Our Movie
So to update everybody, a quick reminder that The Achievers is showing this weekend (April 1st!) in Chicago; if you’re in the windy burg, move quick because tickets are selling out fast… And keep spreading the word!
Also, this just came out:
~ Dennis Harvey
Thanks Variety!
So are you ready to rock, Chicago?
Lately I’ve been playing Elder Scrolls: Oblivion for the Xbox 360, a most excellent RPG with a thoroughy free-roaming system of play.
One thing that the game lets you do is be “good” or “evil”, with lots of gray area in between. So I created a character named Punchy McEvil. Even though his surname is McEvil, people in the game are still really polite to him, saying things like “Well met!” and “How do you do?” If I met someone named McEvil I wouldn’t say any of those things. I would drive a stake through their heart.
So my plan for this character is to make him an assassin who is a specialist at magical attacks and unarmed combat. That’s why his name is Punchy. He likes to punch things.
You can design your character’s face using a construction set consisting of sliders for nose, chin, cheeks, etc..; So Punchy looks kind of like Jason Alexander from Seinfeld, except with a five o’clock shadow, bigger eyebrows and a really bad ponytail. Oh, and he also looks much more evil.
of Punchy Mc Evil.
I’ve already joined the Dark Brotherhood, which is a gang of assassins and killers. I also broke into this house and stole all this dude’s money and then beat him up. Then I stole some dude’s horse and rode away. The game is essentially Grand Theft Auto: Medieval Times. I like it a lot!
Mouse + Cheese
Our good friend Monica stopped by the other day and left the following hieroglyphics on our whiteboard:
We have transcribed this image for further analysis:
Our top scientists are operating their supercomputers upon this equation as we speak.
I bought some new Sony earbuds (EX71s) in black to go with my goth wardrobe and the lump of coal I call a heart.
They come with a small silver plastic box (for storage) whose lid breaks off randomly, thereby making it completely useless.
Look, I know I have the upper body strength of a green Lou Ferrigno. Yes, I’ve been known to crush people into paste just by looking at them.
So I don’t expect a small plastic box to stand up very easily to my tremendous might, but this is ridiculous. If you’re going to include a box to store the headphones, make sure the box functions successfully as a box.
It’s the 21st century — I woulda thought that we would have achieved fairly good box technology by this point.
Extra: Off of Slashdot, here’s a pretty good article on the man who said No to Wal-Mart. Why quality often trumps quantity.
I Liked the Food So Much That I Will Now Release Some Gas
A well-known factoid is that in some cultures, loudly burping is a sign of showing that you liked the food.
The factoid always says “some cultures”, but they never specify which cultures they’re talking about. Klingon culture?
Personally I think it’s a good idea. I think we should make it a part of American culture.
See, it makes a lot of sense. Burping is caused when you swallow air as you eat, presumably because you’re wolfing down food, which is presumably because the food is good. I’ve never burped after a crappy meal because 1) I’ve either never eaten enough of this crappy food to warrant it, or 2) Because I’ve eaten so slowly that there wasn’t enough air swallowed to produce a burp.
But after a huge, excellent meal there’s always a huge, excellent burp. Plus some things burp well, like bacon. Anything eaten with kimchee burps really well too.
Even ladies should burp. I think that most things deemed “ladylike” were originally created to keep women down. Like laughing with your hand cupped over your mouth or not leaving the kitchen. Belch all you want, I say! Travel throughout the whole house too!
Software Newsflash:
Chax adds many features to your iChat. It’s free. And the best feature of all? Tabbed Windows! Tabbed Windows! Tabbed Windows!
10 PRINT “Tabbed Windows!”
20 GOTO 10
Chax, I love you as much as I can love a piece of software. Which is a lot.
Darumas / What I Wanna See
Darumas are those papercraft heads fashioned after the Bodhidharma. I bought a mid-sized one at the Japanese general store on Sawtelle. It was $7.80, though the shopkeeper gave me a 15% discount “because why not?”.
I hope I get my wish. I think the more realistic your wish is, the greater the chance of you receiving it. Like that one Calvin & Hobbes where Calvin was wishing for a car that could fly into outer space while Hobbes was wishing for a tunafish sandwich. In the last panel Hobbes got his wish.
Also, sometimes a wish is simply the outright naming of a goal that you might have kept secret (even to yourself) for a very long time. And when that wish is “granted”, you may have merely achieved a goal you’ve been working on very hard.
Unless your wish is to win the lottery.
Hey New York friends,
So the programming list is out for the Tribeca Film Festival; they’re letting me pre-select what I want to see this Saturday, so here’s my list. If you want to see any of these movies with me, let me know and we’ll go together.
Also, if there’s something else that’s not on this list that you want to see, let me know!
This Week’s Highlight
Last Saturday: Eating hamburgers with my dad at Carl’s Jr.; he says re: french fries, “You shouldn’t eat too many of those, they’re bad for you.” In the background a Spanish soap opera was playing on television, the guacamole in my six dollar burger was pretty darned good, and it was all pretty nice, this every day moment.
My dad has subscribed to Time Magazine since the early Paleolithic period. Every time he renewed his subscription they would send him a new tchotchky as a reward.
So when I was a kid I had this Time Magazine calculator watch. It was one of my favorite things in the whole world. Wearing it made me feel smart. Prepared!
I don’t know whatever happened to that watch. I can still remember the distinct electronic chirp it would make when you pushed its squishy buttons.
Anyway, nostalgia and the recent death of my pocket calculator (from being sat on too much while in my back pocket) have combined to lead me to purchase a new calculator watch off of Amazon.
It was $24. Anyone who tells you that a “man’s watch says everything about him” is usually trying to sell you a $600 watch.
Now when I look at the time, calculate the tip, or figure out color percentages, I can remember simpler days — when Reagan was our president, Kadaffi was our Osama, and I spent a lot of my time upgrading my Bard’s Tale characters with a hex editor.
Though I feel more in control of my own life now than ever, it’s nice to remember a moment in my life when I wasn’t responsible for everything — when I still had a bed time.
Everything Is Under Control
Jill came over to my place recently and remarked that for a guy living by myself, I keep things really neat.
“Thanks,” I said, knowing that it wasn’t always like this.
Back in college my place was like a post-apocalyptic wasteland. There was a foot of debris (clothes, books, papers) on the ground. The cold limbs of lost friends stuck out of the pile here and there, and shotgun-toting mutants roamed free.
There was a point when I realized that I could do a little bit of work every day to maintain a clean space or I could do A LOT of work all at once to clean everything up. Or I could just set fire to the place and move into a new one.
I like to control things. But a caveat to this is that I like to be selective about what I try to control.
It is a bad idea to try to control things that cannot be controlled, such as other people, most animals, the weather, your emotions, or fate.
However, I can control whether my floor is vacuumed, my dishes are done, or whether my clothes are clean.
(By the way, the washing machine in our building takes precisely 35 minutes to complete a cycle; the dryer, 45 minutes. I timed them so as to achieve maximum time efficiency when doing my laundry. If you don’t think this is cool then you suck. Precision is cool.)
Sad news my friends — Katamari Damacy for the PSP is apparently pretty average (read: SUCKY) compared to the two PS2 versions.
I bought it yesterday and had it in my hot little hand when I decided to read some reviews before opening it. It only has six true stages, says one review. That’s not enough to satisfy my mad rolling binges!!
I didn’t want to risk it — I switched it for Daxter instead. Which kicks major ass.
But I’m really disappointed about Katamari. I’ve got a lot of flying to do and I wanted to be rolling on the plane! Rolling in a cab! Sitting on Jeanie’s new desk and rolling there!
It sucks when you love a series and suddenly the creators put out a crappy installment. Tomb Raider 3. Godfather 3. It shakes you to the core. It’s like if Jesus, who previously said all those things about love and etc., suddenly appeared and flipped you off.
Not a good feeling at all.
have been crushed.
75 Films
I added a new module to my Experiments section: 75 Films, where I’ve ranked my seventy-five favorite movies of all time.
My goal is to write an article on each one of these over the course of time. I want to share what I love about each of these films with you, and figure out what makes them work so well for me.
So let’s start with the film that’s currently #52 on my list:
My Work in Print
Year Zero
Available from Samuel French and Amazon.com
Cowboy Versus Samurai
Available from Samuel French and Amazon.comFor a complete list of books containing my work, please click here.
