Analog-Theater 2.0

Working six days a week is rough.  This is my third week of doing it.  And to make it even worse, I’ve actually had to work while at work and haven’t had much time to post on the website.  But I set myself a goal to post something, yesterday.  Even though I didn’t make my goal, I’m still going to post something today.

I stopped by a book store yesterday and took a minute to flip through some comic books before going to work.  I’ve discovered something, most comic books are now fingerpainted by six year olds.  Or at least, thats how it looks.  I realize that people are reading comic books less and less and the publishers are starting to lose money, but hiring cheaper artists is not going to help increase sales.  Neither is hiring hack writers and replacing them every 3 months like they did with the X-men comics in the late 90s.  Boy did the convince me to quit wasting my money.  In short, comic books have been killed the publishers.

Some of the larger publishers have tried to break into Hollywood.  Marvel comics has put out tons of movies based on their comics, though I haven’t been impressed by any of them.  DC has put out a couple good Batman movies, the one with Michael Keaton and the one with Christian Bale.  I just hope that comic book companies don’t do to Hollywood what they did to comic books.

Ok, so how many of you folks out there are worried about global warming? No, really, not the oh, you know, I’m worried kind of worried, I’m looking for the “I really don’t want to lose my house in freak weather events brought about by the slowing of the gulf steam and decrease of moisture in normally moderate climatic zones” kind of worried.

Ahh, that would be no one. Yeah, I figured as much. I think the real problem has to do with marketing. The “Eco-Nuts”, a word coined by the people who still say things like “We don’t need that old growth deciduous forest for anything” or “Sure dump another thirty tones of fertilizer on that field, there is no dead zone in the Gulf”. Oh, you didn’t know about the dead zone? It is about the size of NJ I think, it gets bigger, smaller, you know, it varies. Anywho, the “Eco-Nuts” really need to think about how to sell you something. This Global warming issue is real, I’m fairly certain of that now, when was the last time we had massive tornadoes in the south during the middle of the winter, oh and we are about to be able to order Antarctic King Crab. Yeah, I know, I said Antarctic. You see, Crabs can’t live in the Antarctic, or so we thought, but then the water started warming up, and now it is getting warm enough again for them to flush the Magnesium or whatever from their system so they can move back into the old neighbor hood. By old, I mean they haven’t lived there for 40 million years. Oh, and 40 Million years ago it was a bit north of where they are moving back to. Supposedly it is going to devastate the sea floor, but on the bright side the sharks that couldn’t live there but that are drifting back into those waters will also eat some of the crabs, so I guess it all balances out in the end.
But, back to the topic at hand, marketing. I’m thinking the Global Warming issue is too Global. You can’t get the people worried about it when it is only devastating cotton farmers in Texas and cattle ranchers in the mid-west. Honestly, who doesn’t just watch the news and then blank out. Who can’t without getting paranoid and buying 5 locks, bricking up the sliding glass door, and purchasing illegal assault weaponry is a better question. I mean these are problems happening to other people that that guy who won but really lost the election made a cool movie about, wasn’t he the vice president or something…? Exactly. So, I’m thinking we need to get GreenPeace and a few of the other action groups together and hire them a really good PR group, you know, like the ones that work for Cigerette Manufacturers or maybe even the oil company ones. I was listening to a commercial the other day trying to tell me that price controls on Gasoline are out like Disco, and that I should call Congress and tell them to let the Oil Companies charge whatever they like. These guys are good, and have almost as few ethics as a collections agency employee.

Who regulates those by the way? I had a fraudulent charge show up right before Christmas on a credit card I cut up in September that I ended up having to write the Attorney General of DE about, in order to get it removed from my account, and then it gets handed over to a collections agency? Uhm, how about calling me guys? Or maybe, even better, asking my credit card company why I disputed the charge? The bills go, Sept $0.00 new charges. Oct $0.00 charges, Nov. $0.00 charges, Dec $29.99 Online Porn! Jan $0.00 new charges. Yeah, I won’t pick up on that. It did take about 10 minutes to figure out what the $41.00 due on the collections notice was for though. I sent them a nice letter explaining it, I figure if that doesn’t work I’ll start with the BBB and then I’ll get hold of their states Attorney General and maybe file a complaint with the FTC…was that who it was, I’ll look it up and get back to you. I have Google. Oh yeah, and you might want to take a look at this.

It has come to my attention that today is the 14th of February. You know what that means? The Morelia-Linares Tourament is about to start! This is supposed to be the strongest competition so far this year (since it’s only the middle of February). The Morelia - Linares tournament will take place between February 15-23 (Morelia) and then February 28-March 7, 2008 (Linares).

Attending this tourment are: GM Viswanathan Anand, GM Veselin Topalov, GM Alexei Shirov, GM Peter Leko, GM Vassily Ivanchuk, GM Levon Aronian, GM Teymour Radjabov, and GM Magnus Carlsen. Once again to my disappointment GM Gata Kamsky’s name is absent from the list.

Now I know when I asked if you know what that means, some of you probably thought it was Valentine’s Day. Unfortunately you were right. Today is the anniversery of the Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre. At the last minute I decide to get Jeanne a Valentine’s card and a box of chocolates. I went by her house on the way to work to give them to her. She said thanks and I went to work. I know, what an exciting story! I’m considering asking her out again. Last time I took her out, her brother dressed up like a marine to scare me. Today he said if I ask her out again, he’ll dress up like a mobster. For some reason, I’m not scared.

My brother and I have been working a new Analog-Theater site, thanks to the new content management system we found. It will look a lot better, offer us more features (including a slide show in the gallery), and be easier for us to update. We’re still working on getting everything up and running and trying to import the old archive. Since we had been hard coding everything, I’m not sure if we can import the archive, all the options I can find is to import it from another content manager.

There is something very serious that I want to talk about. Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles. I’ve been watching it since it started and I’ve been holding my breath to see how it goes. I’ve been worried that its going to be a new killer robot from the future every week, but it appears thats not going to be the case. So far there has been a lot of exploration into the mythology of the series and significant character development. And in the five episodes so far there have only been three killer robots from the future and on of them is a recurring villain.

The series revolves around Sarah Conner played by Lena Headey. Her main desire is protect her son, John. At the beginning of the series they were on the run, but finally decides to fight back against Skynet. While Sarah spends her time trying to track down Skynet and save the future, she insists that John and Cameron go to school like normal teenagers. John Conner, played by 20 year old actor Thomas Dekker, is Sarah’s 15 year old son. He is struggling with his role as the future hero of the resistance. Having been told his destiny from birth, he is eager to save anyone he can and is the first to suggest they stay and fight instead of running again. Joining them is Cameron, played the great Summer Glau, an unspecified terminator unit from the future that was sent back to protect John. Like all terminators, she does not hesitate to kill people and criticizes Sarah for letting people live. She also has trouble understand human behavior, such as after a classmate died why people were leaving notes on the memorial. In the last episode after killing another terminator she appears to be experience some grief and was writing a note herself.

So far Terminator appears to be the best new show this season.

In good news, it appears that the Writer’s Strike is over. This means we might have our favorite TV shows like Lost and Terminator next season. I just hope that its not too late for Burn Notice (I can’t find anything about how it was affected by the strike).

Now, only if Tokyopop could resolve their problems like the Writer’s Guild of America. I bought the novel Kino No Tabi book 1 a while back. I’ve been waiting for Book 2, but the publication date keeps getting pushed back. Apparently Tokyopop is having problems with the licensor and because of that, they can’t get the rest of the books out. Oh well, there is always hope that some day they get everything straightened out. Until then…

So, here is the deal. Anyone else see the Grammies? Yeah, those awards that only seem to matter if you have a contract with a major label, and are in the top 20. That isn’t my issue, but it is an issue for me. I listen to some bands that not only try to convey a meaningful message, but express it in a musical fashion that makes it enjoyable to listen to, will they ever be at the awards so? No, they aren’t signed by a major label, they are with a smaller label that isn’t involved in legal action against their fan base.

But, what has me here posting on the site (I know twice in two days, the world is ending, get ready for all that Revelations stuff) is that I can not stand how they just disrespected the artists who built the industry.

Now, you may not agree with me on this, and that is your right, but at least hear me out. First, we had Frank Sinatra performing live with Alicia Keys. Oh, but wait, Frank Sinatra passed away almost 10 years ago. So how did he do it? Well you see, the industry just used a video of him and well, he has now performed with Ms. Keys. Why do I have an issue with this? Well, I have an issue with this simply because I have no idea if he would have chosen to perform with her, or even liked her. And without the use of some people in questionable professions I can’t ask him. So first, we can’t say “Hey, Frank, you want to perform live at the Grammies with Alicia Keys?” But, you see the people who own the rights to both that video and song can make that decision without asking, and they could also license the use of it, and with the use of modern technology change it, to sell Coke, Pepsi, or telling us that he only uses Old Spice. Now, to add to this, in another few years and as technology progresses we could use these old videos to make a three dimensional rendering of him, and then sample his voice, and well, Frank could be doing new movies. All of this, well, because now someone owns him. And the honest truth is that who he was, and I have no idea about that, no longer matters, what matters is how can we use his image. And this could be done using anybody. Preferably who is dead so they don’t get on the 6 o’clock news and complain that they didn’t provide permission, nor do they approve of the use of their likeness in this matter.

My second big issue is when people take music and just mash their own rap and lyrics into the middle, such as at the end of the entire show when Will-i-am decided to pay tribute to 50 years of major label music by mashing a variety of classic songs into one 2 minute long rap that told us how great he was. Seriously, listen to it, he’ll tell you. My view is that if you want to pay tribute to Simone Else’s music, hold to the original spirit of the song. That doesn’t include adding verses to inform the listener that you are an amazing rapper. If you, the listener will already know, and doesn’t really need to be informed of such.

On an interesting side note, I have to give credit to Ludacris, he wins the Artist-dressed-in-a-fashion-his-mother
-would-have-approved-of award for actually appearing in a suit. This was fairly unique in that many artists present wore clothing that A. Appeared to have been slept in, or B. lite up, you know, with lights. I’m not saying that a person can’t show some artistic flair, Prince always dresses his own way, but always looks like he made an effort to be well groomed. I just don’t understand the people at the other end of the spectrum, this is an event broadcast world wide, pictures of which will be reviewed for weeks on television, in magazines, and of course the Intertubes, who show up looking like Christmas trees (Mr. West) or like they just fell out of bed (Foo fighters), or high (No surprises there Ms. Winehouse)

Well, that is out of the way and I feel better now

For mine is the power to change that which I see. I might log into Guild Wars again, if you are lucky!

The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated. I’ve been meaning to post for about a week now, but I’ve let other things get in the way, like playing chess, work, and planning an adventure for my dungeons and dragons group.

As I said in my previous post, I’ve been playing chess on my computer. I started with it set on 600 and I’ve been working my way up. First 600, then 612, then 633 and so on. This morning I just beat it at 844. Some of the opponents I had to play more than once before I beat them. I think my problem is focus. At times I quit thinking and start playing by instinct and thats when I make mistakes. I need force myself to slow down and think.

I’ve started DMing Bastion of Broken Souls for my Tuesday night Dungeons and Dragons game. My group is a little bit lower level then they are supposed to be for the adventure, but they are doing okay so far. I’m going easy on them the first two session (last week and this week) and if they are reading this then they should be warned that next week the gloves are coming off.

I haven’t seen any movies lately. There are a few out there that I want to see, I just haven’t had the chance. As far as video games go, I reinstalled Anarchy Online after I realized that I probably won’t ever get Robert to log into Guild Wars with me.

I’ve started stocking some stuff in the store. I added an Analog-Theater bumper sticker and a tee-shirt.

I was just about to post this when Robert called and announced that we’re building a wordpress blog page. I’m not sure what to do with that, but I’ll probably spend the next hour looking at it.

The Meijin has left the building.