Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Hobbes' LiveJournal:

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Saturday, April 7th, 2012
10:55 pm	Hockey in the ‘burgh I’m a Penguins fan. This is not news. I also pay a little attention to the national sports media regarding our team and other teams in the NHL. Recently (as in, just now), I read a post on the Puck Daddy blog from Yahoo written by Greg Wyshynski that analyzes the playoff matches in the Eastern Conference. His picks: Rangers vs. Senators: Rangers. This isn’t a hard call, the Rangers were vying for the President’s Trophy for the team with the most points. Bruins vs. Capitals: Bruins. I’m iffy about this one. Boston has a good goaltender in Tim Thomas (even though he’s a giant douche off the ice). And it appears Ovechkin has turned on his game a little of late. I’m not sure I care too much, this round. Panthers vs. Devils: Devils. The Devils are the 6 seed in the conference to the Panther’s 3 seed. However, the Panthers are only the 3 seed because they won their division. I agree with this call. Penguins vs. Flyers: Flyers. And his reasoning is just…wow. To quote: Where the Flyers have the advantage: Scoring depth and a toughness to go with it at the forward spot. Scoring depth? Where the fuck does he come up with THAT? Evgeni Malkin won the scoring race by 12 points. TWELVE, motherfucker. OK, one guy is not depth. Let’s compare, shall we? Flyers Penguins Player Points Player Points Malkin 109 Giroux 93 Neal 81 Hartnell 67 Kunitz 61 Dupuis 59 Jagr 54 Staal 50 Briere 49 Voracek 49 Slightly tilted in the Penguins favor, as Dupuis breaks the pattern of 1 per team. And let’s not forget about the guy who played only 22 games and got 37 points, Sidney Crosby. He’s in the top 10 on the Penguins despite having played only a quarter of the games the team played this year. Flyers have more scoring depth than the Penguins? Please. As far as toughness goes, I will grant you that the Flyers are a bunch of thugs…I mean, they’re a pretty tough team. And the Pens are generally smaller than most other teams in the league. I’ve seen situations where a Penguin player will check an opponent with speed and bounce, to be honest, and it bothers me. But we did call up Steve Macintyre, a known enforcer. And we have a goalie who has won a cup before, and gone to the final dance a couple of times. Bryzgalov made it to the conference finals once and lost, and Bobrovsky is good, but the Flyers were swept in the 2nd round (Division championships). One final point: Although tonight’s game had less impact on the standings than this post (see: none), and the top players on each team didn’t really play that much, I think it’s safe to say that the Pens can win games against the Flyers. So, Wysh, I call shenanigans on you, sir. Shenanigans. Originally posted at Phoenix Rising. (Comment on this)
Friday, November 11th, 2011
12:38 pm	Skyrim The Elder Scrolls new game Skyrim came out today. I’ve been piqued by it, but something Gabe from Penny Arcade said stands out as why I didn’t like Oblivion: Quoth Gabe; When I meet a group of people in Skyrim and they want me to join their cult or whatever I just freeze up. If I do join it, will I miss out on some cool thing later? If I don’t join it, are they going to have some rad adventure without me? No matter what I choose I feel like I missed out on something awesome. I’m not picking a direction to go, I’m deciding not to go a hundred other directions. I suppose this adds to the replayability of a game, but I like just a little more structure to the game. Grand Theft Auto IV had lots of open world stuff, but has a structured plot. Assassin’s Creed does too. You can choose to ignore those plots until you’re ready, or you can tackle them in order right away. Originally posted at Phoenix Rising. (Comment on this)
Sunday, August 14th, 2011
8:35 pm	Vacation OVER I’m back from vacation. I know you care, so I’m telling you. We went to the beach. We went to the sound (which is like the beach, without the waves, and with a bunch of fiddler crabs). We went shopping. We went to a really crappy shrimp festival with a pretty cool parade before it. Yeah, that’s pretty much it. No sunburns except on the tip of my nose (probably due to rubbing my nose after going under the waves). I can’t really remember anything else. Tenzil lent me a book (Leviathan Wakes) which started pretty slow but worked out pretty well. I wasn’t quite sold on some of the character development, but I did finish the 500 page (in TRADE SIZE) book in one day, so there’s that. Played a bunch of minecraft…there’s a post there comparing Minecraft and Dwarf Fortress percolating. Both are sandboxy, but are pretty different, but you can do a lot of the same things…I’ll do a comparo at some point. Yeah, got not much else. Originally posted at Phoenix Rising. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, May 21st, 2011
10:20 pm	Raaaaaaaaapture… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWlS7J0uigg There. You’ve been Raptured. Originally posted at Phoenix Rising. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, May 11th, 2011
9:18 pm	I don’t know why, so don’t ask. I started watching Star Trek, the original series recently. Started at the beginning and am heading my way through it. I just finished Space Seed, episode 22. More on that later. If I manage to make it through, I may start in on TNG. DS9 also tempts me, but Voyager and Enterprise…I dunno. Anyway, I am amazed at how crappy some of these episodes are. I am MORE amazed at how some people rate these episodes as good. A few examples, shall we? The Squire of Gothos: This one has a pretty good set-up. The ship encounters a stray uncharted planet. Kirk and Sulu are teleported (not transported) to the surface by Trelane, the eponymous Squire. After much technical faffing about, Spock and others manage to beam down, and they rescue Kirk and Sulu, but are not permitted to leave the planet. They sleuth out that Trelane’s powers come from a mirror, which they destroy, allowing them to leave. Then shit gets REALLY WEAK. Trelane manages somehow (conveniently off-screen) to regain his powers, and prevents the Enterprise from leaving. He brings Kirk back down to the planet, they play a little “hunt the wumpus” and then in an epically bad storytelling moment, Trelane’s parents come and take their little bad boy away, letting Kirk go. I mean, SERIOUSLY? Deus ex machina from fucking orbit here. It’s like the writers said “Oh crap, we have 15 minutes to fill, and we’ve already solved the main problem! What the fuck do we do?” One of the editors at the AV club gave this episode an “A” rating. I have NO IDEA where this came from, because, OMGWTFBBQSTFU it was basically utter crap. Another episode that people love (and its sequel wasn’t an episode but an ENTIRE FUCKING MOVIE) was Space Seed. For the record, the movie wasn’t bad. The episode? HOLY CRAP was it horrid. This one wasn’t rated by the AV Club, but there are some lists which put it in the top 10 episodes. I don’t really see why, though. The acting was overblown even for TOS, and that’s saying something. Entire chunks of backstory are generated for Khan, and are just completely unbelievable. That may be due to the fact that Khan’s history was in the 1990s, but this show was filmed in the 1960s, and a eugenics program that generated a superbeing like Khan in under 30 years was nowhere near achievable. It’s ridiculous. They didn’t even TRY. Of course, there are some fucking brilliant episodes, as well. So far, I’ve seen just one. Balance of Terror. Federation Guard posts along the Neutral Zone are being destroyed in sequence. The Enterprise speeds over to see if they can’t stop the destruction. We meet our first Romulan, and the cat and mouse game of fighting a cloaked ship begins. None of the action is unexplained, and it all holds together tightly. The Conscience of the King was also a good episode. Not a spectacular episode, but the mystery was (to my jaded eye) solvable early, but built up well. Anyway, I hope that the stories get better in later seasons, because the number of episodes solved by deus ex machina is getting to me. Originally posted at Phoenix Rising. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, April 26th, 2011
8:57 pm	Portalicious I typed up a long review of Portal 2 a few days ago. This was just after I finished the single-player mode. The end result was “the single player suffered from a few flaws that made it hard to REALLY enjoy like I enjoyed Portal 1″. My score at that time was an 8.5. Then I ran the co-op course. And unlike other cooperative games, where one guy can do the heavy lifting while the rest of the team can be crappy, Portal 2 made it so that you have to cooperate. Since my computer is aged, there were a few points where my frame rate was in the single digits. But it STILL kicked ass. Given the flaws in the single-player mode, I can’t give it more than a 9, but after doing the co-op missions, I can’t give it less than a 9. And now I’m going to download all the Half-Life games and play them again, because I need some ACTION. Hopefully I have the hard drive space. Originally posted at Phoenix Rising. (Comment on this)
Friday, April 1st, 2011
3:29 pm	Contributions requested My daughter is doing a fundraising thing for her cousin who has Crohn’s Disease. This is a call for you to help her reach her goal of $1000 of donations. Here is where you do so! Thanks. Originally posted at Phoenix Rising. (Comment on this)
Friday, March 25th, 2011
7:49 pm	Ahhh…language The Boy: Oh, Mother! Me: Mother is only half a word! La femme: Don’t you dare teach him that! The Boy: Oh, mother of mine…not that other word. Me: TOO LATE! Originally posted at Phoenix Rising. (Comment on this)
Sunday, February 6th, 2011
11:07 pm	My yearly sports post Obviously this is prompted by the Steelers losing the Super Bowl to the Packers. I won’t necessarily say that the Steelers lost it, nor will I say that the Packers won it. Two of the turnovers probably were unavoidable, but lucky. But in general, most of the key players (Polamalu, for example) were not a factor in the game. I’m not too upset, I don’t care THAT much about football. My throat is a little sore from all the yelling, and my stomach is a little upset from ALL THE FOOD BY GOD that Tenzil and GreenLion and guests brought/made/etc. In other sporting news, the Penguins are doing pretty well. But that won’t last. Sidney Crosby (you know, franchise player #1) has been out for 12 or 13 games with a concussion suffered Jan 1. Probably a few more games. And I hope he doesn’t get Lindrossed (as in, concussion-prone to the point of being forced out of the game - see also Mark Savard). Evgeni Malkin is almost definitely out for the rest of the season with torn MCL and ACL from what looked like a fairly minor hit. He must have caught his skate blade on the ice when someone hit him. He wasn’t really contributing anyway. I think he bought into his own hype and can’t live up to it. We have some minor (relative to Malkin and Crosby) players out, too. I’m predicting they get into the playoffs, but don’t make it out of the 2nd round. They may not make it out of the first round. The Pirates…well, who gives a flying fuck about them, they’re a minor league team anyway. Until next year! Originally posted at Phoenix Rising. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, February 1st, 2011
11:04 pm	Audio Draaaaama OK, there’s no actual Drama here, not the kind that comes with a llama. It’s simply discussion of audio dramas that I listen to or have available. 1> Decoder Ring Theatre. They’re Canadian, that’s why they spell it “theatre”. Gregg Taylor is the only writer for the majority of their shows. They have two main shows, and then a summer showcase that lets them expand beyond the core shows. There’s only one feed, and they release twice monthly, the 1st and the 15th of every month. Their core shows are The Red Panda, which is basically The Shadow, and Black Jack Justice, which is basically hard boiled detective stories. Both of them are tongue in cheek takes on their subjects. I really enjoy these shows, because they’re almost always excellent. 2> Afterlives. This was a short-run (16 or so episodes) series put out by a group I know nothing about. The first season (say, 10 episodes?) was excellent, and by far the best. The 2nd season felt tacked on, and the 3rd season was three big shows that basically attempted and generally failed to follow through on the premise. Unfortunately, it appears to have disappeared from the net. 3> Edict Zero: FIS. This one was introduced to me by the Sonic Society podcast, where they are playing the first two episodes (out of 6 so far) of the series. The thing about this show is the incredible density of the audio. There is always something going on in the background. They don’t follow the Pendant style of directing that I did, where each character is in their own place in the audio landscape. Instead, they move the characters around, often, if not almost always in the middle of the lines. The background ambiance is rich and dense, and most of the sound effects are pretty good. The acting is generally excellent, but it can be sketchy occasionally. The characters all have distinct characterizations, and are consistent, so it’s not usually a problem. 4> Earth-P. Pendant’s version of the DC comics universe. I listen to this partly out of loyalty to the brand, because I’ve directed one show (Superman, for a season) and have a somewhat major (but not leading) role on another show (Green Arrow), along with bit parts here and there. The most recent crossover (Insolitus) was the first crossover that I thought worked really well. Ex Tempus (the previous crossover) wasn’t bad, but it was a side-show, not really related to the main continuity. There are shows that I think really stand out, some which do adequately, and one that I really could do without in every form. 5> Dixie Stenberg. Again, out of loyalty to my directorship of 6 episodes, I must mention this. It was a good show, but it’s ended now. I had a bit of a tiff with the writer/show-runner regarding the music in the last scene, which was his choice. I’m going to avoid commentary on the quality of the show as a result. 6> Midnight Radio Theater. This is a series I picked up after hearing one show on the Sonic Society. I enjoyed it then, but I’ve since cooled on them. Their stories fall into the standard “slightly supernatural story” mold, which turns me off. The acting and characterization aren’t bad, though. 7> The Sherlock Holmes Society of London Podcast. Being a huge Sherlock Holmes fan, I had to snag this, as my attempt at a Holmes podcast was basically shot down by the Estate of Sir ACDoyle. Not a bad rendition, but their Holmes is nothing compared to the radio version performed by Basil Rathbone. 8> Squadron Leader Jack Steel and the Starblade. Another WWII pilot goes science-fiction show. I like the characterization. Hasn’t been a new episode lately, though. They may be done, as the main story seems to have been completed. Caught this one from the Sonic Society again. Unrelated to modern audio drama: 9> X Minus One. This is a science fiction show that is basically a series of short stories adapted for radio by NBC Radio Theater in 1955 or so. There are some really thought provoking stories in this one. More than half of them are classic 1950s science fiction, which implies lots of bad things, like weak female characters, stories which are considered hackneyed and cliche and downright bad. There are also some real gems hidden inside them. Unrelated to audio drama at all: 10> Real Time with Bill Maher. The man has some whacked out views, and it’s pure punditry and thus suspect from the start. But I do glean some insight into the viewpoints of both right and left (well, right and center-left, at least) 11> Wait Wait, Don’t Tell Me. A left-leaning but willing to roast anyone news quiz show. Generally funny. The state of my podcast directory, in a nutshell. Am I missing anything? Originally posted at Phoenix Rising. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, December 14th, 2010
8:59 pm	Dear Gawker.com… Fuck you very much, Gawker.com. I subscribed to lifehacker.com because it occasionally has something of merit (although mostly it’s crap). And then you went ahead and decided to use technology from 1998 (unsalted DES, according to one source known to me - which means little to me, except, you know, 1998). And then you got hacked, and all the passwords were compromised. You notified me, but being the lazy slob that I am, I had the same password on gmail…and now that’s been compromised. Well, shame on me for not having unique passwords, but that’s about to change. To anyone who got any email from me that looked like spam, blame Gawker. Originally posted at Phoenix Rising. (Comment on this)
Saturday, November 20th, 2010
1:56 pm	Post-surgery update Well, I am out of surgery (actually, I’ve been out for 2 days, but this is the first time I got down to where the laptop is - and haven’t bothered to ask the lovely wife to get it for me). The surgical process was not horrible. Lots of people coming by asking me the same questions (”What’s your name? Birthdate? Why are you here?”) I got to the point where I could recite the answers to most of the questions before they asked. The nurses shaved an uncomfortably large amount of my stomach and groinal area. It seems like half the hospital got a look at my wang. Whatever. The anesthesiologist came by and at one point said “OK, I’m going to give you something to relax you.” I don’t remember a damned thing after that until I evidently woke up a little when they were taking the tube out of my throat. For the record, this shit hurts. Abdominal surgery is difficult on the patient because you use your abdominal muscles for just about everything. Getting out of bed, coughing, taking a shit. This was laparoscopic surgery, which is probably better than the normal ‘open’ hernial surgery. But since I had a hernia on both sides, lap was more efficient. The place where my IV was put in hurts a little, and when I’m not moving much I’m not in any pain. But if I try to do anything, like, say, get up to go to the bathroom, then my abdomen hurts a lot more. That is easing significantly, although I had to drug myself again last night to get to sleep. I’m not taking any pain pills during the day, because I am just that much of a stud. Or something. They gave me oxycodone (percocet, I guess), for the record. FAR too many of them, in fact. 40 pills, when I’ll probably need at most a half-dozen. Some other health issues were revealed during the surgery, but I’m addressing those in the process of losing weight, so I’m not TOO worried about them…assuming I can lose the weight. Originally posted at Phoenix Rising. (10 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, October 28th, 2010
10:11 pm	Done with it. Some thoughts, in no particular order, and as they occur to me, with the possibility of pissing some people off: Just sent out the final-by-god mix of the show I was directing short-term for Pendant. We’re doing the commentary tomorrow night, and the show goes live Monday. Very late completion, which was 100% my fault. Procrastination really fucked me on this one, and by association, the show and Pendant. My assistant director was extremely capable technically, but let’s just say needs some work on some things he thinks he’s good at. That’s fine, I’m good-ish at the things he’s bad at, and picked up where he dropped the ball. He did teach me quite a bit about how to use Audition. Some of the actors for Pendant really stepped up to the plate when the chips were down. One actor had really bad sound quality, and we asked him like 3 weeks before air-date to find a way to get us redone lines. He managed. And then a different actor was asked to re-do a line this past Tuesday, and got it to us that night. I feel I should write a short treatise on music in audio dramas, but right now, I’m a little disillusioned on the whole subject. Perhaps when I’ve had some time to chill out, I’ll put together a post-mortem on my directing experiences, in the guise of such a thing. I will still be involved in Pendant, but only as an actor. Directing takes too much out of my life with my family, and my lovely wife has been more than patient with me while I finished this project. I have a vague interest in forming a local audio drama group (and I know at least one person who has already volunteered to act for me), but the one thing I lack is a writer who’s willing to work in the format I’m interested in directing. OK, one of the things I lack. Other things are “Time”, “Money”, “Time”, “Motivation” (particularly right now), and “Time”. Am I glad I said “Yes” to working on Dixie? I don’t know. Until this last episode, I would have said absolutely. In the long term, I believe that I will look back on most of it if not proudly, at least with some sense of “Wow, I did that.” There are scenes I know I messed up, and if I hadn’t putzed around, they could have been made much better. There are scenes that I think rocked some serious sock action. There’s at least one scene that I think is completely fucked, but I couldn’t fix it. I think right now, that scene is really bothering me, and once I get some perspective on it, I bet the whole thing will just be water off a duck’s back. Right now, it’s more like a monkey on my back. There’s a 50th episode celebration (I don’t consider it an anniversary) reel being assembled for the show. I don’t know right now if I have the interest in doing a submission for it. I can’t think of anything funny to do, and don’t really have the improvisational skill to come up with something by the deadline. And judging by my submission for the Superman:Last Son of Krypton 50th episode reel, doing something serious would be full of suck. And, you know, currently pretty damned bitter about the whole thing anyway. No doubt I’ll hear about this in the next day or two. Nothing to be done about that. In any case, it’s late, and I have to be off to bed. For the record, I’m leaving comments open, but I am unlikely to respond to comments on specific subjects. Stay safe, Pendant...and...good night! Originally posted at Phoenix Rising. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, October 22nd, 2010
7:52 pm	Health? Yes, health. In September of 2009, the first pick-up game of soccer, I had played for a good two hours in goal. Not doing much, there weren’t THAT many shots on net. But as I switched out with another player and started trotting forward, I felt a twinge in my right groin area. I figured it was a pulled muscle or something, didn’t go back to soccer that year, and moved on with my life. In November of 2009, I went to a swim meet where I was acting as a timer. This involves a lot of standing (like 4 hours straight - now I know why it’s a form of…enhanced interrogation) and leaning over the pool edge to look down as swimmers hit the wall. This resulted in a very painful right knee. So, I went to an orthopaedic doctor to check out my knee, and while he was there described some of the symptoms of the groin problem. He said “Knee: Stretch, exercise, it’ll be fine. Groin: Not a sports hernia, but MAY be a real hernia. If it starts to hurt, go see [doctor who also happened to be my son's cub scout pack leader].” In early summer of 2010, I was playing soccer, and full-on dislocated my kneecap. This, as they say, sucked. I was SURE I was going to go into surgery for this. The doctor (a different one than before) said “Wear this knee brace for 6 weeks all the time, and then wear it whenever you exercise.” So I did that. So far so good. About two weeks ago, I started noticing more significant pain in the groin. So, I finally buckled down and made an appointment with [doctor who also happened to be my son's cub scout pack leader, back when he was a cub scout]. That appointment was today. He said, in effect, “You do not have a hernia. You have TWO!” That’s right, I’m the ‘proud’ parent of bi-lateral hernias (that’s one on each side of my groin, instead of a double, which is two on one side). The solution: GET THE KNIFE, BOYS, WE’RE GOIN’ IN! Blech. Originally posted at Phoenix Rising. (10 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, October 12th, 2010
8:19 pm	Electronics I’ve been vaguely interested in the idea behind electronics for some time. I’ve never put it into action… UNTIL NOW! I have created ..well, duplicated the Mooftronic Mini-Synth. Twice, in fact. Well, one and a half times. One for me, one for my son. He did about half the soldering on his version…which doesn’t seem to be working. I hope we don’t have to re-do the whole damned thing for him. It’s actually kind of lame, I was hoping for purer tones, but it’s more of a buzzing noise that MAY have some relation to the diatonic scale. I’m not sure. Ah well. Still a good learning experience. Originally posted at Phoenix Rising. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, August 17th, 2010
8:56 pm	More about the Pendant Starting last episode, and moving onto this episode, my assistant director and I have started a new (for me) method of doing the episodes. He enjoys (at least to some extent) doing the scut work: cleaning lines, selecting takes, and doesn’t enjoy or at least thinks I do a better job of sound effects and music. We both use Adobe Audition so we don’t have to mess with converting session files around. So, what he does is this: Cleans the lines, does take selection, preliminary placement. Then, he ships the edited MP3s and the session files (and the occasional sound effect if he has one he likes) to me via drop.io, and I refine the timing, put in sound effects and music, and ta-da, completed scene. OMBWTFBBQ why did I not know of this before? With all the bullshit out of the way, completing a scene is RIDICULOUSLY fast. Things that take a week or two before now take a day or two. Of course, my life is interfering in the completion of an episode that’s airing in two weeks, DETAILS DETAILS. Out of the four “scenes” in the episode, I’ve done 3 completely (including music), and the 4th one is prepped to go. Assuming there are no REALLY weird sound effects, I SHOULD be able to get it done tomorrow or Thursday at the latest for review by the bossman, who has promised to do a quick turn-around with the review process, and we should be able to do the commentary as soon as this weekend. But now, BED SUMMONS ME like an apprentice mage summoning his first demon from the lowest depths, losing control and having his soul eaten by said demon. OK, that analogy went really bad really fast. By the way, Dixie 48 has some REALLY funny stuff in it. At least, I think so. Originally posted at Phoenix Rising. (Comment on this)
Sunday, July 11th, 2010
9:23 pm	Working with Pendant people rfrancis and I had this discussion on Dino a week or so ago, and I’ve been mulling my thoughts on the subject to clarify them before releasing them into the wilds of the intarwebs. My thesis statement: When working on a Pendant show, you don’t work WITH most of the people on the show. Now, let me clarify that statement somewhat before everyone jumps on me like rfrancis did. When I say ‘work with’ I don’t mean ‘have input from’. I mean ‘have a back and forth discussion which leads to a better relationship (at least, better working relationship)’. In the case of Pendant, that ends up meaning better shows. By this definition, I have worked with Jeffrey, Tom, Jared, and Bruce. I may be considered to have worked with Philip, simply because I had conversations with him regarding his roles. I never had a conversation with Ryan about his acting, nor Susan (except one case where I asked for a retake of some barfing), nor Daniel, nor Rene, Perry, Steve nor any other actor in the shows I’ve directed. I’ve asked a couple actors to send in specific lines for a recent episode of Dixie (the crowd grumbling about Billingsly winning the science fair was 3 actors I asked in the chat to send in lines). I’ve asked for line re-takes for line quality or pronunciation issues. That’s hardly working with them on a long term basis. Now, I BELIEVE (and I know he’ll correct me if I’m wrong) that rfrancis was suggesting that the idea that they’re sending him lines and he’s using those lines is sufficient to say that they are working together. Or an even more extreme case, when he, Tom, and Pete were in the same scene during Ex Tempus, he considers that working together. I don’t. There was no interaction. The three actors sent in their lines independently of each other, with (to my knowledge) no prior discussion about how the lines should be done, no rehearsals, no discussion with the directors about how they felt about it, etcetera. Another way to look at ‘working with’ would be ‘receiving input about style/technique/etc from’. Again, I don’t think I’ve had that happen. I’ve asked a few times to people, and only when they were training me to replace them was there any feedback about my style/technique/etc. Jeffrey has done it based on the episodes I’ve sent him, but I’ve already stated that I consider myself to have worked with him. Yet another way would be the managerial side of things, where someone like mamamoira rides herd on the slacking directors and actors, and rfrancis on the slacking writers. There is somewhat of a give and take with that, but it’s more just schedule management. They do a valuable job, not one I would like. But mamamoira has fine tuned it into a set of form letters (which I think is the most sensible thing) and “all” she has to do is keep track in a spreadsheet (I put the quotes because I don’t believe it’s all that easy to do). There’s some interaction there, but it’s not relationship building nor filling the creative needs of the shows. It’s filling the needs of the production staff, and is very valuable, but … not really working WITH the creative teams. I don’t mean to bash Pendant here, I think there are some excellent shows, and the staff do a bang-up job of managing the process. But when you are producing the shows in the manner that Pendant does, you don’t have the luxury of bouncing your acting off the co-stars of your scene. You don’t end up with the chemistry that comes with face-to-face acting, like, for instance, Decoder Ring Theatre does. With the release schedule that Pendant has, it’s very difficult to generate the rehearsals that would aid in this endeavor (again, not bashing Pendant - the release schedule is for the most part fucking brilliant, except for this one flaw). Anyway, that’s why I said what I said, and if you don’t like it, or if you do, there’s a convenient “comment” button somewhere over that-a-way. Originally posted at Phoenix Rising. (17 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, June 14th, 2010
9:00 am	Fucking doctors Man, we need better health care in America. I mean, seriously. I fucked up my knee on Sunday. I have to wait until NEXT Wednesday to see an orthoped about it. A week and a half with no progress made. That’s gonna suck. Well, better start making ice like there’s no fucking tomorrow. Originally posted at Phoenix Rising. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, June 13th, 2010
7:30 pm	In other health news… So, I believe I’m due back for follow-ups at the following places: Elbow doc Sleep doc But overriding the mindless “Yeah, you’re fine now.” that those entail, I have discovered a NEW health problem… Well, OK, it’s not NEW, but it’s newly injured. Ever since high school, I’ve had a problem where my knee does what I call dislocating. I don’t know if that’s what happens, I’m too busy screaming and falling down to really analyze it. Which is what happened at soccer today. A guy named Eric, a really nice guy who just had the bad luck to bump into me in a way that caused my knee to go. He was really upset, or at least pretended really well. Dunno if I’ll be playing soccer again soon, going to call the Ortho doc tomorrow to see if I can get an appointment right away. Originally posted at Phoenix Rising. (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, June 1st, 2010
10:52 pm	CAW CAW BANG Fuck I’m dead dirque just posted a story about someone representing the NRA called him and basically lied about the Obama Administration attempting to pass a law criminalizing gun ownership (which is flat out not going to happen). I didn’t want to post on the subject of gun control on that post, because it wasn’t about gun control, it was about how the NRA used lies and fear to attempt to extract money. But I did have something to say about gun control, and thus: I’m not in favor of guns, in general. They’re dangerous when not used by individuals who are trained/qualified to use them, and for the most part are not used for the (stated) purpose for which they were bought (for instance: home protection). And most people are not trained/qualified to use them. That said, even I as a Progressive of some sort understand that wanting to own guns is within the scope of the Constitution, and it would be stupid to pass a law to disallow your average citizen the right to own guns, if they want. HOWEVER, it’s my opinion that the gun laws as they exist right now are insufficient to control the spread of firearms to individuals who seek to own weapons for less than legal means. The NRA stands against the idea that guns should be regulated at all, as far as I can tell. Thus, the guy down the street who is slightly mentally unstable can pick up his AK-47, throw on his flak vest and run down the street shooting at me, because I don’t agree with his viewpoint. Completely unregulated gun ownership would result in a literal arms race as Wacko buys a pistol, I buy a rifle to make sure he can’t get close with his pistol, he buys an assault rifle to out do me, I buy a bazooka, etc…OK, a little extreme there, but you get the idea. People who are pro-gun talk about how incidents like the Virginia Tech shootings or Columbine wouldn’t happen if everyone was allowed to carry a gun, because they say when an armed individual saw that VTDude was shooting other students, they would pull out THEIR gun and shoot him. There are some problems with this: 1> VT dude (Cho) used a .22 pistol and a 9mm pistol. Assuming full access to larger weapons, do you think he would have stuck with those weapons? No, of course not. Would he have purchased body armor of some sort? I bet he would have. Thus, guy with a .45 and no body armor and an interest in not getting shot (i.e. would not risk his own life to get a clear shot on Cho) versus a guy with an AK-47 or 6, body armor and no concern about being hit. In that fight, I’m picking the guy with the bigger gun. 2> I would argue that shooting a person is a little different than shooting targets. Sure, you could say “I did it because otherwise I would be shot.” I don’t disagree with that statement. But when you’re being shot at, would you actually risk your neck just to get a hopeful shot off? It’s iffy. Even in the military it’s unclear how many soldiers fire rounds during live fire battles (S.L.A. Marshall says only 20%, but the information does not appear to be based on any actual evidence). And of course there is the “THINK OF THE CHILDREN” argument. It doesn’t appear that gun ownership at home contributes significantly to the death rate (in 1991, 551 children were killed in accidental shootings, according to USA Today). But tell that to the parents of the 551 kids. Or their friends. I’ve always disliked the “THINK OF THE CHILDREN” defense, because all the person saying it is trying to say is “Let someone other than the parents have the responsibility to protect their children.” I don’t agree with that. But I don’t want to have to monitor every parent of every child that my children visit. I don’t want to find out that my kid got shot by some kid whose parents are alcoholics and didn’t take care of their weapons (and I have a specific parent in mind, here). When they get old enough (which may be soon for the older), I’m going to try to find a way to expose my children to firearms in a safe manner, so that they understand that guns are not toys. But I don’t want guns in my house, in my neighborhood, or in my children’s schools. I’m sure there is a way to allow individuals who are trained and qualified to own firearms. The Constitution allows it in some form (the discussion of the exact intent aside). But the NRA’s viewpoint is flawed and dangerous, and I oppose it. Originally posted at Phoenix Rising. (2 Comments |Comment on this)