It's been a long and crazy week. Between school and work, sleep was fairly non-existent. It was like getting together with a friend who you keep meaning to get in touch with. You know how that goes: maybe get some dinner, have a few drinks. You know, catch up and all. It just never happened. Sleep kept screening my calls and leaving me "tag" voicemails telling me how busy it was and that it missed me. I kept thinking of those sleep-drug commercials where the dude is talking to Abe Lincoln and a talking-beaver.  

Friday night was topped off by a sinus headache that must have been building all week. It sat on me for most of the evening. I was starting to think it was a malady that could possibly put me down for the weekend, and that it could interfere with the plans of staining the deck and painting the screened-in porch (oh no!!). Jenna medicated me and must have done some kind of voodoo to get me going again, because I was able to get up at 830 the next morning and take my second java test. I felt strangely refreshed and compelled to go and paint some stuff. Wierd. I kept looking for a voodoo doll or maybe a circle drawn in blood or some dead chickens, but I found nothing. ;-)

We finished staining the deck and got the porch primered and ready for painting. Tom came over and helped with the deck on Saturday and we got most of it done before we all went to the Flour cookout. It's pretty impressive what that company does for it's people. This event was enormous. They had rides for the kids and food/drink for the employees and their family and friends. At the end of the night, they put on a fireworks show that must have cost a fortune. It was definitely a nice time.

I finished watching the second season of the Ghost in The Shell: Standalone Complex series last night. It was really good! I liked the first season a good bit better, but this one had a really good ending for the season. I don't see any new stuff on netflix for a third season yet, but I have put the new movie: Ghost in The Shell: Solid State Society at the top of my queue. If it's anything like the rest of the stuff they've put out, it will be awesome.

Movie's I've seen lately:

Black Snake Moan - 5 out of 5 - This movie actually turned out really well. Samuel Jackson and Christina Ricci played excellent parts and the story was really great. It's very graphic, so be prepared if you peep it.

The Fountain - 4 out of 5 - On some levels, this movie garnered more than a 4, but you really had to pay attention to it in order to follow it completely. It had amazing visuals, and it was well presented, but it just seemed to be missing something.

Ghost Rider - 3 out of 5 - This movie was really entertaining, but like most of the comic book movies out there, it fell short in a lot of areas. Still, I enjoyed watching it.

The Dark Crystal - 3 out of 5 - This was an old childhood favorite, and we watched it again at Jimmy's house. (Jenna and Jana picked it out because it was their b-day weekend) I laughed my ass off when they drained the podling's life juice. Those Skekses are hilarious!! Gefling!!

Movies I want to watch soon:

Hannibal Rising

Pan's Labyrinth

Tenacious D and the Pick of Destiny

Letters from Iwo Jima

Transformers

Day of the Dead remake

The Signal

Remember my obsession with Samurai culture? Peep this! Many thanks to Perrin over at L33T G33K for the article on his blog! He finds the coolest stuff! His blog rocks the house down, Jack Black style.

That's it for now! There's a lan scheduled for the 21st of July, so I'll update soon with pictures!

One nerd of many signing off,

E

Posted by onenerdofmany at 11:00 AM EDT

Updated: Thursday, 5 July 2007 10:15 AM EDT

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Tis been a busy week for sure.

Let's see.  We ended up celebrating Jenna and Jana's birthday at Aladdin's, a new moroccan restraurant here in town.  It was rather expensive ( a good bit more than it was worth), but the atmosphere was laid back and we all had a good time.  They also had belly dancers, which was pretty nice as well. ;-)

Sunday, D-Ball and I took Jenna to see the 3rd pirates movie.  It was entertaining, but only moderately so in my opinion.  The movie was about 25-30 minutes too long, but it did speed by for the most part.  Talk about milking a sequel, this particular piece of pirate meat is done, done, done.  Take it off the grill, because it's burning.  And not in a good way.  It's stinking up the backyard and drawing stray dogs from miles around.  Point made.

The java class (no pun intended for you java programmers out there) is still going well, and I made an A on my first test.  Homework is still getting turned in although it is sometimes late.  Turning homework in late seems to be my M.O. for any class here lately.  Frak it, it'll won't matter once that degree is in my hot little freckled hand.

I love youtube.  Even after they were bought out a while back, they still continue to be vastly entertaining.  For just about any subject matter, they have unlimited content!  Take for instance, one of my favorite movies ever, The Boondock Saints.  (We also saw this movie recently at our friend Jimmy and Jana's house via their 103' projector)  It was kick-arse, to say the least.   A few scenes from youtube (kick-arse linkage for those who get those e-mails from me):

Warning: Bad, bad language contained therin.  Don't watch if you dont' want to hear it.

Insane Gunfight: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CuhGod3AOs

Rocco going nuts: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=774JiSMWdQQ 

Interesting news for fans: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePT9VOI2FgU

While it's also almost time for the next LAN, it's also about time to start on the second side of my japanese hikae tattoos.  I can't wait!  I know it sounds wierd, but the entire experience of getting heavily tattooed is really something else.  Call me what you will, but I'm excited nonetheless!  I'm also hoping to catch another Tattoo convention when they hold them close by again.  Granted, it's not close by, but maybe one in california perhaps?  They sometimes have japanese tattoo artists in attendance, which would be frakkin awesome.

That's it for now!  Keep it in the road till next time!

One nerd of many signing off,

E

Posted by onenerdofmany at 3:19 AM EDT

Updated: Tuesday, 12 June 2007 3:31 AM EDT

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Mood:  caffeinated

Doh!

 Ok, so I know it's been a while since my last post and I agreed to one a week, but I am kind of prone to fall off the wagon on these things.  Do you still love me?

School is still trucking along.  I made a B in asp.net, but I'm having to retake Java this semester (summer semester).  I got behind in it and just couldn't catch up.  So far everything is good, so I should still be on track for the fall semester.

Tom and I watched the full Afro Samurai anime dvd set last night.  That shiz was totally awesome!  Samuel Jackson was the voice of "Afro" and "Ninja Ninja"(Afro's imaginary friend)  Now, I know what you are thinking: "This nerd still watches cartoons?!"  Put that crap on pause and consider this: A lot of anime is much deeper in content than regular movies and shows stuff that couldn't be achieved in a normal movie or show without a humongous budget.  Yes, there was a somewhat devious scene in there involving a woman that just had to be drawn by a man (you'll know what I mean if you ever watch it) and since we were both consuming mass quantities of brew it was definitely all good.  The set I bought is the director's cut, so there was plenty of gratuitous violence to be had all around.  Go pick it up!

 Ugh.  BSG fans got a really bad dose of bad news recently.  Season 4 (the next season) is the last season for the series!  Mutha frakkers.  I want to kick the corporate execs at the sci-fi channel straight in their non-existent nuts.  They will continue to produce swill like "Pain-Killer Jane" and "The Dresden Files" but they want to cut this series off?  I'd rather see twenty BSG epis full of fluff and filler than one "quality" episode of any of the other crap they put out.  Ron Moore (producer of BSG), we still love you, but please be working on something new for the Sci-Fi channel's current nauseating line-up!  We're counting on you!

As far as movies I've seen lately  here are a few (in no particular order):

"300" - 5 out of 5 - This movie will make you want to hurt someone.

"The Prestige" - 5 out of 5 - Impressive cast with an even better plot.

"Music and Lyrics" - 3 out of 5 (4 out of 5 if you ask Jenna) - Typical romantic comedy.

"Catch and Release" - 2 out of 5 (4 out of 5 if you ask Jenna) - A shizload of drama, but will gain you brownie points with your spouse if you've been bad.

"Samurai Champloo" Series - 5 out of 5 (Second time I've watched the entire set of 7 dvds)

"28 Months Later" - 5 out of 5 - A truly impressive sequel!  I love zombie flix and this one did not disappoint!

"Spiderman 3" - 3 out of 5 - The worst of the 3 movies.  I really actually like the other two, but this one was a real turd.....

"Black Rain" - 4 out of 5 - A 90's classic, but you will only enjoy it if you have a penchant for Japanese culture and can stomach the cheesy machismo overtones.

There are more than likely a few that I'm missing, but I'll try to include them on the next post.

As for the March LAN, everything went really well, and it's about time for the next one.  (really points out how slack I've been in my updates eh)  Schmidty won the Firefly shirt and Gene (my father in law) won the pwnstar shirt!  Peep him here!  Get some! 

Anyways, that's all I have time for in this update.  I promise to try and update a little more frequently than every quarter! (yah, right, that is up there with "the check is in the mail" and "i love you")

One nerd of many signing off,

 E

Posted by onenerdofmany at 12:53 AM EDT

Updated: Wednesday, 6 June 2007 12:56 AM EDT

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Mood:  vegas lucky

Damn.

 So much stuff has happened, I'll need to split things into several posts.  Right now, I just want to give thanks. 

My family and friends are  moderately happy and healthy. My mom is cancer free.  Say it with me.  Cancer Free. D-Ball hooked me up with the Command And Conquer demo yesterday.  I've been waiting for this game for an eternity.  I think I peed myself a little bit when I played it tonight.  Can't wait for the release of the full version. I had the opportunity and privilige of going to the Kodo One World Tour 2007 last night with Jenna and D-Ball.  It was nothing short of frakking amazing.  Again, peed myself. School is going relatively well.  Java is browbeating me a bit but asp.net is breezing right along. The next LAN is in almost two weeks!  I can hardly wait!  Peeps will be bringing the next-gen consoles and there'll be so much geekery I think I might just explode!

And I'm spent.  I'll update with some of the finer points later.

One nerd of many signing off,

E

Posted by onenerdofmany at 12:31 AM EST

Updated: Thursday, 8 March 2007 12:45 AM EST

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I had a really good experience this week.  Jenna and I had read through the book JapanLand last year and loved every page of it.  I was re-reading the book again this week and remembered I had some questions concerning the book and DVD set, so I decided on a whim to email the author with a few questions and compliments.

To my surprise, she emailed me back the next morning.  She was really nice, and answered my questions entirely!  I was so impressed that this published author and world traveler was kind enough to take time out of her day to respond to my email.

We were entralled with the tv series when we saw parts of it last year on PBS, and immediately went out and bought the book.  As soon as I finished it, Jenna read it as well.  After that, we bought 2 copies of the DVD - one for us and one for a close friend.  While the tv series was excellent, the book really put the human touch on her experiences in Japan.  She literally did almost everything you could think of while there, from living with a host family to a 900 mile pilgramage.  She went to the bustling larger cities, and spent time with people in the surrounding villages.  She met people from all walks of life.  The best part of the book was that her writing style actually made you see and feel things from her perspective, and really made it seem as if you were there with her on her journey.  Her humble nature allowed her to meet some incredible personalities along the way, and take part in some amazing events.  From reading the book twice now, I dont' think anyone else could have captured it quite like she did. 

Needless to say, we plan on visiting Japan and parts of Asia in an upcoming vacation in the next year or so, but I don't think we'll have half the experience that is in her book.  It's a must-read!  Do yourself a favor and pick it up!

You can order the book, dvd or one of Karin Muller's other works here!

One nerd of many signing off,

E

Posted by onenerdofmany at 1:52 PM EST

Updated: Thursday, 22 February 2007 2:05 PM EST

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Don't laugh.  He could be right behind you. 

 E

Posted by onenerdofmany at 10:33 PM EST

Updated: Monday, 12 February 2007 10:36 PM EST

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I Must Go Out and Ninja in the Night

For some reason unbeknownst to me I've always had a fascination with asian culture.  sometimes I often wonder where it originated.  I guess if I have to be truthful to myself it was when I first saw the tv show The Master.   Growing up in the 80s, there was a plethora of cheesy theme based tv shows to watch, and this one was a definite favorite.

Let's drift back to that time.  We'll start with a brief description of myself during this time: (1984-85ish)

-Fairly short for my age at that time
-Scruffy red hair in desperate need of a comb
-Black reebok shoes
-Wrangler blue jeans
-1 chipped front tooth
-Wearing one of my many ninja-themed t-shirts

Go ahead and add to that look a humongous red duffel bag I used to carry around all of my school books in and you pretty much have the image of the entire ensemble.  To say the least, I wasn't very popular around the ladies.

Now, once I saw that tv show, I had to have it all.  My christmas list that year consisted of every ninja weapon I saw on the show and had seen via my ninja mail order catalog.  Having grown up on the Karate-Kid movies, I was hooked!  I could barely wait for Christmas morning; I had dreams of slashing bullies with my faux ninja-to clad entirely in ninja attire.  The black uniform would be for night missions, and the white one for snowy weather.  Hell, there was even a camoflauge one.  I went to sleep with smoke bombs and shurikens dancing in my head.

Needless to say, my parents saw the list and freaked.  These were weapons, not your run of the mill GI Joe and Transformers toys. (albeit I had plenty of those too)  We had the sit-down that you would expect after them making it to the local martial arts store at the mall - "The Treasure Box" and they actually got to see what half the obscure items on the list were.  I saw then that I was not to become a ninja through conventional means.  I would have to really apply myself.

You would think that after that dead end, any normal kid would have been discouraged and chosen some other normal interest.  Heh.  Not this nerd, ladies and gents.  Every time we went to the grocery store, I scoured the magazine rack for ninja magazines.  (yes, these existed)  I watched every available ninja movie I could as if it were reference material.  My walls were covered with posters from the Treasure Box.  I read through every book available at the local library (that I could understand) on ninja and samurai.  I had a rather large collection of odd shaped shuriken and a pair of practice nunchaku that were made of foam rubber, but still packed a wicked sting when you racked yourself.

I even remember my brother and I trying to replicate a scene from the tv show where I tried to control our heart rates and breathe through a straw while under water.  Ok - no surprise, it didn't work.  But I remember drinking in almost a gallon of pool water during the effort. One of the funniest memories is when I was in the seventh grade, and I actually wrote a paper for my english class project "What You Want to be When You Grow Up".  I wrote a page and a half how I wanted to travel to Japan and train to be a ninja master, like the great Sho Ko-Sugi.  I got a D minus.  By the end of 7th grade I was almost out of the phase (it lasted from grades 5 to 7 as I can best remember), but not before I had gained the nickname "Ninja Nerd" by some of the cro-mags that sat around me.   Ahh, memories.

This fascination earned me a crapload of beat-downs during my middle school years.  Like I said, girls didn't exactly flock to sit next to me at lunch.  I mean most kids wanted to be a pro sports player (sheep) or a doctor or blah blah blah.  I wanted to become a ninja warrior like the ones from the Tokugowa period!  So I kept a low profile and stuck to my guns until finally I fell in love with skateboarding.  Becoming a ninja would have to wait.

Fast forward to present and lets recap on the description of myself:

-Scruffy red hair in desperate need of a comb.
-Black "Vans" tennis shoes.
-Semi-worn corduroys
-Still wearing glasses, although they aren't aviators ;-)
-Several tattoos, most are asian oriented
-Still have an deep seated interest in asian culture, but no longer want to be a ninja.  I wouldn't tell you anyway if I did.

Um, not that much different.  Moral of the story?  There isn't one.  I wouldn't trade the beatdowns and ninja magazines of the past for anything. 

And besides, everyone knows that ninjas are pimps of the highest order.  I wonder if I still have those tabi boots....

One nerd of many signing off,

E

Posted by onenerdofmany at 3:02 PM EST

Updated: Monday, 12 February 2007 4:09 PM EST

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Crazy A$$ Kara

Werd everyone, werd.

 I won't count this as my weekly post, but I just had to share something with anyone who's reading this thing. 

A few years ago, my wife and I "adopted" a siberian husky/labrador mix.  She's a female, and was still kind of a full-grown puppy when we got her.  My dad had been keeping her for my aunt who was acquiring a house with a yard, which subsequently turned into keeping her for a little while.  Long story short, the dog ended up being theirs and then being ours.

Kara is frakkin nuts.  She loves to dig massive holes in the yard and chase her tail.  She also has a trademark husky trait, one eye is light blue and the other is brown.  Nothing is quite normal about her, and we love her for it.  While she has outgrown some of her more destructive traits, we still have the cracked front window (she rammed it with her head one day when we came home - keeping her in the house in the beginning was a bad mistake) to remind of us those times.  Every once in a while, she'll catch some poor unwitting squirrel or creature and snuff it faster than you can say Rocky.  Too many times during the summer I have looked out into the yard and she's babying some corpse of a squirrel that was a little heavy and had trouble beating her to the tree for a quick escape.  They always seem to have a frozen look of "Oh Shit!" on their little squirrelley vermin faces.  Crazy, like I said.  She always looks at me like "what?!  I'm a dog, it's my job!"  With that in mind, there's not much I can do to deter her from policing the yard and keeping it vermin free.   

That being said, the other day I was working from home and decided to get up and make myself some tea.  Heading through the dining room, I glance toward the sliding glass door and see Kara outside, nosing around in something on the deck.  Since I never miss an opportunity to see what the hell she's up to, I go outside.  There's Kara, and a shitload of grey and white feathers.  I look over at her, and she's just sitting on her haunches, pleased as punch with that look mentioned above on her mug.  The wierd thing was that there was no body to be found.  I go back inside and get the camera, and of course she's still sitting there like a serial killer that went back to the scene to relive the experience.  So I snap a pic of her and go back to work.  Please note the feather hanging out of her mouth on the left side of that loveable face.  Doesn't it seem like she is smiling?  Oh yeah.  See that ganked up looking screen door behind her?  Who do you think did that? 

 To end things up, the whole friggin time I'm working that day, I can't get the mental image out of my head of her taking a dump and a bird corpse is half in/half out of her doggie arse feet first .  Great. 

One has to wonder if the bird had it coming.  Maybe it was talking trash whilst Kara was lounging on the deck.  Maybe the bird owed Kara some money and had postponed paying too long.  Maybe my dog is insane.  Either way, tweety was toast.

Like I said, the biznitch is crazy. 

E

Posted by onenerdofmany at 12:49 AM EST

Updated: Wednesday, 7 February 2007 1:28 AM EST

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Mood:  not sure

So here goes. 

Think I'm gonna decommision the ol' LJ site seeing as how I haven't posted in it going on a year now.  It just reminds me of a time that has passed, and I really don't feel like messing with it anymore.  So, If I'm gonna do that, I should put something up with my blog on my site I'm paying for!  Papa's got a brand new bag?  Meh.

Some things have happened to a few friends of mine that really help to remind me how lucky I am to have my wife.  This is someone, god help her, who's been with me for over 14 years.  That's right, 14 years - 2 years dating/2 years engaged/10+ years married.  I've no frakkin idea how she's done it, but she has.  She's stuck with me through all the good times and the bad, and never blinked an eye when it comes to standing by me.  Little ol' me.  Don't get me wrong; things aren't always rosy (real life seldom is), but when the smoke clears, there she is.  There are a few constants I thank the good man upstairs for nightly, and she is at the top of said list.

Now, with that out of the way, my two pals have been dished out some real crap.  Both are outstanding individuals and have some fscked up luck in their lives right now.  If a persons actions deem their worth (and I believe it does) then their respective spouses are of the lowest quality human fare there is. Out of respect for my friends I wont' divulge any details, but if you're reading this, you know who you are.  Just know that I'm thinking of you and that things inevitably get better with time.  And as for your spouses, karma is a bitch. 

Anyways, that's it for now.  Baby steps, if you will.  I'll be posting more (let's say once a week) and we'll see how long it lasts.  I've been itchin' to put down my thoughts of my japanese half-sleeve tattoo journey.

One nerd of many signing off,

E

Posted by onenerdofmany at 3:05 PM EST

Updated: Wednesday, 31 January 2007 4:57 PM EST

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