If you have a Wii and want exchange codes, our code is: 4401 8184 7902 1809

I’ve also noticed a disturbing trend in both DC and Marvel’s story arc release styles. Both companies have decide to start story arcs in there basic titles (namely Superman and X-Men Legacy) with a one shot. This means that issue 680 of Superman ends an arc and issue 681 picks up at part two of the new Superman: New Krypton! To make matters worse, part 3 is in Adventure Comics Special featuring The Guardian. By the way, part three is actually a continuation of a story from Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen Special #1. Issue 682 of Superman features part five. On the Marvel side, the new X-Men Legacy arc started with a one shot called X-Men Original Sin and was part one of the arc. The next issue of X-Men Legacy was part 2. So if you just pulled X-Men Legacy, you miss the first part of the arc! I mean come on, the current run of X-Men is hard enough to understand as it’s written. It doesn’t need to have parts missing on top of that.

Like a sucker, I’ll keep buy this stuff as long as the stories are good. Just please, give us a break for a few months and cool off on the event stuff!

Oh man, I can take a breath now. It’s so hard to express what I’m feeling. This is the first time I’ve voted and me guy won. Not only won, won by a landslide. I, with millions of other Americans, we stood together and said we want change. I’m so overwhelmed right now.

A president isn’t about taxes or gay rights. A president isn’t just the guy that declares war. To me a president should strive to meet the ideals that we as a people strive for. They should carry themselves with dignity and honor. They should aim for the best of all human traits. Wisdom and compassion; strength and determination. They should speak for all of us, and when they do speak, I should be able to respect their words. Most of all, I should be able to respect the president, even when I disagree.

I think maybe, for a change, we might have that president.

I got:

• $70 in birthday cash (Thanks Mom and Dad and Vee and Chris!)
• The Walking Dead Vol. 5 and Vol. 6 (Thank you Erin and Andy)
• 2 Shards of Alara Magic the Gathering decks (Thank you Corin!)
• Super Mario Kart DS (Thank You Kelly and Rene!)

Saturday night we met Erin, Kelly, and Rene at the mediterranean buffet (Kelly’s treat) for dinner and presents. After that we went to Dragon’s Lair where I dropped $40 on comics. We then picked up some horror DVDs at Vulcan. I rented Nude for Satan, an Italian horror film with a title that says it all. There are 2 others, but we haven’t watched them yet.

Friday night (Halloween) was pretty awesome. We gave candy out and tried to take down the headless horsemen in WoW. We failed, but it was fun anyway.

That’s all for now. I leave you with one of my father’s recent TV appearances. He played the camera man in the Licorice Stick segment of Chocolate News. Please to enjoy.

It starts off innocent enough; I just want to check my auctions. Ooh! I made some gold! And look at that, my spellcloth cool down has expired. Now I can go to Netherstorm and cook up another 2 spellcloth. Oh, but I need some motes of fire. Sure I could buy some, but if I just farm a few I save like 18 gold. So I take off to Nagrand to farm some motes. When I get to Nagrand I find that the Elemental Plateau is empty, no other farmers. So I can farm my 10 motes for the spellcloth and 10 more for after the cooldown. If I farm 10 more motes, then I can make 20 gold. So I farm the motes and on my way back to Shattrath I remember that I’m near the Blood Elves I need to grind to gain rep with the Scryers. And they drop netherweave! I could make a few bags and put them up on the auction house. It goes on like this. At some point, usually during griffin rides to various locales, I make dinner and eat it while I grind. Maybe someone I know logs on and we do a few quests. By this time it’s like eight o’clock and all I’ve done is pretend to be a Gnome that has a budding career as a fashion designer and part-time magician. I love all the gear and power you attain by leveling and killing creatures for experience points, but for some reason I really get in to the profession and trade aspects of the game. I spend a lot of time trying to get rare patterns and rare fabrics so I can make epic quality gear to wear or sell on the auction house. I get this feeling like maybe if I get good at balancing the cost of materials and selling them for a good price then maybe someday I can attain real wealth in my real life. Strange, I know, but this is what I do.

This weekend I met up with my buddy Craig from LA and his friend Amy, who lives here in Austin. Craig was in town to show his film When Zombies Attack! A Public Service Announcement at the Dismember the Alamo film festival. Do to a misunderstanding via email I didn’t make it to the film festival. We arranged to have dinner the following Sunday and it was awesome. We went to Stubb’s BBQ, but my dumb ass ate too large a lunch so I didn’t eat much. I just had a salad. Craig told stories about his recent trip to Africa. He toured the continent, meeting people, rafting, and seeing the sites. Craig is pretty amazing that way. He did the whole thing on his own and did it for the experience. I’ve always been impressed by Craig’s ability to do what ever he wants. He’s an entrepreneur and does various jobs when he’s not busy making films and taking photos. He really knows how to live, in that Kerouac sort of way. His friend Amy was pretty amazing too. She works for a major database company and makes music in her spare time. It’s funny because I spent the evening under the impression that Amy was Craig’s sister. I don’t know where I got that, but I could swear that Craig was staying with his sister and that she was coming to dinner with him. It doesn’t really matter I guess, I know now that she’s not his sister, but it’s a really embarrassing feeling of an almost Seinfeldian level. She was familiar with Linux and open source software and both of them appreciate board games. It’s pretty refreshing to not have to explain everything you mention. When I have to do that too many times I wonder if we really should be talking, I mean if you have no idea what I’m talking about how can that be interesting for you? Anyway, we talked about the internet, the election, movies, music, games, etc. I love conversation and I really miss having those 4 hour talks with friends over drinks or coffee or whatever. We ended up in an Irish bar just across the street and had a few beers. The whole evening was one of the most pleasant in recent memory. Thanks Craig and Amy, we need to do it again really soon. Since then, Amy and I have made plans to work on some music. I’ll post anything good here, I promise.

This whole thing reminds me that I need to visit LA as soon as I can afford it. It’s been way too long.

This weekend we have Halloween, which is still up in the air. Then Saturday, the in-laws are taking us to the Mediterranean buffet for my birthday. Then Sunday is my birthday proper. I think the main thing I want to do is go see Zack and Miri Make a Porno. Then next week we have the election and a new president. I have a bad feeling we are in for another round of recounts and it won’t be decided until after Christmas. I already voted, so I’m just waiting for the results. Get out there and vote folks.

Well, I guess this is a passable update. I’ll try to be more timely next time.

Aside from sleep, about the only other activities I could do was play Warcraft and watch TV. I got my mage to level 70 (YAY!) and I watched most of the stuff on the DVR. But really, most of the time I slept. Like probably 16-20 hours a day. I feel rested, but not a good kind of rested. Just the “I can’t sleep anymore” kind of rested. I still ache and feel weak. Hopefully, things are slow at work and they take pity on me.

All support is appreciated.

Warcraft

Babyshoes (on the Skywall server) is rapidly approaching level 70. If you don’t already know, Babyshoes is my level 66 Gnome frost mage with the tailoring and enchanting professions. He’s been a lot of fun to play and I’m trying to get him to level 70 in time for the Wrath of the Lich King expansion. This expansion opens up a new continent, customizable hairdos (the girls are crazy for this), a new player class, a bunch of new dungeons, and a raised level cap. I have 5 other toons, but I’ve focused on Babyshoes because mages are a lot of fun to play. Some people find the magic users complicated, but I like the versatility. The character becomes sort of like an operating system with various commands you can run, besides the standard whack and loot. If Babyshoes hits 70 before WotLK comes out, I will probably work on Gorefeaster, my level 50 Undead warrior, and try to get his epic mount. Warriors are a pain to level. He can tank like nobody’s business, but his damage per second is so low that it takes forever to kill something. I need to team up with a mage or a warlock and just power level him. If you have a toon on Skywall or want to tell me what server you play on, drop me a comment.

The Wire

I’ve been watching heroic amounts of The Wire. It’s so good, it’s mind blowing that it earned such low ratings. Imagine the best of Law & Order, coupled with the best of Homocide: Life on the Streets, add in a dash of Sopranos dark humor, simmer in the technical savvy of Numb3rs, and you get The Wire. On the surface, its a crime drama detailing the trials of the Baltimore police homicide and drug divisions. The understaffed, overworked, and  underpaid department is pushed past its limits and its ability to enforce the law is compromised by the lean budget. There are ladder climbing superiors, lifers just waiting to get out on a pension, and frustrated detectives just trying to get some work done. But this surface, entertaining as it is, hides the real meat of the show: why does crime exist? Why does a first world nation have so many people on drugs or in jail? It’s about that, the death of the American working class, the priorities of city officials, and the seemingly insurmountable odds we face as a country. All of that and more with clever writing and gripping drama. The show ran for five seasons and it is available on DVD.

Music

I’ve been listening to a lot of music and playing around with Ableton Live. I discovered a Canadian indie rock band from the early ’90s called The Inbreds. Their hit single was Any Sense of Time and a few others. They’re from Halifax and never made it far outside of Canada. My other favorite new find is jazz-fusion artist Bob James. Before you vomit all over your keyboard at the jazz-fusion label, hear me out. Bob James is one of the most sampled artists in music history and funky as hell. Hundreds of hip hop acts have sampled him and electronic bands have looped him. Röyksopp made a whole track (Eple) based off of a 2 note Bob James sample (You’re as Right as Rain). This guy’s the man. If you’ve ever watched an episode of Taxi, you’ve heard his work (the theme is called Angela). Check out any of his albums from the ’70s. You can’t go wrong.

I downloaded over a hundred hip hop and funk loops, plus two-hundred drum machine samples. I’ve been playing around with the Ableton Live recording features so I can start looping guitar phrases and lay down vocals. I have a plan to build a top notch gaming/music production machine in the near future. Unfortunately I’ll have to run Windows, but I’ll be using my laptop for my day to day work and it runs Ubuntu. I gave up on the Mac idea. I realized that I value freedom too much to hand over all that control to Apple, even if they do make fine products. Windows is almost as bad at the freedom aspect, but at least I can upgrade and modify the hardware. As soon as I can run Ableton Live on Linux or someone makes a convincing clone, I’ll switch to Linux for music production. Linux has all the facilities to record traditional instruments and arrangements, like a 3 piece rock band, but the software for sample based music and software synths is clumsy and underdeveloped. In addition to this, there are hundreds of virtual instruments on the VST platform that sound fantastic and I depend on them for some of my favorite sounds. There is no way I could afford the kind of hardware keyboards that come for free as virtual synths. So I’m stuck with Windows for Ableton Live until they get with the program. Though hmm…a little googling reveals that the latest version of WINE seem to support Ableton Live 7.0.3 without any issues. I’ll have to try installing it.

I promise I’ll post some music once I iron out the kinks in my production workflow. I need to get all my synths reinstalled, my samples organized, and a workplace setup. Also, if you are interested in working on music (especially if you live in the Austin area), leave me a comment. I love to collaborate on projects with interesting people.

Whew! That was pretty long winded. I’ll have to post more often, because this doesn’t even scratch the surface of some of the other stuff I’m up to. And lastly, I’d like to wish Josh and Feliz a hearty and heartfelt congratulations. They are going to make awesome parents.

The primary focus of Getting Things Done (or GTD, as it’s adherants call it) are next actions. A next action is any isolated action that takes less than 2 minutes and will advance a project along. A project is defined as anything that takes multiple actions or steps to complete. For example, gathering up all your dirty clothes is probably the first action you take when doing laundry. In this example the project would be doing laundry and the next action would be to gather all the dirty clothes. So you gather ideas for projects, break down the projects in to bite-sized actions, and make a list of all the very next actions for all the projects. Notice you aren’t making a list of every action, just the next actions. This allows you to juggle projects, accomlishing bits here and there. Eventually you run out of actions on a project and that project is finished. The rest of the book tells you how to track all these projects and actions. It also tells you how to manage the time you have to do them in.

I get all of this. I understand the methods and see how  they can work. The biggest hurdle for me is overcoming distractions and mustering the energy to perform the next actions. I get easily distracted and I’m the king of procrastination. As far as the energy thing goes, I work 40 hours a week and most afternoons I get hit with a sleepiness that drives me to nap. These bad habits are really hard to kick. I’m going to keep stabbing at GTD, but it feels like an uphill battle.

This sounds like an optimal solution. I can still get my weekly comic shop visit fix and support the local economy, but still save a grip of cash. Cash that can be spent on indy comics or comics I would have otherwise passed up. So yeah, I’ll problably end up spending more money, but at least it would be on comics.

If anyone knows of a good site to get back issues for cheap let me know. So far eBay and Half Price Books seem to be the best solution.