Category Archives: Entertainment

Entertainment, Omphaloskepsis

Do you have any super powers?

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Having read comics for a long time and being familar with the Elongated Man (Ralph Dibny)1 and Mr. Fantastic (Reed Richards) I never thought that stretching was all that great of a power.2 However, that all changed on Sunday night when Sarah and I watched The Incredibles.

Having watched Elastigirl in action, I have to admit that I totally underrated that power. I don’t know if it was a lack of imagination on my part or having just not read enough comics featuring the aforemented gentlemen.

I have two questions to put to you.

  1. What super power did you once underrate that you now think is pretty cool and what changed your mind?
  2. What character’s powers would you want?

I answered the first one above, so here’s my answer to the second: I’ve always been partial to wanting a Green Lantern ring. I don’t really want to have to answer to the Guardians though. (Blue little fuckers! Okay, you caught me, I just wanted to say “blue little fuckers!”) Think about it, the ring can practically do anything you can think of. Not really too bad of a power to have. You just need to remember to charge the ring. I remember to charge my cell phone, I think I could handle charging the ring.

1. R.I.P. Sue
2. Plastic Man doesn’t count as he’s really more of a shape shifter then a stretcher.

Entertainment, Food

Wouldn’t you like to be a Pepper too?

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Quick drink review, if only so I don’t go for more than a week and a half without a post….

Over the weekend I was at the mall and Dr. Pepper had a big booth giving out free cans of Diet Dr. Pepper and Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper. I’m a big fan of Diet Dr. Pepper, so I thought I’d give its new cousin a try.

I was a bit leery because I think Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper has too many modifiers as part of its name. My fears were unfounded. Its a bit sweeter tasting then I’d like to have everyday but the cherry and vanilla flavors really compliment the taste of Dr. Pepper.

If you like Dr. Pepper, you’ll probably like this. If you don’t like Dr. Pepper, this isn’t going to make you like it.

Entertainment

The only way to watch TV

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USA Today had an article titled Kill your TV — but keep your DVD player which talked about using Netflix to rent TV show seasons on DVD.

This isn’t news to me, as Sarah and I use our Netflix subscription for this all the time. There was one scary quote in there…

After Angel, I’ll dig in to cult ’60s show The Prisoner, the first two seasons of Alias…

After we finish the 3rd season of Smallville we’re moving onto the last season of Angel and next in the queue after that is The Prisoner. Although, we’re all up to date on Alias. With Netflix we finished up the last season of Buffy… and watched the first two seasons of Smallville.

Actually, it is a bit of a quandry, we haven’t figured out what show to dive into next. We’ve been kicking around ST:DS9 as we both stopped watching it before “it got good.” I’ve been also thinking about Stargate.

Any suggestions? Okay, smartasses. Any suggestions besides “stop watching tv?”

Entertainment, Geek

WWCSI

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As Wil Wheaton reminded us yesterday via his blog, tonight is the airing of the Wil Wheaton enhanced episode of CSI. I find I’m having a Reece’s Peanut Butter Cup moment where someone’s put one of my favorite blogs into one of my favorite tv shows, or one of my favorite tv shows into one of my favorite blogs.

I’ve been following Wil’s blog for quite awhile now and as cliche as this sounds, he comes across as a truly nice guy and a fellow geek that I could have some really good conversations with over Guinness with. While I’d be watching CSI anyway, I feel like a lame teenage girl due to my excitement that Wil will be on. Of course, this is all due to getting to know him via his internet ramblings. Without him sharing himself on the net, he’d be just another actor that I think I recognize as a guest on the show.

If nothing else, I hope this helps relauch Wil into a regular series of some sort. If only so he can be reinvited to either World Poker Tour’s Hollywood Home Game or Celebrity Poker Showdown to redeem himself after his recent WTPHHG appearence. Just kidding, mostly. Really, it’d just be great for a nice guy, who’s great with his family, to get something good now that he’s figured out who he is and what’s important to him.

Entertainment

Jay Marvin’s new home

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As mentioned previously, Jay Marvin has left Chicago after WLS asked him to leave. He’s now doing the 6am-10am (Mountain time) shift at AM 760 Boulder’s Progressive Talk.

For those of us in the Chicago area who still want to listen to Jay, we can hear him from 7am-11am (the central time equivalent) via the audio stream at mms://ccdig.liquidviewer.com/KKZN.

For those of you using not-windows (Linux in my case) I’ve found both xine and mplayer work perfectly with this stream. I’ve been using mplayer if only because I’m not forced to have a visualization.

Bars, Beer, Entertainment, Food

A moment of silence

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Since Dinah has been in day care, I’ve been taking the train from Metra stop in Roselle. Since I have been parking in the North parking lot, I drive by Bud’s, the former home of BeerTuesday, almost daily.

Today I ask for a moment of silence, my brothers and sisters in mass alcohol consumption, because on my way to the train today I noticed large FOR RENT signs in the windows of the establishment now formerly known as Bud’s. Rubbing my eyes, I looked again, and they were still there, but this time I also noticed that the sign board was devoid of message.

There is a yellow 8.5×11 sheet of paper taped on one the doors which probably has a message of thanks for the years Bud’s existed, or at least a “sorry, we’re closed for good!” As I had 4 minutes to catch the train, I didn’t stop to read it, but I will on the way home and try to take a picture with my phone.

If they died due to missing a large influx of cash each Tuesday or because their service and beer selection just went into the shitter, we may never know. But please, I beg, a moment of silence for an establishment that: gave us food when we were hungry; that reserved our corner 99% of the time; that let us master darts; that thought were were thespians; that gave us the centurion club to finish over and over; that saw Brian White drink said club faster than any man in history; that saw a beer tab and tip much larger than 4 men should reasonably create; that gave us waitresses who were, after training by us, without parallel; that taught us it was a bad night when “(beer + liquor) > food” evaluated to false; that gave us shelter in times of peace and times of strife; and, most importantly of all, that gave us alcohol when we were sober.

Food

Georgia on my stomach

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The article Obesity fight nips at Southern eats talks about the South and its fight with calories. It specifically mentions a bar in Decatur, Georgia named Mulligan’s, which I couldn’t find a web page for.

In any case, I think I need to travel to Mulligan’s two have two of the specials on their menu that are mentioned in the news article. Both of these stir up feelings of revulsion and hunger.

The “Hamdog”: a hot dog wrapped by a beef patty that’s deep fried, covered with chili, cheese and onions and served on a hoagie bun. Oh yeah, it’s also topped with a fried egg and comes with two fistfuls of fries.

the “Luther Burger”: a bacon-cheeseburger served on a Krispy Kreme doughnut.

[Update: Fark also had a thread on the Hamdog. Thanks to the forums I was directed to an article with pictures at Consumption Junction. The ads on that page are totally NSFW, you have been warned.]

Entertainment, Geek

PS2: Now with hard driving goodness

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A few years ago Sony released a Linux for Playstation2 kit. The kit included a Redhat install tailed for the PS2, USB keyboard and mouse, ethernet adaptor, VGA adaptor, and 40GB hard drive. This was at least a year before the hard drive came with Final Fantasy XI.

I played with Linux on it for a bit, but I didn’t have the time to do any really good programming projects with it. Also, I never ran an ethernet cable near the TV that has the playstation hooked up to it, so it never became the “basement theater term.” Sony pretty much let it die, so the software is so out of date as to be almost painful to use. So, for the most part, I’ve had a hard drive sitting idle in the PS2.

Anyway, a few months ago I stumbled across HDLoader, a tool to load PS2 games onto the hard drive so they load faster. Not a new idea, as the X-Box has been able to do this, but it was nice to see available on the PS2. At the time, I wasn’t playing many games, for some reason. Anyway, its stayed in the back of mind for a long time, especially since that hard drive was seemlingly going to waste.

For Christmas I got The Bard’s Tale from Sarah. I dived right into the game since I enjoyed the original Bard’s Tale games so much on the Commodore 64. I’m really enjoying the game, especially its sense of humor. You also can’t go wrong with Cary Elwes, aka The Dread Pirate Roberts, as the voice of The Bard. The only downside to the game was load time. When exploring villages you go in and out of huts and each entrace and exit causes a load of either the hut map or the village map.

So I looked again at HDLoader. Since it was only $30, I figured I’d give it a try. It is the best $30 I’ve spent on gaming in a long time. Looking at the lists of games that HDLoader works with showed me that most of the games I have with annoying loadtimes work perfectly. Traveling around villages in the Bard’s Tale is now painless. There’s still a load, but nothing like it was. Also, games like Sarah’s Mortal Kombat: Deception, which has a lengthy load before each fight have all but been eleminated. Its like a whole new game console.

With the 40GB hard drive, I’ve been able to fit about 10 games on. I’ve only had 2 games I wanted to put on, that are incompatible with HDLoader. Those two games are from smaller publishing places, which I imagine could be doing less “standard” stuff. However, I’m not sure that’s the connection.

Currently on the hard drive I have:

  • Batman: Rise of Sin Tzu
  • Buffy: Chaos Bleeds
  • Crash Nitro Kart
  • Final Fantasy X
  • Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
  • Mortal Kombat: Deception
  • Spider-man
  • SSX Tricky
  • Summer Heat Beach Volleyball
  • The Bard’s Tale