Blood by Pearl Jam

So on most mornings, I pull out my iPod and shuffle the entire music library for a sort of "song of the day." On this Monday, I came up with "Blood" and blood was taken.

There are times in life when you're rendered speechless through the circumstances you endure. In this instance, I had some words, but I refrained from spouting them. It wasn't easy.

I am a geek of many things, but really, my greatest passion is music. I love to play. I don't care what or where, I love to play. At work, there is a band that is going to play for our Christmas shindig, and I get to play keyboard instead of bass at it, which I found very exciting. The email went around for song requests, which got whittled to a few tunes, and we're to practice them to rehearse together.

Being a piano player, I picked an Elton John songs to show off both my piano and vocal skills. It was going to be awesome...except for one minor detail. For some strange reason, the people involved want to spend as little time as possible on this. They don't want anything more complicated than 3 chords, and of course, no original tunes allowed. I was going to get some lead vocal action on two songs...and both of them were cut because they were too difficult.

With a deep breath, I accepted that fate and suggested another one: Bon Jovi's "Bed of Roses." If you've heard this one, it's slow but has some nice vocal stuff going on along with some interesting piano backing to make up for the loss of the Elton John song. however, it was shot down because a) someone ELSE thought "we" couldn't handle the vocals and b) because the solo parts were too hard (i.e. he didn't want to work them up). So, I'm back to whole notes and arpeggios when I have anything at all on the other guitar-oriented 3-chord songs.

Of course, I can't just lash out and be angry and such because it is a group effort and we all have to work together. Not everyone wants the challenge, and they'll even use the excuse of not having time to work on anything harder than what we have. Still, I feel completely rubbed out because everything I had the chance to remotely shine on was cut. Now, I have nothing. Part of me wants to drop out, but I made a commitment and I'll honor it.

All I want, band-wise, is for the guys that enjoyed my original material to get everyone back together. I know I'm self-centered. I know I want it to be all about me. But to an extent, there's another part that simply wants people to acknowledge that I am capable of more than they think I am. In the end, I was relegated to the background on the work thing. I was happy sharing the glory of the spotlight, but I did want them to share it with me. Now, nothing.

It's not the first time people have placed me into THEIR comfort zone and have all but refused to let me grow from that place. This is understandable to an extent. People, in general, have A specialty. One thing that they excel at, and they acquire labels that tell others what they are. A programmer. A bass player. A writer. A pianist. A screenwriter. A director. A composer. People throughout the ages have taken labels such as these, and some people have taken a couple of them here and there. But few can claim them all and then some. The idea of someone having the talent to play everything on stage as well as sing is beyond rare. Pandora's box is opened and I don't mind boasting about it. The Queen has already rolled her eyes and said "oh, here we go."

But people can't comprehend this level of talent. If you do this thing, then this thing is all I can comprehend you doing.I can understand the need to prove oneself. After all, how can you use an unproven talent? What have I proven? I've published two novels; composed music on two albums, sang and played piano, drums, bass, guitar, and even trombone on an album; wrote, produced, directed, shot, and composed the music for a movie you can purchase on DVD. How many people do you know that have that kind of a list? Anyone? I don't.

In the Bible, there is a story that drives me. It is the parable of the talents. Now, I know that a talent is a unit of money, but isn't it curious that Jesus used that specific unit that centuries later would be a talent in one of the predominant world languages to mean an ingrained skill? Jesus chose his words carefully, and I believe this was chosen just as carefully. In this parable, there are 3 guys: one with 5 talents, one with 3, and one with 1. They each went their ways and their master returned, they showed what they did with their talents. The guys with 5 and 3 doubled their money where the one with 1 did nothing. The ones who acted were rewarded. The one who did not was sent away.

I try to bide my time. I try to go with whatever flow I'm in. Sometimes, it's frustrating, but I think the feeling of frustration only shows that I'm willing to do more. I only wish the world would let me.

Colorado Day Three

On day three out here in Colorado Springs, we decided to go to the zoo. Cheyenne Mountain Zoo resides on the side of a mountain and sports a killer view of the Springs as well as quite a few giraffes which are a ton of fun to feed. Where I had planned a morning, we spent an entire day looking at the animal exhibits.

There isn't much to tell there. The animals were all cooperative and we had a lot of fun watching them. Lunch was awesome in the zoo, and actually a ton better than I expected. What was amusing about the food was the alternate names the guy was throwing around for the food. Ladybug got a double decker grilled cheese sandwich, or a "yee-haw". Sassy Pants asked for a burger, which was a good sized Angus burger, or a "Big Boy". I got a footlong hotdog, but I don't remember its code name primarily because I was taken by the names for how it was topped.

He asked if I wanted grilled peppers and onions, which they called "ready to party", but I said no, so he said to make it naked. Then I asked about chili and cheese and he said to make it a "coney island". If anyone out there happens to recall the name for the footlong out there, please reply and remind me.

After going through the zoo, we took the skyride to the zoo's summit overlook and then drove up to the Will Rogers Shrine of the Sun. It was then that Rock Girl's fear of heights really came out. We found out about this fear yesterday during our Pike's Peak ride, but it wasn't that bad. Today with a drive up the mountain and sheer drops so close followed by more sheer drops at this shrine, she flipped out a little.

To add to this drama, her eyes were bugging out. We got her some eye drops and tylenol, and as she wasn't up for swimming, we got them to the next door McDonalds to play the rest of the night away.

As a final note, we were curious about how Will Rogers came to have this shrine in Colorado named after him. We asked a guy there what connection he had to the Penrose family who built the shrine (and most of Colorado Springs actually). The guy said there was none really. Rogers died in 1935, and the shrine (which is just a burial place for Mr and Mrs Penrose) was finished in 1936. Mr Penrose just decided to dedicate it to Rogers. Interesting, if not a bit odd.

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Colorado Day Two Continued

The original plan after Pike's Peak was to have some lunch and then go to Garden of the Gods. So we went to a Mexican restaurant called Jorge's in Old Colorado City where the Queen and I had some tamales (the reviews said they were very good), and they were very good. Following this, we hit a couple shops to see what we could see. One place was Rocky Mountain Chocolate and the chocolate was incredible.

We headed over to Garden of the Gods and thought we'd start at the visitor center. This was a good thing since it started pouring rain shortly after we arrived. We hung out there for awhile but finally decided to hit the mall and maybe try GotG later or on another day.

I wasn't sure how well hanging at the Citadel Mall would go, and in the end, it was only ok. We got some cookies, and they were good. So that was something.

We saw that the rain had stopped, so we thought that we'd try GotG again. We saw some awesome rocks, and got some great shots such as the one above. We saw some clouds rolling in and figured we should get moving.

It rained. Oh my, how it poured! It rained so hard so fast that roads flooded instantly and at one point, I pulled off the road to wait a moment. We finally got back to the hotel and when they got out of the car, we got one of the loudest thundercrashes I've ever heard that made all 3 princesses scream so loud that the hotel concierge came out to see what was wrong. They were shaken for quite a while after that.

The rest of the night was calm. The rain subsided. We went swimming. And now we prepare for tomorrow.

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Colorado Day Two

Today, we got up early to take the cog railway up Pike's Peak. A little drama awaited us when we learned that we should have (could have) made a reservation. I hadn't read through the rules to the point that I knew that was possible. Anyway, we were put on standby and started to plan for switching Pike's Peak to another day. I asked about the chance of getting on and I learned that there was a group of 40 that had not yet showed yet. Fortune smiled. They never showed. We went up the mountain.

It was an awesome experience. The picture in this post is just a taste of the pics and video we took. Had some high altitude donuts and got a couple souvenirs and after not nearly enough time, we were heading back down. The princesses were thrilled to be touching the mountain.

More to follow.

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Colorado End of Day One

At the end of our first day, we got settled in our hotel room, ate at a novelty pizza place called Fargo's, went to Memorial Park (which was awesome), marveled at the mountains, and the Queen bought a souvenir Colorado deck of cards and a Pepsi from the local Walmart.

When we were approaching Colorado Springs, the mountains were hidden behind the daily cloud cover so we couldn't see them right away as soon as were close enough. since the princesses had never seen mountains before, they weren't sure what to expect. Ladybug asked when they would know they saw them, and I assured her that she would know. Basically, if you have to ask, you haven't seen then yet.

This point was best illustrated by Sassy Pants, who had ridden up here behind the Queen. She had not seen the mountains once they were clearly visible so the Queen moved her head so Sassy Pants could see through her headrest.

Initially, Sassy Pants said she could not see them, but she was apparently looking in the wrong place. We guessed the second she spooted then when an elated "Oh my gosh!" drifted out of the back seat. She wasn't wondering anymore.

And tomorrow, we go up Pikes Peak.

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Colorado Day One

So many years ago when I was in the Army, I lived at Ft Carson on the south end of Colorado Springs. I really liked living there, but when my time in the military was over, I didn't have the life experience to actually continue living there, even though I would have liked to. So I returned to Oklahoma. 4 years later, I returned with the Queen for our honeymoon, and she also loved it. But since our families were in Oklahoma, we dvid not pursue trying to live there. We wanted to go back for some time though and this year, we finally saved up the money to do it.

As I write this, we have been on the road foralmost 8 hours. The Queen is taking a turn at the wheel, and the princesses are in the back playing quietly. They are very good girls and always have been. They go crazy sometimes but they make us quite proud in public, and they even get complimented occasionally.

I figure since notating a vacatipon on Facebook is idiocy, a somewhat anonymous blog of my life is perfect. We are about to stop for lunch, after which we have approximately hours of driving left.

Most interesting thing to happen recently was the fear of not knowing whether that dump truck in the construction zone was going to want out on top of us or not. Fortunately, he just pulled over in the zone, but we were worried for a moment when he matching our speed.

More to follow. Stay tuned. I mean it this time. I can post anywhere from my phone. Makes it easier.

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The Distance Between the Kids and the Floor

You ever notice how kids tend to make a bit of a mess almost everywhere they go? This happens regardless of whether you have good kids or crazy kids. Mine act pretty good most of the time, and yet, in their wake, they tend to leave some disarray. This could be trash. This could be toys. In the case of my little ones, it extends to video games; that would be game discs without cases. The cases are usually in close proximity, but it's like they just can't see them.

This phenomena is caused by the unique make up of children's eyeballs. You'll notice that compared to adults, children's eyes are a bit disproportionate. It looks like the eyes are one part of the boy that never grows from youth to adulthood, as they slowly sink into the head until you die and they finally fall all the way in. So with kids, you would think that with those eyes sticking as far out of their head as they tend to, their eyesight would be incredible. Not so. Kids do have some incredible eyesight at some angles, but some severe blind spots at others. This strange series of vision and anti-vision spots has been thoroughly investigated by the labs at the University of Southern North Dakota at Hoople and results are inconclusive at best. At first glance, their eyes appear to be no different from adult eyes, and yet, each age group sees different things. When a child "looks right through you", they can spot the dessert in the refrigerator even when the door is closed. It borders on a form of x-ray vision. Whereas when an adult "looks right through you," they can see whether you're telling the truth or not.

And while they don't understand it, they have conclusively proven that adults do see the distance from their head to the floor far better than children do. If you doubt this result, consider that when the Queen walks into the princesses' room, she sees the mess and informs the children that it must be cleaned. The child will stand in the midst of chaos, cast a confused glance all around them and ask what they need to do. This leads the Queen to point out each item on the floor that must be put away, at which time, the child will put away only those items and believe the job is done.

You see, for reasons unknown to humanity, children are unable to see below their knees. Perhaps this helps with their fear of heights as they grow. Perhaps it helps them to concentrate on learning when the floor won't distract them. Perhaps it explains how children manage to put on unmatching socks by accident.

Whatever the reason, let us now look upon the children with understanding since the mess on the floor isn't their fault after all. They are simply incapable of seeing it until they are older. It is unknown at what age the floor becomes visible, but some believe that people can't see the ground at all until they have children and are forced to finally focus on what's down there. Only then, do they finally notice what a mess it is.

Who Told What?

It's funny how kids will unintentionally incriminate themselves in whatever they don't want you to know about, and then can't figure out how you managed to find out. Take the strange case of Sassy Pants versus Ladybug. Now, I don't know exactly what Sassy Pants did. That's not the point of the story. Just make something up. Here's the bit that gets me.

So, Ladybug walks into where the Queen is playing on the computer. She stands there sort of patiently just watching the Queen as she does whatever she does on the internet. Finally, she looks at Ladybug, and Ladybug says, "um..." Whenever she says "um," it's always a sort of uncomfortable higher pitched voice. Almost a whine, but without the accompanying excuse.

About this time, Sassy Pants comes storming into the room and unlike Ladybug, Miss Sassy is quite vocal and doesn't really know the word "um." She starts right off asking if Ladybug told. Well, of course she didn't. All she got out was "um," so now Sassy Pants (who often does her best to not get into trouble) has indicated to the Queen that Ladybug had something to tell. So she dutifully looks at Ladybug and asks her what Sassy Pants did.

Ladybug says "um...", which was rapidly followed by Sassy Pants (who has a most fortunate habit of telling the truth) spilling her guts over everything that happened, including what she did that Ladybug was umming about. Once the tale was told, Sassy Pants breaks down in tears, but it isn't because her secret is out and mommy knows what happened. Oh no.

She's upset because Ladybug told on her.

This ATM is (still) Out of Service

"Sorry this ATM is temporarily out of service. Please try again later."

Have you ever seen this message on an ATM (ATM machine for those of you that enjoy redundancy)? I have. In fact, the amusing thing is that I see this message on a particular machine that rests on the first floor of the building I work in. More amusing is that I see this message on it almost all the time. To be fair, I have seen it work, but it's almost as often that I see it out of order.

My only guess is that the "service professional" who works on this one feels much like I do lately. Like it would be better to spend all day doing something else than actually doing your job. Don't misunderstand me, though. I firmly believe in the importance of working. You don't work, you don't eat. however, I want to be doing something else. I could either repair the ATM that is broken, or just turn the handle that makes it work for another three minutes before having to come back. Or maybe they fix it, and the same idiot comes through and breaks it again. Who knows?

I only know I have similar problems. I fix something only to have someone come behind me and break it. Or someone else should know how to fix it if they had listened to me when I told them, but of course, they didn't listen, so it's still broken and now (because the own is angry), I have to actually fix it.

My personal preference is to sit in my corner here, have no one notice whether I'm coming or going, and just work on what I want to work on. I have movies to write and produce. I have books to draft and complete. I have dreams to dream of. I don't have time for this "real job" thin I'm saddled with. Why can't the ATM fix itself?

Fact of the matter is that the ATM won't fix itself, people won't remember what I tell them, and stuff will always break with or without intervention. Hence, here I am and here I am stuck until one of my hobbies becomes a paying vocation.

I do think the out of order message is redundant on the machine, though. It would be far more useful to advertise when it works. We already assume it's broken at this point.

I Dunno, What Do You Want To Do?

It's been a little while, but I want to keep this going. So I'm going to kick this back off with an incident that happens nearly every time the Queen's family gets together for a meal. Now, don't get me wrong. We all fall into the "I dunno, what do you wanna do?" routine occasionally, but not usually to this extent. We joke about it before someone decides, but it gets crazy with her crew.

The trouble starts because everyone seems to be so darn accommodating. This isn't a bad thing..except when it comes to dinner. You know, someone has to want to do it, and that someone is usually the oldest or the one "in charge." I would even defer to someone with familial authority. Given that I'm an in-law, I defer to them since it isn't really my place to take an authoritative position.

So there is an announcement: food is ready. There is a grand pause before the children are shuffled in to be served first. When it is the adults' turn, insert another grand pause. Ladies first is the expected norm, but neither her mother nor her grandmother want to go first. Her grandfather won't go, and her father normally doesn't eat at all. The Queen looks at me and says "go ahead, because her brother also won't go until someone else goes. Her sister-in-law usually goes first and I usually go next. It's a bit awkward every time, but I'm used to it by now. Eventually, after much hemming and hawing over who goes next, everyone gets set with food.

Of course, it's only fair to mention that her grandmother has a considerable amount of difficulty sitting down to eat. She feels the hostess responsibilities unceasingly throughout the meal and asks constantly if anyone needs anything else or any more to drink, etc. That's why she doesn't ever go first.

Now, granted that only happens in a buffet style setup. When we're all sitting already and food is passed around, the pause is briefer, but usually someone wants someone else to "start something." Fortunately, we have the children so they usually get whatever it is first which gets passed around the table from there.

Then comes dessert. This happens regardless of how the meal is setup. There is always something tasty waiting for the end of the meal, but getting someone to accept the Queen's grandmother's insistent requests of someone taking dessert is usually met with the Queen nudging me to take something, since no one else will accept her offer until someone else does first. Once I take something, it goes around.

Now, I'm not complaining at all. This setup is far preferable to the "ravenous wolves" scenario of the announcement of food followed by a stampede. I'm also sure everyone out there has their own tales that mirror some aspects of this. Once the awkwardness is past, it's all very amusing to me.

You want dessert?
I dunno, do you want dessert?
Honey, are you ready for dessert?
Mmph.
Can I get you anything else?
Um.
Anyone else ready for some dessert?
I'm waiting for my food to settle.
Someone has to eat some of this.

The Saw Project

So you may have heard of this series of movies called Saw. The opinion of these movies will vary primary depending on whether you've seen them or not. People who have not seen the Saw series generally refers to it in distaste. Those who have seen it vary between convoluted and genius, and they have about the same opinon on the movies too (zing!).

I'm one who has seen all six of the existing movies, and there is a solid reason why these movies have won awards for their physical effects. The scenes that Saw is known for (oh yes, there will be blood) are very graphic and extremely well done. There are even some that are cringe-worthy in nature that you honestly want to turn your head from because they are just painful to watch. But while the torture scenes might bring some people in, these are not the scenes that bring people back.

Saw is the story of a man named John Kramer. He was a guy who met the girl of his dreams, married her, helped her start a drug rehab clinic (who doesn't want to live that dream?), and meticulously planned for a child to be born in the chinese year of the pig. John was an engineer and even had a book about engineering. He bought a slew of old, abandoned buildings with a lawyer named Art Blank, and together, they planned on remodeling these building into low-cost housing. Even had several families lined up when tragedy struck. John's wife, who was seven months pregnant, ran into one of her patients while closing up the clinic, and he held her at knifepoint to break into the clinic to steal some drugs. He failed to pay attention to where she was on his hasty escape and slammed the door into her stomach causing her to lose the baby. John entered a deep depression, and dropped out of the project with Art Blank which left all the disrepaired buildings in disrepair. It wasn't long after that John was diagnosed with an incurable cancer, and he tried to kill himself by driving off a bridge. He survived, and after facing death, he decided this gave him a new appreciation of life. Looking around him, he saw that most people lived their life without any appreciation of the blessing they were given, and so he decided to give them the same "gift" he had been given: a chance to face death and realize what kind of a gift life really is. Problem is that most of his subjects couldn't pass their tests and were subsequently killed. Thus, the newspapers dubbed him "The Jigsaw Killer" since he cut a piece of skin out of his subjects following their death showing that they were missing a vital piece of their lives: the will to live.

The series is told in a combination of current events and flashbacks to fill in the history of Jigsaw, his apprentices, and his life. Each movie in the series has a major reversal, or twist, at the end of it that generally folds the movie back on itself and reveals secrets that you may have missed or that the movie deliberately concealed during its duration by misdirection. The twists have generally been immensely clever, fooling even die hard movie goers dsuch as myself, bringing a big goofy smile to my face. Thought I generally disliked the second movie the first time I saw it, I loved the twist(s) at the end. Thinking about it, the movies usually toss a two or three reversals there at the end, though the twists in 6 were a little weaker than most of the earlier ones.

So weird as it may seem, I've been working on a chronological cut of the six Saw movies (and keeping the project open to insert the seventh film next year when it hits DVD). Saw is the only movie that I've bought on DVD after getting a blu-ray player primarily because a) it's a gritty movie that works well on DVD and b) I don't have a blu-ray player on my computer so I couldn't copy the film over if it were on blu-ray. So I took my MPEG2's and loaded them into my movie editor and started cutting and moving scenes. I wasn't concerned over transitions or voiceovers, really (in most cases). It was more about the sequence of events.

The project has consumed my past month and I'm finally to a point where I can rip me a copy of the nearly 10-hour masterpiece. I'm not burning it to DVD since I don't want to waste the plastic disc (5 or 6 of them actually) on an unfinished item. Seven will come out and I'll just need to reopen it. So I'm making files of it to watch on my iPod to see how I did and make any necessary changes to it. It's just really easy to get lost in the events and a lot of them occur simultaneous to other events, so I've wanted to make a chronological cut of the movies ever since the mind-bending twist in the fourth movie. I started on the first four, but the editor I was using had trouble with the growing movie that was pushing 7 hours long at that time. So I stopped for awhile until I bought the last couple movies last month, and I started back in on it.

I had a lot of fun watching all six movies again, and meticulously going through it scene by scene to break it down. The movies are good enough to survive that sort of dissection, so if you've been curious about the Saw series, here's my thoughts for you. First, DO NOT listen to anyone who has not seen it for an opinion on "what they heard about it," especially if they just say it's disgusting. Yes, you need a strong stomach for it. I considered a "tame" cut of the movies so the Queen could enjoy it, but such a cut is not possible because of how everything fits together. A lot of horror flicks you can chop out the blood and guts and lose nothing of the story, but in this series, those bloody tests are integral to the plot, and they permeate almost every scene. It is very bloody and very violent. However, they have infused the series with a rare element in the horror genre: character. The characters drive the plot in these movies, and it is the tests that bring out the characters, which is another reason they cannot be just cut out. To fully appreciate Saw, you have to watch it in its entirety in order. You can't take a single out of the mix and view it. It's not James Bond. You also have to take it as a story, and not watch it for the "torture porn" or you'll miss the point. What is the point?

How are you living your life? Do you exploit others for your own benefit, or do you actually appreciate life for the gift that it is? Life is something to not be taken for granted, but something where every day is a blessing and living it should be a joy, not a chore. Are you grateful for another day or will you find yourself a subject of Jigsaw encouraging you to be grateful...once you pass his test?

Did It Again

So it occurred to me that I've done it again. I've let this blog lapse into obscurity with no new posts. You gotta make sure you have new posts or Google won't index it. I considered for a long time how I would keep this one alive. Obviously any life has enough stuff go on that one could not only fill a few paragraphs a day, but volumes and volumes of books with what happens. We just don't assign enough significance to it. I know what I want to do here, but I'm not sure I have the wherewithall to pull it off. Yet, I think it's the only way to do it without feeling overwhelmed by the prospect of documenting my days.

Here's the plan: I'll keep notepad open all day long and record what happens throughout the day, and once the day is done, I'll record it in here. I would be willing to wager that some days will be drier than others, but that's how life is sometimes, isn't it? Some days are interesting, and some are boring. I will try, however, to stick to high points and not just a timeline of the little things. After all, you, as a reader, won't be interested in what I'm wearing every day, would you? At least, I wouldn't think so. My clothing choices as a geek are actually really uninteresting. Khaki pants and a polo shirt sums up 66% of the year. Jeans and a polo shirt sums up another 20-25%. There you have it.

Hence, most of my future posts will be dated for the end of any given day. For today, I'll touch on a few high points for yesterday.

My job is changing for a big one. A guy who has been at my workplace for eleven years took a job somewhere else (we wish him the best), and given how fast I learn stuff, the powers that be tapped me to replace what he does. It occurs to me that this would have been a good decision to make within a day of him giving notice, so I could sit with him for his last two weeks. There are other people who collectively know what he knew, so I'll pick it up little by little, but getting it from him would have been better. Oh, well. Hindsight and all that. The job is  partly programming, which I do enjoy, and a bigger part just supporting a different product with my company, which is ok. The programming language is still BASIC, which I started on when I was seven, though the "version" they use here is Visual Basic, which has a few extra parts to it that old school BASIC (or even Turbo BASIC from high school) didn't have. Should be interesting though.

Other than that, yesterday consisted of meeting with my parents and siblings at Ron's Hamburgers for dinner. We meet with them every week and have done so since before the Queen and I were married. It became a weekly tradition, and has worked out very well since it allows us all time to catch up and they can see how the princesses are all growing up. The place varies from week to week and even the days have shifted around here and there, but we almost always get together once a week. I typically order the sausage cheeseburger (plain and dry, yeah hold your comments) and some chili cheese fries. Very good, as usual.

In the evening, I worked on my Saw project, which I'll go into in more detail on a different post. I basically converted one of the MPG's I made of part of the chronological cut into an iPod compatible file so I could view it on my iPod.

Following that, I sat down with the Queen and watched the musical, Company, that I got from Netflix. Yes, I watched a stage musical on DVD. I've always loved musicals, and even wrote a couple once upon a time. It's a medium I'd like to get back into writing someday when life allows more time at the keyboard. Company was really, really good. The staging was beyond clever. I never even conceived of a show where the actors were also the orchestra. Seriously. The actors/singers played various instruments on stage eliminating the need for a pit orchestra. It made me smile a lot especially when they were switching instruments. I swear, each person up there played at least 2 to 3 instruments, and not always from the same family. Several string players switched to saxophone, for example. The oboe player also played tuba. Since not every person was in every scene, it made each person that much more essential and on stage for the whole show instead of disappearing into the green room except for cast numbers. So I thought it was really cool.

The only weirdness I have was last night at around 2am. I woke up and thought I heard voices. The voices were female and muffled, like they were coming from behind the walls. Whether they were from outside the house or the princesses woke up in the middle of the night, I couldn't say, since I couldn't understand what they were saying. The computer was compiling another MPEG2 of another part of my Saw Project, so the processor fan was going full speed, drowning out a lot of the voices anyway. When I got up this morning, the house was more than intact, so it's not as if someone was where they shouldn't have been, though I discovered the reason the Queen was crowding me in bed was because Ladybug joined us during the night. I'm sure I'll hear about what was up with that tomorrow.

I do recall something about her wanting to sleep with us before we went to bed, but I don't remember what the reason was behind that. Oh well. Maybe I'll be reminded today...

Let the day commence!

Insignificance

So why is it when you critique someone, and it prevents them from doing something they want/need to do, they focus on the most insignificant part of what you say and make that sound like the sole reason they have been denied. While I can't give the specific example here, I can relate it to a couple of real world ideas that sum up the situation nicely.

Consider a loan application at a bank. The bank person might deny with something like this:

Bank Guy: Thank you, Mr. Geek, for your loan app, but I'm afraid we'll have to deny you. You credit score is a 5. I'm not even sure how that's possible, but you haven't paid anything on time for the past 20 years, you've defaulted on every car you've ever purchased, your house is in foreclosure, and it appears your income to credit ratio is upside down. In addition, when you sign an application you should place the year after the date.

Irrational Me: You're denying my application because I didn't date it?! That's ridiculous!

Or perhaps you might go to a high scale restaurant that require the whole jacket and tie nonsense:

Maitre'd: Sir, I'm simply cannot allow you to enter the restaurant. Not only are you missing your jacket and tie, but what's left of your t-short is in tatters. You smell like you just crawled out of a dumpster, you actually tracked mud into our entryway (or at least I hope that's mud), you're overall very dirty, and your breath is atrocious. You also may want to tie your shoe, or you could trip as your search for a civilized lifestyle continues outside of this establishment. Thank you.

Me as a Vagrant: You won't let me in because my shoe isn't tied? That's ridiculous!

As stupid as these seem, I have a job that requires me to review stuff and occasionally send things back for further info. On more than one occasion, I denied stuff because info was missing or wrong, and then (purely as a courtesy) I commented on one point that was more minor, but I figured I'd mention it since I was emailing anyway. Yeah, recipient fixated on that point over any other. And yeah, pretty much to the extreme above. They were missing critical information that was central to this original request; I mean, to the point that the request could not be handled without it...oh yes, and I commented on the format of something else that was crystal clear, yet technically incorrect. I would have fixed it if everything else was right. Seriously.

So people need to actually read emails in their entirety and not just the last sentence. Maybe I should put the important stuff at the end...

Twilight Princess

On August 29, 2007, for some reason I can't fathom, I stopped playing The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess on the GameCube after 46 hours logged while at the doorstep of Hyrule Castle preparing to get into the final level of the game. That date was the last saved date when Rock Girl decided she wanted to start her own game. She played for 55 hours or so before she and the Queen asked if I would look at my game and see if I could actually finish it since I hadn't touched it in over two years.

The only Twilight Princess I'd played since then was a short play of the Wii version of the game. I really have no idea why I never finished the game. I never even entered the castle. I completed the Twilight Temple, and then stopped. So, since they asked, I figured, "Why not?" I prepared myself for a bit of a steep learning curve since I knew there were a few special sword moves that were essential to playing the game and instrumental in completing several key battles.

So I started playing. After some digging through the menus and playing with the controls, I found the button strokes for the special moves, and I was on my way. I went into the final level with 0 potions, and since it had been so long, I had no idea where to find any, so I just went in as I was, with (I think) 16 hearts and three empty bottles.

The level was setup as a series of one on a dozen or more enemies which really served to get my Zelda chops back in a hurry. It was just like riding a bike. I dominated the lower levels of this temple, no matter how many enemies they threw at me. The mini-bosses (and there were several) were no match for my too-long-dormant skill and I wiped them out with hardly a heart lost in the process. The puzzles in the temple, while mildly clever, were mostly easily deciphered (with only a couple causing any sort of long thought). It was all a matter of figuring out what everything did and doing something with it. I even rocked the spinner climb up the stairs bit, which the Queen and Rock Girl got a kick out of. 

Now, LadyBug and Sassy Pants were there, but they only mildly enjoyed the hopping around as neither of them play the game. They did watch for a little while though, especially when I got to the end.

Reaching Ganondorf was really easy in the end. I walked in and the cinema sequence began before final battle part 1 began. Part 1 was easy enough and more about patience and timing than skill. Part 2 was a bit annoying, but once I got the hang of it (and a tip from the Queen (the only one I needed) who was looking at the strategy guide), that one was also defeated.

Then came Part 3. Oh, I hated Part 3. This part left be complaining to high heaven about this game. Nintendo does some really strange things sometimes. They create these battles that are difficult enough, but not so difficult or repetitive that you want to throw your controller at the screen (too many times). Part 3, however, was one of those one off Nintendo battles that was more irritating than it was difficult where the enemy had a tendency to get you over and over and over again if your timing was bad. Well, timing was only a part of it. Thinking about how I eventually got this section figured out, it was a combination of timing and placement of self as well as general persistence that won it. I think the persistence part was the most annoying of them all because it had to do with a horseback ride. Ganon's horse goes slightly faster than your horse (naturally), but you still have to catch up to him, so you have to whip the crap out your horse to get her to go faster...and then you run out of hits so you have to wait for it to charge back up, which sets you back a little bit...and then Ganon releases his undead horsemen to whack you (as if his own hits weren't enough). After I got him figured out, I knew the point of his undead entourage, but it was still annoying. The whole ordeal (which probably cost me more lives in a single battle than any battle in the entire game, primarily due to my lack of potions and the game's tendency to start you after a game over with only 3 hearts) made me compare it to Metroid Prime.

I love Metroid Prime. It's a great game. Fun to play. Awesome play controls on both the GameCube and then the Wii revision in Metroid Prime Trilogy. The maps are great. The bosses are challenging but fun to fight...until the end. And this is just Metroid Prime because I haven't played the other two games to their final bosses yet. Metroid Prime gives you a save point at the beginning of the final level, and then expects you to traverse this entire final level every time. This level is long and time consuming with its endless supply of Metroids constantly attacking you out of holes in the ground. Yeah, they have no end because the ground is reproducing them, so as soon as you finish one set (they're made in twos), you have about 30 seconds to move before another set is on you. And these Metroids are the classic freeze and kill variety. No, these are the ones where you have to use a specific beam-and-missile combination after freezing them, so not only do they both consume a lot of time, but they consume a lot of resources to get past them. Hence, after fighting a grueling battle through this level that takes probably 30 to 45 minutes, minimum, you get one point to recharge your missiles, fight a few more of these dreadful Metroids, and then face off against the big bad bass, Metroid Prime. The thing is huge, uses a gross amount of resources to defeat, and I have yet to do it because once it beats you, you have to start all over at the save point...yeah, another 30 to 45 minutes of an uphill battle fighting those danged Metroids again. Hence, when I was actively playing it, I tried once a day since that was all the Metroid I could handle, and then I finally stopped. I had gathered every item in the game, and still couldn't defeat the Prime boss, nor did I have the patience for that final level. But I digress...hugely.

Once I figured out the secret of that horse battle, it was on to Part 4, which was a classic one on one sword fight between Link and Ganon. I ended up using a single special move over and over again after scavenging all the hearts (and fairy) from the ring of skulls inside the battle wall. I really dislike these battle walls, since they swipe a quarter heart form you wehn you hit it, but the bad guys, of course, can do what they wish without damage.

Anyway, it only took a couple of times, and Ganon was down. It showed that I was, indeed, at the end of the game when I inexplicably stopped playing, and that even after almost 2 1/2 years, I was able to play the game just fine.

 I also found that the Wii's motion controls have spoiled me. Two years ago, I was not interested in the Wii version because it was identical to the GameCube version. Well, after having to aim with the control stick again, I wanted the Wii version so I could just point at the screen. Funny the way that these things change you.

So, I finished another game. Rock Girl got a kick out of watching it, though she was shocked at how much I had done in 46 hours and how she wasn't even close to the end after as much time as she had put into it. I assured her that I was able to do this due to this being my sixth Zelda game along with over 20 years of playing video games. But it was fun to play it again, and once I get through my Metroid Prime Trilogy (whether I defeat the big bad bosses or not), I might look into Twilight Princess again.

The Drama of Black Friday

I had completely forgotten about this until I looked at my archive of ideas here. I never talked about Black Friday. You see, there were some precious items to be had at Toys R Us at midnight on Black Friday, and as I didn't want to send the Queen out by herself, I went. I thought I'd go out there about an hour before midnight to see if there was a line.

Heh...

Yeah, there was a little bit of a line. The Toys R Us I went was the one at 71st and Memorial, if you're familiar with Tulsa. The line from the entrance stretched to the north from the front door across their entire parking lot, across their alley entrance, past five store fronts on the strip mall next door, turned the corner to go west past three small store fronts, one large one (Vintage Stock), and all the way to the door of the dollar theatre in that strip mall. I was amused, but there were some good deals, so I stood in line.

The line went well past me as well, but once it started moving, it went pretty quickly to get in. Some thugs cut in line behind me and then talked very loudly about how it wasn't right that they had to wait in line. I'm not racist, but they weren't of the Caucasian persuasion and acted their stereotype well. There were cops at the entrance holding back the crowd on the South side of the door who also didn't want to track down the end of the line going North. There were quite a few cops in the parking lot to control the crowd actually.

Once inside, it was wall-to-wall people. There was no line once inside. It was a mob. I fought my way around the store and got all but one item that I'd come in for. I was afraid my one big ticket item was gone when I found the row it belonged on and an empty shelf. Fortunately the checkout line was so long that I found a display of them.

As for the checkout line... Ok, so Toys R Us is a large department store, right? Department stores have a general "action alley" aisle that runs around the inside of the store with stuff on either side of it. This line went from the registers at the front of the store and snaked in and out of the individual aisles toward the outside of the store all the way down the south side of the store through the games and then the clothes, and then down the west side through the baby accessories and furniture, but when it got to the north side, it stopped snaking, though that's where I started with the line that went beyond me right back to the registers. They had this poor employee standing at the end of the line with a red balloon who kept moving back and back and back. Other employees were trying to keep the lines snaking through the aisles. It was a nightmarish situation. One employee who was trying to control the line said they never planned for that level of chaos.

You see, Toys R Us was the only store open at midnight, beating out everyone else. I saw on the news later that the other Toys R Us in town had a fight break out. People get cazy during the shopping season.

Anyway, I waited patiently in line for two hours to checkout, which went smoothly, and to her credit, the cashier still had a smile. I was impressed.

So in the end, I went to Toys R Us at 11pm. I got home at 4am just in time to wake up the Queen for her shopping time. However, I saved more money than I spent that night, which was significant. But I was very grateful to go to bed. If I find the pics from that night, I'll post them as well. I took some, but it's been a couple months and I forgot about this post.

Black Friday. I'm sure I'll be there again this year.

Black fri. Drama of xout line. Line 2 nxt dr theatre. Pics 2 post. Line out
4 hrs.

Band and Research

So it's been a little while since I posted. I know this because the Queen complained about it last night. She was telling me that "that geek and the queen site is totally dead." So I thought of something.

First, to follow up the prior band post, I did some checking into the company that purported the opportunity to play in front of people, and they apparently offer that to everyone who suggests having a band as long as they're willing to sell their own tickets. A band promises to sell X tickets to their fans, and they can play. I told him point blank that I really don't have any fans and I can't guarantee any tickets. I figured playing with other similar groups would help to introduce me, but also asked if there was an inhouse box office that sells tickets as well since I don't have a lot of personal interaction with some people who might go. He never emailed me back. Oh well.

I hear from The Mixer, though, that The Player is interested in starting back up with the piano-drum thing, which was fun while it lasted.

As to my other topic here, it's ore of something I hear around my office a lot. and by a lot, I mean A LOT. The way we work around here is we get problem requests from clients and create these service tickets so that any notes or anything can easily be passed around to whomever needs to work the problem. Word of warning: if you are the lucky recipient of this ticket, no one else will touch it. They won't help the client. They won't even guess as to the problem. And so help me, they will NOT contact you when this person decides to call the main support line to find out about. No, they'll pop a note on the ticket saying that so-n-so called in about it, and so-n-so was informed that the issue was still "being researched." Wait, so-n-so implies there's a name left. Those people don't leave names. They always write "client." Not "The client." Just "client."

So from the client side, what does being researched mean? Well, note that these same people become responsible for tickets as well, and we have a game around here called "the follow-up game." The follow-up game is where you create something called a follow-up related to the ticket with a date on which you are required to contact the client and let them know where you are on the ticket. What can potentially happen on the date when the game is played? The client gets an email stating the following. "Hello, I'm following up with you to let you know that this issue is still being researched."

As a client, this might seem all right. They're still working on my problem, so they haven't forgotten about me. What it really means? "Oh shoot, I completely forgot about this" or "I still don't want to deal with this" or my personal favorite "God, I hate doing follow-ups for that person who is out of the office today, so I'm going to send emails." If your email says it is "still being researched," that means nothing has been done, and you're lucky that the person even acknowledged the existence of the ticket at all.

The people who play this game do not work anything that isn't due today. They will take a call, create the ticket, create the follow-up, and then promptly forget about it until it's due, even if it's something easy or something they can legitimately hand off. I've received these tickets after two days when the person finally played the game on it, sent the "still being researched" email and then forwarded it to my queue. Gee, thanks for giving me someone who has been disacknowledged for two days.

I think it's good that there's a date associated with these, since some of these people let tickets languish for weeks before this started. However, they need to be encouraged a bit more to work these things every day and keep their personal queues clean instead of playing the follow-up game. It's just annoying.

And apologies to the Queen for more of a complaint post instead of something more interesting about life, but that's what I had on my mind as I read through ticket after ticket that said "this issue is still being researched" when I know they never bothered to even find out.