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Author: NiteMayr

Before:

Kevin was born on the mossy hills of Scotland and lived for a while in West Lothian before the mores of pre-Thatcher and REALLY pre-Oasis Great Britain sent his family across the ocean to North America. They moved here and there and Kevin did the same when he was old enough. Now he lives in London with his family and a Dog.

Kevin Wardrop is an amateur writer, amateur photographer and professional pain in the ass. He has worked in the PC support business for most of his adult life and has been accustomed to simply answering technical questions as a matter of fiat, it was his career choice after all. Now he herds cats and puppies for a living as well as babysitting the web enterprises at the heart of western industry.

GTA Zombies, YES!

We were talking about Dead Rising yesterday, and 007Ben expressed how happy it would have made me if there was a Zombie game that was free roaming that had the elements of GTA and Dead Rising.  Last night I

installed “GTA: Long Night” a Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Mod.

I’ve only given it a little play time, so I can only say that I’m disappointed that the zombies appear to have the normal voices their human models have, but they certainly move like zombies!
I noted that if I park my vehicle in such a way as to bloick my door, teh zombies go dormant, same result if I go slow.  I keep failing the first mission, but I’ll keep going.

A Movie Bijou-y

I’ve always associated the “Bijou” theater name with the “Gay Theater” in any town.  The type of theatre you’d see primary boy-on-boy action in a movie.

Safe to say, that’s not my type of flick, it’s right for some given that there appears to be a large amount of it being produced (if LiveJournal is any indicator)

The Bijou in Eugene is housed in what I understand is a former church with the screen in an actual chapel.  It’s essentially a very large television, stereo sound only.  This does not detract from the movies in any way, please do not feel that it might.  In Eugene, the Bijou is the “Art Theater” where movies like “An Inconvenient Truth” and “American Hardcore” may show.  They appear to show “Battle Royale” alot and I’d really like to see it on a big screen, maybe sometime in the future.

007Ben and I went to see “A Scanner Darkly (2006)” today, I really loved it. I know a number of people will (and have) accuse me of loving almost every film I see; I have broad and forgiving tastes [I love Jackass and Kevin Smith Movies so sue me] but this film was great.  It wasn’t too mind bending though, I had expected more discussion of identity and self, and I sussed the real “plot” way too early, but I really enjoyed the performances.  Woody Harrelson was great, Keanu turned in his best GoodDamon impression to date and Robert Downey Jr. did a GREAT job as the Engineer/Chemist/Tweaker that foiled Keanu Reeves‘ character.  Winona Rider turned out a great prformance as the Girlfriend, but I think she was under-utilized.
The real standout character on screen [in my mind] was “Freck” played by Rory Cochrane.  Freck is our typical down-on-his-luck hapless druggie. There are bugs all over him and his imagiantion is graphic and twisted.  Even his suicide is a bust.  He is the “loser” amongst the troupe of drugged out losers.  The Rotoscoping on the movie is used to best effect on him, as his face is one of constant disgust, until it turns to beafatic bemusement as his litany of sins is read to him by a multidinous-eyed mosnter from another dimension.  All-in-all it was a fine movie and I expect to snag the DVD ASAP.

Ugh Wow

NiteGirl sucked me into playing WoW last night; for 5 hours.

Five hours between 12 midnight and 5 AM.

I didn’t get to sleep until 6AM!

Waugh!

We were raiding Black Rock Spire and it took forever due to wipes and one restart.  We ended up wiping on Drake

Early Time Travel Experiments

I was watching the movie “Primer” last night (Great stuff, check it out if you like a wordy sciene geek flick)
It got me thinking about the time that Jeremy Bishop, Chris and I all time travelled by way of Bruce Campbell.

We decided to spend a summer afternoon watching the Evil Dead Trilogy in the basement bedroom Jeremy filling in number 666 hunter street.  Fromerly the Kozma home, I passed #666 all the time and was jazzed that Jeremy lived there.  It was a perfect fit for the “I want to be debauched” Jeremy.

As I was saying, we spent the afternoon watching the Eveil dead films.  Even at our best estimate we were to be done late in the evening (having started mid-afternoon).  Any fan will tell you that the Evil Dead Movies are great fun, and worth wasting an afternoon on, even a summer one.

When the movies were over we prepared to head out into the cooler summer evening, perhaps to tool around downtown Kincardine, maybe to hang out somewhere.  I forget. but when we stepped out the sun was still full in the sky.  It wasn’t even close to sunset yet.

Wilco Ferdinand Culpa?

Shouldn’t it be dark?

We went back inside and checked that we had in fact watched the movies, yup the last one was still in the VCR.

It should be later, right?  We all thought aloud.

Here it was, still late afternoon.

We had travelled through time, backwards.

Freaky Stuff.

Our whole summer evening spread before us and we got to do whatever we wanted for a few more hours.

So we watched more TV.

LoL

Phone Angst

Desk ToolsThis morning I saw two great images to capture, a beautiful sky and a bright moon.  I pulled out my phone to snap an image and it locked up.  I reset it and tried again, locked and the stylus fails to actually manipulate the screen.

I was, to say the least, a bit peeved.

After fiddling with it and looking for troubleshooting help I started looking for specific advice from Verizon, as well as the firmware update.

007Ben noted when I pointed it out that the side of the screen might have become sensitive due to the screen protector on my phone.  After pulling it of all was well.  For a bit.

I started to upgrade the phone and it turned off, so I pulled it from the cradle and cursed the strange usb errors this laptop has.  I snapped it back in and restarted the update, which progressed flawlessly.

The phone is fine now (and I snapped that pic you see on the post); so yay!

Hello Cleveland

If you had a band, what would you call yourselves?
Question submitted by Zoot.

If I had a band I’d call it “Cindy Mae’s Cheerleader Atrocity Engine

The only music I have any talent with is electronic and glitch-noise based, I’d almost have to confine myself to the “emo-techno” genre. With a name like that though, I’d sure sell a great deal of t-shirts.  Maybe even have an organization like the PMRC come after me.  That’d be sweet.

I have been in a band before though, even released a couple of tracks solo.

If you ever hear some lame techno stuff labeled as by “KWCrush” or “BBCrush” you might be listening to one of my old tracks (1994-1996) produced in 4 tracks with an old 386 and a tape deck, using live samples from my answering machine, television and the radio.  Good times.

“i don’t wanna”  was my best track.

Ah Flippin' Heck

The mild “stuffed with walnuts and meat” feeling I had in my sinuses yesterday afternoon became, “overflowing with meat” in the evening requiring doses of pain medication to deal with it.  My head felt like it was being pressed open by a mass of ever-expanding meat.  (Still kinda does)

I’ve got some kind of head-cold and it meant that this morning I stayed home and attended a meeting from bed.  I went back to sleep and caught about 10 hours of sleep in total.
I don’t feel *that* much better now, but I don’t think I’ll need pain medicaton to deal.

Various Stuff and Thoughts

I had a great nap earlier, slept right through House.  I have most of the episodes recorded so it’s no big loss.

Dead like me is back on TV, so NiteGirl is totally psyched and recording them obssessivley. I’m thinking I know what to get her for Christmas this year, SOCKS.

It was pretty busy at work today, and I’ve been a little sick (some kind of head cold) so my patience has been pretty worked.  I’m going to have to sleep better tonight, especially since I have a meeting at 8am for a product group I have nothing to do with.  Fun stuff.

My burn from the weekend still hurts in places, but the one on my forhead is crfacking in peeling, I should be a barrel of laughs tomorrow.

I’m almost done with “The Human Condition” which is just a series of short stories, I’ve based through about 13 Graphic novels and 25 issues of JSA in between. I really should focus on one book at a time.

I’ve got to get back on WoW this week, hopefully snagging more of my Wildheart set.  I have the gloves and bracers now. I also have the entire volcanic set on.  It’s nice to have the extra buffs.

I’ve almost recovered my itunes collection and was pretty choosey on it.  When I’m done I’ll back it up to my external drive and feel a great deal better.

Middle Name

What’s your middle name?  Is there a story or history behind it?

I don’t have a middle name, but my first name is interesting.
[Kevin] was not my ‘rents first choice, their first choice was Kenneth. After a famous footballer, Kenneth Dalglish a member of the Celtic Football Club (Glasgow, Scotland, God Bless them all)

Anyway, Kenny apparently left the club and my Dad was so disgusted that they changed my name, which apparently means “Handsome One” in Gaelic, so, yeah, awesome. [Gaelic: ‘comely birth’, Saint Kevin founded Glendalough 618 ad]

Better than the Original?

What is your favorite cover song?
Question submitted by Ray.

Easy “Whiskey in the Jar – By Metallica”

While I love the Thin Lizzy recording (which I’m not sure is the original but c’est la vie), Metallica put such an awesome spin to it you just can’t help but get into it.

The close second (Blasphemy) “Faith” by “The Boy Least likely to” [do not miss the chance to listen to it loud].  This is a great cover for the Q Magazine goes to the 80s collection (and a B-Side I think) How often are you going to hear a song you can dance to that has banjos and a song you can sing along with? Inspired!  Faith reminds me of my last few years in grade school and my first years of High School.  These are mostly bitter memories, but there is some sweet there too. I was and still am a giant dork after all.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention “Behind Blue Eyes” by “Limp Bizkit”  I really love that cover.  Damn me.