Analog-Theater 2.0

Well, I had a whim the other day and asked my friend Megan out to dinner. This time I disregarded all the previous advise I’ve received and I was myself. We had a long, in depth conversation about fantasy novels while we dined at a Japanese restaurant. I can’t recall the name of the place, but it’s a nice little restaurant. When we arrived, we were the only people in the restaurant.

It turns out that Megan and I have a lot in common. We like the same genre of books and a lot of the same movies. We also both like sushi. I even discovered that hanging out with her is more fun then playing Dungeons and Dragons, which is what I usually do on Tuesday nights.

While I was talking with Megan, we were discussing where we wanted to go if we could travel anywhere. It made me think. I would like to have a big enough following on this site that I could quit my job and trave l the world writing posts from where ever I visit. In fact, I just got an invite to visit Houston, not the most exotic place I could think of, but it’s not here.

In other news, I went to see War the other night. Jet Lee and John Statham are two of my favorite actors and I love action movies, so this was a must see. But after I finished watching the movie, I felt a bit let down.

Overall, there was little suspense in the movie. There were a few engaging scenes, but between them was a lot of filler.

The ending especially let me down. I don’t want to give away what actually happened, but you had a really good twist I thought, followed by the second best fight scene in the movie, and then it was over with no sense of resolution. I was left sitting there thinking “that’s it? it’s over? how could that be it?”.

After a little bit of research and seeing some trailers, I’ve complied a list of movies to see.

In the theater right now there is: Stardust, based on the story by Niel Gaiman. War, starring John Statham and Jet Lee. And the Last Legion, set in ancient Rome.

August 31st Balls of Fury comes out staring Christopher Walken and Dan Fogler.

Openning on September 7th are two movies: 3:10 to Yuma, starring Christian Bale, and Shoot ‘em up, starring Clive Owens.

November 16th is the opening of Beowulf staring Ray Winstone, Anthony Hopkins, and Angelina Jolie.

December 7th is the release for The Golden Compass staring Nichole Kidman and based on the novel by Philip Pullman. I read this book a few years ago and now I can’t wait to see the movie.

December 21st Nicolas Cage returns to the big screen in National Treasure: Book of Secrets.

December 25th is the release of Aliens vs Predator, the sequel to the 2004 movie Alien vs Predator.

January 18th, 2008 we get to see Cloverfield. This was the unnamed movie trailer shown during Transformers where New York City was destroyed.

July 18th, 2008 is the slated release date for The Dark Knight staring Christian Bale and Heath Ledger.

I would like to apologize for my last post. As you can see by the time stamp, it was around 1:30 in the morning when I wrote it. I realize, that that is still no excuse. My good friend Eric brought my post to my attention. I fixed some of it, but I realized it’s already been a full 24 hours and in internet time, its a lot longer.

My date with Jeanne was by no means a bad date. It was rather enjoyable, except for a few awkward silences. While my brother’s advice does drastically limit what I can talk about, I did work around it. And while I was told that I should be myself, I disagree. I should never be myself on a date, it’s a good way ruin any chances I might have of having her ever talk to me again. I ask this question to my friends, would any of you actually want to go out with me?

As for my comment about note going on another date for another three years, it’s for two reasons (neither of which have anything to do with Jeanne, she should actually feel complimented by this). First, I get very nervous before going out, or around women in general. Women don’t general like me as anything more than a friend. I also have a long history of screwing things up with women, just ask Nancy. I’ll admit that at least half of it was my fault. I was so nervous Friday that I was throwing up. I don’t like going through that very often. The second reason is priorities. My brother disagrees with me very strongly on this one. My priorities are first God, second work, third video games, and fourth women. In some aspects, video games are superior to women. You get save points, you can turn them off, they don’t get mad at you when you buy a new game, they don’t talk back (usually).

Sometimes I do get bored of video games and seek some real life interaction. And sometimes my dungeons and dragons group isn’t enough. That’s why once ever couple years I find some nice girl like Jeanne and ask her out. And about one in ten times, they say yes.

In short, Jeanne was a wonderful date, and I think we had a good time together. I even considered asking her out for a second date. Three seconds later, I decided that it was for the best that I don’t.

I had a date today with a lady named Jeanne. She’s a nice, attractive, and intelligent girl, which makes me wonder why she was willing to go out with me. Over the last few days, I got some advice from my brother, my uncle, and a close friend, on top of what I read in a book. It seemed like good advice, but it made things hard. The book and my uncle agreed on one important thing, that I have to keep her feelings in mind. They both said to pay attention to her and what she has to say.

My friend has always been giving me the same advice, take pride in how I dress. When he came to visit, he took me shopping for some new clothes. He has a nice sense of style and it works for him, but I don’t find it comfortable dressing like that. It feels like I’m trying to be someone else. Even though I am a jeans and tee shirt guy (and Robert, sneakers do go with tuxedos), I did at least wear a button up shirt and good pants to take Jeanne out.

My brother’s advice was the hardest. The subjects I know and care about the most are: anime, manga, Dungeons and Dragons, sci-fi movies, and video games. My brother said not to talk about: anime, manga, Dungeons and Dragons, sci-fi movies, and video games. To make things worse, after a long, awkward silence, she said that she wasn’t very good a start conversations. Mostly I ended up asking her about herself. Eventually it felt like an interview.

Over all, the date wasn’t too bad. Italian food is her favorite, so I took her to Olive Garden. She had the Chicken Alfredo and I had the Venitian Apricote Chicken. After dinner, I took her home. She said she had a good time when I walked her to her door. I think this was my best date in the last three years. It was also my only date in the last three years. Now that it’s over, I think I can wait another three years before I ask a girl out again. Unless I get one with Francine Dee before then.

After I dropped Jeanne off at her house, I went to the theater and caught a showing of Stardust. I’ve read some of Neil Gaiman’s works, but not this one. Overall, I was impressed. It lived up to my expectations. Captain Shakespeare was a very interesting character. So were the brothers. I loved the scene when Tristan returned to his town. I won’t give away very much, I don’t want to spoil things for those that haven’t seen the movie yet. I’m going to have to buy this when it comes out on DVD.

I just came across a video of a presentation of Tabula Rasa at Gen Con this year. Cuppajo, who’s real name is April Burba was doing the presentation. From the little bit I was on the message board, I never realized that she was a girl. The camera was focused on the game, so it didn’t show what she looked like, but she did have at least one nice hand.

I’ve been beta testing this game for the last couple months and was a little surprised to see the presentation. Cuppajo logged into the game in about a third of the time as it usually takes me to enter the game. She had significantly less lag as I experience when I play. I recognized the zone she was playing in, it’s the same place I usually play. Since this was in a convention, I’m guessing that she had a portable server that she was plugged into with a private version of the game. Where can I get one of those? I hate lag time.

More importantly, NCSoft has announced the release date for the game. October 2nd of this year! I need to preorder my copy of the game. I need to get Robert to preorder his copy, too.

Well, I see that my brother has been doing some work on the site. We have a few test sites that we’re playing around with. Once we get the different pieces of code to work, we should have a killer site, so keep checking us out.

I just wanted to take a second to make a shout out to some of my long lost friends: Kevan Vanhoff, Melanie Hutchison, Sharon from the jewelry store, Randy Moles, Adam Bortle, Dee Cooley, Kekoa Hanza, Carly Hughes, Kieth Zimmerman, Melissa Golbach, Gina Horvath, Jules and Laura from the American Cafe, and all of my wonderful coworkers from Taco Bell. I miss all of you. Drop me a line sometime.

Since this is my first post, I was thinking long and hard about what to write. I considered talking about the movie “War” with John Straham and Jet Lee, but it hasn’t come out yet. Then I thought of talking about the game “Overlord” and how cool it is, but since it was sold out everywhere I tried to buy it, I guess that everyone already knows.

Finally I decided that I should just introduce myself. My name is Jared. I’m an anime fan, a dungeons and dragons player, an aspiring writer, and an aspiring chess grandmaster, meanwhile I have worked several different jobs to pay the bills. The most memorable of these were bartender, manager of taco bell, and my current job as a dispatcher for a delivery company.

I was cleaning out my hard driver recently before letting my brother upgrade my system and I found a piece I was writing about my New Years resolutions. I decided to update it and include it here.

This past year I have become increasingly unsatisfied with myself. The two facets that I seem to be focusing on is my chess rating and my weight. My chess rating keeps getting lower and my weight keeps getting higher. I wish things would go the other way. Of course wishing something is worthless unless you have a plan of action to make your wishes a reality.

I have read several exercise magazines and have come up with a workout routine based on several of the articles. All I have to do is stick to the plan and eat healthy and I should lose some weight. I just started a few days ago. Right now I’m doing ten push-ups, ten sit-ups, ten squats with dumbbells, twenty bicep curls, and then half an hour on an exercise bike.

I have also been thinking seriously about taking up Tae Kwon Do again, but I haven’t got around to signing up. I was taking Tae Kwon Do a few years back and reached Orange belt (which is not very high). I would love to finally make Black Belt.

As far as chess is concerned. I used to play two games a day against my computer, but after I lost my last tournament I got depressed and quit. I know that I need to practice and study to get better. Starting today I will play two games a day again.

Of course, these two goals, as well as helping create this website, are all part of a higher goal which is to go on a date with the import model Francine Dee. For some reason, I think I’ll need money, appeal, and self confidence before she’d say yes. I also think that that goes for just about any woman, just in varying amounts.

One of my other major failings is that I’m lazy. Unless I’m held accountable for something, I tend to slack off. I’ve decided to use you readers to hold me accountable. Once a month I will report on how these plans are going. We’ll see how long it takes me to complete my goals. As of my writing this I currently weight 270 pounds, my chess rating is 599, and I have yet to see Francine in person let alone go out with her.

And Francine, if by some stroke of luck you are reading this, help me out please.