These are just the pics I cut out from the last post. Posting them here in case you don't want to go back to last years posts to review :-)


The "iconic" pic that Kev uses everywhere - I like knowing that I took it whenever I see him use it :-)


Kev and Cos with Kimmy and Perry

( so as not to break your friend's page (or my server bandwidth) )

Tags: tcj2 pre con pic post
Attitude Check: contemplative

So, this weekend is the big Rocky Horror convention in KY (Cincinnati, OH). I *wanted* to do a series of countdown picture posts leading up to the weekend, like I did for Atlantic City last year, but 21 days turned into 14, then into 7, then into 3, and now I'm just doing three big posts in one day.

The third post here are pics from The Celluloid Jam (1) 2009. Many of these pics were posted before in my pre con pic posts from last year, but I didn't review that before I selected these. Guess my opinion of what is a good/favorite pic remains the same over time.
Actually, I took several repeat pics out to save bandwidth.

I may go back and add more captions later, time permitting, but I just want to get the pics posted now.





Cosmo and Kev - two guys that know how to throw a damn fun cornholin' shin dig!

( Rest behind cut - decidedly not dial up or phone friendly )

Tags: tcj2 pre con pic post
Attitude Check: accomplished

So, this weekend is the big Rocky Horror convention in KY (Cincinnati, OH). I *wanted* to do a series of countdown picture posts leading up to the weekend, like I did for Atlantic City last year, but 21 days turned into 14, then into 7, then into 3, and now I'm just doing three big posts in one day.

The second post here are pics from Atlantic City 2011.

I may go back and add more captions later, time permitting, but I just want to get the pics posted now.




Sammy and Sean say, "Here jefF, peer pressure, drink out of this bucket."
(for the record, I am never drinking out of a bucket at a con ever again - most drunk I have ever been at a con, and top five in my life)

( Rest behind cut - decidedly not dial up or phone friendly )

Tags: tcj2 pre con pic post
Attitude Check: busy

So, this weekend is the big Rocky Horror convention in KY (Cincinnati, OH). I *wanted* to do a series of countdown picture posts leading up to the weekend, like I did for Atlantic City last year, but 21 days turned into 14, then into 7, then into 3, and now I'm just doing three big posts in one day.

The first post here is actually the pics I was going to end the Atlantic City pre con posts with last year. I had them all uploaded and ready to post, then LJ shit the bed the last day before con and I never got to post them. So here they are now. (the other two posts will be about 20 Atlantic City 2011 pics, and about 20 TCJ1 pics)

I may go back and add captions later, time permitting, but I just want to get the pics posted now.



( Rest behind cut - decidedly not dial up or phone friendly )

Tags: tcj2 pre con pic post

First of May, outdoor fucking starts today.

This also means that it's time for the semi-bi-annual Jonathan Coulton song / video post.

First one is NSFW (both video and song - as NSFW as YouTube gets, anyway)



Or, the lyrics one, for anyone that wants to sing along (song still is NSFW)

The full size / stand up arcade games or the late 70's and 80's... oh, that was the time. I used to be *huge* into it. I used to even "rank" my favorite games every month (I believe I even *still* have these lists saved somewhere). I spent thousands of hours and dollars on games. Like I am as an adult with misc geek stuff, what it commonly popular isn't what was necessarily my favorite, and vice versa. Among my favorites (i.e. the ones that got the most money from me) were

Mappy (prolly my #1)
Crazy Climber (essentially tied for my favorite)
Space Ace (and Dragons Lair)
Ikari Warriors
Gauntlet
Space Duel (Asteroids sequel, that had dual ships attached to each other)
Gaplus (Galaga sequel that I preferred, though I love Galaga too)
Joust
Donkey Kong / Donkey Kong Jr.
Tempest
Scramble
Zaxxon
Super Pac Man (and Ms Pac Man - was never much a fan of the original)
Tetris

...jeeze, now I'm all nostalgic.

In my adult years though, I've mostly left video gaming behind. Arcades have died, I'm not big into first person shooters and MMORPGs. Other than Angry Birds, any type of electronic gaming is not part of my life. I prefer boardgames now.

Tags: games, writer's block

I will probably not read a better article about anything, anywhere, this year.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/penn-jillette/celebrity-apprentice-blue-man-group_b_1395411.html

Penn Jillette explains "The Art" of Blue Man Group and what they did on last night's Apprentice.

He opens with a childhood anecdote of watching Kieth Moon of The Who (one of my favorite bands from the 60's/70's - and of all time, really) destroying a drum set and how that made him understand the value of Art over Money - and it just gets better from there.

My favorite line from that article, and pretty much one of my top 10 favorite quotes ever, "Trying to explain to Donald Trump that beauty and art can be more important than money is like trying to explain to Donald Trump that beauty and art can be more important than money." (a close runner up is, "The theme song is the O'Jay's "For the Love of Money," used as awkwardly as "Born in the USA" at a political rally.")

Needless to say, I'm probably going to read this at least 100 times more in my life... whenever "Artistic jefF" gets stifled down by "Real Life Thinking TOO Much About Money jefF".

Attitude Check: artistic
Sound Check: O'Jay's - For the Love of Money

Anyone that has known me IRL for any length of time knows that I hate Hate HATE waiting in line. At all. For anything. Seriously, I go shopping on off days and hours, avoid big movies in the first weeks of release, get anything on line that I possibly can to not have to wait in line at a store for it - and, hell, I'm not even going to get into traffic, which is just a form of waiting in line just in big metal boxes.

Longest I've waited in line for anything? I can remember the top 5 or so. Star Wars Phantom Menace (about 2-1/2 hours, first weekend), Star Wars Return of The Jedi (about 2 hours, 1st day), Batman (Tim Burton 1st one - about 2 hours, first weekend), Gen Con 2011 (almost 2 hours - I pre registered, but so did 10,000 other people and they fucked up will call in a serious way by only having about 20-30 staff on hand to take care of all of us - it was easily the LONGEST line I've ever been in - this year I'm having them mail my badge to me), and Star Wars Revenge of the Sith, about 2 hours (first night - though, almost all of that was spent sitting in the actual theater waiting until midnight, so not sure that counts, but I expected/thought I'd be "in line" for most of it, so I think it does). Obviously, Star Wars is the only thing I've ever considered worth it to knowingly wait in line for.

Lines hate me too. I can have a half dozen lines to choose from at the store, and I will *always* choose the wrong one. There could be 10 people in every other line and two in the line I get in and I'll have choosen the line with the 87 year old woman buying a case of Pabst... that the 17 year old checker has to call the MOD over to scan.... and it'l scan wrong and needs a price check for the 17 cents over it is... and then she's trying to pay with a check drawn on the Bank of Hong Kong that she's had in her shoe for the last 4 months that the register won't take it.... and then trying to use her debit card for the second time in her life and doing enough button pushing that I think she's trying to take over Bank of America through the keypad... and I'm stuck watching the people that got into those 10 person lines AFTER me be done with their transactions and walking out the door.

No kidding, and if you've ever been with me shopping you know about this little karmic quirk of mine, and how I will *always* let the person I'm with choose the line because it is Guaranteed Fail for me to do it.

Tags: writer's block

Dear Mozilla,
Firefox 11 FUCKING SUCKS. I didn't think it was possible for a FF browser to lock up on me and/or crash more than some of your past releases, but you sure as fuck managed to do it this time. Looks like I have to start bookmarking every last fucking tab I ever open if I ever want to not lose a half dozen tabs of stuff EVERY DAMN DAY.
sincerely, fuck you,
j

I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it, people like me.

Tags: writer's block

Yeah, I'm going to live dangerously in March. I'm NOT privatizing my web activity. Run with it Google.

Attitude Check: what the fuck do i care?

Let me answer this by reposting a particularly poignant comment I read on Slashdot yesterday.

"Let's face it, the default state of the American citizen and consumer is "screwed", and you must start from there.

And people keep voting, with their wallets and with their ballots, for more of the same."


GW is rocking and rolling over in his grave over what the US has evolved into.

Truth.

Tags: writer's block

"This is pitiful.

A thousand people freezing their butts off, waiting to worship a rat.

What a hype.

Groundhog Day used to mean something in this town. They used to pull the hog out and eat it!

You're hypocrites, all of you!

You got a problem with what I'm saying? Untie your tongue, and you come out here and talk.

Am I upsetting you, Princess?

You want a prediction about the weather, you're asking the wrong Phil.

I'll give you a winter prediction.

It's gonna be cold...

it's gonna be gray...

and it's gonna last you for the rest of your life."

Bill Murray (Phil Connors) - Groundhog Day

Tags: writer's block

Cock.

Tags: writer's block

Of course, since The Oatmeal is the Greatest Webcomic EVER ^(TM) (seriously, go there tomorrow after the protest is over), it's not surprising that the most entertaining / informative / easily approachable and understandable encapsulation of the situation came from him. :-)

Originally posted by mountain_hiker at This


midnightmadness.org actually has the title bar "censored" on our site right now. Due to our very limited audience there didn't seem to be much of a reason to cut the website/content off completely as some sites have done. Not that I didn't consider it. I've actually had an eff.org blue ribbon / link on the website since I / we've had our own domain (I believe I bought it back in 96 or 97), because I am vehemently opposed to internet censorship (or censorship of any kind, really) and this SOPA/PIPA crap is really scary since it puts direct censorship and removal of ENTIRE sites COMPLETELY within the control of media CORPORATIONS. This isn't as simple as the Congresscritters and Media companies make it sound, like they're just trying to take down foreign sites that contain their movies and music - the law is actually so broadly written that pretty much 95% or more of the sites on the internet could be removed on NOTHING MORE than the whim and word and authority of the media sites ONLY, with NO legal due process. They are literally putting complete control of the Henhouse in the hands of The Foxes.

e.g. If Fox had suddenly decided any Rocky Horror site was in violation of their IP simply by displaying the lips or RH logo, they could DIRECTLY and without any legal hearing or filing, just tell my service/server/ISP provider to remove my site and block/cancel my midnightmadness.org domain, and one day *poof* it's just gone. If you don't think that the situation I present here is a scary notion indeed, you simply are not paying attention a/o don't understand.

The worst part about this (and scariest too) is how overwhelming the bi-partisan (BOTH Democrat AND Republican) support is for passing this legislation, mostly because they are being lobbied heavily by deep pocketed media corporations and they simply do not understand the implications of how this legislation will end up being (mis)interpreted and (mis)implemented in the end. It just goes to show how in the pockets of corporations our lawmakers and government has become. If anyone is paying any attention they should know that this is really where the line iIS, and it's about to be crossed, and if we don't do something now we're just all really screwed. If this passes into law, don't say I didn't tell you so.

A couple of months back, learning2fly mentioned to me that they were remastering Star Trek The Next Generation for release on BluRay. I was skeptical, to say the least (I mean, how much could they really do as the series was filmed in standard definition), but as 5 of my 7 seasons of TNG were lost when I moved several years back, I said I'd reserve judgment and consider buying potential when I saw it.

Yesterday, they posted a re mastering preview on ew.com, complete with side by side comparisons.

Ho. Ly. Crap.

I cannot believe how incredible the remastered version looks. I got tingly and almost wet myself. All doubts and skepticism erased. I shall own these.

Only drawback is they won't start being released until later this year, however they are releasing three preview episodes this month, including my hands down ALL TIME favorite Star Trek episode ever (across all five of the series'), The Inner Light (this episode is typically one of ST fans' favorites). Yes, I cry almost every time I watch it (hell, just hearing the Inner Light song is enough). Damn Flute. Yeah... shuddup.

Please, Please, Please, Please, PLEASE tell me they are considering a remastering of Deep Space Nine.

Attitude Check: bouncy
Sound Check: 30 Seconds To Mars - Kings and Queens