soundtrack - new-ish Asteroids Galaxy Tour - 'Out of Frequency' record
I had a colonoscopy yesterday. Just making sure there was no cancer in my butt. There wasn't. At one time, we had reason to think that there may be a chance there was some cancer up in there, but after several steps, we assured that there is not.
I will say that the whole thing was a very interesting and memorable experience. I'm not sure how much to say, since I often sound holier-than-thou when it comes to dealing with potential crises. I guess I'm just kinda 'zen' about things that are non-work-related. I dunno. I was a little nervous about the colonoscopy aspect of it, since I don't have a great love for the current state of the medical industrial complex, plus I'd never been 'put under' before, and wasn't wild about surrendering so much control to someone. Blah blah blah.
Enough about that.
So, I've decided I'd like to do some blogging again, but I want to refine my process before I really jump back in. What I've found is that my old approach, which is the blunt, imprecise imposition of my views upon the unwilling horde was neither practical nor terribly rewarding. While I'm quite certain as to the veracity and solidity of my opinions, there is the perception that even though they're mine, they're still just 'opinions,' and little more. While I find that I have little appreciation for this attitude, it has given me cause to reexamine why I would want to even continue blogging.
I've often found that blogging is akin to a masturbatory session that ends very badly, but nets little more than a shrug from its unfortunate witnesses. All three or less of them. And two of them are automated searches from eastern Europe.
So why even post here anymore? Well, I haven't in months. I wanted to shift my attention to my more literary pursuits (the Endless Wars sequel), plus work got real busy, and oh yeah, Star Wars: The Old Republic came out.
The main thing, though, is the time commitment. I'm not someone who just throws any old shit up here (despite how it may read). I really put effort into it, and I labor over what I present to you. Both of you.
So, yeah, what I need is a refined process and demonstrable return on investment. Frankly, the opportunity cost is not to be underestimated. I work a very demanding, stressful job, and my off-hours are precious to me.
Yeah, the easy answer is, 'shut up and move on with your life,' but there's a lot of aspects to blogging that I enjoy. Some great discussions have come out of my posts. Blogging is a worthwhile writing exercise. There's also the potential monetization aspect to consider.
I'm thinking about trying out a refined version of something I tried a few years ago. Post every day M-F, but have a variety of topics, each of which is assigned to a particular weekday. So, like sports would be Mondays, technology would be Tuesdays, gaming would be Wednesdays, and so on. I'd probably also have a different blog assigned to each one. The entries would be shorter than I usually squeeze out, since I probably suffer from some of the 'too long, didn't read' thing that plagues us nowadays.
We'll see. I may build it all out this weekend.
What do you think?
Blaine
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Showing posts with label life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label life. Show all posts
20120504
20090514
Still Standing
Yesterday concluded the toughest school year of my life. It's interesting being 30 and challenged academically, even if the challenge lies in my awful study habits.
As I've said ad nauseum here, I'm just relieved to finally have a few weeks in which to breathe, get my brain reorganized, and rejoin the fight in the middle of June.
It'd also be nice if it stopped fucking storming some time soon.
First, in order to understand, you must be brought low:
I don't really know what to say about that, so let us move on.
New Stuff
I picked up the new Star Trek 1-6 Blu-Ray set yesterday, to celebrate the conclusion of my finals. I am like a little kid when it comes to buying prettied-up Star Trek episodes and movies I already own, bouncing around joyously while Archer/Kirk/Picard/Sisko/Janeway yells 'FIRE!' as my wife shakes her head at the thousands of dollars I've spent over the last 15 years to make sure I own the 'definitive' version of each episode/movie.
I am a Star Trek junkie.
Both of the Blu-Ray sets that are out (Star Trek season 1 and Star Trek 1-6) are great in terms of visuals and sound, but a little perplexing when it comes to actual content. The season 1 set, like its DVD predecessor, is missing the Cage, the original pilot submitted to and rejected by NBC, which featured an entirely different cast, except for Spock. This ended up w/ season 3 on DVD, which made sense in terms of broadcast order, but was still annoying, since it clearly takes place before the events of season 1.
Additionally, the movie set doesn't feature any of the director's cuts from the DVD set, which means they'll be trotting out the final versions around the time of the sequel to this year's Star Trek.
Speaking of the movie...hmm...I'll talk about it more in depth next week, but here's the basic feelings I have now:
- I was really worried about how I was gonna react to the 'alternate universe' gimmick they used to give themselves carte blanche with the storytelling possibilities, and they handled it well
- this film has the best opening of any Star Trek film or episode up to this point
- the casting was brilliant
- the film was paced beautifully
- Nero is the lamest villain in Star Trek history; we know next to nothing about him, don't really care about whatever it is he's feeling, and never spend enough time with him to feel very strongly one way or the other about him
- I don't know how I feel about the film being absent of the core Star Trek values; I'm not saying I needed a preachy scene, but one of the things that defines Star Trek is a moment in which a character has the principles of the Federation challenged, and they make a choice, one way or the other; I enjoyed it, but it seemed to lack the intellect of all non-Voyager Star Trek stories; I could have sworn that Brannon Braga was a secret consultant
- as I said, I liked it, but I was left wondering if it was a Star Trek action film, or an action film dressed up as Star Trek
- you will perceive this as being 'nerdy,' but I assure you that I must do it in order to make sense of this strange universe: 'Star Trek' is the fourth best Star Trek film behind 'the Wrath of Khan,' 'the Undiscovered Country,' and 'First Contact.'
- this film is definitely geared more toward generic humans rather than Star Trek fans, though both will enjoy it
As I said, I'll write more about it later, after I've seen it again, and had some time to actually think about it and discuss it (I've been up to my eyeballs in fucking academics since I saw it.)
Trekkies Bash New Star Trek Film As 'Fun, Watchable'
The Future
I downloaded the new Fable II DLC, 'See the Future,' though I've not had a chance to even touch it yet, due to the aforementioned Finals, and a family emergency that came up last night. I should be giving it a shot tonight.
I've estimated that I've spent, roughly, the GDP of a small European country on Disgaea 3 DLC, and I've hardly touched any of it. It's a situation akin to addiction, wherein my brain says, 'that right there is something branded with "Disgaea," which means you must have it.' One day...one day...
I'm really looking forward to Terminator: Salvation and Drag Me to Hell, as well as True Blood on Blu-Ray.
Well, I was gonna embed trailers but embedding is disabled by Warner, so I guess they don't want fans to help them promote, so I won't link to the films, either.
The Past
I was driving to the hospital last night, to see my mother (don't wanna get into the details, but she's going to be fine), when I saw that one of my old restaurants had been closed.
It was the restaurant in which I'd been hired as a dishwasher at 18 years old, and then I was running when I was 26. I knew they were struggling, and I suspected, for a number of reasons, that they were gonna shut down, but to actually see that a place that had housed so many memories, spread out over so many years, shuttered and ripped up like that was a little disturbing. I was sad, to tell ya the truth.
It was a place where I had memories acting like a dumb, jack-ass kid, throwing knives around, making out with female coworkers, napping in the walk-in cooler, and all kindsa idiotic, fun stuff.
On the other end, I remember being the leader that cracked down on shit like that, and matter of fact, my history was one of the reasons they installed me there when I came back to the region, since I knew most of the crap that the kids would try to pull.
In many ways, that store helped define me in ways that are almost silly. I mean, come on, a crappy job teaching a boy what it means to be a man? Pfft!
Really, though, I did learn a tremendous amount from some great people while I was there, and was rewarded with some great leadership positions, and it's sad to see the place go.
Wrapping Up
So, I'll be back tomorrow, and I'm resuming my M-F blogging schedule, so you can count on regular spewings from me each afternoon. I'm still working out my summer schedule w/ my day-job employer, but it's looking like I'm gonna have a nice, chill schedule, and I'm gonna have time to work on some personal projects.
First up, I'll be doing some editing of some very old writing of mine and I'll be making my first Team Fortress 2 map as an excercise. From there...well, we'll see. I'd still really like to do a NWN/NWN2 mod.
So, anyone seen Star Trek? What'd you think? Have you tried the new Fable II DLC? Have you tried any of the Disgaea 3 DLC? What'd you think of either?
Lemme know!
-Blaine
As I've said ad nauseum here, I'm just relieved to finally have a few weeks in which to breathe, get my brain reorganized, and rejoin the fight in the middle of June.
It'd also be nice if it stopped fucking storming some time soon.
First, in order to understand, you must be brought low:
I don't really know what to say about that, so let us move on.
New Stuff
I picked up the new Star Trek 1-6 Blu-Ray set yesterday, to celebrate the conclusion of my finals. I am like a little kid when it comes to buying prettied-up Star Trek episodes and movies I already own, bouncing around joyously while Archer/Kirk/Picard/Sisko/Janeway yells 'FIRE!' as my wife shakes her head at the thousands of dollars I've spent over the last 15 years to make sure I own the 'definitive' version of each episode/movie.
I am a Star Trek junkie.
Both of the Blu-Ray sets that are out (Star Trek season 1 and Star Trek 1-6) are great in terms of visuals and sound, but a little perplexing when it comes to actual content. The season 1 set, like its DVD predecessor, is missing the Cage, the original pilot submitted to and rejected by NBC, which featured an entirely different cast, except for Spock. This ended up w/ season 3 on DVD, which made sense in terms of broadcast order, but was still annoying, since it clearly takes place before the events of season 1.
Additionally, the movie set doesn't feature any of the director's cuts from the DVD set, which means they'll be trotting out the final versions around the time of the sequel to this year's Star Trek.
Speaking of the movie...hmm...I'll talk about it more in depth next week, but here's the basic feelings I have now:
- I was really worried about how I was gonna react to the 'alternate universe' gimmick they used to give themselves carte blanche with the storytelling possibilities, and they handled it well
- this film has the best opening of any Star Trek film or episode up to this point
- the casting was brilliant
- the film was paced beautifully
- Nero is the lamest villain in Star Trek history; we know next to nothing about him, don't really care about whatever it is he's feeling, and never spend enough time with him to feel very strongly one way or the other about him
- I don't know how I feel about the film being absent of the core Star Trek values; I'm not saying I needed a preachy scene, but one of the things that defines Star Trek is a moment in which a character has the principles of the Federation challenged, and they make a choice, one way or the other; I enjoyed it, but it seemed to lack the intellect of all non-Voyager Star Trek stories; I could have sworn that Brannon Braga was a secret consultant
- as I said, I liked it, but I was left wondering if it was a Star Trek action film, or an action film dressed up as Star Trek
- you will perceive this as being 'nerdy,' but I assure you that I must do it in order to make sense of this strange universe: 'Star Trek' is the fourth best Star Trek film behind 'the Wrath of Khan,' 'the Undiscovered Country,' and 'First Contact.'
- this film is definitely geared more toward generic humans rather than Star Trek fans, though both will enjoy it
As I said, I'll write more about it later, after I've seen it again, and had some time to actually think about it and discuss it (I've been up to my eyeballs in fucking academics since I saw it.)
Trekkies Bash New Star Trek Film As 'Fun, Watchable'
The Future
I downloaded the new Fable II DLC, 'See the Future,' though I've not had a chance to even touch it yet, due to the aforementioned Finals, and a family emergency that came up last night. I should be giving it a shot tonight.
I've estimated that I've spent, roughly, the GDP of a small European country on Disgaea 3 DLC, and I've hardly touched any of it. It's a situation akin to addiction, wherein my brain says, 'that right there is something branded with "Disgaea," which means you must have it.' One day...one day...
I'm really looking forward to Terminator: Salvation and Drag Me to Hell, as well as True Blood on Blu-Ray.
Well, I was gonna embed trailers but embedding is disabled by Warner, so I guess they don't want fans to help them promote, so I won't link to the films, either.
The Past
I was driving to the hospital last night, to see my mother (don't wanna get into the details, but she's going to be fine), when I saw that one of my old restaurants had been closed.
It was the restaurant in which I'd been hired as a dishwasher at 18 years old, and then I was running when I was 26. I knew they were struggling, and I suspected, for a number of reasons, that they were gonna shut down, but to actually see that a place that had housed so many memories, spread out over so many years, shuttered and ripped up like that was a little disturbing. I was sad, to tell ya the truth.
It was a place where I had memories acting like a dumb, jack-ass kid, throwing knives around, making out with female coworkers, napping in the walk-in cooler, and all kindsa idiotic, fun stuff.
On the other end, I remember being the leader that cracked down on shit like that, and matter of fact, my history was one of the reasons they installed me there when I came back to the region, since I knew most of the crap that the kids would try to pull.
In many ways, that store helped define me in ways that are almost silly. I mean, come on, a crappy job teaching a boy what it means to be a man? Pfft!
Really, though, I did learn a tremendous amount from some great people while I was there, and was rewarded with some great leadership positions, and it's sad to see the place go.
Wrapping Up
So, I'll be back tomorrow, and I'm resuming my M-F blogging schedule, so you can count on regular spewings from me each afternoon. I'm still working out my summer schedule w/ my day-job employer, but it's looking like I'm gonna have a nice, chill schedule, and I'm gonna have time to work on some personal projects.
First up, I'll be doing some editing of some very old writing of mine and I'll be making my first Team Fortress 2 map as an excercise. From there...well, we'll see. I'd still really like to do a NWN/NWN2 mod.
So, anyone seen Star Trek? What'd you think? Have you tried the new Fable II DLC? Have you tried any of the Disgaea 3 DLC? What'd you think of either?
Lemme know!
-Blaine
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