Monday, lovely monday again. The weekend went well enough.
BZ went up to her sisters for some radical hair therapy, which turned out to be not so radical highlights. They look nice, not nearly as bold as I was execting but nice.

I had an awful dream sat morning that my PI was telling me how dissappointed he was with me. I think he was going to kick me out of the lab in the dream, but I woke up before then. I really don't like to dissappoint people, especially those who have given me a chance when other's wouldn't. I felt really bad about the whole thing when I woke up. At least it motivated me to get some work on my prelim done. The prelim has been going slow. It should be around 15 pages when done and I've probably got 7 right now. Though I haven't added in pictures and data to it yet, which will fill it out quite a bit. I do want to do a good job on it. Its geting to the worried point in my head.

On sunday night we watched "Domino" which was not really the hot chick hicks ass film I thought it would be and what a dramatic change of roles for Keira Knightly. No more love sick Disney princess stuff for her. This film was all blood, kick em down shoot em up, give lap dances for info and show a little tity thrill ride.
The storyline I beleive was taken from RL. And I'll alter my normal thoughts on reality based films, this is reality you need to see. The directing was just magnificent. The film was high paced and used a lot of really interesting shots, ideas, and time movement.

I learned a lot more about pocket bikes over the weekend. I'm pretty much at the stage where I just have to find a seller who has them in stock at the price I want.

Thats about all for now.

Its been a crazy couple of days. I've been trying to get somewhere on my prelim paper. I'm at about 4 pages out of ten, so not much progress. Its been hard to focus with the rest of the world moving around me.

My friends are trying to get me into pocket bike racing. You may have seen these things around. They are like motorcycles but miniature. They look funny and riding them could be a lt of fun, but as with getting into just about any high tech sport there is a lot to learn. I've been searching for the last few days for all the info I can get and unlike paintball there really isn't that much out there. There are a ton of different bikes. Each distributer seems to have their own names for each one so its really hard to make any decent comparisons. Ebay is full of crap models, with jacked up shipping costs (200$ on a lot of bikes) whichmake up for any savings you think you are getting on the bike price. We'll see how this progresses.

Second BZ decided to go for another of these TV diets, this one being the nutrisystem. Order was for 1 month of food. Price 300$. So far it seemed like a decent deal. We probably spend that much on food at the grocery store.
We got in the food yesterday. Big heavy box, no suprise.
BZ opens the box, big suprise.
The box contained mostly what I would call bar food. Single serving generic protein bars, biscotti, soy chips. Then there were a bunch of ramen style soups. Some old style lean cousine loking microwave dinners. All in all it was probably 50$ worth of diet crap. But ok, they have to make some money right and if it works...
Then BZ reads the manual. Apparently the food provided is only a small, I repeate small portion of what you are supposed to eat.
for example, breakfast:
servings
1: provided bar
5: protein
2:vegtable
3: dary

So you still have to make yourself a complete meal, and probably a bigger meal than you would normally eat, but now you get to add to it one crappy bar.
Dinner and lunch are even worse.

Needless to say this is a total scam. The info about it on the site mentioned that you would have to buy some of your own additions to add to the nutrisystem. It didn't mention that you'd still have to provide all of your own food and their supliments aren't enough to wet your appetite.

Needless to say we are sending it all back. I strongly suggest anyone considering dieting to stay as far from the nutrisystem as possible. Its a total rip. You might as well just go to walmart and get the same stuff for like 40$ total.

You know what can really make your day?
When you talk to a friend you haven't seen in years and they send you pictures from her wedding. You take a look through those pictures and see your ex as part of the bridal party. You figured she would be in it.
And, She looks really Fat in the bridesmaid dress, not just fat but kind of beat and worn down. Maybe she was just drunk...deffinatly was drunk, but she was in sorry need of some makeup.
Also her new hubbie, not nearly as cute as he was made out to be.
Haha.
Not that I'm bitter.
But I am,
Haha
Fattie

I really need to get in shape.

A post was made below linking to a news article about Iran changing the name of their danish pasterys to rose of muhumad or some nonsence like that.
I'm sorry but I must comment on this. Its silliness and lack of moral fiber at its best.
The Danes made some silly cartoons about the prophit muhumad. So Iran had a bunch of riots and killed or beat any foreigners they could find and other throcratic stupidity like that. This I don't support, what I do support is a boycott.

Some Iranish people are apparently actually sensible and called for a boycott of danish goods. This is good. Its how things work in the civilized world. If you don't like what people are saying, then don't give them money, don't buy their stuff, ect.

Now where the moral fiber comes in is apparently the people of Iran are too weak willed to have a real boycott. They just can't stand day to day life without their Danishes. So instead of being real men and taking a stand and giving up somethign you like to make a point, they cave. They take the danish product slap an "Approved by the Korran" sticker on it and its all ok. You people make me sick. You're just a bunch of whiners.

This post will probably get me on a fatawa list or somehting, because apparently its civilized to kill people who don't agree with you or say something you don't like as long as you can still eat flaky bread with cream cheeze filling. Chumps.

PS I have the same thoughts about Freedom fries (french fries), Freedom toast (french toast), ect.

After five days of being home and being ill, I have returned.
Since that time was spent coughing and watching TV I don't have too much to report on, except some films.

Waiting: an almost underground film about conedic things that go on behind the scenes in a chain resturant. Simply hysterical. I laughed from about the beginning to end, with only small breaks to cough. It was well written, well directed and edditied, and the actors, though on the B and C list were just awesome. I strongly suggest it to anyone in the mood to laugh.

Mirror Mask: Wow, just Wow. From the mental genuis of Neil Gamen comes an alice in wonderland esque story. This story is then seen through the warped vision of David McKean and brought to life by the only people who could really do it, the Henson compagny. The final product is somehting which will keep you at the edge of your seat hypnotised by the visual imagry assulting your mind. Be perpared to take a voyage beyond your imagination but do not miss this film.

Sometimes I can't believe the utter triviality that grips people.

Danish

And unless you think I'm pointing fingers, the last paragraph mentioned "Freedom Fries"

Someone save us! Flash Gordon, where are you?

Yesterday I had my big meeting for approval of my specific aims. All went well. I only got a few corrections and some suggestions so now I can go ahead and write up the full 10 pager for my prelim. The bad news is one of my committee members is going to be away for half of next month meaning I have 4 weeks or less to get it all done and presentable instead of the 6 I should have.

these are comming peicemeil as I don't want to lose the whole thing again.

Review of Zathura:
I had low expectations for this film. I really liked Jumanjii. It was orgional, high paced and action packed. For Zathura I thought it would be pretty much Jumanjii in space. Man was it a let down.

The plot was more simplistic than jumanjii and packed full of schlock holly wood motifs. First off we only had two players, instead of the plot twisting 4 of jumanjii. Just two brothers, neithor of which could act his way out of a box. Directing kids should be simple one simple phrase should do, "Act natural", but no. This film is full of over acting, under acting, and just plain bad acting.
In fact the only decent actor in the film, Tim Robbins, is only in about the first 10 minutes and is never seen again.
They replaced the robbin williams type character with some C class actor. By C class I mean he looks farmiliar, but I can't even remember a bad film he was in. He was probably some sidekick's sidekick in a scifi channel film.

What should have been a big plott twist ended up being increadibly predictable, so much that I called it probably an hour before it was reveiled.

Next we go to the directing. Seriously I could have done a better job. This film is full of unneeded camera moves, pan up and zoom in on his eyes shots. It looks like a bad film school reject's project. BTW those zoom in on the eyes shots are only good if you have a good eye actor and placed in spots where some thing dramatic just happened. "Hey my ship token just moved for the third time" *pan and zoom* "Blank expression" excelent directing.
Or we have overly dramatic music in not so dramatic situations.
"Look out window, sees space, try another window more space, the front door more space, about 5 minutes go by and we keep playing the game. There is a pull back shot from the room going out the front door to see the house floating in space" *Dum Dum Dummmmmmm* And nothing happens, back inside we play the game some more. This music idiocy continues through out the film. Its like they weren't watching it when they did the score, or maybe they just fast forwarded through it because seriously I couldn't sit through it again and put in dramatic music where they thought the remembered it going.
"Ok as we zoom into the eyes, key the music"
"Are you sure this is the right zoom?"
"Sure how many could there be"
Answer: probably 15 at least.

So you're probably thinking well at least the special effects should have been good.
Wrong.
The first big effect was a metor shower inside the house. Seriously it looked like they had cut holes in the floor, covered them with paper and taped fire crackers to it. Then lit the fire crackers off and told the kids to run around in a circle and scream a lot. I'd have to watch it again in slow mo, to be sure but that sure as hell isn't going to happen.
Shots of space looked mainly like mat paintings. Technology that was advanced maybe in the 50's. "Look we've gone to idaho just by walking form this set to the next.
They were using a spraypainted fire extinguisher for a jet pack. Hell they could have at least sprung for a smoke machine.
The evil aliens looked like they ripped them off from a "TMNT2, the secret of the ooze" garage sale.
Seriously for something done by sony with the budget they had, this is just poor. I had better effects in the film I did and we just whiped them up on my mac.

So all and all this film isn't worth your time to wipe you ass with.
I'm suprised it wasn't a straight to video release.

Well its been a relativly eventless few days. Been fighting off illness and trying to keep up with the star trek RPG for the most part. Here is a recap on some of the highlights

Tuesday was V-day. Me and BZ ended up exchanging gifts about a week ago. She got a heart shaped stress releif pillow, a spin spa, and a box of key lime godiva truffles. I got a few boxes of randomly assorted anime figures, which will probably end up being custom D&D baddies,
"Hey isn't that ultra man?"
"No its a rare steel goloem, he's using his eye rays everyone make a save."

She also got a wacky card the artist girl who sat next to me at the conn made.

For V-day BZ broiled up some filet mignion and veggies. The food was good, but I can't taste too well right now. Then we watched Zathura.
The night ended with both of us feeling kind of sick so it was off to bed with no nookie:(

Stupid Blogger, I had a long post written up about V-day and a review of Zathura, but this blasted thing ate it and its not even stored in the archives like some of my other eaten posts have been. I don't feel like rehashing it right now, maybe I will later.

Holey Majolie what a weekend.
I spent most of friday working on stands, a poster board, and other stuff for the table for the conn to sell adventure boards. Lots of work lots of stress, lots of things forgotten.
I got up early sat morning and worked up some business cards, my design still needs some work. Then I packed up the car with everything I think I could possibly need and headed off for New Jersy and Ubercon.
The drive wasn't bad, it only took 2 hours to get down there. The travelm was't so bad, Sirius satalite radio rocks. The comedy stations kept me laughing almost the whole way down, except when larry the cable guy was on. He just sucks.
So I get to the con about 11:00 ish it takes me almost 30 minutes to figure out where to park and unload. I finish setting up the booth without help mind you just before 12 when the dealer's room opens. I sit, I smile, I pitch, I get to chatt with the cute art girls in the tables next to me in my down time, which there is quile a bit of. Nine hours go by. At the end of this time I have made 1 count it 1 sale and that was to some guy who liked dragons and could use a dry erase board. He didn't even game. So sat night I tell Kyle to bite it and pack up. I didn't even make back the money for gas and tolls.
The snow was starting to fall when I left and continued to get worse. My compagnions for the ride home were a bottle of sugar free DMX or what ever the new mnountain dew drink is called and some hard punk music on the Faction chanel on satalite. When the snow became unbearable I would switch over to HeartAttack for some thrashing death metal. I don't know why loud metal type music and screaming helps me concentrait, but it does. I made it home in one peice, passing no less than 10 accidents along the way. Suburu's rock in the snow.

Sunday I slept in some, watched the snow come down and bitched because all the stores were closed.

Also bitching now as the snow didn't even have the gust to stick it out until monday to give me a snow day. It was totally bogus. I didn't even get to go sledding. Well maybe it will last for a bit, but I doubt it.

I woke up to one hell of a dream this morning. I'm not exactly sure how it starts, but I was in some sort of brick building like a highschool or something. There was a lot going on, eithor people wondering around in the halls or maybe a dance. I start talking to some girl who is at a table eithor selling baked goods or tickets. She is comming on to me like a cat to sunshine and tells me to meet her in the bathroom, or maybe she just motions for me to follow her. We go into some off shoot to a locker room. There is some light kissing and peting and the like and then she breaks away and goes further in. I follow. The next room we are in is a locker room. There are a bunch of ethnic high school basketball looking guys there. The girl vanishes around a corner. One of the guys throws a crushed up plastic cup at me then tells me to pick it up.
"I'm not your trashman." I tell him, yeah crappy line.
So he pulls a revolver out of his locker, eithor a 32 special or a short barrel 357 magnum, and points it at me. Then he tells me to pick up the cup again and I do it. As I bend down he puts the gun to the back of my head and starts telling me to repeat the Piuwamie is lord.
I don't know what the hell this means. I think it was his name, but the creepy thing is I could totally feel the barrel of the gun pressed into my head. Even after I woke up I could still feel it. It was not a good dream.

In better news I saw "Doom". It was almost a true gamer movie. The military characters in it made sence. Those that did stupid things generally died quickly. Those who followed the rules of gaming survived much longer. Now I had to say it was almost a true gamer movie because of the end. The entrance to the final fight scene loses points for stupidity. You se this in other films all the time. The bad guy is out of ammo. The good guys has 1 if not more shots left. Bad guy gives good guy one of these, "Fight me like a man" deals. So good guy being the moron he is throws down his gun and we go into cool hand to hand fight scene. They really didn't need to do this. What would have been a really cool intro to the fight would have been bad guy issues challenge. Good guy takes the shot, but is out of ammo. Tosses down gun and back to cool fight. This way at least he's not a total idiot.
Anyway it was a good film and worth seeing. Well paced, nice directing, and the acting wasn't half bad eithor.

Its been a few uneventful days. Went to the doc this morning and got my ADD perscriptions refilled. Last night I saw "Wallace and Gromit, Curse of the Were-Rabbit" I must say it was excelent. I laughed through the whole film. The claymation is astounding, the plot, though mainly for kids is one adults can enjoy as well. The voice acting was good too.

Tonight I watch, "Doom", which I have a feeling will not be nearly as good.

Work on my prelim is nearing a close for the first part. Then I will have to kick it into gear and get the entire thing written.

Just got back the final paper I turned in for one of my classes. Grade sucked and was full of semi negative comments. Some of which I agree with, many I would have to say she dosen't understand english all that well. The reviewer is american BTW. I may just not be used to the style of scientific writing. Creative writing I can do all day, scientific, I'm not so good.

Thats about all thats new. This weekend I have to go one a trip to Jersy to a conn, which I'm not too thrilled about. We don't have anything set up to go. I'm not even signed up for any scessions to run games and I don't have time this week to get that done.
Let me tell you all that starting a business is often more trouble than its worth. So far we still have a big hole of debt. I'm out about 3K, and we keep spending money on stuff like this conn where we probably won't get what we paid into it back. Ugh!!

http://www.statenews.com/op_article.phtml?pk=34074

ok one more for you, are pharicuticals the key to true braincontrol? Not the name of this article but you can probably see where its going.
All I can say is PT 141 hello orgies, three somes and every other semi out of reach male fantasy out there, woo hoo.

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/religion_and_politics_/2006/02/the_bush_war_on_science_part_cxiii_the_big_bang_is_just_an_opinion.php

Here is another fun article. Apparently its not good enough for some rightwing nut cases to need to attack Darwin and Evolution but now we're going to start in on the big bang too. Although this article dosen't bring a straight attack, anyone who has followed any of the ID cases will be able to see where this is headed.
Its just a wonder who the prez sees fit to assign as influntial members of scientific comissions.
Hell if I had known about this I could have saved myself a lot of time in college and just majored in marketing with a minor in fundemental christianity and texas ass kissing.
Fricking clowns.

Wow was it cold this morning. I almost didn't get out of bed. It also didn't help matters that I feel extremely exhausted. I'm sitting here trying to review a paper and I keep dozing off and its not even a borring paper.

Well over all the weekend went well. Friday's game was fun and the stuffed breads T and J brought for the group were really tasty.
So how do you know when you've been RPing too much? Well when you walk up in a half dream state and realize you're a genii, who wants to get it on with the sexy nymph sleeping next to you, who is on break from working on her father's farm, where she picks chocolate bread from the trees, its probably a good time to start watching sports again. Yeah that probably didn't make any sence but I can barly see the keyboard right now let alone be coherent.

Speaking of sports, I saw all of about 10 minutes of the super bowl last night and realized how borring I find televised sports. If I can't be publically drunk and disordly there is really no point to watching games. I need to be yelling things and have other drunks around me to yell too. Without that show you're forced to actualy try to enjoy the game for what it is, some fat guys who are getting paid millions to move a ball from one side of a field to another and other fat guys who are trying to stop them, Blah.

Instead of seeing the game we eneded up watching "The Fog" on our new HD-DVD player, thank you best buy free money certificates. They covered the entire price of the player, unfortunatly in order for it to be HD, you have to buy a 70 freaking dollar cable to attach it to your TV, what bull. So the Fot was somewhat scarrier than I thought it would be, but over all it was about the same as any horror film. Unstopable undead, obvious foreshadowing to their appearance by lots of, get this, fog, and a story line so transparent they gave it away in the opening 2 minutes of the film, so the "big suprise" twist near the end of the film was pretty unintense and borderline stupid. Helpful hints like "the Fog can't get you in the freezer" were quickly forgotten and there wasn't much of a point in bringing them up to begin with.

over all, worth a watch, not worth the 14$ spent on it.

other news to follow when I wake up more.

I shouldn't let people get to me so. I was reading through a bunch of news articles today when I came accross this gem, http://www.jsonline.com/news/editorials/jan06/388158.asp .
It just drives me nuts, more atheists are bad propaganda, only christians can be good crap.
It got me riled up enough that I wrote half a letter to the author, but really what good does it do. People like him are those that love to close their eyes then stand up and shout, the sun is gone. You can't reason with them. There is no logic to it, just willful acceptance and pride in their own irnogance. I'm not talking about wether there is a god or not, but in steriotypes and blatent discrimination.
That chump has no more idea of what its like to be an atheist than I do of what its like being chinese. He hasn't researched it at all. He has ignored friends of his who are without beleif, all so his little picture of the world: Atheists are bad, lonly, depressed, selfish, ect people...christians are happy, fufilled, carring, good people. Its all bull shit. People aren't categories and they certainly aren't streiotypes. Ugh.

In other news last night I saw the borring tradegdy which is called "The Legand of Zorro". After seeing the "mask of Zorro" I was expecting a fun sexy romp full of crazy stunts, sword play, and ass kicking. What I got was an hour of Don Dulega fighting with his wife (not sword fighting mind you but verbal and not even good verbal). So we enter into typical hollywood "old hero" film. Wife wants him to quit. He won't. She tosses him out. It turns out he was right and the world needs Zorro a little longer and they get back together. Oh to make it even better mix in hollywood theme 2, Kid hero. The super hero's son is following in the family's footsteps only he dosen't know dad is zorro. It was long and dull and even the bad guys suck.
In scene 1 one bad guy has a repeating rifle. In every scene after that he has flint lock pistols. WTF is he so dumb he decided he should stick with inferior weapons?
Oh and the other major bad guy, the french man. What a suprise french vs spanish, wooo thrillingly unexpected.

At least tonight is game night and I can dish out some major pain and punishment, hehehehehe.

I'm going on two days worth of headache, not even really sure what is causing it.
This day is going fairly well other wise, lots of lab work to do, which is good as it makes the day go by quickly and I feel like I've accomplished something.

Had a wild dream this morning but I can't remember any of it now. I only know it was so good I didn't want to get out of bed.

Read something interesting today, apparently Henson and co are going to make a sequal to the dark crystal. I have some hope for this film I don't give to most sequals. Henson has some really cool and creative people working for them and they generally don't put out crap. The sequal is supposed to take place hundreds of years after the orgional so its not going to be some shlock lets see what happens now film, that most other sequals become.

Another possibly interesting sequal I read about is a direct to vidro sequal to the hulk. Truthfully the first film was almost DtV quality. This new one will star David Ducovney(sp), who I like a lot. No idea about the plot, but its got to be better than the first. Hell the TV series had better plot and dialogue.