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Crime Still Doesn’t Pay

I got an email about that postal employee who stole one or more of my Gamefly and/or Netflix rentals. She plead guilty to 1 count of Delaying or destruction of mail or newspapers and 3 counts of Theft of mail matter by officer or employee. She’ll be sentenced on September 29 and any other charges will be disposed of then. I could go out to Los Angeles and speak at the sentencing if I wanted to. I’m curious to see what her sentencing will be, but I don’t want to be involved in any way. No major harm done.

Busy and Tired

It’s been a while since I updated. Things have been very busy lately.

I moved out of my apartment. Everybody else was leaving and I didn’t want to stay either. Management became bunch of bitches after the cool lady had a baby a left. They pissed me off so many times with all the stuff they didn’t want you doing to their precious apartments. I can understand why, but I need more freedom. A lot of people left and I can’t think all of them graduated. Anyway, the process of moving has kept me busy. For the past couple of weeks it’s seemed like the only thing I’ve done every night was pack, clean, or unpack. I ready to spend my free time having fun again, but there’s still a lot of stuff to do.

I now live kinda of the edge of town in a residential area without a billion apartments around. I have to drive about 5.5 miles to work instead of less than 2 like before. I like it because it gives me time to plan and listen to my new Sirius satellite radio. I’ve been getting up early on weekends lately and I’m starting to like it. Is that another sign of getting older? I might have to start eating breakfast again.

When I first came to Starkville, I didn’t think that I would still be here 11 years later. I do have an idea of where I want to go from here, but that’s something you’ll have to talk to me about in person, over the phone, through IM, etc.

Work has been busy for the most part lately, and that’s how I generally like it. I’m hoping to get involved in more interesting things. I also want to do some traveling for my job, but there doesn’t seem to be a lot of opportunities for that.

Finding Serenity

I’m still obsessed with Firefly. I recently re-watched the series and then I read Finding Serenity: Anti-Heroes, Lost Shepherds and Space Hookers in Joss Whedon’s Firefly. It’s a collection of essays about the show. The book was edited by Jane Espenson, who was a writer on Buffy, Angel, and Firefly and is now a writer on Battlestar Galactica. Some of the essay were interesting. Some were boring and I couldn’t wait to get through. I could see the point that some of the authors were trying to make. Some I think were seeing things that aren’t even there. At this point the movie hadn’t been released, so some of the theories have been proven wrong since then. In thee back there’s a glossary where they translate all the Chinese spoken on the show. My favorite essay is written by Jewel Staite (she played Kaylee). She lists her five favorite moments from each episode. That may be the one to read even if you don’t read any of the others.

• Headcrash, Bruce Bethke
• Childhood’s End, Arthur C. Clarke
• Timeline, Michael Crichton
• Unshapely Things, Mark Del Franco
• Finding Serenity, Jane Espenson
• Serenity Found, Jane Espenson
• On Bullshit, Harry G. Frankfurt
• On Truth, Harry G. Frankfurt
• The Appeal, John Grisham
• Playing for Pizza, John Grisham
• Night Watch, Sergey Lukyanenko
• Day Watch, Sergey Lukyanenko
• Twilight Watch, Sergey Lukyanenko
• Final Watch, Sergey Lukyanenko
• The Taking, Dean Koontz
• His Majesty’s Dragon, Naomi Novik
• Throne of Jade, Naomi Novik
• Black Powder War, Naomi Novik
• Empire of Ivory, Naomi Novik
• Victory of Eagles, Naomi Novik
• Lyra’s Oxford, Philip Pullman
• Unholy Domain, Dan Ronco
• Elantris, Brandon Sanderson
• Titus Andronicus, William Shakespeare

Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog

This is the new Joss Whedon web musical starring Neil Patrick Harris, Nathon Fillion, and Felicia Day. It’ll probably be a lot like that musical episode of Buffy. I’m excited about it…because it’s Joss.

Guys Named Todd

I’ve been listening to and watching some George Carlin lately. This is one of my favorite routines of his.

Independence Day 2008

I had a relaxing and enjoyable Independence Day weekend. With all that’s been going on it was good to have a weekend with no stress and no traveling. I kept Bailey this weekend and having him around kept me from sitting around all day. I took him walking and took him outside from time to time…when it wasn’t raining that is.

What else did I do? I finished reading a book and started on a new one. I watched some good DVDs. I beat a video game. I cleaned up. I did whole bunch of other miscellaneous stuff that I’ve been putting off.

Weekends can be fun and productive at the same time. I didn’t even want to come back to work today. I’ve been away from work more than I’ve been at work lately. Back to work

Massive Multimedia Update

I remember reading Childhood’s End a while back and getting to the point where humanity didn’t have to work for a lot of and people became absorbers of media. It made me think of how much time I spent watching TV, playing games, listening to podcasts, etc. It’s fun. I can do what I want with my free time :). Here’s some of the stuff that I’ve gotten into over the past few months.

I rented Robot Chicken: Season 2. Still hilarious. Some of my favorite skits: • The Neverending Story • Final Fantasy VII • E.T. • Captain Planet/Ted Turner You can probably find these skits on YouTube if you don’t want to get the DVDs.

I played BlackSite: Area 51 on the Xbox 360 on an off over a couple of months. Those commercials with the little girl made me want to play it. Fun game with excellent graphics. Not the best first person shooter, but still good.

I finally played Portal. Now I know what everybody’s been talking about. It’s a first person shooter puzzle game. I felt smart when I figured out some of those puzzles.

Five Days was a British miniseries that came on HBO. It was an interesting concept. You get to see 5 days out of a 79 day missing person investigation. Neat, but I got bored.

John Adams was an HBO miniseries that I actually liked. I love those historical dramas. Guess what it’s about.

In Treatment was an interesting show that came on HBO. It’s about a therapist named Paul and his patients. It came on 5 nights a week and you got to see the same patient each Monday, each Tuesday, etc. On Fridays you got to see his sessions with his own therapist. It started out really slow and I thought about only watching the episodes with the patients that I liked. However, I stuck with it and about 3 weeks into it got really good. I’m interested to see what it’s going to be like next season.

Enchanted Arms is a strategy RPG that I played on the Xbox 360. It’s a pretty good. I found myself getting bored at times. You spend way too much time scrolling through dialog. And there’s no animation during a lot of those scenes. You just see images of the characters in the foreground that change occasionally. The graphics are great and the battles are fun. It has a flamboyantly gay playable character. The manual says that he’s a transvestite. *Spoiler Alert* After he supposedly dies early in the game, he goes around disguised as someone else. At the end he reveals that he did so because the stuff he had to do to help save the world wasn’t ladylike. Fun stuff.

If you’re a fan of LOST, you might want to play LOST: Via Domus. It’s not a long game and you get easy achievement points. I had heard that the executive producers of LOST said that the ending to this game wasn’t a dream, so that meant that I definitely had to play it. I’ll give you a link to the ending so you don’t have to suffer through the game.

I rented Planet Earth and it looks awesome in HD. Enough said.

The Lost Odyssey commercials with that Jefferson Airplane song made me want it. It’s a really good game. I haven’t gotten to the end. I really need to get back to it.

I’m got around to playing Halo 3 only about 9 months after everybody else played it. I liked the game and the story. I’m not really sure about the ending. I’m going to start playing multiplayer this weekend. Some of the guys at work are having a Halo night next weekend.

Heavenly Sword is the first game that I’ve played on the PS3. I decided to rent it from Gamefly since reviews said that it was as short game. It’s a very good looking game and a lot of fun to play. It reminds me a lot of God of War. It is a pretty short game, which is fine by me. The final boss fight is annoyingly hard, and I almost gave up on the game because of it. But a couple of weeks later I picked it back up and beat it. Score!

Ma’dea

My grandmother passed away this past Sunday. We called her Ma’dea. She was 88 years old. Her funeral was Thursday in Bolton, MS.

I lived with my grandparents from the time I was 6 weeks old until I was 14, though I spent weekends and holidays with my mother. My grandmother played a part in raising a lot of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren (currently numbering 21 and 24 respectively). She was a very kind woman and was always willing to help people out. She had a great since of humor. She joked a lot and played pranks on us grandchildren. I can’t remember ever having anything negative to say about her. She is greatly missed.

Unshapely Things

I read Unshapely Things be Marc Del Franco because it was the latest pick from The Sword and Laser podcast. Unshapely Things falls under the category elf punk. It takes place in modern-day Boston where you see people along with creatures like fairies, elves, and druids (collectively called the fey). There’s an area of Boston called The Weird where the most of the Boston-area fey live.

It was an ok book, but not something that I liked a lot. It took about a month to read a 300-page book, which means that it was very easy to put the book down and do other things. This was the author’s first book and I know that there’s at least one other book in the Connor Grey series. I’m not sure if I’ll read the next book. I have a feeling it’s much better than the first, but I may just read the Harry Dresden series instead.

I’m already finding Serenity.

• Headcrash, Bruce Bethke
• Childhood’s End, Arthur C. Clarke
• Timeline, Michael Crichton
• Unshapely Things, Mark Del Franco
• Finding Serenity, Jane Espenson
• Serenity Found, Jane Espenson
• On Bullshit, Harry G. Frankfurt
• On Truth, Harry G. Frankfurt
• The Appeal, John Grisham
• Playing for Pizza, John Grisham
• Night Watch, Sergey Lukyanenko
• Day Watch, Sergey Lukyanenko
• Twilight Watch, Sergey Lukyanenko
• Final Watch, Sergey Lukyanenko
• The Taking, Dean Koontz
• His Majesty’s Dragon, Naomi Novik
• Throne of Jade, Naomi Novik
• Black Powder War, Naomi Novik
• Empire of Ivory, Naomi Novik
• Victory of Eagles, Naomi Novik
• Lyra’s Oxford, Philip Pullman
• Unholy Domain, Dan Ronco
• Elantris, Brandon Sanderson
• Titus Andronicus, William Shakespeare

Babylon 5: The Complete First Season

I first started watching Babylon 5 near the end of its thirds season when I was still in high school. I immediately liked it and watched all the remaining episodes and TV movies while in high school and college. I got caught up on the previous episodes during my freshman year in college when TNT started airing them 5 nights a week. I remember trying to be sure to be back in my dorm room every night or recording the episode if I wasn’t going to be there.

I’ve been meaning to re-watch B5 for a while now. I bought season 1 recently and finished watching it earlier this week. I hadn’t seen these episodes in over years. I had heard people say that season 1 is bad compared to the rest and I remembered the later seasons as being much better than the first. There were some moments here and there where I cringed a little on the inside, but I really enjoyed the first season.

Part of my enjoyment may have come from the fact that I know what’s going to happen later. Each season has a title, which is also the title of one of the episodes from that season. The title of season one is “Signs and Portents’’. I can see them planting the seeds for future storylines. I remember why I liked this show so much. I can’t wait to jump into season 2.

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