New Monthly Feature: Confessions 1/08

The first thing that went through my mind when hearing about Heath Ledger was "Oh shit I hope they're done with The Dark Knight".

Rather than cleaning a litter box, I bought a new one.

If any leftovers stay in my fridge longer than 2 days, I assume that they have turned to poison and throw them out.

I like to, on occasion, drink a cold beer in a hot shower.

I used to listen to Rush Limbaugh every day. (been clean for years)

The Productive Internet Illuminates Itself to Ditchell

So I found some cool stuff.

TED. Holy crap. Lectures by people. Interesting people. Interesting lectures. When you have 20 minutes to learn about ants, watch this. Believe me, its CRAZY. TED has lectures on damn near everything, and I've watched about 20 of them this weekend and enjoyed every one.

Layer Tennis. Basically, it's the sport of Photoshop. One person submits an image, then the competitor responds. This goes on for ten rounds. I believe they only have 15 minutes between images... I could be wrong there. No matter what they have, it's astounding. Even if you don't do the Photoshop, go watch a match (they are on the right side. Once you load one, you'll see numbers 1-10 signifying the rounds).

****

In other news, I went to the inaugural AAFL draft for "Team Alabama". I'm excited about this league. This is the first time one of Birmingham's collection of second hand leagues looks like its doing the right things. My only worry, and I'm not alone, is that they will basically brand themselves Crimson Tide Jr. I cannot support such foolishness.

February sweeps begins for me Monday. I'll be rockin' out promos pretty much every day until the 28th. So work will be like November- stressful but fun. Challenging.

I was going to write about how the Xbox Microsoft sent me is broken. Admittedly it's less broken than the one I sent in. But it's all just too sad. I'm going to have to ship it back, and I don't want to. I'm not proud of this, but I'm enjoying what might be the gayest game ever.

Despite the kiddie exterior, the guts of this game are made by (and for) bastards who slurp up Sim City sequels like things... one... would... slurp.

See I had to go with "slurp" even though I knew I had nowhere to go with it.

One last thing- our boy Springer is leaving town and there will be a party. If you didn't know any of that, send me an email.

Review: Beatles "Love" 9/10

I'm not supposed to like this. In fact, I put off listening to it for well over a year. Simply because:

1. It's a remix of the Beatles not done by Danger Mouse.
2. It is the soundtrack for Cirque du Soleil.


I'm way too cool for a Beatles remix album. Especially one that is being prepackaged to the masses. I'll take "The Grey Album", thanks.

So I'm cleaning up my iTunes library, and there it is.

And now, I have to admit that its absolutely amazing. I've never heard the Beatles this clear. Even when they did those re-issues... this is light years ahead of that. And I'm not even listening on the 5.1 surround sound version. I think if I heard that my head would explode.

It restores a small amount of my coolness to include the fact that their producer and his son put this thing together. So its um technically um. Crap. No. I'm still this giant goober for liking this thing. I feel cheap.

But its good, dammit. I didn't really want it to be, but it is.

I give it 9/10. Cause I'm not comfortable with it, but I like it.

That was quick

My repaired Xbox is on its way back. They got it Tuesday, and shipped it yesterday. I'm impressed.

I'll be more impressed if the one I get back works.

In the meantime, I'm knee-deep in Final Fantasy 12. I actually hate those type games, but 12 is not bad at all. It has a much more RTSish feel to it as opposed to turn based Japanese style RPG. I do hate the whole potions and spells aspect of it. And as a gamer for let's say 25 years, I'm sick of micromanaging potions and armors and such. It's not fun.

I mean it. Really.

My Extensive 2007 Awards

I thought instead of compiling a big list of my year end awards, I would instead have 3 of them.

The #1 Most Listened To Album on Ditchell's Ipod:
Band of Horses Cease to Begin


The Song of the Year (and perhaps Decade)





Game Moment of the Year:

My first review for the Escapist

Here is my first review for the Escapist. I'm pretty happy with it.

Monthly Feature: December

My haul for December?

$2.80

Not bad, not bad.

The Red Ring of Death

That is not my Xbox 360. But mine looks very, very similar. Because it died tonight, while playing Superbad. According to most stories, this means I am a month without Rock Band, Call of Duty 4, or any other game I want to play. So for the next month I'm going to have to occupy my time doing something that isn't Xbox 360.

Probably pulling out the Playstation 2. God forbid I go outside. It's cold out there. I could focus on fixing things around the house. But that stuff is hard.

Dammit. Where will I be on my quest to beat "Green Grass and High Tides" on medium on drums? Where will my mad COD4 skills go? How about my newly purchased board game collection? Dammit all to hell.

I need to go cry. And play my Nintendo DS.

The List of Boringness, pt 2

1. Address the leak in the kitchen drain.
If by address, I meant "put a bucket underneath it, then I'll say this is complete
2. Rake an assload of leaves
Raked. That sucked.
3. Re-route bedroom cable to remove midnight tripping device
This is pure trouble. the place I need to run it is above a vent. Still working on this one.
4. Take the cat to the vet.
I love my cat but trying to get him in a cat carrier turns him into a ferocious animal. Pass.
5. Pay someone to fix the gutter
I think I'm just going to rip that thing off the house. Gutters are for wusses.
6. Work out at least 3 days
Surprisingly, done.
7. Play more Rock Band
Most definately done. I'm up to "medium" on drums.

Redirection

Last night I registered ditchell.com

Currently, it redirects to here. I'm still trying to figure out the whole hosting thing so it might stay that way for a while.

I am beginning another week off. Here are my goals (stated publicly so I can feel the hot stench of shame at not completing them)

1. Address the leak in the kitchen drain.
2. Rake an assload of leaves
3. Re-route bedroom cable to remove midnight tripping device
4. Take the cat to the vet.
5. Pay someone to fix the gutter
6. Work out at least 3 days
7. Play more Rock Band


edit: Goal 7 completed

another reason i love radiohead

from this NYT article....

For “All I Need,” Mr. Greenwood said, he wanted to recapture the white noise generated by a band playing loudly in a room, when “all this chaos kicks up.” That sound never materializes in the more analytical confines of a studio. His solution was to have a string section, and his own overdubbed violas, sustaining every note of the scale, blanketing the frequencies.

I work for free

So I'm very excited that I have a new, non-paying job. The Escapist put out the call for reviewers, and I answered. So they are sending me a game. I play the game. I write a review. And I don't get paid. I hope they realize that by mentioning them in my blog, all 8 of you might go to their site. Hopefully they got that new server installed.

Normally I would scoff at such things. But the opportunity to do some critical thinking about something that I'm dorkily passionate about- I can't pass that up. And the game I'm getting sounds very interesting.

When I post a review I'll let you know.

Oh and the highlight of The Escapist is Zero Punctuation. As long as you can handle some harsh language, this guy is genius.

Monthly Feature: Ads

November's haul? $2.28

deep breath

so sweeps is over in 45 minutes. Thank God.

We did well. I'd rather not say in specifics, but we did better than our bosses thought we would. And with that hopefully will come some sort of bonus. One would hope.

This has been easily the most taxing month of work I've had. I'm proud of the fact that I didn't make in serious mistake, and the biggest criticism I got was "that spot looks rushed". My response- "That spot was rushed. I had 4 other ones due on the same day as that one."

Between the wreck and work, I just don't feel like I've stopped in a while and just mellowed the hell out. I plan on doing that in the coming weeks because I have one of my fabled "vacations where I don't go anywhere" coming up. But I might actually go somewhere. I don't know, I might not. There will be some raking of leaves. The yard is filling up as I type this. Unfortunately I get off work way past sunset, so the weekend is the only leaf raking time for me. I think I might try to tackle the front yard this weekend.

Lately I've been feeling unsettled. Not bored, but... I don't know. Random. I can't really trace it, but it just feels odd. I don't know what it means, or its cause. But it's there.

Hm. I can't really describe it. Tom Petty can.

I used to live in a two-room apartmentneighbors knockin' on my walltimes
were hard, I don't wanna knock itI don't miss it much at all

Oh
yeah I'm alright I just feel alittle lonely tonightI'm okay, most of the
timeI just feel a little lonely tonight

I used to need your
love so badlythen I came to live with itlately I get a
faraway feelingand
the whole thing starts again

That's a little misleading (this isn't girl related). But the feeling is the
same.

sunrise

this photo either reminds you of some good times or doesn't. and if it doesn't then you missed some fun.

War Eagle.

...

WAR EAGLE

a bowl of iron

i'm off to Auburn tomorrow to set up the backdrop for our pre-game show (which airs 10 hours before the acutal game!). I do not currently have a ticket, but i'm not afraid to pay for one.

prepare yourself for pictures and blogging.


in other news Rock Band has taken over my living room. I plan on discussing that at some point as well. Sweeps is over next Wednesday...and I will be getting drunk.

That is all. War Eagle.

Shotgunning Beers

When one shotguns a beer, a hole is punctured near the bottom of the can. One puts his mouth to the hole, and opens the top of the beer, causing it to flow quite quickly out of the hole.

I witnessed something Friday regarding the shotgunning of beers that made me almost pee in my pants. One friend of mine, let's call him Todd, was messed up. In a bad, bad way. Luckily he was in his own home. So Todd has really had enough. But one of his buddies from out of town is just getting started. So Todd is swaying there, and his friend prepares a beer for shotgunning for him. His friend yells go and begins to shotgun his own beer. Todd, the poor bastard, is not aware of the the hole in his can. He proceeds to open the beer and drink it normally. Unfortunately, 80% of the beer is flowing out of the hole, all over him. The funny part is the 10 seconds it takes for the beer to empty on him, with Todd increasingly frustrated that no beer is coming out of the can. I suppose its one of those moments you should have seen, but Todd is completely exasperated by his defective beer, and slowly realizing he's now covered in it.

Good times.

we are grateful for our iron lung

so I went to remove my tag from my dead Honda. It was in Purgatory for Wrecked Cars. Surrounded by some horrific wrecks. It looked...healthy. Comparatively. The insurance company coughed up some cash for it. Normally I'd blow all that money. But I think I might actually do something moderately intelligent with it.

Except for Rock Band. I'm buying Rock Band.