Brick - See it

Last night I watched a film called 'Brick' on pay per view and I must say that I enjoyed it more than many films I have seen over the past few years. I highly recommend you check out this great hommage to film noir set in a California High School. It's original, funny, painful and well thought out. Great cinematography and a haunting score. One small complaint is that there is a LOT of slang used in this monie, most of it isn't the current kid/gangsta crap. It sounds like it's right out of Daschle Hammett. It comes fast and hard and you might need to rewind now and then to catch it. Check out the trailer (link above).

Update on my Rig..

Thanks for the links and advise and contacts. Chris (The Big Red Monkey) called me shortly after the post. He asked me questions. Questions I felt uncomfortable answering on an unsecured line. Several hours later an email arrived with specs that frankly scared me. This sort of technology is supposed to under lock and key at area 51. This kind of rig can kill people in many multi-player games just by logging in.

I got a call today from Monkey. He says "Dude, I may not be able to send you this rig."

"Is there something wrong?" I asked.

"Oh no, it's just that it's just too damn sweet. I may not be able to let it go"

I salivate... Soon, soon it will be in my hands. And then they'll learn, they'll all learn the meaning of the word FRAG.

Hack...wheeze..cough....

We returned triumphant from last weekend at Ohio Ren. It was one of our best weekends EVER. I have no idea how to explain it. Holliday weekend? Perfect weather? Alignment of the planets? Who knows? It just kicked ass for two solid days. It was so busy that of Saturday I paid patrons to go and get us food so we wouldn't pass out.

But no good weekend goes unpunnished and by Monday a creeping Crud over took Rossana and I. We did what we could and rested up because my mother gave us an early x-mas present in the form of tickets to see Spamalot at the State Theater and I wasn't going to miss that, no sir.

I will say now that I can see why many people find this musical so fun. It is indeed very silly. Great set design and some very clever numbers. I thought the sound could have been a bit louder given the high tech system I drooled over in the back of the theater. My biggest.... well... its not a complaint per se. It's jst that a super geek like me can pretty much quote a lot of Monty Python and the Hold Grail word for word. So it was very obvious and jarring where the new diologue and story elements (such as they were) were tacked on. Also, part of what makes Python so funny is the rapid fire delivery, which has to be way slowed down to work on the stage. There are some great physical comedy bits but it wasn't anywhere near as great as several other plays and musicals I've seen over the years. It's clever, but Tony award winning clever? Hmmmm. If you love Python, save the whacking large amount of money tickets cost for this show and buy the latest deluxe DVD release. You'll be glad you did.

My Kung Fu is strong but my Rig is weak

It's been a while since I did any upgrades on my home built system. And there's a good reason for that. Because any attempt to update or overhaul this system will likely result in the delicate magic holding said system together to be dispelled leaving nothing but a pile of raw silicone and a weeping corset saleman. I simply cannot afford to have my computer down for any length of time. I rely on it, as does my business and those of my website clients. So I've let it slide. But its annoyances have grown. Plug and play is spotty, the video card whines, hard drive performance seems very slow. Etc etc.

Since taking this system apart is out of the question I need a new rig. This is where you folks come in. If you yourself, or someone you know, is a clever tool-using monkey, I gots a job for ya.

What I want:

Fast components. Not THE latest, as these are very spensive, just one step behind.
Video: I need to be able to kick my friend Jackals ass in BF2. Plan accordingly.
Lots o RAM. I deal with large photoshop files. 2 gig.
Dual layer DVD burning= Good.
Media card reader.
Legit copy of XP: OEM or boxed makes no difference. I can't have Microsoft giving me shit just to save a few bucks.
Dual Boot? Hey, I've heard good things about Ubuntu. I'd love to have that option.
Hard drive: Huge SATA is best. I also need to be able to hook up my current ATA drive to transfer over huge numbers of files.
Sound Card: Need not be fancy. I typically use headphones.
Lights, bells, whistles, windows and spinner need not apply.
Sound: Quiet. Fanless power supply would be nice.
No monitor needed.

Price: Under 1 grand if at all possible.

If you're interrested in the job please email me. I'd like to get this process rolling next week. Although I am by no means a huge blog I'd be very happy to plug you or your company or run your banner ad.

Thanks for your help.

A tale of two Couches

There comes a time in a relationship when things get serious. The first serious step is cohabitation. At least it was for me. But an even greater commitment occurs when your relationship goes to the next lever. No, not marriage or kids. I'm talking about buying furniture.

When Rossana and I moved into the big farmhouse years ago, we arrived with a large sectional sofa that I'd bought from some cousins. It had seem many better days. Its appearance was not improved by my friend Ander sat down on the couch back after finishing the move and "Anderizing" it.

It was clear that furniture was needed. We shopped around and eventually went to Value City (because we were, basically, poor) and bought a sofa and loveseat. It is here that I will stop our tale and give a mea culpa. Those of you who know me know that I posses a fairly good sense of decorating style. It's been said that if only I had been born gay I would have had a very successful career as an interior designer. This great style sense led me to push for a lovely couch with turned wooden feet and brass nails in tan with tapestry accent pillows. We bought it and hauled it home and the second we set it in place and I laid my ass upon it I realized I had made a terrible mistake. This was the most uncomfortable couch in the history of furniture. Torquemada could have used this furniture to extract confessions of blasphemy. It literally tried to force me out of it every time I sat down. It's material felt like sandpaper to me. Rossana was, of course, oblivious. But she has always led a Spartan existence. But I hated this couch, with a passion that burns like Latin love. And it hated me.

Years pass. We move again. The couched look fine in our home. But things start to slip. One day Rossana mentions that the couch 'isn't as comfy as it could be'.

"Oh really?" I respond demurely, as if I'd never really noticed.

Quickly I put a plan into action. While down in southern Ohio we went to a Big Lots (cheapo closeout store) and I had her sit down with me on a nice, ugly modern sofa while I 'rested my back' for a few moments. Slowly it dawned on my beloved wide. Her eyes begand to slowly close and she smiled slightly.

"What is it dearest?" I asked.

"This couch is soooo comfy."

"Is it? I suppose it is. Much better than our couches at home. And look, they're on sale!" I pushed the price display over to her with my toe.

She looked at the price, it was actually very reasonable. We'd shopped for furniture before, browsing Arhouse Furniture and other trendy couchetoriums. But those were mere flights of fancy. Two years ago we could have bought our house, or a lamp and an end table from one of these places. This was Big Lots.

We went home and I called the local stores. The nearest one had a set in stock. I laid out my case;

"Dear, when we last bought furniture I chose style over comfort and I was frankly dead wrong. We sit on these couches, nap on them, have guests sleep on them, shouldn't they at least not cause rashes and bleeding, if not be somewhat comfy?"

In the end, she kindly agreed. We looked over our finances and agreed we could do it. Of course, nothing can go without incident. The local Big Lots had the couch, but it was the wrong material. We had to drive out to Norwalk Ohio but we got 'em. After much grunting and heaving they are now safely installed in our living room and they are sooooooo nice. I mean it's reeeeeally nice. I may just sleep on it tonight. The Old loveseat is in the Moroccan room, where it replaced an even more uncomfortable futon. The couch? Its on our porch now and we're trying to sell it off. If you're a massochist and have a few bucks to spend or you want to torture a friend with a +4 Couch of Discomfort drop me a line.

Religion

This is a pretty good short video about why athiests care about religion.

Assorted stuff and various things...

Haven't posted in a while. This can be traced to an insideous enemy called 'work'. This work must be stopped at all costs.

Most of the week was spent on the road. Ohio Ren has 2 kids days where I basically sit and watch the next generation dissapoint me. It is beyond pathetic. The younger ones seem to have some hope, but once they get into high school they appear vapid, or just stupid. I am sure that all previous generations have looked at their successors in this way. Spent friday on the road and then finished up the Michigan show. It was yet another rainy weekend, perhaps the wettest season on record. But they numbers were there. The place was packed to the gills. I didn't do gangbusters but there were extenuating circumstances. Heather (one of my sales minions) arrived Saturday with a toe she believed to be broken. This was confirmed after a trip to he ER. On her return the pain meds and a spike in blood sugar meant she was flying and was good only for entertainment value. Once she was pretty straight we sent her home. I also spent some time trying to help my friends Alex and Elizabeth try and find a booth to buy. The biggest deal was that I sold complete, custom made Demonatrix outfit. If you've seem me at any shows over the last year you may have notices an outstanding leather outfit with wet molded leather demon wings and hands that look like they are grabbing the wearer. I've been bummed that I have not yet found a buyer for this piece. Of course, the fact that it's $1800 may have something to do with it. But on Saturday a young woman returned and stated she wanted to order her own personalized Demonatrix at a cost of $2500. Yes, I did in fact do the 'Happy Dance' after she left. But I'm holding off on breaking open the bottle of Asti I have been keeping for this occasion until after I get the 50% deposit later this week. All indications are good. Keep your fingers crossed.

And then it was all over. Being a merchant (or boother) isn't the same as being on cast or being a patron. For them the end of the show can be a tearful and emotional affair. There are hugs and toasts, songs and exchanged phone numbers or email addresses. There have been breakups and marriage proposals. But the boother has work to do and it starts the moment the show ends. Tear down, clean up and load out. Thankfully my shop isn't filled with thousands of things. But the booth still needs to be cleaned up and winterised. It's been my home away from home for two months. Lots of 'bits' collect in that time. Then I need to tear down my camping tent. It can't be rushed. You work through each task methodically. You can't just throw all your shit in a van and drive off. It will only make your life worse on the next show.

Those on the security staff who handn't already packed up last night gathered for the best tortia soup I have ever had. This is a very cool group of people. Friendly beyond words and helpful beyond measure. They are truly a tight knit family.

It was a good year, and I'm not talking monetarily. I haven't even looked at the books. It was just a great, crazy season filled with a lot of laughter, some mild frustrations, new friends and lots of stange stories ("Ma'am, would you mind hitching your gimp to the fencepost?") I can't wait till next year.

Scalpel....forceps...duct tape...

Last weekend my minion Lindsey learned the painful lesson that laptop computers do not like to drink mead. She quickly drained said laptop and let it dry and suprise of suprises, it worked long enough to pull most of her files off it before the screen went blank.

She came over to the house tonight, and having nothing to loose, she let me take it apart to see if I could possibly make things worse.

Thanks to the internets I discovered a step by step guide to disassembling a Toshiba A15. Of course, this guide did not take into account stickiness and its detrimental side effects. I cleaned all the surfaces I could. Just as in High School biology I pointed out the various guts, indicating their function and condition and how they were most likely being damaged by my large, paw-like hands. There was a bit of bother when we removed the keyboard and the cable connecting it to the computer simply popped off without the piece of plastic that should have come with it. But really, she's in art school. What use does she have for a keyboard anyway? We live in a point and click world. Words just get in the way.

When I was done I re-assembled the device with only one mystery screw left over and a slight gap in one of the corners where I am sure ants will be moving in over the next few weeks to enjoy the sweet goodness we couldn't reach. We could not test my efforts as the entire system needs to completely dry out again for a day or two. Lindsey has kindly released me from any liability if my actions somehow let the magic smoke escape from her computer. I personally blame evil laptop pixies, but that just me.

Have we won yet?

The 'War on Abstract Concepts (tm)' is making great strides. Thanks to better international cooperation Canada was able to quickly deliver wrong information about one of its citizens to the U.S. The U.S., in turn handed him over to our friends, the Syrians who tortured him for a year before informing us that "Uh, this guy doesn't know anything dude. I mean, we broke him and guess what, nothing".

And for those of you in the 'Well this is just an isolated case' crowd, its seems we did it with three other Canadians as well. Hell, Bush doesn't even deny the secret prisons any more. How far does this insanity have to go?

Have you had enough yet? Don't forget to vote in the upcoming midterm elections. I beg you.

Remember Wierd Al?

I do, and he's got mad rap skillz... or whatever the kids are calling it these days.

Super cool...The Shire housing development

Many people have stated how they hate me because I live at Bag End, which they seem to think is a very cool place. They are right to hate me, it is cool. But if you're willing to relocate a little West I have JUST the place for you. It's so cool even I want to go see it when its done. I give you The Shire!

Sometimes I don't want to think

Driving up to Michigan Ren this weekend I had my ipod on random play. Given my obscure tastes the music covered a fairly wide spectrum from Thomas Dolby to Mozart. But somewhere south of Detroit Moby's "God moved on the surface of the water" came up.

I had used this music for the video slideshow of our volunteer work in Biloxi and New Orleans last year. I realized that it was just over a year ago that Katrina hit and things went terribly wrong down there on so many levels. Due to work, I didn't see any of the tv retrospectives, but I also turned off the radio, and avoided the paper. In short, I subconsciously blocked the date out.

Why?

My brother has sent me several articles about New Orleans but I haven't read them. I haven't visited the websites for Common Ground and Hands on USA, the groups we worked with in quite a while.

Why not?

Didn't I care anymore?

But as I drove down the road I found myself crying almost uncontrollably. The same feelings I had when I sat watching the Gulf coast be destroyed were bubbling up. The same sense of powerlessness. The same anger, the same frustration I felt at being unable to figure out some way ANY way to fix it somehow. To make it better. It's those feelings that I had been trying to avoid, because they utterly destroy me every time.

I pulled myself together to handle the Mad Max rush that is Detroit traffic and by the time I got to the Michigan Renfair site I was feeling better. I still had the heavy feeling in my chest. If I hadn't heard that song I would have felt a lot better, but sometimes we need to remind ourselves of life's tragedies. They define us, they drive us. They slap us across the face and yell at us to wake up and pay attention to the bigger world around us, to do something. Even if it makes you feel like you got kicked in the chest.

In my happy place

Last weekend was a big one. The opening of Ohio Ren and of course, labor day weekend. With three days to sell we had to pick up some sales and I'm happy to say that we did very well. Both Ohio and Michigan beat last years sales. But not all was well in Corset Land, oh no.

On Sunday my brand new sexy credit card maching refused to work. It wasn't just my machine though, my neighbor at Angus Harvey Kilts was also down. A call was made to tech support and we were informed that due to a power surge the server controlling our machines "blew up". There was no ETA for its return. What followed was six hours of me stressing as I tried to make sure I could still take cards. This is the second weekend I've had this thing and it cocks up. This is not what I want.

It came back online late in the day and worked fine Monday, but this shit will not stand. I'm going to try and get some answers as to why there was no backup system in place.

By Monday end of day my blood pressure was back to normal and the great sales really helped. I had help from a new minion named Sam since Heather and Diane were unavailable. She did a great job and worked her ass off.

I did manage to help my friend Alex get some sales and production help. His hats have been selling like hotcakes and his stock was pretty well decimated by Sunday. He needs to stay home and focus on making new stock. It's gotta be tough working a 40+ hour work week and then going home to make stuff.

Internets

I just got an email from a friend who lives even further in the boonies than me. Apparently he just got DSL and is giddy with joy:

"It's like Santa got the Easter Bunny to bring Halloween candy to the kids in the boondocks too..."

Congratulations my friend. Drink deep from the well of the internets. And to insure you waste ALL your free time, point your browser over to youtube.com

Ahhhhhh...Can't you just feel the productivity leaving your body?

Back to business

Michigan Renaissance Fair, second weekend. Lots of people to help out. Diane, Heather, Lindsey, Rossana and a new girl samed Sam.

Despite unpleasant weather we managed to have another kick ass weekend. It was made even better by the fact that we could actually take credit cards!! My current machine went wonko about two weeks ago and would not work. Thousands of dollars in sales were left unprocessed. It got so bad I actually had my minion Diane driving around her neighborhood in her pajamas trying to get a signal for this stupid machine. I am eternally in her debt. In the end, I told my merchant account provider in no uncertain terms that they had failed me for the last time. (Alas, my Jedi powers are not sufficiently developed for me to shoke these bastards over the phone).

I contacted a new company called Merchant Warehouse. I recommend them highly. I called on monday and was set up with a new machine by Friday. The new hotness is called the Way System (waysystems.com) and its pretty sweet. Essentially, they grafted a credit card swiper onto a cell phone. It's small AND it gets signal at the Michigan sight. I pray it works at Great Lakes but I won;t get to test it for a while. For now, I'm up and running. I was able to manually enter the previous weeks sales info so I will soon be seeing my money. Shameless plug, if you are interrested in a merchant account or taking credit cards, contact me and I'll put you in touch with the guy I worked with. For every person who signs up I get $50. Let me say though that even if I weren't getting a kick back, I would STILL recommend the Way system and Merchant Warehouse (which had the best price for the unit bar none).

There is no rest for the wicked though, we're off to the Ohio Ren Fair site in a day or so to clean up and repair our booths and do planting etc etc. I managed to rent out my tent to a nice fellow who is new to the show. This should help defray the costs of buying the tent. Money coming in is a good thing.