God it's been a long month. Way too long.

Where to begin...

Well, first off, I decided that I was way overdue to leave the family buiness. I explained my reasoning, and quit. So far this has been both a good thing and a bad thing for me. Good because I finally feel like my life might finaly be going somewhere, but bad because my family keeps breathing down my neck about finding a new job. They seem to think that since it's now the holiday season I would be hired in a heartbeat, what they fail to understand is that I'm not looking for a short-term low-pay holiday job, I'm trying to start a career search, figure out what I actually want to do with my life and then go do it. They seem to think something like this ahould only take 3 weeks or so, when the reality is that it might take 3 months or so. They threw a shit fit when I told them that, and then insisted that I get a short term holiday job instead of just sitting on my ass doing nothing. I guess doing research about who is hiring, what skills the job requires, seeing if I'm quallified, polishing my resume, etc., counts as "doing nothing". You can understand why I hate my family some times.

My mother is back in the hospital. She blacked-out the other day at the end of her dialysis session and was taken to the hospital. Apparently she remembers nothing from the time she started ther session monday, to the time she woke up at the hospital tuesday. Which is wierd because she was wide awake and screaming at the doctors and nurses moday afternoon and evening. We're starting to think that she overdosed on what ever medication she takes to stay calm durring the treatment and that is what caused her to black out and act like a woman possessed on monday.

My car is in the body shop. I had parked my car in a parking lot between a Hollywood Video rental store and a Dunkin Donuts store. I had just barely walked into the rental store when my friend called me back outside to tell me that some idiot woman backing out of the Dunkin Donuts had hit my car and totally fucked up my front bumper. Her insurance company has accepted responsibility for the accident and is paying for the repairs. Hopefullt I'll have my car back by monday or tuesday of next week.

Not having to go to work everyday has allowed me to catch up on some tv, movies, books, and comics that I haven't had time to watch or read, so I should have some reviews up soon.

I just find it funny how even without work my life has been so stressful this past month or so. God I hope things get better soon.

-- Dren

Tags: family news, friends news, real life, update
Current Mood: stressed

Earlier today the older of my family's two Yorkshire Terriers, Riley, passed away.

I'm still in a state of shock.

I'd like to say I'm handeling it well, but I know I'll become an emotional wreck when I actually see the body tomorrow.

He was a good dog, a bit loud and exitable at even the faintest noise, but he was always readly to play or to just lie down next to you when we would all sit on the couch. And he loved Christmas. Every year he would go lie down under the tree. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that he was my mother's Christmas present to herself, but he always loved the holiday and loved sleeping under the tree.

I'm gonna miss him.

Rest in Peace Riley.

Tags: death, family news, my pets
Current Mood: depressed

Dagon*Con Day 2 - Saturday 9/5

Woke up later than planned for the only time the entire trip.

Grabbed some brerakfast and arrived very late to the Dragon*Con parade. I took lots of pictures, but since my camera dissapeared you won't be seeing any of mine.

The costumes were amazing and there were just so many of them. You name a fandom, somebody was dressed as a character from it.

The funniest part of the parade had to be my friend Joe from Philladelphia and his Kilted Trooper Brigade who marched in the parade as kilt-wearing Stormtroopers to a bag-pipe and drum version of "The Imperial March" from Star Wars. I seriously hope that's on YouTube somewhere. You need to see it and hear it to truly understand how great that was.

After the parade I went to a Prop Building contest and was nowhere near quick enough to grab any of the cool looking bits. Needless to say what I ended up building looked like complete and total crap.

After lunch I go and watch the Star Wars costume contest. The costumes there were quite impressive. Hopefully I'll be able to find some good pictures of them online to share with you.

After that I went with some friends to a Monty Python Pannel I thought would be interesting, but I sat there bored shitless as the pannelists discussed possibly the least well known of all the Python sketches and movies. Not a single mention of The Holy Grail, the Spanish Inquisiton, the dead parot, The Ministry of Funny Walks, or any of the more famous stuff at all.

After that The Room was cleared, so I had to go outside the room so I could try to get back in for the Mythbusters pannel with Adam Savage. I didn't get in, so I wnt to go see a Star Trek pannel hosted by Garret Wang, Voyager's Ensign Harry Kim. It was far more entertaining than I expected it to be. He pretty much did nothing but tell hillarious behind the scenes storys about the things that happened on set when the cameras weren't rolling. Lets just say that one prank played by Tim Russ(Tuvok) is so scandalous that the "Ponn Farr" video would become the bestselling item at every convention if it were to ever dissapear from the Paramount vaults.

At 7:00 we go to a Brewery/Pub Restarrant called Max Lager. The food was good, but I had to split slightly early so I can make it to Dragon*Con Night at the Atlanta Aquarium.

That was a fun event, and there were lots of people there in costume, including some awesome Pitates of the Carribean costumers that just fit in so well.

While I was there I went through the Titanic exibit that was there. Your ticket to get in was actually a replica boarding pass for the Titanic that included a name of one of the passengers, reason fro travel, destination in the United States, etc. At the end of the exibit you could check to see if you were one of the survivors or not. I wasn't.

The displays were all very interesting, but a lot of the historical Information I already knew.

After the exibit I walked around the Aquarium some more ubtill we finally got told by the staff that it was time to leave. Most of us didn't want to since it essentially turned into a Dragon*Con party but without any of the hotel bars.

After that we call it a night.

-- Dren

Tags: con report, conventions, costumes, docking bay 516, dragon*con, star wars
Current Mood: nerdy

Dagon*Con Day 1 - Friday 9/4

Wake up at 7:00, almost two hours before my alarm is supposed to go off. I try to go back to sleep, but I fail mizerably. So I get up and start getting ready for the day.

I decide to wear my Stargate costume  since so many people were costuming already the night before.

Somehow my friend Dana convinces me to go with her to the practice for Doctor Horrible Live at 10:00. I had participated in it the year before, but I was uncertain about if I wanted to do so again this year. It turns out that they are so badly under-casted that I am quite litterally not allowed to say "no". I wind up playing pretty much every extra in the late showing, but more about that later.

After grabbing some lunch I spend the better part of the early afternoon walking two of the three dealer's rooms. I inquire about some games I'm looking for, Space Hulk and Rogue Trader, and am told that Space Hulk would be officially released the next day and to come back then. As for Rogue Trader, there is still no word from Fantasy Flight Games on when they are officially releasing it. A few lucky bastards got their hands on a pre-release at GenCon a few weeks earlier, but the official release keeps getting delayed.

At 2:00 I attend a pannel about the art and science of starship design for sci-fi movies and games. It was an interesting pannel that discusses design elements of human versus non-human vessels, military vessels versus civilain vessesl, etc. It quickly devolved into a discussion of existing ship designs, how they work, and why the work, which was still highly interesting.

After that pannel I walk the third dealer's room. I have some ideas about what I want to buy and from where, but I decide to wait a day or two to make my purchases. The dealers always drop the prices on Sunday or Monday and I would rather not spend too much money on games, prop replicas, etc. if I can avoid it.

After that I meet up with Rob, Dana's boyfriend, who is quickly becoming my new best friend. We try to find something on the schedule that's worth seeing, but are unable to find anything that catches out interests. So he decides to purchase one of the varients of Munchkin that he doesn't own yet so we can kill some time before dinner playing it. He won one round and I won the other.

For some reason we decide to go Trader Vic's again for dinner. I order the same apitizer as the night before, a really strong rum drink called "Navy Grog", and the Mahi Mahi with some sort of honey glaze and wasabi mashed potatoes. Words can not describe how good that meal was.

I leave dinner slightly early so I can make my way to the backstage area in time to play my roles as pretty much every extra in the late showing of Doctor Horrible Live cast. Felicia Day(Penny) shows up and introduces us, saying that she is surprised, and impressed by the amount of time, energy, and effort we put into re-creating the actual Sing-Along Blog. I want to make a snide comment that the cast for this showing only had about half an hour of practice that morning, but I keep my mouth shut. Dragging the celebrity into my hatred for the early cast hogging all the practice time would not be apropriate. And besides, the main cast and crew for both shows did put a lot of time energy and effort into recreating as many of the props and costumes as they could. So with the exception of me and my fellow extras, she was probably right about the time, energy, effort, and love of the source material that our producers, casting director, and all the main cast put into making it a success.

During the show I run around like a chicken with my head chopped off trying to remember all of my cues for all of the different male extras I was playing. God. This is why I did not really want to do this. I knew I would drive myself insane if I participated in this again, and I was right.

After the performance I go out drinking with a few of my friends. I remember that I didn't have much to drink, but forget exactly what I ordered, probably a rum and Coke or a Jack and Coke.

I decided to call it a night around 2-ish, with many insults about being a light-weight thrown my way by my far less sober friends.

I also managed to see quite a few impressive costumes the entire day and will be posting a link to some Dragon*Con pics as soon as possible.

-- Dren

Tags: con report, conventions, costumes, docking bay 516, doctor horrible, dragon*con, gaming, rogue trader, role playing games
Current Mood: nerdy

Well, here it is as promised, my Dragon*Con Convention report.

Dragon*Con Day 0 - Thurdsday 9/3

Having set my alarm for 6:30, I find myself waking up almost a full half-hour earlier. I'm tempted to just roll over and catch another twenty-something minutes of sleep, but I decide to wake up and start getting ready.

By 7:30 I'm getting in the car for the ride to New York's La Guardia Airport. On the ride there I get a phonecall from Delta. My flight has been rescheduled from 10:00 to 11:05. So now instead of being the recomended two hours early to the airport, now I'm going to be more than three hours early. Well, at least that would give me some more time to get some reading done.

As I pass throgh security I get pulled aside by a TSA agent who opens up my bag. In my absent mindedness I left my Leatherman mult-tool that I use everyday for work in my backpack. I can understand how that might look mighty suspicious since in addition to the six different kinds of screw drpivers and pliers, it also has a knife and a saw. So I had to give it up. I hate to loose it since I use it on an almost constant basis at work, but since I got it for almost nothing in the first place, I'm not too upset about it.

After passing through security I work my way over towards the gate. I sit down and open up Magnificent Desolation. After about an hour or so of reading, a Delta employee comes over and announces that there are about 20 seats available on the 9:00 flight to Atlanta, so I put my name on the standby list for that flight. I move over to the gate that the 9:00 flight is leaving from and sit down to watch the "Aproved List" screen for stand-by passengers. As I'm sitting there I notice my fellow Dockingbay 516 members Chris and Triss as they are about to board the plane. I'm tempted to say hello, but decide to wait until I'm either on the plane, or in Atlanta.

It turns out that I wasn't able to make it on the 9:00 flight, so I make my way back ovet to the gate that my flight will be leaving from at 11:05. it turns out that it was pushed foward a few minutes to 10:55, but that means I still have almost two hours to kill, so I open up Magnificent Desolation once again. I get within fifteen or twenty pages of finishing it by the time they start to board the flight. I open it back up after finding my seat and was able to finish it before take-off.(I'll get a review of it up soon.)

The plane pulled away from the terminal at 11:05(so much for the few minutes early), and was actually in the air by 11:25.

On the flight I started reading Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi: Omen by Christie Golden. It seems just as good as, if not better than Fate of the Jedi: Outcast.

The flight lasts about two hours, and I'm on the ground in Atlanta by 1:20.

Now if you've never been to Atlanta you'd be surprised by just how huge that airport is. I needed to board a train to get from my landing terminal to the building where the baggage claim is. That's how far away it was.

By 2:00 I have my bags and have boarded the MARTA(Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority) train to take me into the middle of Atlanta.

I get off of the train at the Peachtree Center station and walk the three blocks to my Holtel, the Downtown Atlanta Sheraton, one of the four con hotels. Unfortunately it's not one of the big three hotels for the con(the Hyatt, the Hilton, and the Marriot), so it's kinda considered Guam by the majority of the con-goers, myself included.

I check in at about 2:45, dropped my bags in my room, and went to go stand on the con registration line. The line does not move at all. Arround 3:15 that the registration computer network has crashed. The techies get everything up and running again by 3:45, and I have by con badge by 4:15.

At 4:30 my room mate Michael arrives at our hotel room after just getting off an insanely long pre-registered badge pick-up line.

It seems the reason fro the crash was the system's inability to locate and pull up so-much pre-registration data and register new data at the same time. You'd think with so many geeks working for and attending the con, that something like this would not have happened. Maybe next year they'll add aditional bandwith and processing power.

We meet up with my fellow DB 516 member Dana, and her boyfriend Rob for dinner at Trader Vic's, a well known and slightly high-end restaurant in the Atlanta Hilton. I had the Crispy Prawns apitizer(please, no District 9 jokes), the Kung Pow Chicken, and possibly the best Mai Tai I've ever tasted.

After dinner Dana splits because she has to go to a practice for the Buffy musical she is going to be in. Rob, Michael and I decide to walk around the various hotel bars to see if we run into anybody we know. I see some members of the Mos Eiesly Port Authotity(the now-inacive New York City Star Wars Fan Club), Lenny from my club, and some members of the London Star Wars fan club that Dana and Rob met at Star Wars Celebration IV.

While walking the bars we see some cool costumes, including several Slave Leias, some Ghostbusters, Dark Helmet, an X-Men: Evolution-style Rogue, and a fucking amazing Bumblebee from Michael Bay's Giant Transforming Fighting Robots.

We finally call it a night around 1:00. We want to get enough sleep to be awake and functional in the morning.

-- Dren

PS - I'll get pictures of the costumes up as soon as I'm able to find them.

Tags: con report, conventions, costumes, docking bay 516, dragon*con, star wars, technology, transformers
Current Mood: nerdy

I'm back safe and sound on Long Island after a completely uneventful flight. Maybe the plane being haf-full of West Point cadets had something to do with that.

It was an amazing weekend filled with cool events, cool pannels, cool people, and lots of shopping for geeky stuff in the dealers rooms.

I met roxybisquaint on Sunday and went to two Terminator pannels with her. She is one of only a small handful of on-line friends I have met in person, and was very fun to hang out with.

I wish I could have spent more time with her, but I had to spend the majority of that night trying to track down my missing camera, something I only realized was missing just before I met up with her for the second Terminator pannel.

I should have a detailed day-by-day con report up soon, but don't expect too many pictures, as I'll have to beg, steal, or borrow them from my friends over the next few days since I was unable to find my camera before I had to leave yesterday.

-- Dren 

Tags: conventions, dragon*con, terminator, the sarah connor chronicles, update

By this time tomorrow I'll be at the Delta terminal of La Guardia Airport not-to-patiently waiting to board my flight to Atlanta, Georgia, home of possibly the greatest sci-fi, fantasy, gaming, anime, and general geekery convention in North America, Dragon*Con.

Best described as Nerdi Gras, Dragon*Con is quite possibly the largest fan-run gathering of geeks each year. The combination of geeks of every variety, costumes galore, celebrityies everywhere, and several bars in every hotel, quickly creates this geeky Mardi Gras-like atmophere.

I can't wait. It's going to be so much fun.

Hopefully I'll see some of you there.

And remember "Friends don't let friends con sober!"

-- Dren


 

Tags: conventions, dragon*con
Current Mood: nerdy
Current Music: The Ramones - "I Wanna be Sedated"

Yup you just read that correctly.

The Walt Disney Corporation has purchased Marvel Entertainment for $4 Billion.

The question now is "What will Disney do with it?".

The first thing that pops into my mind is several bad mash-up characters like the already mentioned Spider-Mouse.

Another likely result is a Kingdom Hearts style series of video games involving Disney characters interacting with Marvel characters.

Then there's the possibility of reducing famous Marvel characters to a level of simplicity so low that they would star in brand new cartoons that even 3 and 4 year olds would consider to be dumbed down.

And finally, in potentially the scariest the possibility I can come up with, a leader of the comic book industry starts publishing  Jonas Brothers, Wizards of Waverly Place, Hannah Montanna, Suite Life, and High School Musical comic books.

Cross your fingers comic book fans, and start praying for the best. This could get messy.

-- Dren

 

Tags: comic books, disney, marvel, wtf
Current Mood: confused

Possibly the most interesting and unusual film of the summer, District 9 is not the movie most people would expect it to be based on the advertising.

While the trailer makes it look like an action film about opressed aliens rebelling against their human overlords(there's an interesting and ironic role reversal), and the "For Humans Only" posters make it seem like a "message movie" about racism not-so-subtly disgused as xenophobia(in this case quite literally traslated as "fear of the alien"), the truth is neither of these accurately portray what the movie is about.

Set in Johannesburg, South Africa, District 9 is the story of what happens to two people, human Wikus Van De Merwe and alien "Christopher Johnson" when things go wrong during the planned relocation of the alien "Prawn" from their current homes in the run-down slums of District 9 to their new homes in District 10.

The movie begins with a documentary style info-dump about the setting and premise. Twenty years before the start of the movie an alien ship glides to a halt above the city of Johannesburg, South Africa. It sits there for three months doing absolutly nothing. Confident that we aren't being invaded, somebody finally decides that we should try to board the ship to see why exactly it's just sitting there. Aboard we find half-dead starving aliens that obviously need our help. So humanity does the right thing and quickly sets up a refugee camp for the starving and stranded spacemen. But what starts out as a well intentioned refugee camp quickly turns into a militarized concentration camp when the fearful locals demand that the aliens be kept away from them at all costs.

Twenty years later, District 9 is a run-down slum full of space-hobos, and Multinational United, the company that has been policing District 9, is planning on moving the lobster-like aliens to District 10, a new home far from any human communities. The movie tells the story of two characters, one human and one alien, when things go wrong during this relocation.

Wikus Van De Merwe is a middle management guy at MNU who gets chosen to be in charge of the relocation. He's a bit of a goofball, not too bright, and thinks nothing of the racist(or should that be speciesist?) way that the "Prawn" are treated. Things quickly spiral out of conrtol when something happens to him while trying to evict the alien "Christopher Johnson" from his hut.

"Christopher Johnson" is one of the alien "Prawn". Smarter, more focused, and less willing to put up with the poor treatment humans give to his fellow "Prawns", "Christopher" is trying to scavange enough alien nanite liquid from malfunctioning "Prawn" technology to get the ship working again and escape from Earth.

There's not much more I can say about the plot without spoiling the entire movie, but it's a movie that will both surprise you and make you think.

The acting in this film is incredible, especially from the first-time actor Sharlto Copley who plays Wikus.

Also incredible is the special effects, mostly because there is nothing special or eye-catching about them. You can honestly believe that these aliens and their starship are real because the effects are so photo-realistic that you can almost forget that they're effects.

While this movie isn't a "message movie" it's hard to miss the implied message about racism that's built into the premise and the setting of the movie. The way things are layed out makes you think that this IS what would actually happen if aliens were to get stranded on Earth. We wouldn't welcome them with open arms, and be all peaceful and nice, we would be fearful, keep them separated from humanity as much as possible, and try to reverse engineer their tech to use against them if needed. The entire premise of District 9 is the perfect example of "Humans Are Bastards". ***Note: Do not read the examples under the District 9 entry if you want to avoid getting spoiled!!!***

I'd give this movie a rating somwhere in the high 90s. While it might not be the blockbuster hit of the summer(that title would probably go to Star Trek), it is by far the best movie of the summer.

-- Dren

Tags: district 9, movie review

Another week, another update.

Hrm... What happened this past week or so that's woth sharing with all of my online friends?

Well, there was much movie watching, a little bit of gaming, some impusle buying, and some sweet revenge on my movie spoiling co-workers.

Last Monday:

Got done with work relativly early. Went to go see District 9. It was an amazing movie, but not what I was expecting at all since the previews and discussions it generated made me think it would be something completely different. I highly reccomend it to anybody who hasn't seen it yet. I'll post up a full review soon.

Last Tuesday:

Nothing really happened. Watched Shaq Vs. It's a decent show and Shaq kept it as fun and funny as he could, but I'm not quite sure if it's a "must watch" show for me.

Wednesday:

This was the character creation session for my Dark Heresy campaign. it took us several hours since there were a few people who needed a lot of stuff evplained to them since they were mostly 40k table top players and were completely new to RPGs. At first I was undecided about wether I wanted to play an Adept (the book-worm class that gets all the lore skills) or a Tech-priest( a member of the Cult Mechanicus who builds and services all the technology of the Imperium).  I decided that the Tech-priest sounded cooler and went with that. We'll probably start to actually play the game sometime around the middle of September.

Thursday:

A very long day at work. So long that  had to miss the WH40K game night at my local store. I tried to meet up with my friend Dana from Docking Bay 516 instead, but she wasn't available that night.

Friday:

I had the day off from work, so I went to see an early showing of Inglourious Basterds. That was also an amazing movie. It plays fast and loose with history(trust me It's obvious that this story has nothing to do with the actual events of WW II) but it's plenty of fun, and highly enjoyable. I should have a full review posted shortly.

Saturday:

Once again I wanted to get together with some of my friends, but scheduling isues made that impossible once again.

Sunday:

Went to another mixed gaming session in the afternoon. Played many of the same games as last time. Had lots of fun.

That night I was finally able to meet up with some friends from my Star Wars club. We ate dinner at Cheeburger Cheeburger, a really good 50s style burger and shake place. We had some geeky conversation and tried to figgure out what we wanted to do afterwards. My friend Abhay was interested in seeing GI Joe, but Dana and I had already seen that. Dana suggested District 9, but Abhay and I had already seen that. Inglourious Basterds was also suggested, but since I had already seen that and mentioned it had a few gorey moments, Dana didn't want to see it. We finally decided to just walk around the bookstore across the parking lot.

Now if you know me well enough, you know that I can never walk into a bookstore without walking out having purchased something, usually two or three somethings, but with about a dozen unread books already sittying on my shelf at home I tried to control myself. I almost was able to walk out without perchasing anything, but on our way out I was drawn, as if pulled by some mysterious power, towards the sci-fi section. Fuck. No avoiding it now. Once again I was going to buy yet another book that will probably sit on my shelf for a few months before I actually start to read it(I need to work my way through my other unread books first).

After that we went back to Dana's house and watched Mars Attacks. It was alright, but probably something I won't be watching again any time soon. I fail to understand why it is such a cult hit.

Monday:

Watched Harold and Kumar go to White Castle. I had never seen it before, and decided to give it a chance since most of my co-workers love it(probably because a few of them are pot-heads themselves). I was expecting it to be one of the stupidest things I would ever watch. I was not disappointed. It somehow managed to be even stupider that I expected it to be. There were a few funny moments, and it managed to not be a complete waste of my time, but I should have realized that it wouldn't be my thing. I guess only pot-heads can truly appreciate pot-head comedy.

Today:

Worked with my movie spoiling co-workers. Somehow they hadn't seen Inglourious Basterds yet. I was finally able to get my revenge on them by talking about all the cool moments and great lines of a movie they hadn't seen yet. I can be so evil when I want to be. It's fun.

That's all for now folks.

-- Dren

Tags: books, dark heresy, district 9, docking bay 516, inglourious basterds, movie watching, update, warhammer 40000
Current Mood: lethargic