October 7th thru November 28th

Pre Thursday October 13th, 2005

I can feel my brain dying. This is too bad-- I used to be, I think, a fairly decent writer, a fairly clear thinker, and I could make fairly good arguments based on the facts at hand or at least well-supported opinions. But anymore, as I get older, I find I resort to vitriol and vinegar to make my position known. For example, I want to tell everyone I know what a stupid poo-poo head Ann Coulter is.

In a recent "essay" or "article" or "piece of self-important blather disguised as conservative rhetoric," Ann Coulter says, more or less, that smart folks shouldn't be in charge but neither should dumb folks. You can't trust the very-well educated, because they might be liberal, unless they're very-well educated conservatives. And any liberals who are not well-educated are worthless because, afterall, they are not well educated. Unless they're conservatives living in red states.

And then she makes an ass of herself by attempting to disparage a liberal by pointing out a grammatical error, an error which she decides was made in an attempt to sound educated. Oh the irony. That Ann is one savvy minx. Nothing gets by her.

Thankfully, the good people at Language Log called her on it. Go Language Log. And go anyone who knows that there are no rules, only suggestions, when it comes to language, that there are conventions which can assist in making oneself understood, and that attacking one's "misuse" of those conventions is tantamount to admiting the content of the message is not attackable.

"Whatever," as the kids say. I have never heard Ann Coulter say anything, ever, that was useful. She is to politics what movie critics are to film. Let us say that Crossroads, the Britney Spears movie of 3 or so year ago, can be shown to be a very badly made film. Does that mean that I did not, in fact, enjoy myself when I went to see it, even though I thought I had a good time? Ann Coulter's style of punditry is to say "Since Britney Spears is a bad singer and since her songs are bad, the movie is bad and anyone who saw it and liked it doesn't know what a good film is." Well, Ann, let me see you degree from Julliard, let me see your evidence that those who write the songs Britney sings have never once written songs for a critically acclaimed performer. Let me see your analysis of the ticket-buyer list to show me that not one person who saw the film also saw, appreciated, and even liked, Citizen Kane.

Yes, that was a crappy analogy. Like I said, my brain doesn't work as well as it used to. My point is that Ann Coulter's rhetoric is becoming more dependant on the style of her message than what she says, for she never says anything useful. Who would you rather listen to: Tim Curry reading in Portuguese about slaughtering nuns, or Fran Dresher reading in Vietnamese the translated poetry of Robert Browning? (This assumes that you don't speak either language.) My guess is you would choose Tim, cause he's got a wonderful reading voice, Portuguese is a melodic language, and since you can't understand a word of it anyway, you might as well enjoy the sounds. Ann's just a mouth for saying, in a pretty way (and here "pretty" means "full of pundit-style phraseology and logical legerdemain that makes people think they're smart for following along) that conservatives are teh roxxor and liberal are teh suxxor.

Thursday October 13th, 2005

Been a while, Zui

Gonna write down thought while watching Carniv&ague;le.

Tried to Netflixx Lost for the GF, turns out the availability is set at "long wait."

I always spell Netflixx with two Xs.

I am very much obsessed with Sudoku.

Saw Serenity again last Saturday.

Finally bought We Love Katamari; haven't played it much yet.

Finished Deadwood season 1. Waiting for 2 to be released.

This blog, this zui, is becoming just another "what I watched on DVD" thing. Oh well.

I'm going to be Gluttony for Halloween. Or Vanity.

You tell me why I end up liking these Japanese named things so much.

Drank some Bud Light, played some burnout revenge with the boy last Saturday.

Coming soon from Netflixx: Law and Order.

Got a darn flarn darn con call in 5 minutes. Of course, you won't see this until well after the call is over.

For Halloween, I was thinking about getting a yellow dress with a blue top and red puffy sleeps, getting all bloody, carrying around some severed limbs, and then I would be "Snow White and Three Dwarves to Go."

Heck, now it's the next day. Sorry Zui.

Just heard: Leilani Lanes, my Monday night haunt, has been sold, and won't be an alley after next March. It will be demolished for an apartment complex. 6.5 million dollars. Sorry for breakin the zui' style, but that sucks ass. I'll be selfish, and make a lame point—why would they bother maintaining that very complex equipment if they aren’t going to be around anymore?

NDA has been lifted on CoV Beta Testers, so I can confess: been testing, with a Stalker named Dirk Justice.

This is a really online cool toy, where you can make hero costumes for your whatever.

Sunday October 23rd, 2005

And while we're being trivial: he had a small appearance on that old show Kate and Allie. The name of the episode was "The Nightmare before Christams." It aired in 1987. Tim Burton's film of the same name came out in 1993. Hmm... Now I wonder if Kate and Allie will ever be available on DVD?

I was watching L&O on DVD while eating a steak, a baked potato, and drinking a Bavarian beer. I had broiled the steak after eating salad with Russian dressing while reading a spy novel (The Eiger Sanction by Trevanian). I also ate thin slices of smoked cheddar. Much later, I fed my neighbor's dog. I know this sounds like a lot of reportage, but I just wanted to paint a picture of my man-style evening cause I am super duper macho kinda stud-muffin.

Saturday November 5th, 2005

Making the letters was fairly easy-- the E is just the L copied, flipped and pasted on itself, with the lower bar copied again and moved up to the middle. The N is the right slant from the A tilted a bit more, with the column if the L and the bottom of the I making the two columns on the left and right. I used the cloning tool to add texture to the E so it looked like the other letters. Then I used the cloning tool about a bazillion times to erase the background where the A and S had been so the E and N looked normal.

For the face, I took a swatch from Jennifer Garner's forhead to make skin-mask background, then imported a picture of an alien, stretched to fit her facial dimensions. I blended these two layers together as best I could, then used an adjustment of color hue and brightness/contrast. Then I copied the aliens eyes and put them in front, adjusting the brightness/contrast again so the stood and looked shiny.

And that's it. Took about an hour, altogether.

Interestingly, this kind of close-up fast work MAY have resulted in flaws, but some of the flaws in evidence where alreadsy in the original picture. Her left arm looks stained, and thats the way it looked before. Also, the background is not smooth, but appears to have been blended together, and some places, not perfectly. But hey. Most folks don't examine things closely, since the point is to make a parody, not to revel in perfected techniques. Afterall, I am not posting this on Worth1000.

There's other things I want to do to this. Make the alien face bigger, change the hand to an alien hand with suckers on the fingertips. Also there's a shadow on Jennifer Garner's face from her hair that I want to replace. I think the E ius a bit fuzzy on the edges, and ultimatly, if I could remove all the other words so that this looks like a generic poster and not a soundtrack cover, that would be cool too. And if I could get the N to be back-ground reversed like the original S is, I would be a true Photoshop Ninja.

Monday November 28th, 2005

First on the chopping block-- my CoH/CoV accounts. I just don't play them as much any more. They are not as compelling as they used to be, since the content is repeatative, and, they keep putting me in sutuations where it is impossible to play alone. I don't have the time to ask people for help with something that's not new or intriguing. The only reason I have hung on so long is because I had a lot of idle time to fill, and that's all going away, fast. However, I am not severing my CoH ties completely, since I have a family at AoH who I shall never want to lose. I may play again in a few months, next year. But for now, that's 30 bucks a month.

Next, my home phone. I cancelled my long distance a while ago, since the only long distance calls I need that last any length of time are toll-free numbers. For the last several months, I've been getting about 10 telemarketer calls a day. To stop this, I signed up for caller ID and some other service, which has NOT blocked the phone-spam, but HAS blocked my friends from calling. I don't use the term phone-spam lightly. Most of the calls where pre-recorded messages, and much of the time, I get hang-ups as soon as my voice registers. I think much of this has to do with having had a roommate, once, who was apparently very indiscrimant when it came to tossing our phone number and adresses around. I'm on hold right now with my cell-phone provider, to increase my minutes-per--month so I can absorb the home-phone loss. That's another 30.

Also today, bye bye Gold's Gym. You have been a good gym. Your proximity to my house has been well worth the money. Your people behind the desk always greet me with a hello and they always say something nice as I'm leaving. Your biking classes where amazing, when I went to them. But I'm also a member of Bally's, which is a few miles away, but much cheaper for me. Also, my GF has joined Bally's, and we go there together. Sure, I can afford to keep Gold's, but lately it's just been 3 mornings a week on an elliptical machine, so not very worth it. That's another $30.

I say "it seems appropriate" because, well... my reasons may seem insensitive and macabre to you, but try not to be judgemental, and just accept that there are trends and rhythms in the air and I am feeling them tug at me, indicating that I exit in a universe that does, afterall, impact me and is impacted by me. Recently, it seems, deaths have been made apparent to me, including people close to friends of mine. A father, a grandmother, a few celebrities. It's the season, really, winter coming along as a context of death, and it is out of the ashes of an expired year that we emerge renewed, energized, and ready to build new life out of old life. Or some kinda poetry. Suffice it to say that it's time for me to some sloughing and lean down in anticipation of a high-energy spring.

...Okay, time has passed, now I am on a con call. Will keep you posted on the phone.