Sherman Gets It Right

As said via IM this evening:

work = crap sometimes.

Birthday Revisited

Today, I have been 27 for one month.

And so, a couple of birthday notes.

A big thank you to Brett and Trina, who took me out to Ahi Sushi on the night of Friday the 8th... with pretty much everyone else (and Tracy) out of town, it was a really wonderful birthday dinner.

Trina got a saki sampler, including one type served in a wooden box. Who knew?

Kevin and Sarah got me a wonderful lasagna pan and makings; he talked these guys up earlier in the year, and I was excited to check it out.

I have since made the recipe it came with, a chicken/tomato lasagna. No sauce, lots of cheese – including smoked gouda. It was awesome, and I substituted chicken sausage for some of the chicken.

Tracy, although out of town, grabbed me a snazzy new suitcase. The old one tipped over and was, well, old, so I was pretty psyched. Plus, it's orange, and that makes me happy.

I got some wonderful books from my parents, and the new Bowdoinham T-shirt. My grandparents sent me a wonderful card and a check. Tracy's folks got me a book, as well as some homemade Gak, which was fun.

I flew out of LA on my birthday proper, taking the redeye home to Maine. Will was kind enough to give me a ride, getting me there right on time. Waiting for the plane, I completed the following in about 40 minutes.

Made me feel good before getting on an 8-hour flying adventure.

The following morning, my dad picked me up, ready with Standard Baking morning rolls – possibly the greatest thing in the world. With some cupcakes from Two Fat Cats for dessert, we had a nice quiet post-birthday dinner, just my mom, my dad, and me.

The next day, the 14th, we had a big barbeque to celebrate no juts my birthday, but being in town, and John's being in town for a vacation from Guatemala. The Fisher-Baums came over, Jim and Cynthia, Tracy's folks, the Englers (including brother Dan), my bro, sis, and nephew, the Barry's, we all got together, ate some great food (including Hutson-style grilled burgers), ran out of the rain, made hand-cranked ice cream, and enjoyed some more Fat Cats cake.

All in all, it was a wonderful birthday. Over the course of a few days, I got to connect, one way or another, with most of the people I love, and I had a good time all the way through. So thanks to everyone who helped ring in 27 years with me.

Until next August!

Base Jumping [Updated]

I have some friends going skydiving this weekend, so I thought I'd share a cautionary tale to set the mood.

Remember kids, always check your parachute.

[UPDATE - Turns out it's NEXT weekend... but I still figure it's good advice...]

Huzzah!

So, as of tonight, Dan is done with the bar, while Kevin and Sarah wrapped up yesterday. With a little luck (and a lot of hard work), they have passed muster and become lawyers – now just waiting for official confirmation. And an additional shout-out to John, who recently smoked the GMAT, and has every reason to be proud himself.

In celebration, a brief audio grab, from a... ah, trusted authority:



I raise my glass and toast to the former, my friends. Well done!

(Say friend, you got any more of that good sarsaparilla?)

Good Luck!

This is a big week for a few friends; Kevin and Sarah are both taking the West Virginia Bar Exam over today and tomorrow, while Dan E. takes the California Bar Exam today as well, and continuing it through Wednesday.

Together, these three are some of the smartest people I know, and I have faith that they will all do well. That being said, a little luck never hurt anyone, so join me in wishing them the very best of luck with these tests, and congratulations on getting this far.

You guys makes the rest of us look bad; I'm proud to know you all!!

Break a leg!

Go See <em>Iron Man</em>

The summer movie season begins today, with Iron Man.

It's every bit as fun as it looks, has excellent pacing, and feels exactly like what a summer popcorn flick should. Great action, well-told story, perfect performances, excellent effects, only the merest bit of shoe-horned romance, and an above-par post-credits stinger for a sequel (so wait until the roll is through!).

A few of us went to a midnight screening at the Arclight Cinerama Dome; director Jon Favereau and star Robert Downey, Jr. were both in attendance, and primed the audience with some (brief) words. New trailers for The Incredible Hulk (so-so), The Dark Knight (awesome!), and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (closed my eyes and plugged my ears and only heard the muffled refrains of the "Indiana Jones March," so good for me) screened before the film, and set a pretty excellent mood.

Iron Man rocked. Hard.

Add in a solid episode of Lost, some rousing Mario Kart Wii, and delicious pizza from a new local place beforehand, and I had a pretty excellent night – and it's only Thursday, a school night at that!

If only Tracy was in town... but I'll meet up with her in Davis tomorrow, and then off to San Francisco with Dan and Sahra.

This is the start of an excellent few days...

Which Sport Are We Playing?

Will's been posting about the Wizards pretty much nonstop over the last week or two, and last night's comments struck home :

But the Wizards won, Caron made a SICK shot and they'll be playing Friday night! Can't wait... (not like I'm actually hoping they win or anything... hope... is the worst thing a Wizards fan can ever have.)

Funny, he sounds exactly like a Red Socks fan...

Boss Fight: The Return

Remember "Boss Fight," Jamie's Video-Game-Score Opus?

A friend of his did a remix, and it's totally worth checking out.

I still prefer the original, in all of its 8-bit glory, but this cracked me up.

Re: Coins

From E.B. via iChat:

coins am stupid. Why sombody would need coines if they were a smart. dumb coin is for dumb londons.

check out these coins http://tinyurl.com/2lrx46

That's right, he Rickrolled me.

Lesson of the day: beware the TinyURL!

Jamie Returns

Jamie took a break from his blog for a while but now he's back and, as usual, perceptive in a way I wish I could (consistently) match:

[on Packrat and World of Warcraft]

Both of these games are insanely popular because they have the balance of monotony and reward down to a science. They pray masterfully on my obsessive tendencies. They deserve to be studied for their resounding success at drawing me and the multitudes like me, hour after hour, deeper down the rabbit hole.

But at their hearts, both games are glorified slot machines. Worse, they're slot machines with the last psychological barrier, the stream of quarters lost one by one, removed. There is no money being wasted, only time, and it's much easier to ignore the minutes falling away because I have, ostensibly, so MANY of them to my name.

Welcome back, friend. We missed you.

Au Revior

Kevin and Sarah, who had been visiting for the last eight days, left yesterday morning.

So that's definitely a Sad Thing.

We all had a good time with them around; we saw a movie, went to the Getty, had some dinners both out and in, celebrated Tracy's birthday, checked out the Hollywood farmer's market, played the Wii a bit. Kevin edited a family doco he'd shot three and a half years ago; watching that come together, and helping a bit, was pretty exciting. Kevin deserves some hearty congratulations on finishing a project that's been so long in the making. I may not have done any blog posting during their visit, but we showed Sarah Raiders of the Lost Ark for the first time, which was priceless and much more important.

Having out-of-town friends in LA always makes me appreciate the city more; sure, I get self-conscious about some aspects, but I also feel proud and happy about others. For better or for worse, this is my city right now, and I like to show it off.

I discovered that Kevin has a blog, just as he discovered that I have one. One more link to add to the roll.

Kevin and Sarah are good people; Tracy and I both wish they lived near us with a stronger day-to-day presence in our lives. Which is not to say that we don't have other good people living in Los Angeles, because we do, just as we have other good friends who are afar. Still, though, Kevin and Sarah were fully present for a week, just as John was in Hawaii, and now we miss them.

With the house to ourselves, I can spread my junk around again, and go into the office at any time and not feel like I am intruding (or waking our guests up). I have my computer back, now that Kevin isn't editing on it. I can walk around in my underwear if I want to. Our apartment isn't huge, and there's more breathing room now.

But, for all of that, it also feels a little empty now. And we're the poorer for it.

Happy Birthday Adam!

My former roomate, college pal, film crew member, and all-around good friend Adam is having himself a birthday today.

Which is, of course, a happy opportunity to watch his death scene here.

Everyone, wish him a happy birthday; with luck, we'll get him good and properly tanked tonight.

Space Theatre

My good friend Sherman made a thesis film back when he when he was in college, called "Space Theatre." Checking its IMDb page, I see that it still hasn't garnered enough votes to earn a "User Rating;" a full five people have to have rated it before they're tallied collectively.

I voted on this movie a while back. I'm a big fan, and recently made Sherman a new DVD copy of it for his Christmas present. So, I'm probably biased. And I'd like to show it to you all, but other than a (slow loading) trailer you can find here, there is no online version of it.

Yet.

Herte's my plan. I want you guys to vote on "Space Theatre." I know you haven't seen it yet, and it may be a bit disingenuous but my hope is, if I can get the movie to accumulate a User Rating, I can convince Sherm to host the whole film, either on YouTube, or maybe on his site. And maybe announce that here, on TWGB.

Besides, you can always change your rating after you've seen it.

What have you got to lose?

Welcome, Will!

Welcome to the world of blogging, Will Gong!

You'll see a link to his new blog, "Passages: The Will Gong Journal," on my "Blogroll & Friends" list. Check him out; he's one of the funniest guys I know.

And speaking of funny guys, I'd love to see Sherman set up a blog...

Sherm the Star

Here's my good friend Sherman, starring in a music video back in his RISD days.



Some quick notes and observations:

• As a man with a beard, Sherman, please bring the beard back!


• But only if Meredith says it's okay.


• This RISD house looks pretty much exactly like the Senior Woodframe houses at Wesleyan, where most of the college films I myself participated in were shot. So that's funny.


• Speaking of my films, I should post some of them to YouTube...


• Just for reference, here is Sherman's IMDb page.

Halloween Treat

I just got home, and turned on the tube while I made some dinner.. to find, on the channel the TV was already on, this:



That's one of my best friends (and former roommate!) Adam getting iced in Halloween: H₂O. Maybe not a great film—who knew water was so scary?—but it's better than many of the other Halloween films.

Side note: YouTube is awesome. And the new encoding (based, I believe, on H.264) is even more awesome.

More Galactica

My good friend Josh, a wonderful editor here at Herzog Cowen, took Tracy and me to the Battlestar: Galactica convention in Burbank last year, which was a whole heck of a lot of fun. I was a mite disappointed, if only because I expected it to be huge, when it was really a small affair, composed of two rooms. It was, however, just like Galaxy Quest with an MC working the stage, and a smattering of applause for the panelists.

Yes, it was awesome.

But, they had this "video" competition, where fans made their own music videos with footage from the show. And they were, summarily, all terrible.

I say again: All terrible.

But it gave Josh an idea. And here it is. Watch it, pass it on if you like it, rate it if you really like it. He's proud.

And I dig it. Big time.

Farewell Hotdog

Tonight was John Harris' last night at HCE. He's leaving us for the far off shores of Japan, where he'll be teaching English.

Way to take advantage of your youth, Hotdog!*

If we're lucky, when he comes back to town in 3 or 4 months, he'll want to come back and work Post. If he's lucky, he'll end up married to a wealthy Japanese babe and be able to buy back all of the comics Will's selling on his behalf.

But either way, someone wins.

John is mulling over starting up a blog/photo group, so hopefully I'll be able to set up a link at some point. I know I'm hoping I can see what kind of mischief he gets into in the Far East.

Those of you familiar with my more awkward years know that I spent several weeks in Japan as a small-scale exchange student. I actually spent most of my time in a small town in the northern Aomori prefecture; we only flew in and out of Tokyo, where John will be based. So I'm fairly curious to see what that life is like.

We'll miss you, Hotdog, and we sure are jealous.



[* John got his nickname (Hotdog) when the Post Dept. decided everyone needed Battlestar Galactica tags. I can remember who everyone was (Will was Tigh, Josh was Apollo, Holland was Anders, I was Chief Tyrell, and so on), but Hotdog's was the only one that really stuck. Although anyone who wants to call me "Chief" without being condescending is more than welcome to.]

Referral

Quick addition.

I linked to his blog the other day, but I have to come back for more: Jamie Antonisse's blog rocks.

It isn't big or epic; just a very natural personal weblog. No custom CSS, a very default-ish look, but damned good writing. I wish I had a writing style as natural and pleasant to read as Jamie's. His is the ideal personal blog to me: it shares personal details and is about his life, but is entertaining to read beyond that, because the content and style are good. Worth checking out from time to time, and hopefully, if traffic and comment volume increase, he'll make posting a more regular habit.

As a side note, Jamie, like me, goes by his middle name. So we rock. Together.

Boss AWESOME

Here's a little nugget of goodness, courtesy of Jamie Antonisse over at the (aptly named ) Jamie Antonisse Blog. It's a music track he composed for a video game he's working on; as a student at the USC Video Game Design School, this is all part of his curriculum.

Bastard.

Another bit of prelude: Jamie is a wizard at GarageBand. Swear to God. You've never seen anyone use their mouse to create better⎯or funnier⎯music. He does it by dragging/setting each note by hand, and chopping up sampled loops. It's awesome. If I get permission to put some of his earlier tracks up, I'll try and do it. He's doing the score for the entire game (I think), so there's another reason to try and play "Wrath of the Transperator" when the B-Game Competition goes live.

Until then, I am proud to be the first (only?) mirror of... BOSS FIGHT!