Sunday, March 31, 2002

Gotta love black jelly beans!

Thursday, March 28, 2002

I just went to see Blade II with some of the guys from work -- instead of playing our regular Thursday night game. I have to say that it was a lot better than I thought it would be. Very fast paced, very ridiculous, and a hell of a lot of fun. Ron Perelman as the tough-guy leader of the anti-Blade vampire team was an odd choice (don't get me wrong, he pulled it off), but even so, it was pretty cool.

Pop culture update: I'm watching SE7EN. It amazes me that that Website is still up and running. Weird. I guess they've updated it with more information about the DVD set, but even so, that movie's about seven (heh) years old. I think the next DVDs on the shelf are Shakespeare in Love, the Toy Story three DVD set, Tremors, X-Men, and maybe Strange Days. I know there's one I'm forgetting right after Shakespeare in Love. Damn, I hate when I do that.

The weather here is kind of freaking me out. I feel like it's May instead of the end of March. Everything is blooming, leaves are coming in on the trees, people talking about heyfever. It's a little weird. I suppose it's normal for here, but it's darn odd to me.

I was bummed to hear that Dudley Moore, Milton Berle, and Billy Wilder died. The only one that really surprises me is Dudley Moore. He's only 66.

That's all for now. I'm going to talk to Tim tomorrow.

Tuesday, March 26, 2002

Greetings! I forgot to mention that I watched a BBC program (on DVD, of course) called The League of Gentlemen. It's damn funny and a little disturbing in a black-comedy sort of way. This is from one of the Amazon reviews and I think it does a good job of describing the series: "A cross between sketch comedy & soap opera sitcom, the entire series 1 is presented here unedited, giving us an even closer look at the fictional northern english town of Royston Vasey. This community is inhabited by over 60 characters, portrayed by only 3, extremely talented, actors." Check it out.

I don't remember if I mentioned that I finished War for the Oaks but I did. Finish it, I mean. It was good, but I think authors need to add a little more to the 'resolution' section of the book. I was reading along and thought, "Hmm, there's really not too much left in this book" so I knew the resolution was going to come REALLY fast. Not much of a climax really. Overall it was a good book that anyone who's a fan of urban fantasy should enjoy. Then I started reading the Wheel of Time RPG, but then Spycraft came out and I started reading that because I have to write some espionage stuff for the magazine.

Speaking of which, the second issue of the magazine came out and looks great. They had some copies at GAMA and one of the people from work picked it up and passed it on to me. The only think I'm bummed about is that the Bridge Troll and the Undying were cut out to make room for ads. Oh, well. They'll get in eventually.

Other side notes:

I'm not sure if I want this to succeed. It is interesting, though.

I think I have to be more disciplined. I spend a lot of time at my desk and I don't seem to get much done. I really don't know where they time goes. It's especially troublesome when I have a lot of work to do, but I don't manage to get much of it done. Hell, it's not like I can blame this thing, I so rarely update it.

Time to knuckle down.

Sunday, March 24, 2002

Hee hee!

That is too damn funny.

Normal Sunday for me; I went to the gym, then had lunch, then on to do some writing at work. Still cogitating on the job thing. Luckily Tim won't return until Thursday(?) so I still have time.

Dinner time!

Saturday, March 23, 2002

I just picked up Spycraft and DAMN! is it cool! It's a d20 game of espionage. They've introduced a ton of cool feats and other systems to help emulate the genre. Very well done and highly recommended to those of you into RPGs.

That's about all I have to say. Maybe more later.

Many days have passed since I've last posted anything and surprisingly little has changed. I did, however, have my first conversation with someone here at work who came down firmly on one side of the discussiont about the job offer I have in Madison. I believe he said, "What the hell are you still doing here?!" So that was pretty interesting to hear. But, this comes from someone who's already looking to leave here, so...

He brings up some good points, though. Such as the fact that despite the meteoric rise of the company, none of the workers will see any sort of true benefit from it. None of us have any kind of interest in the company, so really, it's just another job. Anyway, it's more to think about.

Work has been busy -- how many times have I written that here? -- because I'm doing all of one job and part of another as time allows. It kind of sucks and as far as I know my current boss hasn't even begun to look for a replacement for me. Luckily, I have. So in a couple days I'll hand him some resumes I've received.

I was talking to Kim the other day and found out that she always wanted to be a sculptor -- news to me! So I sent her the things our sculptors use and she's going to give it a shot. I'll be interested to see what she comes back with. She's pretty talented and it'll be fun to see what she comes up with.

What else to say? I dunno. This weekend I'll be writing my little head off getting the next issue of the magazine ready to print. So, once again I have plenty to do! Now I'm going to get started.

Tuesday, March 19, 2002

For some weird reason, this site thinks I've linked to them at some point. If I were better at this web dev stuff I might be able to see where that happened. If you don't bother to look, it's a site that reports on models and modelling. Sort of a "what's vapid in the world today." It's odd. Oh, there are some semi-nude women there (now I'm sure you'll click through!), but they're all models, so it's not real nudity.

Okay, this is cool. And kinda scary.

Saturday, March 16, 2002

Saturday night and I'm at work again. Man or Moron? Not a hard choice. It's nights like this that make we want to move back to Madison.

I did some CD shopping earlier and picked up the new Bob Mould CD Modulate. I just listened to it and I have to say it's pretty damn good. I haven't listened to much of his stuff since the hey-day of Husker Du. He's concentrating on self-producing electronic music, but there are some signature things still present. Mould has always been a fan of the "wall of noise" approach to music and he carries it off beautifully throughout this album. There are a few standout cuts on the CD, but the whole album is a great listen. I look forward to his other two albums this year. Give it a listen.

The other CD I picked up was the Memento soundtrack. I haven't listened to it yet. Instead I've fallen back on Crystal Method's Tweekend. Good stuff.

Seth recently posted about a guy who posts his thoughts about the women he meets and his various issues to his blog. What a dumbass. As Seth says, if I start posting things that will scare off women, please tell me.

Admittedly there are probably a lot of people that really get off on having an anonymous yet public forum like a blog to air their thoughts(?). But, please. I guess I've discussed this before and related it to Joe Matt and his comic book Peep Show, but really, if you're going to do stuff like this do it in a such a way that someone can't just type in your name and find out about it. Or, wait, better yet, don't do it! Shocking, really.

Pop culture update: I finally finished watching all of the Fight Club DVD and have moved on to Forrest Gump. Say what you want, but I enjoy that movie. For the last few weeks I've been reading Emma Bull's War for the Oaks. It's good and the new edition looks great (it's the one pictured if you follow that link).

More later if I get bored.



Wednesday, March 13, 2002

I haven't had much to say lately, but things are interesting. My future boss announced that I'd be moving to design today, so the cat is officially out of the bag -- despite the fact that everyone pretty much knew already. But I can't move over until my replacement is found. Ugh.

I'm pretty excited, though.

Then, yesterday I got a job offer back in Madison, that I'm definitely considering. It would be cool to get back to my friends and family -- and the job is very cool. I was interested in it before I moved and now that it's a reality I'm even more interested. I am thinking about it.

More later. I didn't want to leave all my fans hanging with no updates.

Friday, March 08, 2002

I like when Seth directs people to my blog. It always suckers a few people in. I mean that in a good way.

Game day at work was canceled this morning, but then reinstated a bit later on. The problem was I had so much work to do that I couldn't play. Damn. I'm not sure why they canceled it then uncanceled it, but it may have been the fact that we got about 4" of snow last night and that it was the company owner's birthday today and his kids came in to play games on game day.

I had my last meeting with my trainer at the gym on Wednesday. It wasn't worth the money I paid, but it was a good learning experience and hopefully it will pay off in the long run. I'm actually pretty glad I'm not with the trainer anymore because it makes my schedule a lot more flexible, so if I don't want to go to work out until later in the evening I can do it. Admittedly, I really have to redidicate to this whole weight loss thing. I don't know what's up, but I really haven't lost any weight in about seven or eight months now and it's pretty frustrating. I know I've lost body fat and gained muscle, but it was so much more fun to see the scale move lower and lower every few weeks. I'll keep at it though, I feel better than I have before and I think it will be cool to be in even better shape. It's weird to think that I've never been truly healthy in my life (except from birth to about five years old). There are probably more people in that position than I imagine, but I don't want to be there anymore. I've done it...time for a new experience.

I'm still watching Fight Club. Right now I'm enjoying the David Fincher, Brad Pitt, Edward Norton, and Helena Bonham-Carter commentary track. Although it kind of bugs me that Bonham-Carter's comments are dropped in as opposed to being in the same room with the other three. I'm sure it was a limitation with scheduling, but it's still pretty annoying.

I think I'm going to go to the gym now and then maybe some dinner and back to work. Maybe, but maybe I'll just go home and get started early tomorrow.

Thursday, March 07, 2002

I have to apologize for not posting anything yesterday, but the internet connection was down all day and I couldn't get on. Sorry.

Seth mentioned in a recent post that I've been watching movies in alphabetical order and he's correct! I had some movies I'd picked up recently that I watched, but then I started from the beginning of my collection and watched the movies I hadn't watched yet. Now I've finished Fight Club and am now almost done watching the David Fincher commentary track, then there are three other commentary tracks to watch. Whee! Fun!

My job still hasn't been announced officially but I'm already doing some work for it and I'll be spending most of the weekend at the office writing up a bunch of stuff for a product that we're already behind on. Ugh. It'd be nice to get a life soon.

My current boss is really not excited about me switching over and has been piling on work because, clearly, I have too much time on my hands. Annoying. But, I've been getting it done, so...

Tomorrow at work we have game day, when we all get together and play our games and whatever other games people are interested in. It's a good way to socialize and familiarize ourselves with our products and our competition. We also get free pizza. Which is good. But the crust is laced with dioxins! That's bad. But you get free toppings! That's good!

Time for bed now. Well, maybe a little more Fight Club first.

Tuesday, March 05, 2002

It looks like all of my international friends have stopped reading my blog. See for yourself. Bummer, I thought it was kind of cool that people in Europe or Africa and Asia were checking out Nothing Good... I guess I'll have to start writing about something interesting to lure them back.

Oh, I forgot. Sunday I met that woman I'd been talking to for a couple of months online and over the phone. She was nice, but there's simply no attraction there for me. None. Zip. So, it all starts over again. Oh, well. I wasn't actually ever looking to have any relationships or social life out here. Yes, I know, poor, poor, pitiful me.

All the fallout I was expecting at work hasn't matierialized. I think the owners talked to my boss yesterday and told him some of his responsibilities will be going away and -- nothing. No news, no reaction, no information. Nothing. How disappointing. I wanted a screaming, knock-down, drag-out fight (figuratively speaking). Maybe something will happen in tomorrow's monthly Marketing Meeting when my boss learns that I'm moving into design. As far as I know he still has no clue about this.

Still watching a lot of movies. So many, in fact, that I may have to start buying some in a couple weeks as I finish watching all the DVDs I already own. Recently I watched Aliens, Amadeus, American Beauty, Die Hard, and last night, Fargo. This morning I started Fight Club. Because I also watch the commentary tracks I've watched a number of the movies twice. It looks like I'll be watching Fight Club four or five times if I want to watch with all the commentary tracks. There's a ton of stuff on that DVD. And I haven't even looked at the second disk yet.

Look at me, updating in the middle of the day. Crazy.