Category Archives: Entertainment

Entertainment, World of Warcraft

Pumpkin Carving WoW-style

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pumpkinI’m a sucker for a holiday. It’s probably because my mom always did such a great job of making them fun for us when I was growing up. I especially remember this one time that she dressed up with us on Halloween. She was “a bum” complete with overalls, a faux beer belly fashioned out of old clothes stuffed into her overalls, a straw hat and a blacked out tooth. Trick-or-treating that year was extra fun because Mom was in the spirit and was having as much fun as we were.

The folks at Blizzard do their part to make holidays fun for WoW players. From special holiday-themed quests to decorations to special season loot and every Halloween… a pumpkin carving contest. Most of the submissions are true works of art. Seriously, the skill and attention to detail that brought about these wow-themed jack-o-lanterns is astonishing.  It’s funny to see that many of the winners have won in previous years. I guess the cool prizes are worth the effort and once you know you have the skills you may as well get your name in the hat.

It seems like I am always wishing I had more time to do things like this… it’s ironic that raiding in WoW monopolizes the majority of my “free” time and prevents me from entering a WoW-themed contest. When I start making resolutions for 2008, maybe “Raid less” should be one of them.

Entertainment, Life or something like it

Saving Grace

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With the exception of cleaning up some formatting, the second screenplay is done. Just finished as of about two minutes ago. This one is a short, probably around 40 minutes, and it took us about three times as long to write it as it did to write the feature. Go figure. Anyway, when we get the formatting all pretty, I’ll post it up for you guys to read. Maybe after Thanksgiving. It’s a romantic comedy called Saving Grace.

Okay, and now it’s nap time before I have to really start my day. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Entertainment

What A Predicament

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I really, really want to watch the premiere of J.J. Abrams new show, Lost, tonight. But it comes on opposite Smallville and the guys are addicted to Smallville. So, I either disappoint everybody else or miss what is probably a much better hour of television. And there’s only one recorder so I can’t fix it that way. I knew I should have replaced my old VCR when it gave out. 😦

Entertainment

(Different) Shades of Gray

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One of my most hidden secrets is the fact that, as a teenager, I was obsessed with The Monkees (and no, I’m not that old . They showed the re-runs on MTV). They may have actually been the first “boy band” since they were “built” by someone else. They most likely starred in the world’s first music videos. And I don’t care how dorky they may have been to most people, I still say they were cool. And from time to time, they had some most excellent music. Check out these lyrics:

Shades of Gray

When the world and I were young,

Just yesterday.

Live was such a simple game,

A child could play.

It was easy then to tell right from wrong.

Easy then to tell weak from strong.

When a man should stand and fight,

Or just go along.

I remember when the answers seemed so clear

We had never lived with doubt or tasted fear.

It was easy then to tell truth from lies

Selling out from compromise

Who to love and who to hate,

The foolish from the wise.

It was easy then to know what was fair

When to keep and when to share.

How much to protect your heart

And how much to care.

But today there is no day or night

Today there is no dark or light.

Today there is no black or white,

Only shades of gray.

Entertainment, Life or something like it

My So-Called Likes

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In the grand tradition of bloggers everywhere, I offer up my first list of things I like and don’t like. I’m sure it’s incomplete and possibly, due to my current mood, heavy on the negative side. But here goes:

Things I Like:

  • Music, specifically hearing a great song for the first time and straining to commit the lyrics and the tune to memory before it reaches the end
  • My dog, Jake
  • My cats, Hershey, Sidda, and Fred the Explorer (wherever he may be)
  • Men in uniform
  • Writing with my best friend
  • Anything Joss Whedon touches, specifically Buffy, Angel, Firefly, and the upcoming Serenity feature film
  • Surprises
  • A good massage
  • Making other people happy
  • Mountain Dew, not Mountain Dew Code Red or Baja Mountain Dew or Mountain Dew Pitch Black or whatever other concoction they’ve come up with this week
  • Learning, specifically learning ANYTHING
  • Boys who play guitar
  • Girls who play guitar
  • Angelina Jolie
  • Well-written television
  • Inventive film making
  • Kevin Smith
  • Robert Rodriguez
  • People who say what they mean
  • People who mean what they say
  • Sarcasm
  • My wireless keyboard and mouse
  • The hard disk recorder (yes, it’s LIKE Tivo but it’s not Tivo; it’s better)
  • Being alone

Things I Don’t Like:

  • Selfish people
  • Lazy men
  • Taking out the trash at work
  • Reality TV
  • People who don’t appreciate the people who love them or even the fact that somebody loves them at all
  • Being taken advantage of because I like to make other people happy
  • Liars
  • Cheaters
  • People who talk and gesture while playing Pictionary (yes, I know it’s an ancient game but we still play occasionally around these parts)
  • Unfulfilled potential
  • Bad grammar
  • Misspelled words, specifically on signs in public places such as the grocery store
  • People who do not understand the correct usage of the “cent” sign and write things like “Bananas .99¢”
  • Stupidity
  • People who smell
  • Not being listened to
  • Being interrupted
  • People who talk during movies
  • People who bring babies to movies
  • Being alone
Entertainment

The Passion of the Clerks

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I can’t believe he’s doing it. One of my filmmaker heroes, Kevin Smith, is going back to the Askewniverse. He’s making a sequal to his first film, Clerks. I’m not loving the title, but I can’t wait to see where he goes with this. Smith is, in my opinion, a more gifted writer than director so I am anxious to see where he takes these characters we met 10 YEARS AGO and what mysteries of life they’ll be dissecting now.

Entertainment

Trailers ‘R’ Me

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One of my absolute favorite things about my very first “real” job (I pretty much ran a low-power tv station by myself!) was getting to cut together cool promos for these classic movies we showed every Monday night. And I’m talking classics here like God’s Little Acre with Michael Landon and Buddy Hackett and Charade with the fabulous Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant. I always loved pulling out of context the most obscure bits from these movies and throwing them back together in a completely new context with clever narration (well, I thought it was clever anyway) that really flowed. These days I’m not getting to do any work in that vein so I feed my love for it by over-analyzing the montages at the beginning of my favorite tv shows (what’s left of them) and watching tons of movie trailers. A couple of really great ones hit the web recently so I thought I’d share (in no particular order):