Last week at physical therapy, my PT told me I was doing really well and that I should be looking to test my “LIMITS” to see what my back could do. Now this is sufficiently vague. I know this is to see the range of what physical limits I have. BUT! it could also be the “Limits” on how mentally stupid I could be too.

So I intend to list out some of the Physical and mental tests I have run myself through.

TEST 1
Forgetting to stretch at home for most of the week.
Analysis- This is both physical and mental. I have been clearing a nice spot in the basement which has now only served as a lovely cat bed for Taiko. I swear if she could talk she would be saying “thanks for this comfy exercise mat!” The physical side is more replacing the 45 minutes of straight crunchy, pilates, strechy workout with simple little stretches that I do throughout the day. Seems to be work.
The mental stupid part is getting stressed out about not stretching. Kinda counter intuitive.

TEST 2
Having to work Silver Screen Test
For those of you who are movie trivia buffs head on over to SILVER SCREEN TEST. This is one of the few shows I work anymore at Access Montgomery television station. I am the only one around who isn’t scared of the quiz show setup. It requires lights to be hung and a slightly intricate electronics to be pieced together.
The physical part was much more endurance. I did hang lights and it required going up and down a ladder. But I didn’t do any big lights or move any big set pieces. But it was a long morning.
The mental test was much more challenging for the day. I started the day by rounding up Sam and G plus Sam’s friend Hilda and her little brother Emma who is G’s friend. As you could imagine, that was more like gathering a flock of geese, or herding cats. Top that off with Sam’s attempt to make pancakes that filled the living room with smoke (results were black on the outside while liquid on the inside), and the morning was looking jim dandy already. The mental part was trying not to go insane after seeing Garrett running across the conference room table, Emma screaming, Sam pouting and Hilda on the phone. Add on to that working a TV show after being off for 4 months, and you soon learn why alcohol was such a BIG HIT.

But all in all I lived through the weekend. I just got back from PT today and the Therapist said again I was doing great. We ran through a bunch of Benchmarks and I am much more flexible that when I started. I rode my bike today for the first time in forever. No Pain. Therapist was happy with that and moved me down to one visit a week!!!! YAHOO! Now I need to remember to do the damned exercises.

To get back to the Bike fetish that I am running right now (Absinthe makes the heart…) I stopped at Revolution Cycles and now the Surly is run up against the TREK XO-1.

For those of you who have never heard of Cyclocross here is a little taste of the crazy stuff this bike is made for.

Now I am not saying I am going to jump out and do this but…

DID YOU SEE THE MUD?? Jumpin Baby Jesus on fresh laid tarmack!!!! Damn that looks fun!

Now as everyone who knows me will attest I am nothing if not a patient soul…

OK I cant even finish the sentence. No I will be good. I will not just run out and buy a cyclocross bike. Somehow I know that Hijalti is behind this I am not sure how…damn him.

Moving on. I know I wont be buying a bike soon because I will be paying off the Vet bills for the cat, who need ultrasound. We need to find out why she is so obsessive about food and loosing weight.

Oh well in the meantime while we fix our cat…Please enjoy NINJA CAT!

peace and muddy ninja cat grease

-gg

How can it be? There is a metric ton of internet goodness out there that needs to be commented on. I cannot make any political statements, as I am intentionally boycotting anything political. As a matter of fact that I have used the word “Political” now 3 times is pushing up against my limit of using the word political only 4 times in a blog. So I wont be saying…

I digress. Something I have been remiss at is pimping Red vs Blue. I think the newest series Red vs Blue: Reconstruction is an excellent story. I forgot to mention this last post.

They are up to episode 13 I believe (I did say I was remiss), so stop wasting time at work doing work and get on this thing.

The more I think about it, I think my son has a weird effect on electronics. In the vein of Jim Butcher’s “The Dresden Files“, the character Harry Dresend lives a life of light bulbs burning out, computers crashing, and must drive the simplest car, a VW Beetle, all because wizards have a negative effect on technology. Magic and technology are polar opposites.

Why do I mention this? Because, once again, I have tried to record one of Garrett’s long discourses. Using the Blackberry voice note recorder, I started to record Garrett’s tale of how our house in the future would be 700 feet under water, and there would be metal mushrooms that were soft under but had metal tops …as a matter of fact he can out the door TWICE to continue telling me this very important story. I finally convinced him that he needed to go to class. Not sure but I think he turned, still talking about the story, and walked off talking.

Success! I would have an audio post for everyone to hear…or so I thought. When I got to work, I sync’d up the BB and to my surprise, there was no saved file of the discussion. It was still there, it was on the screen…then it just went away. Garrett must have the Wizardly antagonism of technology. I dont know if I can tell him it will mean not being able to build Weldon the Robot when he turns 18.

On to much more topical things. I am getting functionally much better. Doesnt hurt to exist any more. I say this while mentally looking over my shoulder waiting for the bastard with the big iron spike to drive it through my back again. But I am getting back to some level of normality. So normal, that Stac and I got to go see a movie. Finally got to see “The Dark Knight”. I thought it was great! Heath Ledger did the most amazing performance as the Joker. I will give nods to Jack Nicholson and Cesar Romero, but Heath Ledger was absolutely off the radar.

Before the movie though, the preview of “WATCHMEN” showed.

OK the trailer is action, is dark, is in that line that trailers can be more than the film like the IRON MAN TRAILER. Maybe I am not the best consumer for this. Maybe I am too close to the story. I have issues with the statement ” The most celebrated graphic novel of all time” …OK using ‘celebrated’ is possibly the most obscure way to say ‘great’ or ‘popular’…sure now way to deny it. Using “OF ALL TIME” …um…a very strong statement…but also ‘graphic novel of all time’ ? Its like saying ‘the fastest personal computer OF ALL TIME!’…you still are only talking about a span of 30-40 years. In literature, man has been writing for approximately 5500 years. The term “Graphic Novel” just isnt that old. Will Eisner used the term to market his book “A Contract with God” back in the late ’70’s, it had been used before but still…we’re not talking 5500 years. Also the music is interesting. The Smashing Pumpkins “The End Is the Beginning Is the End” is a song written for “Batman and Robin” although they use the reprise for the Watchmen video. I like the Smashing Pumpkins but seems a little tried to use another movies song for your trailer.

I am truly excited about the movie but also nervous as hell. Hollywood sometimes can ruin the greatest story, because someone up in an office says “I don’t think the people will understand this…can we put in a fuzzy bunny…I love fuzzy bunnies”. The greatest story ever told… about fuzzy bunnies. Now mind you a trailer is just that. Knowing the story, the trailer has scenes that I know are single panel flash backs that fill in character details. All important but how is the Story, does the movie cover it? Is Zack Synder (director) going to butcher Alan Moore’s story? Will Zack Synder bend or will this be monumental like Ridley Scott and Blade Runner?

An interview “Foundations and Future of ‘Watchmen’ with Zack Snyder” done by Brad Brevet of “The Contenders” movie view site, had some positive things from the mouth of Zack Synder.

Well I think the knee jerk for everyone is to go, “Update it, make it contemporary, make it the war on terror or whatever,” and that’s all cool, but I don’t know. I don’t know if that’s cooler than making the book just the way it is. Is the metaphor clearer if you update it or is the metaphor clearer if you just render it the way it is, as a metaphor? That might be a better way to do it, I don’t know.

Also most important to me.

With “Watchmen” I don’t feel that way at all and I feel now, as the campaign starts to amp up for what the movie is, and with the help of you guys, I think that’s the process – you can’t take “Watchmen” to pop culture, you have to bring them to the movie. For instance, if I made a version of “Watchmen” which was easily understandable by mass culture it wouldn’t be the book, it wouldn’t be “Watchmen”. In that way, I think when people see it and they’re like, “What the fuck is that?” I think that’s right, that’s the right step.

OK I am not sure how it will turn out but the interview sounds like Synder respects the story. How that translates after the editors get hold of it, the marketers, the executives and the fluffy bunnies, only MARCH 2009 will tell.

OK onto other more surly things. And when I say surly, I actually mean SURLY. I am of course talking about my new voice in the back of my head. THE SURLY “LONG HAUL TRUCKER”

OK I may be swayed by the name, who can’t like a company named SURLY, it cuts right to the quick. They can be crappy to you on the phone…they have to be…the are SURLY!!!! Now that is not a verified fact. I have not talked to anyone from the company. Their website pimps bikes made by cyclists for cyclists. How did I miss these guys? They only came across my sites as I was following up a post by Hijalti over at Empathy Test and his new bike lust for a Salsa Fargo. That bike didn’t catch my eye nearly as much as the “Karate Monkey” it replaced. A bike with a name like Karate Monkey? How sweet is that? But I have been leaning toward a touring bike, for commuting and such. I just cant see myself on a razor thin road bike. There is too much grass and mud out there to be splashed through. I love my Trek, but with my back being sore and tired right now, I am thinking smoother is better. The Long Haul Trucker sure looks nice. Thanks again Hijalti!!

I missed the passing of Warren Zevon (again Hijalti) on Sept 7.

And last but most important for today is 9/11. Take a moment to remember those who passed on that day. Sad day, no one woke up that morning wanting to be a political martyr, except a couple dumb bastards, and not the ones who thought the plan up either. Chicken. Worthless.

peace and trucker grease

-GG

The Grumpy Gecko made it to YOUTUBE! I feel I made an impact on popular culture. Haven’t had a chance to watch it yet but I am sure it its Rant-o-lific.

peace and gecko grease

-GG

Yes, that was a quote from the boy. It was uttered just before school started. At the time I thought it funny but unremarkable, and so I didn’t remark on it. Its good to know that he can find joy in any little thing, legos, play doh, picka chu…it is also reassuring to know that I will step on said items in the middle of the night because he needs to leave them in the general lanes of traffic at the house. AH serendipity.

BUT really today does feel like the most awesome day. I got to sleep in, my back still hurts a bit but I haven’t had a flair up in 2 weeks. Its raining so I had to stay in and I got to clean up some of the downstairs…OK these last 2 really don’t sound like truly awesome things. I my own way they are, but something monumental has come about that makes the WHOLE WORLD A BETTER PLACE…

The RETURN OF FLINTLOCKE!!!

The original comic done based on the most generic group of MMO’ers ever was truly inspired. Speaking of the original comic it has been redone as…

The comic was created by Dave ‘Fargo’ Kosak over at Gamespy. He is creative director for the PlanetQuake/GameSpy network. He states “in a small company, you wear a lot of hats. It means I do some writing, I create content, I do much of our PR, I work with our hosting director to assemble teams and I help those teams create sites”. That was taken from an interview Loonygames, not our friend Andy but another gamer.

When asked the question.. “Fargo on PlanetQuake comes across as a very funny, upbeat, quirky, silly kinda fun guy. Would that description fit Dave Kosak?” he replied “No, the real Dave Kosak is actually a Goth who lives in the refrigerator of a local Subwaytm sandwich shop.”

I hope that gives some insight to the mind that created Flintlocke and now the new installment. The new comic comes at the world of Flintlocke from the Horde side.

All of this makes me forget the sore parts, the rain, the streesed out backlog at work, and any of lifes little problems, because at least Im not Flintlocke.

peace and “Chuck Shot” grease

-gg

So I am trying to keep a positive attitude about the herniated disk. The good news is that surgery is off the table for now. Friday starts physical therapy to stabilize my back. Earlier this week I felt good. So good that I think I over did it and had to spend a bunch of time on my back again. The next month or 2 is going to be a lot of that I think.

The one thing that makes me sad is that I am not riding my bike to work. NIH has an incredibly active biking community. It is headed up by a woman named Angela Atwood-Moore. She is a woman of boundless energy, and enthusiasm for the biking community. She is also the wife of my friend Tchad Moore from the Television Station AMTV. That was an unusual coincidence, I knew I recognized her from somewhere. I just couldn’t place it.

The NIH Bicycle Commuter Club (NIH-BCC) has about 400 members, but I am sure that there are more commuters that don’t know or don’t care about the club.  The club offers information on commuting routes, a mentor program to help new cyclists, and a voice for the community who is trying to make NIH much more Bicycle friendly.  For several years, NIH has won the area Bike to Work day, as the most registered cyclist in this area. We won this year because a little rain doesn’t stop us.  Pictured above is Angela at Bike to Work day.  Did I mention NIH has its own cool NIH Bike Jersey?

It really does make sense that the NATION INSTITUTES OF HEALTH should promote healthy lifestyles by any means they can.  But the gubberment can move at a glacial pace.  The added outrage at gas prices, and the mild summer have done a lot for boosting bike numbers.

Dont ask me why but the but a Detroit paper wrote up the NIH Bike club’s “Bike Bucks” program.  See it here:

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080828/FEATURES01/80828028/1026

I guess because the program is fairly unique.  It pays participants 5 “bike bucks” for every 100 miles they commute.  These can be redemeed at a few local bike shops Proteus Bikes in College Park, MD and “The Bicycle Place” in Silver Spring, MD.  I think a few more shops have jumped on board.  Its a nice little boost since the gubberment doesn’t subsidise bicycling.  Although, as mentioned in the above article, Representive Earl Blumenauer from Oregon has proposed a bill in congress that allows for a $20 incentive for bicycling to work.  YAHOO!  I wonder if it will be only for federal employees and not us contractor slobs.  Still a move in the right direction.

In my downtime I have now watched more television then I can remember, and when I was younger I watched A LOT.  Lots of old shows like “The Prisoner” (thanks Brock) and lots of Anime (Thanks Cliff) and now the worst of all I am completely hooked on HEROES (Thanks Mollie).  Yes proving again that I am behind the times.  I was catching up on a lot of sleep until I started watching the disk. 

Tomorrow starts Physical Therapy.  Need to get something more done.  Rant and roll.

-gg

Sit now and hear my tale of woe.

I hurt myself while watching Black Adder, and especially Black Adder the Third and Black Adder goes Forth. I haven’t laughed so hard in a long while. After watching Black Adder 1, 2, 3 and 4, I needed to stop for a while because my jaw hurt.

But you may ask, where have I gained so much free time as to sit and watch all these episodes, plus just about every other movie in my house. Well it seems I have hurt myself far before the jaw incident.

I have given myself a herniated Lumbar disk and I find it sort of uncomfortable to sit.

For those unfamiliar with a lumbar herniation, there is a great page that sums up the whole thing:

http://frank.mtsu.edu/~wwhitehi/atep/496/projects/lumbardisk.html

The picture above is from that page. So I have been on my back for a while. It hurts to sleep or at least rolling back and forth sends a shock into my left hip. Walking does make it feel better but I don’t want to push it too far. So I been on my back long enough to watch everything I cared to in the house and now have gone to borrowing DVD’s from my friends, including Black Adder. My Doctor has put me on real exertion restrictions until I can talk to a specialist which will be next week. OH GOOD GRIEF is this what having free time is like? Holy Crap it is dull. I worked out things at work to try and cover for me which wasn’t easy. I may sneak in for a few hours but I am trying to be very serious about this. The world would not deal well with me on permanent injured reserve.

I missed Otakon this last weekend because of my little issue. Oh well. But Stac, Sam, and G got to go. Sam got a few pics, but the battery ran out.

So Garrett has kept a 1000 batting average on being only interested in Spiderman and Pickachu. Some time I hope to see some diversity but he had fun. Sam had a run on AVATAR characters, she got most all except for Ang. She did say that the next day she saw someone dressed as Ang but the camera battery was not in the camera.

I will try to be e-mail folks with a new e-mail address, the spamcop account is getting overrun.

peace and sonovial grease

GG

OK so I am way damn behind on things again but thanks to Gleeful Gecko (Curses to the glee) I was put on to another damn fine production.

Dr Horrible’s Sing along Blog is a great little piece of work. Tragically it will be going away before many of you read this. When I say going away I dont mean it permanently. It will be around for download for a nominal fee. I for one am willing to spend a little on it even though I caught it.

If you need a reference think of it like “Once more with feeling” The Buffy the Vampire slayer musical episode. Except its about a supervillan. And what could be better than that. Not much I tell you. Joss Whedon is a freaking genius!!!! Here is what Joss Whedon says the idea is:

The idea was to make it on the fly, on the cheap – but to make it. To turn out a really thrilling, professionalish piece of entertainment specifically for the internet. To show how much could be done with very little. To show the world there is another way. To give the public (and in particular you guys) something for all your support and patience. And to make a lot of silly jokes. Actually, that sentence probably should have come first.

So go check out the web site and ignore the rest of this post because I am going to be very very very redundant and repetitious. Go watch Dr Horrible’s Sing along Blog. Go buy Dr Horrible’s Sing along Blog. Go watch Dr Horrible’s Sing along Blog. Go tell everyone about Dr Horrible’s Sing along Blog.

Be bad…Its good.

-gg

The Smithee 17 Screen, originally uploaded by Tancread.

ALMOST LEGAL

So I am completely lame and have not posted much about ORIGINS. I play some fun games including “Kobolds Ate My Baby/Midnight Massacre” and a game of “Morrow Project“. These were all good but the highlight of the weekend was for me the “17th annual Smithee Awards” Yes the Smitthee’s are now almost legal. God knows when they hit 21 we can all drink enough to forget the incredibly BAD movies they had this year. For a complete listing look HERE. You can see all the movies they have done but 2008 was a really tough year.
For those of you who don’t know about the Smithee’s, here is a quick summary.

Once upon a time there was a very ill pyschotherapist, we will call him Bob. His real name is Bryan Cassidy. Along with Greg Pearson, a man known for his ability to produce a purple notebook at a moments notice, they came up with an award show of the Worst of the worst.

Being lazy I will let the Official Smithee FAQ finish this part of the story… Just remember Bacon is your friend.

So how did this whole thing start?

Bryan Cassidy and Greg Pearson were avid role-playing gamers living and going to graduate school in Ann Arbor, Michigan. In 1991, Bryan discovered a new game from Stellar Games called It Came From The Late, Late, Late Show, in which the players take on the roles of Actors taking on the roles of characters in a B-movie. Already interested in schlock, Bryan began Directing many different highly successful “films” such as Mars Needs Sheep, The Second Husband of the Bride of Frankenstein, BUGZ, Invasion of the Intestine Eaters from Planet Xeno, and Vengeance of the Sea Chimps, to name but a few.

Concurrent with the gaming sessions were occasional (tri-weekly?) Cast Parties, when all the players would simply sit around watching gut-wrenchingly awful videos (for reference) and eating junk food. It was around this time that it occurred to Bryan and Greg (one of the game troupe’s main stars) how great it would be if there were only a way to distill the best parts (i.e., worst parts) of these kinds of movies and compare them. Sort of a training film for B-movie actors. Hey–how about some kind of an awards ceremony?

Being just crazy enough to try it and using the Late Show rulebook as an inspiration, Bryan and Greg came up with 19 categories where movies tended to be Bad. They started to collect horrible videos and bugged their audio/visually-connected friends to help them edit the worst parts (i.e., best parts) together. After one or four all-nighters in late May, 1992, it transformed into an evening of friends, unhealthy snacks, and the most hilarious parts of the most hideous films we could stand.

That turned out so well, we were compelled to do it again the following year, though some claim that they never fully recovered from the first. Like some mutant hell-beast, the Smithee Awards™ have been growing out of control ever since.

So these sick pups came up with the best idea ever. Distill down the time it takes me to watch all sorts of movies and find the few that are soooo bad I have to say “WOW that crap is BAD” Now I can go to Columbus OH every year and get that done for me. Its like TIVO on steroids, except TIVO doesn’t usually include 300 some people sitting in a room together. And if it did why the hell would you have TIVO?

But I digress (surprised?). So our man Bryan…opps I mean Bob, leads us through 19 categories of the worst parts of some of the worst movies ever made. These Categories include:

THE MOST LUDICROUS PREMISE AWARD™, THE OBLIVIOUS AWARD™, THE “WANNA RUN THAT BY ME AGAIN?” AWARD™, THE “LET’S UP THE RATING TO ‘R’” AWARD™, THE “ALAS, POOR YORICK”AWARD™,
THE DEUS EX MACHINA AWARD™, THE STUPIDEST-LOOKING MONSTER AWARD™, THE WORST SCIENCE AWARD™, THE BEST ONE-LINER AWARD™, THE WORST COVER COPY AWARD™, THE “CUTTING BUTTER WITH A CHAINSAW” AWARD™, THE INANE DIALOGUE AWARD™, THE “WHOOPS!” AWARD™ (THE WORST EDITING AWARD™), THE “WHAT?!” AWARD™, THE ACTING APPROPRIATELY STUPID AWARD™, THE WORST SPECIAL EFFECT AWARD™, THE CRUMMIEST ENDING AWARD™
THE WORST ACTING AWARD™, THE WORST PICTURE AWARD™.

Spend a little time at the Smithee site to get a feel for each category.

I need to mention a few of the movies from this years awards.

Nemesis 4: Death Angel was up for several categories, including “Wanna Run That By Me Again?”, “Let’s Up The Rating To ‘R’”(winner), Worst Special Effect(winner), Crummiest Ending. This movie, which I found for sale on e-bay for 29 bucks for a VHS copy, really does fit the categories it was in. Oh MY GOD this was atrocious!!! I noted that in the comments on IMDB that some really needs Byran Cassidy’s help, and I quote

Nemesis 4 was simply made to showcase Sue Price’s beautiful naked body. The film succeeds marvelously, showcasing her nude body as much as possible. This film also succeeds in showing how beautiful female bodybuilders are. My only question was why didn’t they do this in the previous two sequels with our dear Sue. If you are a Sue Price as I am, you’ll love this movie.

Here is a person that can find that glass half full of Dysentery. Especially the “Up the Rating to ‘R’ section, I think the best way to summarize the movie was made by someone in the audience, “I CAN NEVER UNWATCH THAT!”. But if you have a masochistic bend for bad movies, please do watch this. Just tell me beforehand.

Metallica (Captive Planet) was the one movie I feel like I NEED to see because its bad, not it the kind of Nemesis 4 way, but more of a “I just had a brain damaging accident, I feel like I should make a movie now”. This one got in the categories of “Inane Dialogue”(Winner), “Whoops”(Winner), “Worst Special Effect”, “Worst Picture”(Winner). I must say, being a child of the B movie era, this movie left me with a minor eye twitch but in a good way. It wasn’t a slasher fest, it wasn’t epic, it was a bad “B” spaghetti SciFi movie.

I did like the IMDB comment for this one also

Even weirder is the sequence about three quarters through the movie in which three scenes that should have been at the start of the flick turn up in no apparent order (Though this may just be on the DVD copy I own -part of a 20 movie box set called Space Quest) when we see the gambler hero in the casino, the auction where “Sol 3″ is bought by the Alien, and a scene in the Human control room where the High Command take a break from their “who has the gayest moustache” contest long enough to realize that the Earth is utterly screwed.

The Smithee Awards make going to Ohio like a real vacation. I was truly bad this year and didn’t get into the games I normally get into. Procrastinating got pushed off until too late. But being able to see these little gems of cinematic cholera make driving through West Virginia worth while.

I need to go lay down for a while. My brain hurts.

Thanks for Gleeful Gecko and his amazing photographamatizer, it was like a road trip with rocks.

-later
gg

So before I ran (ok walked…ok shuffled) to lunch I ran over to Penny Arcade. Gabe and Tycho being the ones I can get a quick pulse on the gaming world condition. But today they linked me to something I just cant really think how to put into words. So please enjoy this little tid bit from You Tube.

Usher - Love In This Club (Performed by Showbiz Pizza Band)

Also a little White Stripes…

How AMAZING was that?!!!

I can’t say enough about the positive use of Disney Animatronics for things other than Robot domination of the world!

Disney 2010!

peace and goofy grease