Jer Illuminated

So Many Shiny Things

2009-12-04T13:15:00.003-07:00

This is what I'm talking about, Internet. In the time elapsed since my last blog post I have a mountain of things I'm considering devoting my time towards. Some are creative endeavors, some are media consumption, all present their siren song to me and I'm torn in a dozen different directions.

My "Eroge: The Aftermath" Ren'Py game I began brainstorming a while back.
Modding alternate gender choices for the character classes in Torchlight.
Starting Allegiance Flight School and getting involved in that community.
Possibly creating a comic to document my adventures in Allegiance Flight School.
Playing through the entirety of Guild Wars in preparation for Guild Wars 2.
Finally getting around to watching Full Metal Alchemist so I can return them.
My weekly Lord of the Rings Online nights.
Finishing the latest book in The Hollows series.
Finishing the most recent Prince of Persia.
Working my way through my Painter and SoftImage Gnomon DVD's.
Completing the paper D&D miniatures for the 4e campaign I'm playing.
Throwing myself into the Conceptart community to finally start getting better.
Participating in my bi-weekly podcast for Immortal Machines.

I could probably continue with pages and pages of similar stuff. Just today I wondered how much Darkwind: War on Wheels cost per month, like I can squeeze it in somewhere between my thousands of ambitions.

How do you go about paring down what really matters and focus on it?

Internet, I Have A Problem

2009-11-28T23:10:00.003-07:00

Dear Internet,

I know you give so much to me. You give me LOLCats and Pokerface mashups, Fail Blog and Christian Bale Techno. But I need to ask you for something, something that may not be in your normal area of expertise, with your look-at-the-latest-bit-of-funny modus operandi. I know you have your deep areas as well, so I have hope.

Internet, I'm a failure when it comes to seeing things through to the end. Half-finished pieces of artwork, code, game ideas, electronic paper dolls, world-building documents, even saved game files lie littering my drive like rusting chassis in a post apocalyptic ghost town. My mind is perpetually wandering for the latest fun thing to latch onto and I throw myself haphazardly into whatever sounds most fun at the time.

I fear I may end up like my father, with the inborn talent and inclination towards art but without the drive to see it through. My drawings and paintings will end up something I show my children as something I did once upon a time, reminder of a possible future that now seems lost.

Some days I wonder if improving my art is even something I want to pursue, or if it's something I fooled myself into believing I was actually good at. The last few times I've put pencil to paper I came nowhere close to what I intended to draw, and I had even seemed to regress from my previous ability.

All these ideas swim in my head. Ideas that push back at me when I try to focus on them, mocking me that I once thought them in the realm of my possibilities.

Internet, how do I break through that pushback before I'm once again lost again to my creative nomadism? How do I settle in one place long enough to build the house I dream of building? How do I gain the discipline to become the artist I am in my dreams?

One Impressed KUER Listener

2009-10-28T21:39:00.001-06:00

Sometime in the past year I've become an NPR fiend. Instead of listening to local alternative stations or my iPod, I'm keeping up with world politics and news on All Things Considered or The World, depending on what time I'm commuting that week.

Previous to my discovery of the wonder that is Public Radio I had the misfortune of thinking KSL was my only choice for news. KSL runs the Sean Hannity show and oh the months I listened to that idiot, thinking his skewed and dishonest version of the daily news was the only option I had. If I ever hear another one of his listeners call him a "Great American"... *shudder*

But life is better now.

On to the real reason I'm making this post. Back in mid-September Doug Fabrizio ran a piece called Nuture Shock about misconceptions about parenthood and discipline, lying, etc. During one of the bumpers he had this awesome synthpop sounding piece of music. Being the huge slave I am to synthpop I HAD to find out what he used.

I hopped over to the KUER website and looked for a forum discussing the Radio West pieces but didn't find any. I found a contact us link and fired off an e-mail listing the name of the piece and the exact time stamp it started, hoping that would help whomever received my random e-mail. A month passed and I figured they were probably too busy actually running a radio show to respond to a silly question like mine.

Well this afternoon Elaine Clark, senior producer for Radio West e-mails me back apologizing that it took so long to respond. She even went as far to check on the site they pulled it from, the audio section of Newgrounds (which I didn't even know existed, I thought it was all games) and found it wasn't there anymore. She gave me the name of the artists and the title of the song and I was quickly able to find their homepage and the song.

Thank you Elaine, for going above and beyond for a listener. I love public radio.

Here's You Make Me by Blarsa.

To My Friends on Utah's Capitol Hill

2009-02-23T21:08:00.003-07:00

(After the defeat of ALL the Common Ground Initiative bills I had some questions for those that were instrumental in their failure. This is the email sent to the hearing committee, my representative Chris Buttars, Gayle Ruzicka, The Utah Eagle Forum mailing list, and Mike Waddoups)

In your rush to proclaim The Common Ground Initiative a trojan horse for gay marriage did you once stop to think about the living, breathing, feeling people you're disparaging. In your cursory dismissal during the hearing committees did you ever stop to listen to the gay men and women that showed up to tell you their stories? Do they register as people worthy of empathy by you? Do they register as fellow citizens of this state?

Or are they an amorphous nameless faceless group to you? "Common knowledge" and "tradition" already tell you where to stand on the issue and further introspection and inquiry isn't required?

Even LDS church spokesmen have come out and said they support equal rights for the gay community yet you, our elected officials, are unwilling to even grant them protection from being fired or evicted for the simple fact that they're gay. It doesn't even matter if you agree that being gay is a choice or not. Religion is a federally protected class and that is most definitely a lifestyle choice.

Thirty years from now do you want to look back on newspaper clippings with your names listed as those who were on the wrong side of history. Not so long ago the Utah Legislature was promoting miscegenation and segregation, quoting scripture and church leadership as reasons why we should support those ideas. We now say Brigham Young and Ezra Taft Benson were speaking as men when they proudly declared racism from the church pulpit. In thirty more years the church may say Thomas Monson was only speaking as a man when he encouraged members to give time and money to standing in the way of gay marriage.

When Chris Buttars empahtically declares that gay marriage will destroy this country, he's no more prophetic than you or me. How does he know it will destroy this country? Did God witness to him the truth of that claim? What if the rest of us didn't receive that confirmation? What if some of us went to vote on the Utah marriage amendment four years ago and felt sick when choosing to secure "traditional marriage"?

All I'm asking is for you to consider people. Not tradition, not scripture, not authority. Consider the men, women, and families that come to tell you their stories, that live in your districts, that want the same things you all want. To build a life, raise kids, and grow old with the person they love.

Early Thanksgiving

2008-11-23T22:06:00.003-07:00

I had one of those moments on the drive home tonight after dropping off my girls with Christy. That brief glimpse of connectedness to everything.

It came at the end cap of a wonderful week celebrating my daughters birthday. Earlier this week, on the actual date of their birth, I was invited to join my in-laws in their celebration. I got to see a new nephew for the first time and catch up with my sister-in-law and her husband. I received a nice compliment from my father-in-law and chatted with him for a bit as well. The girls had such a great time; they were absolutely beaming by the end of the night and it was probably their favorite birthday so far.

On Friday I went out with Red, her nieces, and my sister to see the new teen vampire movie. (I don't want a million search hits by invoking the name) It had both its good and bad parts but it was still entertaining and it was fun to get away from the kids for a bit and sit in a darkened theater together. I spent the rest of the weekend with all my girls, reading, playing Rock Band 2, board games, and dancing to DDR-worthy pop music.

Finally tonight we held a second birthday celebration at my parents house. It's so much fun to sit back and see how much my daughters love my sister, how much they love Red's daughter, and to see my parents enjoy these new lives coming into theirs. We all had a blast playing with the girls new toys. (as they're spoiled, utterly, again)

After I dropped Red and her daughter off it was time to take the girls back to Christy. I stopped to chat with her a bit about our weekend. She's so excited for my relationship with Red and how much she loves our girls. I gave her a hug goodbye and as I was driving home the past week just washed over me. The complete feeling of joy because of all the wonderful people I know, all the people who make me a better me, just because my life has been touched by them.

If the religious want to know what atheists have to live for I say we live for the same thing. The wonderful family and friends we make along the journey that is our lives.

The Tyranny of the Majority

2008-11-13T23:27:00.005-07:00

The historic win of Barack Obama and the joy and hope following election day were tainted for me by the passage of Proposition 8 in California as well as anti-gay-rights bills in other states. One step forward for our nation in electing an african-american as president and two steps back in denying the civil rights of a minority group.

You can believe whatever you want about homosexuals, you can even say what you want. (though I'll personally respond by calling you an ignorant uninformed asshole if you say they choose the lifestyle or they're immoral) But the second you start pushing for legislation of your imaginary sky friend's theocratic state we've got a problem.

I'm tired of hearing the excuse that the people voted and we just need to accept the result. (we're a Republic, not a Democracy; see the title of this blog post to understand why) I'm tired of hearing that we're stepping on the rights of the religious. (nobody is making you change your hateful scriptures or saying you can't vomit your bigoted screeds from your pulpit) I'm tired of hearing the argument that we'll be marrying pets, farm animals, or inanimate objects. (because animals can give consent and lamps can sign legal documents, right?)

God damn RIGHT you're the target of protests, you took away the rights of fellow citizens because it offended the sensibilities of your oh-so-warm-and-loving-god to allow them to marry, just like every heterosexual consenting adult in the nation. You're not the target of intolerance, you ARE intolerance personified. You've put your ancient books and ancient men who murmur in the name of god above your fellow citizen. You forego compassion for blind obedience.

Until you learn to love your neighbors, brothers, sisters, children, I and millions like me will continue to vocally express our disappointment in your choices and point you to a love beyond the conditional love of a petty god.

Join me this Saturday, November 15th for a nationwide protest of Proposition 8 starting 1:30 EDT (11:30 MDT) Visit http://jointheimpact.com/ for more information.

Yes We Can!

2008-11-05T23:33:00.005-07:00

Forgive me my earnest title but I can't help it. For some reason the full depth of what Obama being elected actually meant didn't hit me until I saw it on TV last night. Seeing prominent public figures like Jessie Jackson and Oprah Winfrey sitting amongst a crowd demographically all over the map, all overcome with emotion, finally caused it to click for me and I was continually choked up for the rest of the night.

I was witnessing history.

For the first time since 9/11 I felt solidarity with my country. But this time it was for an overwhelmingly hopeful and positive reason. We have overcome a shadow that has been cast on our country for too long. Obama's acceptance speech set the perfect tone. It was victory but a solemn one. There is work to do and he expects as much from us as we expect from him.

Today I am proud to call myself an American. We, as people of this nation, have made the right decision in electing Barack Obama as our next president for many reasons.

Election Eve 2008

2008-11-04T00:22:00.002-07:00

I've been fairly silent on my blog regarding political topics though I've certainly been vocal other places like Facebook. On the eve of one of the most important (aren't they all?) elections of my voting adult life I feel like I should post something.

About midway through the day today I was able to quantify why Barack Obama will get my vote over John McCain. To me McCain represents the arrogant sureness of falsely assuming you have all the answers to life's big questions. He will act quickly and assuredly and ultimately, likely, incorrectly, just like George W. Bush did before him. There's no humility, just a sense of entitlement, of righteousness. The feeling of superiority is amply demonstrated in the way both use fear-mongering tactics to try to cow the public. If you don't do exactly as they say bad things will happen.

Barack Obama represents trust and hope. Trust that he can speak to the public as adults and we will understand, humbly asking for our trust in him to guide our nation, trust that we as citizens of this nation can work together to pull out of our current predicaments and progress and prosper in the years to come. Hope that our nation has repented of it's past sins and is ready to celebrate the nomination of the first black president.

It takes a certain amount of hubris to believe you can lead a nation, and Barack's squeaky clean image has some political smudges on it, but he still gives hope for what is possible. McCain still reeks of the ethnocentrism America should have left behind long ago.

New Music - October 2008 Edition

2008-10-29T18:11:00.008-06:00

This post has been begging to be published for at least a month now. It's new music time on Jer Illuminated!

iTunes single of the week strikes again with Buildings and Mountains by The Republic Tigers. The group has an ethereal rock sound similar to Mew but they hail from Kansas City rather than Norway. After listening to Buildings and Mountains I found a few other songs off the album Keep Color and I continued to be blown away by their sound. It's less electronica and more indie rock but still a very solid listen.

I found the second group, Echo Image, maybe a year ago on either Pandora or Last.FM when listening to my usual synthpop heavy rotation. I immediately loved the song I heard, favorite'd it, then promptly forgot about the band. Something dragged them back up from the cobwebbed depths of my brain and I finally searched for their album Compuphonic. I love this album nearly as much as I love Disconnect by Iris, every song just hits the electro-honed pleasure centers of my brain. The album was released in 2001 and I thought the group had broken up until I found a blog post on their myspace page announcing a new album and new song back in July of 2007. I've got my fingers crossed that its eventually released and approaches the brilliance of the first.

The last band I found, Blaqk Audio, came up as I was hunting down Compuphonic. There was a blog dedicated to darkwave and synthpop and I recognized the members from AFI in one of the images.

I hadn't heard about their synthpop side-project and I like some AFI so I gave them a listen. It was like the goddamn second coming of depeche mode. Cex Cells is another album fit for Jer's hall of A-fucking-mazing synth albums that should be played on infini-repeat.

FSM bless the internet in helping ferret out these brilliant gems that would otherwise be lost.

In Cavedoll related news I finally had the chance to meet Knessa and Camden in person. They were both very gracious, played an awesome show, and their kids are absolutely adorable. They also recently picked up a new guitar player, Josh Emery, that helps fill out their sound nicely. You can hear the re-release of 45 Minute Dance Party including Josh's guitars on their Myspace Page.

Tagged by Knessa

2008-10-09T14:16:00.004-06:00

Being that I'm a follower of Knessa's blog, I have been tagged.

Here are the rules: I have to answer the following questions with one word answers and one word only! Then I must pass it on to seven others.

The questions are as follows:

1. Where is your cell phone? Desk
2. Where is your significant other? Home
3. Your hair color? Brown
4. Your mother? Dysfunctional
5. Your father? Enduring
6. Your favorite thing? Dirty >= D
7. Your dream last night? Missing
8. Your dream/goal? Comics
9. The room you're in? Office
10. Your hobby? Gaming
11. Your fear? Regret
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? Tokyo
13. Where were you last night? Apartment
14. What you're not? Credulous
15. One of your wish-list items? Home
16. Where you grew up? Magna
17. The last thing you did? Testing
18. What are you wearing? Khaki
19. Your TV? Shiny
20. Your pet? Siamese
21. Your computer? Fast
22. Your mood? Jovial
23. Missing someone? Red
24. Your car? Sentra
25. Something you're not wearing? Suspenders?
26. Favorite store? Book
27. Your summer? Uprooting
28. Love someone? Undoubtedly
29. Your favorite color? Purple
30. When is the last time you laughed? Recently
31. Last time you cried? Buffy

Wow, uh...

2008-09-09T15:52:00.004-06:00

I guess I didn't realize how much I'd posted "Red"'s name in the past on this blog. I think I caught them all now.

Oooh You're Proficient In Exotic Weapons

2008-09-09T13:20:00.004-06:00

I think everyone's gathered by now that I'm somewhat of a geek. My geekiness goes way back. (See my 7-year-old-self's drawing of Condor Man, I loved comic book heroes even back then) I've had a regular gaming group since I was probably 14 or 15. We're talking character sheets, funny-shaped dice, graph paper, and miniature figures.

I've stuck with this group as I've grown up and still see them on a regular basis to play. There were periods of time where I took a break because of marriage or newborns but I eventually picked up and started playing again. Role-playing games mean creativity, imagination, escapism, math, Cheetos & Mountain Dew, and mostly friendship to me.

Where was I going with this? Oh yeah.

So I've had to miss a few sessions recently because of prior obligations and I've been having minor withdrawls. World of Warcraft scratches a tiny bit of the itch but it's not the same. Luckily this last weekend one of our regular GM's decided to put together a game for some of our ex-mormon friends that were interested in giving the new Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition ruleset a try. We tested it out in our normal group and even a bunch of seasoned veterans had a blast with it.

Now we get to the good part of the story. I brought my girlfriend along (we'll call her Red to protect her from nefarious googlers) and she created her own character and joined in with the rest of us. I'll repeat that. My girlfriend created a Dragonborn Fighter, rolled dice, moved a miniature around on a map, and fought monsters. Without complaint.

I know you're thinking the same thing I'm thinking. Time to install that set of shackles I've been holding off on. I can't let this one get away.

Pretentious Book Meme

2008-08-28T16:14:00.004-06:00

I've seen this called both the Pretentious Book Meme or The Top 106 books most often marked "unread" by LibraryThing's users.

Here are the rules: BOLD the books you have read, italicize the books you started but did not finish (DNF), *STAR* the books you've read more than once, underline books that are on your TBR pile, and cross out books that you hated.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi : a novel
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick
Ulysses
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre
A Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveler’s Wife
The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
The Canterbury Tales
The Historian : a novel
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New World
The Fountainhead
Foucault’s Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible: a novel
1984
Angels & Demons
The Inferno
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver’s Travels
Les Misérables
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Dune
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
Angela’s Ashes : a memoir
The God of Small Things
A People’s History of the United States : 1492-present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake : a novel
Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an inquiry into values
The Aeneid
Watership Down
Gravity’s Rainbow
The Hobbit
In Cold Blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers

Montana, Hey It Ain't So Bad!

2008-08-19T20:50:00.004-06:00

I'm back from my adventures in Great Falls proper. Damn they have a lot of casinos here. Would you call a converted 7-11 a casino? It seems too small to be called that.

In driving around I was on the lookout for a grocery store, knowing the liquor laws in other states are sane and just. I stopped by an Albertsons and I found this:

This brand, Schmitt-Sohne, was one of the first I tried in my sampling of various types of wine. I fell in love with this wonderful little german wine and haven't been able to find it in any of the Utah liquor stores.

For this, Montana, I'll let you sit next to me at lunch and look cool.

Pause Hi. I'm In Delaware.

2008-08-19T17:39:00.003-06:00

I'm not actually in Delaware, I'm in Montana but the quote seemed entirely appropriate. Do people go to Montana on purpose?

Don't be mad Montana-ites (Montanans?) I'm mostly joking. Big Sky country is great, even if I haven't seen the sky since descending through the clouds. At least it's cooler than Salt Lake and there's something thrilling to having a hotel room to yourself, a rental car, and the company paying for your meals.

I'll only be here for one night but I intend on enjoying the hell out of that one night!

In Montana.

Meet my new mistress, WoW

2008-08-18T17:28:00.005-06:00

Yeah yeah, I've been gone. There's this new girl I've been hanging out with quite a bit lately. She's at least 6'5" with horns and hoofs and can take away your pain in an instant.

Ok, that's about as nerdy as I want to get with this. I can feel the ick factor creeping up if I continue any further.

I recently built a new desktop PC after Age of Conan laughed and spat on my "gaming" laptop. A few of my gaming buddies gave it a try but the game will bring all but the most hardy or brand new systems to their knees. I forgot that MMO's are no fun if you don't have friends to share them with and though it's a new spin on the genre, it's still no fun alone.

So those bastards sucked me back in, and good this time.

Around the time of my separation Blizzard released The Burning Crusade, the first expansion pack for WoW. As a way to focus on something other than what was going on at the time, I re-subscribed and started as one of the new races, a Draenei. I'd had a brief flirtation with the priest class when I'd last played a year before and I had enjoyed the helping rather than hurting aspect of the class. Even when face-melting as a shadow priest you still help your group. I made it a she instead of a he because I still haven't seen a dress-wearing male character in WoW that doesn't look goofy as all get-out. Besides, the Draenei females have nice cans and if I'm going to be staring at the same thing for hours on end it might as well be some enjoyable scenery.

When I unsubscribed I left her at level 38. Between then and now there had been a few patches that made leveling insanely faster and I was having a blast as they flew by. This time I seemed to find time to group with friends more often and it all sort of clicked in a way it hadn't in the past. Last week I hit 70 and had my first real raid experience, headset and all.

I'm in my own house but I'm still sharing this virtual space with real friends. We get to go these fantastical places and do cool shit together. We get to share experiences, whether it's killing a boss in a dungeon or wiping the horde in a battleground.

Now the only thing I have to figure out is where the brakes are.

More Cavedoll

2008-08-06T21:00:00.004-06:00

If you read the comments below on my review of The Faint show you'll notice that Knessa, the female lead vocals of Cavedoll, was cool enough to stop by and say thanks. Her husband Camden, male lead vocals, also e-mailed me thanking me for the review.

For being such incredibly nice people I figured I'd plug them one more time. That and I can't get enough of their stuff.

Full of Awe

Thanks guys!

(Not) Freecreditreport.com

2008-08-04T22:52:00.002-06:00

Since I got burned I thought I would toss it out there for all my faithful readers. Don't use freecreditreport.com as they automatically subscribe you to their monthly reporting service with little in the way of notification of their intent. I noticed a $15 deduction from my checking account and searched for the source. I found I wasn't the first to be burned.

Learn from my mistake and follow the links from the FTC's site to get your Free (as in beer) credit report.

The Faint - In The Venue - July 30 2008

2008-07-31T18:30:00.005-06:00

You've read my gushing about The Faint on this blog before and when I found out they were playing here there was no question, I had to see them.

When I arrived at In The Venue (or Club Sound or whatever else they call it) I was greeted with the largest line I've seen there thus far. It wrapped around the side of the club and then folded in on itself back to the front of the club again. I wondered how they could possibly fit that many people inside but they did and then some.

When purchasing my tickets I discovered the name of the opening band, a local group called the Cavedoll. I followed the link to their Myspace page and was pleasantly surprised by their offerings there. A local band that actually fell somewhere in my range of musical taste for once.

I wasn't prepared for what outstanding live performers they would be. You've seen the stereotypical synthpop or electro band that stands there twitching while banging on their keyboards, and you almost feel slightly embarrased for them. Not these guys, they easily outshined the other opening act from New York in my opinion. The lead singer was Gwen Stefani-esque in her cavorting about the stage and kept the crowd's interest and kept me smiling with her antics. The rest of the band were having as great a time and their set was a blast to watch.

The second group, Shy Child, had an interesting sound and I liked a couple of their songs. It was just two guys, a drummer and the vocalist on a keytar. It could've been that they started the show late but their set seemed to drag while I was waiting for the band I paid to see. They may be worth a second listen based on some the of the songs I enjoyed.

Finally The Faint take the stage, the lead singer Todd Fink in a mad scientist getup, and they jump right into Agenda Suicide and the place goes nuts. Apparently they have quite the following here and have played in the past. We Utahns love our synth/electro/pop.

The Faint is definitely not just a studio band, they sounded amazing live and I would've been content to hear them play every last song in their discography. The way they play with bass riffs, synth loops and switch things up mid-song, they were just amazing. They played quite a few songs off their new album, Fasciination, and it's a must buy for me.

They ended with Glass Danse and there wasn't a single person in the place sitting still. Salt Lake is definitely a Faint town and they assured us they can't wait to come back in the future.

Going To See A Man About An Erection

2008-07-30T19:14:00.003-06:00

Just a quickie today, I'm going to be gone during my prime blogging hours to see The Faint at In The Venue/Club Sound/Used-To-Be-Bricks. See previous entries using the tags below to understand the title of this post. There will be a review of the show tomorrow.

Oh, uh oh, erection.

Forgive Me My Sins This Day

2008-07-29T21:58:00.006-06:00

I must beg you, especially the geekiest of you my readers, for forgiveness. I lived in ignorance for so long and maybe even slight condescension.

I avoided the Buffy TV series because I thought it looked cheesy. I feel a deep abiding pain in my soul to write those words now after the heartfelt conversion I've experienced.

I'm one of the few people that loved Loved LOVED the Buffy movie. Kristy Swanson is hot, David Arquette and Paul Reubens are hilarious, and Donald Southerland is hardcore as a crusty old watcher. Funny I would call the TV series cheesy after admitting I like the movie.

But there was this series, Firefly, that lived for only a brief flash on that fuckhole network Fox. I'm still bitter about it's cancellation. This is the show that opened my eyes to the brilliance that is Joss Whedon. I can't NOT laugh at that man's dialog, not that you would even want to... not... laugh.

Beyond the dialog are the characters, god the characters. These people live, you want to be invited to their house to play poker and drink and laugh with them, they're so alive. And Joss breaks your heart by killing one of them off, and you curse him, and then he pulls off some twist of brilliance that totally redeems him along with your faith in humanity.

So now I watch Buffy with Red every Tuesday and I laugh often and cry sometimes at the stories this man can tell.

Joss Whedon IS my master now.

AITP: Alphonse Mucha

2008-07-28T20:01:00.009-06:00

It's about time I put up a new Artist-of-Indeterminate-Time-Period.

In the house I grew up in my bathroom had this wallpaper that were miniature reproductions of French advertisements. Besides unsuccessfully trying to read and pronounce the words I also enjoyed some of the artwork, one artist in particular though I didn't know his name at the time.

Alphonse Mucha IS Art Nouveau to me, he defines that style, a style I absolutely love. (Note to self: Make own Art Nouveau piece) The thick outlines, the intricate detail work in the often symmetrical borders, the painterly figures.

When Red and I went to see Enchanted in the theater I was almost giddy at the opening animated bits. Disney did a wonderful job bringing that style into the animation, especially in Jiselle's window and in some framing of the evil queen.

So there you are then, Mucha, Artist-Of-The-Indeterminate-Time-Period.

Still Sunday for 15 Minutes

2008-07-27T23:43:00.003-06:00

I didn't have much in mind for my second post but, dammit, I'm going to post one.

I've had quite the varied and activity-filled weekend. Friday I gave Dungeons and Dragons 4th edition a spin with my regular gaming group and we had much more fun than I was expecting. It almost feels like playing WoW in tabletop form, only more freeform. I'm actually looking forward to a second session.

And speaking of WoW, I gained two levels (I'm 66 now) on my Draenei priest on Scarlet Crusade. I thought I might start getting burned out but I'm having more fun than ever. I'm getting better and better healing gear and just having a blast running instances.

I went to a farewell party on Saturday night for a co-worker that's moving to Indiana. I got nice and sloshed, more than I've been in a while, and we ended up at one of their friend's bar. Great times and I didn't even have much of a hangover this morning.

All in all it was what I would consider a very weekend-ish weekend. The only thing missing was the girl I'm dating but she was up enjoying herself at a family reunion.

More Ancient Art

2008-07-27T13:18:00.003-06:00

Since I'm somewhat of a loser by not posting yesterday I'll make it up by posting two entries today.

The first is another one of my 7-year-old-Jer drawings. Watching Condorman is an exercise in embarrassment now but I remember absolutely loving it as a child. Who doesn't want giant unfoldable wings to glide off the tops of buildings?

A Litte Anti-Climactic

2008-07-25T17:42:00.005-06:00

From the date on the letter you can see I received this a while back. The most feeling I could muster when getting it was, "Finally!" My life is pretty much the same before and after losing all my heavenly blessings and ordinances. In fact I've started to come out of a rut since then so you could almost say things are looking up.

The only other thing of note is that they didn't include my daughters names and I want written proof that they've been removed. Yay, another round of letters.