What Happened To The Growing DVD Collection?

01.21.2008

Picky readers, especially those named Keith looking for the latest of DVD releases to borrow, may notice that my DVD list hasn't grown over the past few weeks. Although the post-Xmas season generally marks the beginning of a dry spell for new releases, that's only part of the reason my listed collection has been lacking in updates.

For those interested, and to take the place of a "Hey Mom, I'm alive!" post, I will now share some of those reasons.

 

• Website Revamp/Update - After talking about it for months, I've finally started moving this site to my homemade CMS driven backend. I've got a handful of other sites running with it, I should trust myself and join the crowd. The crowd that I created. As such, I still need to write a little module to take care of all the DVD details and how to present it all.
• Guess Who Jumped On The HD-DVD Bandwagon The Day It Died - Ever a sucker for a good sale, I finally broke down and bought an HD DVD player from Amazon. 2 days later I read "HD Format War Over, Blu-Ray Wins". I've got a handful of HD movies for the player (of which I need to keep separate track of for lending purposes), but the timing of it all still irks me. And I refuse to pay $400 for a Blu-ray player. At least for now.
• Work - It Keeps Me Busy - Through the end of Feb. I'll be busy at work trying to wrap up our latest release, so I'll be trying to get things done here for fun on my free time, and keeping up with databases for both a live site and for development purposes can get a little confusing, especially if you're not paying real close attention.

Did I stay on subject? Did I ramble off a little there? Oopsie.

The new site will be up once I get the basic blog and dvd functions working without any hiccups. I've already got a Flash banner with sound working and everything! And most importantly, you can turn the sound off (of course, it pops back on whenever you go to a new page, but that shouldn't be annoying, should it?).

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Meaty Or Logical

01.14.2008

I fancy myself a rather smart dude with an adequate, perhaps slightly more expansive than average, vocabulary. During my weekend road trip to Nashville to celebrate all things Birthday with Mom & Gina, I would play little word games with what I saw - billboards, businesses, car tags, etc. When that got old, I would make up other little games.

On the way back to Nashville from visiting Mom in Lebanon, it was a cold night and Gina was alternating between taking a nap and saying it was cold. At one point the external thermometer had popped up 2° warmer than the last time she had seen it. "Oh, it's warming up!" she excitedly exclaimed. Then I chimed in with my best Dr Evil deadpan with "yes, that's a meteorological phenomenon known as a 'Hot Pocket'."

Oh yes, I was witty. We chuckled. But the problem was that we were not chuckling at my speedy wit or the accuracy of my Dr Evil impression.

it seems I can't pronounce "meteorological".

It comes out "meateo-eor-eorolo-il-il" and fades away. When I break it up into core words, I say Meaty You're Logical. I tried again and said Meaty Or Illogical. Finally I got to Meaty Or Logical, which pretty much sounds right, except I think it still comes across as 3 words.

Meteorological/Meaty Or Logical. I'm glad I'm not a weatherman. Or would that be a Meaty Urologist?

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Too Much Going On To Discuss

01.10.2008

2-ish weeks and no updates. I'm a bad Russellmaniac.

Happy birthdays to Mom (belatedly, even though I called her the night before) and Gina (who I evidently didn't call early enough today). I hope to treat both of them to a birthday feast(s) this weekend.

Today I interview for Keith's old job, which I've been doing for the past couple of weeks. If I get it, I'll officially be the boss of me! I guess at that time I would have to find my replacement. Or even worse, if I don't get the job it would mean I'm not qualified to be the boss of me, so I would at that point be forced to not only let, but make others boss me around.

I really need to move this website (and about 3 others) to a new server. This server was down all day yesterday. I have a perfectly fine server elsewhere, I just need to get up off my lazy butt and do it.

Rynn, aka Mrs Evil, posted on her LiveJournal account (which I would link to, but you've got to be her friend and bribe her to be able to see it - here's the results of the quiz). It magically forms a team based on your LiveJournal friends. Having only 1 LiveJournal friend, my team was doomed. But as a member of Team Mrs Evil I can join others in my quest to ween society from suckling on the evil teat of injustice.

I wish I could get away with saying things like that all the time. "Evil Teat of Injustice."

Maybe I can slow down enough to have a decent post before another 2 weeks is up.

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Twas

12.24.2007

Monday, December 24th. 7:00PM Central time. Day 3 of my sinus cold. I sit in front of the tv and turn it on the Ralphie channel.

 

TNT/TBS has been showing A Christmas Story for 24 hours at least since 2001. It was cute the first year. By the third year it was overkill. By now, it's just something that's come to be expected.

I first saw A Christmas Story in 1987 after taking my Physics final in high school. It appealed to my inner child - not too hard to find. Since then I've come to expect to watch at least a part of the movie each holiday season, if not actually on Christmas Day. I don't have to see all of the movie, or even parts in order. A 10 minute snippet here and there and I can fill in the rest of the movie.

Now to go shoot my eye out.

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Born In Babylonia

12.20.2007

Over on the Star Trek Gaming Clan forums, we got off on a tangent that led us to Steve Martin and his "King Tut" song. There are 3 of us that are over 30, while I think of the majority of the clan members are in the 14-18 age range. Along the discussion we old timers probably got a little vague by introducing a banjo into the topic. I kind of asked if any of the kids knew what we were talking about, and one of them admitted to being lost.

At that point I made a brief explanation of Steve Martin, his banjo, and the "King Tut". I think I did a pretty good job, so I'm sharing it with the rest of the interweb so that more young'uns can learn.

 

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[History Lesson for DK & The Young'uns]
Waaay back in '78, before we new how to surf the internet for porn and movie spoilers, there lived a man named Steve Martin. Steve was a white disco suit wearing comedian who was a wiz with a banjo, often overlooked in its importance in the musical world. Steve first became noticed by America on the stage of NBC's Saturday Night Live (the tv sketch comedy show known to give fame to Gilda Radner, John Belushi, Charles Rocket, Chris Farley, and Phil Hartman). Steve's zany, off the wall comedy styling, often accompanied by wearing a [prop] arrow through his head, brought many a guffaw to those watching.

As was the way back when the internet was written on stone tablets, Steve went on to make a comedy album (albums are the prehistoric version of collections of mp3s). Steve, being musically inclined, opted to include a ditty on his album instead of the straight stand-up fair of the day. Current Events of the time were focused on the traveling exhibit of King Tut's remains and riches. Ever the one with his hand on the pulse of the public, Steve captured the state of times in his ode to the boy king with his chart topping tribute, "King Tut".

Obligatory Link: http://www.jibjab.com/view/96473

[Bonus points to anyone under 30 on why I picked the SNL comedians listed!]

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So far none of the young'uns have mentioned the list of SNL comedians. My two over-30 colleagues immediately cursed the age restriction as they knew the answer. Normally I would have had to look up some of the facts I listed, but this time I just remembered everything.

That in itself is a little scary.

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