antwondotcom

out

Sat, 31 May 2008 01:18:54 GMT

OK, folks: I am out of here! Wish me luck. And as always, feel free to check my Twitter feed for breaking updates from the field. :-)

flyin'. and drivin'. in that order.

Fri, 30 May 2008 01:41:22 GMT

OK, so American Express and JetBlue teamed up a little while back with a travel offer of sorts: take any round-trip flight by mid-June and they'd both (a) knock $25 off the purchase price of the flight and (b) kick in bonus mileage points equating to half of a free round-trip flight. "Buy a trip on sale, plus half a trip for free", more or less. Fair enough.

It should be noted that in the context of this offer and their trip-bonus system in general, JetBlue does not differentiate between flights. The flight that you take now, at the discounted rate? Oh, that can be some dinky little two-sawbucks-each-way puddle-jumper if you're so inclined - still counts as a promotion-qualifying flight, it does. And the free flight that you take later? Oh, there are no restrictions on that one, either - it's good for anywhere JetBlue flies. So if you can wrangle yourself a seat on a long-haul plane to Bermuda, hey, that's a perfectly valid use of your free round-trip flight right there.

So if you were so inclined, you could buy a flight down to Long Beach... at about a one-third-off discount, on account of the sale price... and parlay that into half a flight to anywhere? Man, that's a hell of a deal right there! And on that note: I am so inclined! So that's what I'm up to this weekend: taking myself a little jaunt down to Southern California, for flight-system-gaming purchases. (Modulo JetBlue staying in business long enough for me to cash in on all my free-flighted goodness, natch. I would probably settle for "not closing up shop while in mid-trip, stranding me in some far-flung city" in a pinch, really.)

Mind you, not that I really have anything to do in SoCal. No family members, no hobby conferences, no super-close friends - nothin'. Which means that this may turn into a Let's See How Many Southwestern Counties I Can Visit affair, for lack of any better idea manifesting. (In the most extreme scenario, where I do not run into bad weather, or some awesome exhibit I want to check out, or get seduced by a truck-stop waitress, or otherwise decide to do anything but maniacal driving, I could probably pull of something like this. The prospect of which is either awesome or terrifying, depending on your vantage.)

leveling up our living room

Tue, 27 May 2008 20:07:09 GMT

Ealasaid and I had our first anniversary a couple of weeks ago. Our "paper" anniversary, I guess it's called - though I couldn't think of anything I especially wanted that was made out of paper. "Innumerable twenty-dollar bills", I guess... though I think U.S. currency is actually mostly cotton-based, so that was out.

So anyhow: in lieu of exchanging anniversary presents, we decided to communally upgrade our living room TV from "adequate" to "the largest television that we were physically capable of extracting from Costco". This is literally true - note the eight femtometers of clearance inside the vehicle. Mind you, not that we had the presence of mind to actually check that the TV would fit before we had it in the parking lot; it is only through sheer idiot chance that everything worked out so non-tragically.

The pics tell the story: old and busted; new hotness. Given the (lack of) size of our apartment, it is a terrifyingly large television - one should probably not be viewing a 50" TV from a distance of six feet. Then again, achieving the "optimal" viewing distance would likely involve burrowing through a wall into the neighbor's living room; the present setup is probably the more amenable of those two options.

(This is the portion of the post originally dedicated to the hours-long gnashing-of-teeth ordeal required to get the Rock Band lag calibration into some semblance of adequacy. But apparently, in contrast with every other HDTV I have ever had the misfortune of playing on, I got everything spot-on awesome within fifteen minutes or so. So never mind.)

you are now free to move about the country

Tue, 13 May 2008 19:22:42 GMT

Hey, out of totally idle curiosity, I wonder where all SwissAir flies? Well, let's just go check out some likely-looking airline route website....

Um. Huh. Apparently, SwissAir flies to the apocalyptic future, wherein The Big One has caused many cities to migrate, occasionally by hundreds of miles. Or something. I mean, I knew that Cleveland was called "the mistake on the lake"; I'm just pretty sure the lake in question wasn't Lake Huron. I also don't recall the leisurely hour-long coastal drive from San Francisco to Oakland, thought admittedly I haven't been paying a ton of attention to such matters.

On the bright side, this means that New Orleans won't have as many flooding-related mishaps from here on out. And I could probably drive to Las Vegas in about four hours or so, which is nice.

(Link ganked from here, for those of you playing at home.)

achievement unlocked: damaged vocal cords

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 07:54:46 GMT

(Video game information ahoy. If'n you don't care in the slightest, now would be an excellent time to avert your eyes.)

The Rock Band "Endless Setlist" accomplishment, while decidedly challenging, is kind of dumb. It involves playing through all 58 of the on-disc songs in a row, in one continuous set. Oh, sure, you can pause the damn process as often as you like, taking breaks for food / restroom usage / wallowing in one's self-loathing. Still, that notwithstanding: it represents four-and-a-half hours of gameplay, essentially in a singular run. And what do you get for your troubles, should you happen to succeed in the quest? A slightly differently colored icon - "platinum" if you toiled away at everything on Expert, as is our wont.

Ealasaid and I had done this before, on a pair of plastic guitars, with little platinum-colored guitar icons to show for it. But y'know, I'd been practicing my vocal actions as of late... and I was sure we could pass every song again, with Ealasaid rocking the plastitar and me wielding the microphone. And really, I totally wanted my little microphone icon to be all silvery and shimmery, too - empirical proof of my pitch-matching chops, don'tcha know. Anyhow: one looooong Sunday full of gameplay later, voila: we have successfully re-beaten every song in our new configuration! The little platinum microphone icon is mine.

Conclusions to be drawn from this? (1) Omigod, we are SUCH DORKS. (2) Heaven help us once Ealasaid becomes an Expert-level Rock Band drummer - we are totally burning yet-still-another weekend on doing this epic marathon of gamery again. For that is how we roll.

"a meme I actually participate in!" redux

Mon, 24 Mar 2008 07:19:23 GMT

Well, I suppose I'm long overdue in revealing the songs behind the lyrics spouted in the memetic post from last week. (As appears to be the style of the times with jus' 'bout everyone who participated in the meme, as best I can tell.) Anyhow, follow the aforementioned link if you're late to the party but still keen on participating; answers (complete with running commentary) behind the cut.

Everything listed in "Peforming Artist - Song Performed" format. Songs successfully sussed out by the masses in italics, just for the hell of it.

Gratuitous Guitar Hero and/or Rock Band Song
4. KISS - Strutter

Statistically, you figured that at least one song on here had to be from a lovingly obsessed-over rhythm-gaming franchise. This would fill out that quota right here.

Gratuitous Beatles Enthusiast Entries
3. Beatles - I Want To Tell You
13. Beatles - All I've Got To Do

Heh - apparently, if you went through a Beatles-centric phase at any point along the line, you ended up dutifully acquiring the better part of Beatles' entire discography... which means they show up with great frequency on omni-shuffle lists like this. Seriously, just about everyone I saw take part had a Beatles song or two show up. It's marginally creepy, it is.

Commercial Alternarock on Parade
1. Nirvana - All Apologies
6. Counting Crows - Raining in Baltimore
7. 311 - Unity
10. 311 - Prisoner
14. Green Day - F.O.D.
16. Mighty Mighty Bosstones - 1-2-8
17. Wallflowers - 6th Avenue Heartache
19. White Stripes - Fell In Love With A Girl
20. Nirvana - About A Girl

Hi there! Did you listen to an awful lot of mainstream, commercially-available music between the years of, say, 1993 and 2002, give or take? Like, bands that were featured prominently on MTV, or your local Clear Channel owned FM radio station - things of that ilk? If so, congratulations: you, too, have probably heard the vast majority of these songs as well! Seriously: this is the bread-and-butter of my listening line-up right here.

Older Mainstream Music is Also on Parade (Obvious Songs Division)
9. Jimi Hendrix - All Along The Watchtower
11. Eagles - Life In The Fast Lane

My ability to seek out broad-spectrum commercially viable omni-platinum hits knows no bounds, I know. Seriously, listening to my collection on mega-shuffle is not unlike listening to Every Movie Soundtrack Ever Released Ever at times, I swear.

Older Mainstream Music is Also on Parade (Less Obvious Songs Division)
8. Diana Ross & The Supremes - Come See About Me
18. We Five - You Were On My Mind

It's not like these two songs are tons more esoteric than the above two so much as it's damned tough to come up with any non-title-revealing lines that anybody might actually know. (See also: every group of drunken people trying to recall the non-chorus lines to "Piano Man", ever.) I mean, you probably would know the damn songs if you heard them... but hell, I probably couldn't've figured 'em out from the lyrics given.

Esoteric Alternarock Division
5. Superdrag - Wrong vs. Right Doesn't Matter

Fun Fact: Superdrag was that band that was popular for about two weeks there in 1996 or thereabouts - they did that "who sucked OUT the feeeeeeLLLLLIIIINNNNN'" song, as you may recall. They actually put out multiple albums, some of which were well above average by my tastes and two of which I actually went through the effort of acquiring and ripping; this track would be off of one of 'em. This represents approximately all of the vague semblance of indie cred that I might ever pretend to have.

Tracks Which I am Totally Unable to Explain the Existence Of
2. Ella Fitzgerald - Anything Goes
12. Artist Unkown - Theme to "Clarissa Explains It All"

Yeah. I have zero idea why either of these tracks have been packratted away on my machine, frankly. To reconstitute Earth culture in the event of a nuclear strike, wherein my home PC is the archive of last resort for the remaining few human stragglers, perhaps. The less I consider the matter, the better, methinks.

Here concludes the random walk through my MP3 folder. We will now open the floor to questions.

a meme I actually participate in. zounds!

Sat, 15 Mar 2008 10:19:54 GMT

As first seen at beccajoojoo: put your music player on shuffle/random. Post lyrics from the first 20 songs that play (ignore instrumentals!). Have your friends guess the songs - or just marvel at your strange music collection! OK, firing up the Omni-Shuffematic 8000, one moment please....

Have gone in the "attempt to post a memorable or representative song snippet" direction and not the "I hate you and am posting two semi-random only-known-by-uber-fans" direction I briefly considered. Lyrics ahoy:

1. In the sun, in the sun I feel as one. In the sun, in the sun. Married. Buried.

2. The world has gone mad today, and good's bad today, and black's white today, and day's night today, and that gent today, you gave a cent today, once owned several chateaus.

3. When I get near you, the games begin to drag me down. It's all right - I'll make you maybe next time around. But if I seem to act unkind, it's only me, it's not my mind - that is confusing things.

4. I know a thing or two about her. I know she'll only make you cry. She'll let you walk the street beside her. But when she walks, she'll pass you by.

5. You cut my gentle flower down. Pierced her side with a pin for your lapel. You plucked the ruby from her crown. Now your karma's coming down. (x4)

6. You get what you pay for, but I just had no intention of living this way. I need a phone call. I need a plane ride. I need a sunburn.

7. Oh, god, I can't believe it. You have asked and so you shall receive it, in the ear. Victory draws near, but no fear my dear, I'll be here another year, that's right.

8. My friends are gone and you... have too. No peace shall... I find. Until you come back, and be mine. No matter what you do or say, I'm gonna love you anyway.

9. "There must be some kind of way out of here," said the joker to the thief. There's too much confusion - I can't get no relief.

10. Twilight zone, twilight zone, I'm floating in the dark alone, and is there any love out here - let me know.

11. They knew all the right people. They took all the right pills. They threw outrageous parties. They paid heavenly bills.

12. Na, na, na na. Na na na na na. (All right, all right!) Na, na, na na na. Na-na na na na na. (Way cool!)

13. And the same goes for me, whenever you want me at all. I'll be here, yes I will, whenever you call. You just gotta call on me, yeah. You just gotta call on me.

14. Let's nuke the bridge we torched two thousand times before. This time we'll blast it all to hell. I've had this burning in my guts now for so long. My belly's aching now to say.

16. I think they're selling snake oil at the dog and pony show. In the garden, gee, well would you pardon me, and by the way, how does it grow?

17. And the same black line that was drawn on you was drawn on me. And now it's drawin' me in.

18. And I got a feelin' down in my shooooes, said, way down in my shooooes. Yeah, I got to ramble, whoa-a-oh. I got to move on, whoa-a-oh.

19. She turns and says "are you alright?" I said, "I must be fine 'cause my heart's still beating." "Come and kiss me by the riverside, yeah - Bobby says it's fine, he don't consider it cheating."

20. I'll take advantage while you hang me out to dry. But I can't see you every night, free.

Twenty songs... and the fates of randomization give me two artists twice. (Also, a TV theme song - yeesh.) The rest of it is broad-spectrum decades-spanning pop- and alterna-rock, for the most part - representative enough, methinks. (And gives folks a better shot at recognizing many of these than most folks' lists, I would think.)

Guess away, if you're so inclined. I'll post the actual answers in a couple days' time.

I am outta here!

Sat, 09 Feb 2008 02:47:55 GMT

OK, party people: off I go for my weekend in Florida! To do... uh, activities to be determined! I guess! Wish me well - and, as always, should you feel the need to cyber-stalk me, I shall be updating the Twitter feed will some regularity from the road.

(Also, happy birthday to mazeyminda! A day late! On account of ongoing suckitude on my part!)

ze plastic flatware, it does nothing

Tue, 29 Jan 2008 22:32:23 GMT

At work, in the common area, there's a collection of sundry fruits, suitable for random folks to nab and nosh on during the day. This is not out of the ordinary. Out of the ordinary, however, is one of the fruits in question: next to the box of bananas and the crate of apples is a single, lonely-looking pineapple.

Who the hell is this for? Who's out there going through the effort of coring and eating an entire unprocessed pineapple, in cubicle, for a midday snack?

america's wang ahoy

Fri, 18 Jan 2008 09:34:29 GMT

What with the whole JetBlue American Express card that I use for... well, just about every earthly purchase, really, I accrue an ass-ton of JetBlue free flight "points". So much so that it got to the point that if'n I didn't fly somewhere by April, they were going to have one of my free round-trip flights wink away into the aether. That was the stick they threatened me with, anyway; the complementary carrot was "hey, if you schedule your trip pronto to get your flight on by mid-February, we'll shower yet still even more free flight goodness upon you".

So anyhow, long story short: weekend after the Super Bowl, I am burning myself a random-ass three-day weekend in Palm Beach! The flights are booked, as is the rental car; if nothing else, this'll permit me the opportunity to go on a random-ass road-trip towards my lifelong "attempt to visit, however briefly, every county in the U.S." goal. Either way, never been to southern Florida - it'll be an experience. Should there be anything there in particular that I ought to keep my eyes open for, this would be an excellent time to clue me in.

Fun fact: what with the quirky limitations JetBlue imposes on their free flights, severely constraining one's potential destination cities, the almost-selected Plan B was flying into Portland, Maine... despite the fact that portions of Maine are likely to be snowed to pieces at the time, to say nothing of the potential below-zero temperatures that I'd be wholly unequipped for. But such is the allure of supplemental gratis airfare! (And hey, at least it would've made for a story. Maybe next time! Doubly so if I can con someone into coming with!)

gratutitous november 30 posting

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 18:49:25 GMT

For those of you playing along at home: NaNoWriMo winnership was attained at 3am last night - for the seventh time running! - when I limped over the 50,000 word mark. This makes for beating the midnight local time deadline by a solid 21 hours, absolutely atomizing the previous personal best of wrapping things up with about four hours to spare. (And with a bare minimum of needless padding to boot.)

There's still a Grand Climax and a denouement left to write - which I'll probably polish off this evening, just for sake of getting everything well and truly completed. But still: no last second panic-induced verbosity for me. It's ever so... odd.

shakin'

Wed, 31 Oct 2007 18:44:12 GMT

I love the seemingly universal sort of response the locals have to earthquakes like the one last night in the South Bay. "Hey, it's an earthquake!" bemusement; five minutes of mildly adrenaline-infused chit-chat about previous earthquake experiences; blithe returning to whatever one was doing previously because eh, it wasn't The Big One, so meh, whatever. It's oh-so-deliciously jaded!

fake band theatrics ahoy

Wed, 17 Oct 2007 01:24:27 GMT

The upcoming "Rock Band" video game is on a nationwide tour of sorts at the moment, going from place to place with a stage and several instances of the game for public playthrough purposes. Ealasaid and I had the good fortune to make it to their showing outside Stanford Stadium this weekend.

The fake-guitar aspect of the game is very much like Guitar Hero, unsurprisingly. The fretboard notes are a different shape (little horizontal lines instead of big round dots), but the gameplay is otherwise pretty much as expected: watch the notes drift down and strum at the appropriate moments. After spending a couple of songs acclimating to the change, we were pretty much rocking out as competently as we ever do at home.

The fake-drums seemed both responsive and sturdy, all things considered - didn't have to make a mental note to hit them extra-soft, or extra-hard, or anything like that. The foot pedal is a welcome addition - and man, is getting that whole limb-independence thing down ever going to be a challenge. And something of a workout, given how much thrashing even this faux-drumming appeared to necessitate. (Guess that's why one rarely sees overweight drummers.)

The gameplay exhibits a lot of nice little touches along the way. If you're rockin' with competency, the in-game crowd will sing along with you during the choruses, which is all sorts of cool. And if one of your fellow bandmates fails out of a song, you can revive them and get 'em back into the fold by employing the game's starpower-equivalent. At times, the drummer gets to do series of hit-whatever-you'd-like fills in the middle of songs. (Which are scored solely on amount of mashing done during the fill - which led me to comment on Ealasaid's "creative interpretation" of some parts of "Say It Ain't So".)

Speaking of which: the track listing is shaping up to be pretty epic, all things considered. "Enter Sandman" and "Wanted Dead or Alive" and "Won't Get Fooled Again", oh my! Compared to the upcoming Guitar Hero III tracklist, one gets the impression that Rock Band has gone for maximum name-recognition, optimal-for-party-play tracks, while GHIII is focusing more on the "we demand fret-shredding theatrics!" side of the divide. Will be very interesting to see how both franchises shape up going forward.

There is also a microphone aspect of the game; I blithely assumed that this works like Karaoke Revolution and didn't bother testing it out in any capacity.

One thing this event made clear: man, there are a whole lot of extraordinarily bad practitioners of karaoke out there. 'Cuz holy god, I have mediocre pipes at best, but I am a goddamn scion of vocal competence compared the array of folks we heard butchering "Black Hole Sun" over and over. Yeesh!

i have dual citizenship with "tv land"

Tue, 16 Oct 2007 10:08:50 GMT

Oh, how exciting: not only is Nickelodeon's "TV Land" showing old Night Court re-runs once again, but they've apparently made the command decision to start by airing the series pilot and going forward from there. It's all so jarring: no Roz! No Christine! No Mac! No meshing with the template that has been conferred upon me by my childhood memories! This should be interesting, watching the series retroactively evolve into the format I know and appreciate....

adventures in home economics

Tue, 09 Oct 2007 07:20:08 GMT

Problem: damn, that two-pound brick of cheddar cheese we've had in the fridge is gonna die any day now. It's technically a week past expiration as it is, y'know.
Solution: cook up a full-on quadruple batch of Ealasaid's macaroni and cheese to use it all up. Seriously: this is a metric ass-ton of macaroni and cheese. I think we've purposed every Tupperware-style container on hand towards holding it all.

On the one hand, all told, that's approximately 8,000 calories worth of mac and cheese. And Ealasaid's dietary restrictions preclude her from eating much of it, which means slogging through it all falls squarely upon my shoulders. On the other hand, holy god, that's two full work-weeks' worth of lunches produced for something a shade less than $15. Hell, we could've splurged with upscale cheeses and hoity-toity Whole Foods bread crumbs and still kept things under a sawbuck. That's crazy economical, yo.

the amazing antwon creates text! this is not an illusion!

Tue, 09 Oct 2007 07:09:06 GMT

I am currently watching an hour-long special entitled "Breaking the Magician's Code". It's pretty much just some magician - all masked up for anonymity purposes, natch - clueing you into the reveals behind every reasonably standard staple Vegas-grade magic trick going. It's ever-so-deliciously spiteful! And the two follow-up hour-long specials are already tucked away on the TiVo - marvelous. Thanks, Fox Reality Channel! (Which (a) apparently exists in our cable lineup and (b) is airing decade-old "shock" fare! Both for reasons unknown!)

i'll pre-order my carpal tunnel surgery now, i guess.

Thu, 26 Jul 2007 01:56:54 GMT

Oh, goodie: it appears that Dragonforce's "Through The Fire And Flames" is going to appear in Guitar Hero III after all. I proactively weep for the umpteen scrillion aborted playings of this to enter my world in the semi-near future....

review of colæ

Tue, 26 Jun 2007 02:17:04 GMT

I enjoy that my long-running idiotic idea - "if they can fortify milk and orange juice with supplemental vitamins, why can't they fortify soda, HUR HURRRR" - has become reality with the existence of Diet Coke Plus. Diet Coke with magnesium and zinc and a handful of B-vitamins thrown in. It tastes as one would expect: like Diet Coke with the faintest hint of multivitamin aftertaste. Which is fine enough, I suppose. Need to plow through a full twelve-pack before I can do a more substantive analysis.

Also, finally got around to consuming our holiday-themed novelty Jones Sodas - you know, the ones with flavors like "Turkey with Gravy". Better late than never, I suppose. They were suprisingly non-bad, on the whole, sticking mostly with vague allusions to the purported flavors than anything tongue-burstingly awful. I mean, not that I'd want to make a steady diet of consuming beverages that taste faintly of Pepto-Bismol... but I can see the "antacid-flavored soda" appeal.

honeymoon by the numbers

Tue, 05 Jun 2007 18:21:29 GMT

Duration, in days: 16
States visited: 26
Miles driven: 8,712
Rental cars consumed: 2

Fee-demanding federal parks visited: 7
Residences where Guitar Hero was played: 3

Madza RX-8s seen: 7
Billboards for vasectomy reversal seen (seriously, WTF): 7
Chick-fil-a restaurants seen on Sundays, which is (a) the only day of the week when Chick-fil-a is closed and, naturally, (b) the only day of the week when we happened to see one: 3
Non-local regional restaurant chains patronized: 8

Counties added to my visit-all-counties conquest: 115 (pic here - new visits in royal purple)
Minor detours made for explicit county-acquiring purposes: 4

torn, and not in the natalie imbruglia fashion

Fri, 20 Apr 2007 20:57:57 GMT

Man, I am totally torn about the prospect of getting an XBox360. On the one hand, with Guitar Hero II (now with downloadable content!) out already, and the prospect of games I would actually care to get like GTA IV (and Rock Band, assuming it does not totally suck) on the horizon, I'll almost certainly end up with one eventually... and if I'm already committed to getting one, hey, no time like the present. If I'm gonna pay, might as well enjoy reap the benefits of playing now.

'Course, on the other hand, it's not like there's much out presently that I'd be compelled to acquire... which means it's the equivalent of blowing several hundred dollars on, essentially, a uni-task machine. A uni-task machine that will have future benefits, true... but a uni-task machine all the same. That I would only use to play an extended version of a game I already own and can play gratis, using a funky new controller that's been getting hot-and-cold reviews. So yeah, like I said: totally torn.

(This is the part of the post where you craftily offer to let me play Guitar Hero II on your Xbox360 - "you know, just to help you in the evaluation process" - while craftily and 'inadvertently' getting me to earn a mess of activation points on your behalf in the process. To be absolutely clear, I am totally fine with this prospect.)

descend, dessert monkeys! descend!

Tue, 17 Apr 2007 17:24:22 GMT

Please be advised that today (April 17) is Ben & Jerry's Free Cone Day. Find a suitable local location for mooching here.

Thank you. That is all.

meanwhile, at the eleventh hour....

Mon, 16 Apr 2007 06:22:06 GMT

As many of you may have heard me kvetching about, the contracting company that had hired me through last August had utterly failed to provide me with any W-2 forms. Just couldn't get a straight answer - or an answer of any type, frankly - out of anyone on the topic. Played "phone tag" for a while, right up until it turned into the more unilaterally-played "send voicemails into the aether" game. Sort of figured that "file an extension; rent Harrier Jump Jet to threaten parties involved" was going to be the eventual tactic of choice.

Until this morning, when I got a phone call from the founder of the company, informing me that (a) he had my W-2's with him and (b) I could pick them up from his house in San Jose at my leisure. "We tried to send them, but had them returned a couple times," went his assertion. Mind you, I don't see how that can possibly be true. The address in Scotts Valley they were using, while slightly outdated, should've worked just fine - y'know, the way it does for the umpteen scrillion pieces of mail I still receive there.

Needless to say, this is sketchy as all hell. But at least I have some form in hand, suitable for mindlessly plugging into tax documentation of various stripes, so I shan't question the matter too much.

short attention span blogger

Fri, 13 Apr 2007 20:13:24 GMT

Have you ever thought to yourself, "Self, I certainly do wish that Antwon posted in a manner that was pithier, or at very least more inane?" Well, consider your desires fulfilled, citizen: I've acquired myself a Twitter account! Capped at 140 characters per entry, this is the next logical step in my lifelong goal of eventually communicating entirely via punctuation and the occasional emoticon.

Feel free to "friend" me on Twitter, if you're so inclined. (Or "follow" me, or whatever the hell nomenclature they're using.)

partying like it's 1999

Tue, 10 Apr 2007 00:14:13 GMT

Well, would you look at that: MTV's "Undressed" is making a cameo appearance on the airwaves. Everyone's favorite fantastically over-the-top teenager soap opera is back, running in a congealed brick of ten episodes this evening from midnight through 5am. (Co-tips of the hat for this discovery go to both TiVo's WishList feature and my propensity for jamming every conceivable demi-interest into said feature.)

"Undressed" was one of my guilty pleasures back in college. It was a match made in heaven, really. Operating in the vague hope that I would fail to burn out entirely, Friday evening was allocated for dedicated slacking, where intellectual pursuits of all types were verboten... which happened to coincide nicely with MTV's irregular marathons of such mindless fare. For truly, the program can be readily consumed without engaging any higher brain functions whatsoever. (For the purposes of this post, please assume that "ironic appreciation" has been hard-wired into my brain stem by this point and consequently does not count.)

Of course, if my track record with such things is to be trusted, this show will be far less enjoyable during the actual re-watching than the sepia-toned version of things as they exist in my brainmeats. But eh, I'm willing to risk imploding a little more nostalgia in the name of a few hours' entertainment. Wish me luck!

instrument protagonist

Mon, 02 Apr 2007 20:04:58 GMT

Oh, goodie. Appears that the whole "what if you, like, took the whole 'fake guitar' aspect of Guitar Hero and just ran with it" concept is coming to fruition after all. The game in question will be Rock Band - for the PS3 and Xbox 360, coming to stores near you this holiday season. Gameplay involves two fake guitars, AND a fake drum, AND a fa... well, I suppose the microphone is technically non-fake. But still.

Either way, WE SHALL FORM THE BEST FAKE BAND EVAR.