some words around and I can just recite the bullet points of this booklet.

The night before my presentation I wrote out my notes, and practiced my speech in the mirror. I pictured exactly how the classroom was set up and rehearsed and rehearsed. I would say I was pretty confident that I was going to nail this speech. As you can tell it all went horribly wrong. Most would point that it all went wrong when I decided to do a speech or when I chose Journey as my subject. At that moment though it all went wrong when I walked into class and saw the classroom was completely rearranged. It was no longer as I pictured it in my head while practicing. That was the moment I really started sweating. The second thing that went wrong was the speech I had to follow. Before me a student's speech was on how to line dance. What the hell? First off, why didn't I think of something that easy? Half of her speech time was taken up with teaching us the electric slide. Why didn't I think of doing a speech on something like the running man or the New Kids Dance? Second, how can I follow up a class participation speech with just me talking about Journey and playing a few songs? I was so screwed. Then the CD player didn't work right. Then my eyes were blurring. Then I just kept my eyes on my paper and read straight from that. I refused to make eye contact with anyone in the class. Realizing how bad I was tanking, I decided to try to save it. To pull this awful display out of the gutter and rescue it. On the last few lines I decided to say it like I meant it, like I believed it. The last line went something along the lines of blah and blah "shows that Journey belongs in the annals of rock and roll." Unfortunately, what came out of mouth was, "shows that Journey belongs in the anals of rock and roll." Yeah. Brilliant. I then scurried to my chair and hung my head. Eric and Adam, who had the pleasure of being in the class, still take joy in reminding me of public embarrassment No. 235.

It Does Feel a Little Like 1984

June's Real Heavy Rotation

About a week after I posted the previous June's Heavy Rotation, I realized my mistake. By saying it was June's heavy rotation I was basically prediciting what I was going to be listening to in June and that's ridiculous. In reality it was May's Heavy Rotation because those were the songs I was listening to most often in May. So here is the real June playlist. Some of you might notice that some of these songs don't fit what I usually post on here. That's right I've gone on somewhat of a binge. I blame that really late night a few weeks ago where I stumbled across site like BigStereo,
BibaBidi, missigtoof. This has lead to a slight devouring of current dance music, which is very un-me. Anyway, enjoy or don't or enjoy some of them or maybe a lot of them. Also, for those who might have written off the HBO show Flight of the Conchords as simply a musical ripoff of Goodness please give the show a chance. Last night's show was very funny. Video after the playlist.





Steve!

I Guess I Just Care Too Much To Be An Evil Overlord

Early last week I picked up the game Overlord. I was becoming concerned that the consistent playing of Guitar Hero was going to ruing my wrists. I decided to pick up game played with your standard controller, so I could return to ruining my thumbs.

In Overlord you are a well...um...an Overlord. You have been brought to back to life by your minions. Your job is to eliminate the lords that have taken over your land. You do this with minions of course. The game is basically Pikmin except rather then direct little creatures to harvest and such you use minions to fight, gather, and even sacrifice for you. Basically they are willing and supposed to die for you. The problem is I become attached to some of them. There are red, green, blue and brown minions at your disposal. Red throw fire balls. Green are immune to poison and have slight stealth abilities. The blue heal and won't drown in water. The brown minions are your grunts that handle most of the man to man combat. The red, green, and blues I don't really care about. It's the brown minions that I've become attached to. They are the ones that have the personality. They have the habit of picking up anything they can get their hands on and wear it everything from a chef's hat, to a DoDo bird's head. So when my minion wearing the DoDo bird's head or the one wearing the red scarf die I feel a slight twinge of loss. The longer they survive the more attached I become to them. So much so that when they die I will go back to my last save point to try to get them through it alive. I even end up doing a lot of the flying so they won't die. What kind of Overlord is that? Aren't I supposed to be a heartless and cruel ruler? If one dies, I can easily summon two or three to replace it. Yet, I love those little bastards.

The game on whole is fun. Sending your little minions wiping out the country side can be a lot of fun. There is nice sense of dark humor to the game. It moves smoothly even with twenty-five minions running all over the place. Because you control your minions with the right joystick that leaves only the left joy stick to move the Overlord. That means the camera can get a little wonky sometimes leaving you looking in the wrong direction and easily flanked. Also, during the big battles it can get pretty chaotic directing your minions to where they need to go. Your minions can get stuck sometimes. Even with all those problems the game is still a fun diversion, and a nice change of pace.