I listen to music constantly, as many of you know. I'm listening to music when I'm at work writing huge SQL scripts, when I'm driving home (wanting to run people over), when I'm playing computer games, and just about any other time when I'm not sleeping. (That last point was a pathetic attempt to suggest that I do more than work, sleep, and play computer games. Did it work?)

Ever since I discovered the wonderful world of Fraps (No, that is NOT a euphemism for sex...this time.), I've enjoyed recording bits of cool sequences in computer games that I play and setting them to music. I'm sure you can find a few in the archives of my blog, but I'm way too lazy to look any of them up right now. I think the most recent one you'll find is a really cool Portal video.

As a result of this hobby-within-a-hobby, whenever I'm listening to music I'm always thinking to myself, "Hm, would this make a good computer-game-video song?"

The list of songs that I think work really well in such videos is quite short, and I'm going to share them with you now.

Map of the Problematique by Muse
I used this one in the aforementioned portal video. Probably my all time favorite to use in videos.

Twisted Transistor by Korn
It builds, it explodes, and then it steadily rocks. I will probably use this one in the next video I make, whatever it happens to be.

Firestarter by Prodigy
I've seen this used in other videos as well, it's pretty much a staple. I'll probably never use it because of that.

The Pretender by Foo Fighters
Again, it builds. These are the best types of songs to use in this situation, because you want to start things out quietly and then build it up.

Drag You Down by Finger Eleven
This song has so many uses. Use it when you want to be loud, when you're pissed, when you need to relieve some negative energy, or yes, even when you want to make a video.


Given the amount of time I spend in Warcraft these days, I haven't been making many such videos. Given my position as tank, it wouldn't be a very interesting video if all you saw was Tidewalker's foot or Void Reaver's robotic leg. Perhaps I should try to recruit a "Guild Recorder" to send me video footage of our raids. Hehe.

Conversely, however, my head is right at breast level on Solarian.

Hmmmmmmmmm.

Last night around 10:00 PM or so, I made my way upstairs to get a drink as I do just about every night when I run out of drink. This night, however, would prove to be quite different from any other night before it.

I open the basement door, and I see a moving furball on the floor in front of me. It made it's way over to the kitchen door and sat there. And then it began to growl.

I pushed my initial thought out of my head (which was to go back downstairs and get my shotgun), and instead decided to take a closer look at this alien being that seemed to have made a home in the small area between my kitchen and the main exit of my house.

It was a dog. A rather small dog, only a little bit bigger than a football, but a dog nonetheless. Once again, I pushed my initial thought out of my mind (which was to go back downstairs and get my shotgun), and instead proceeded into the living room to question the other residents of my household as to why such an animal was in my house.

The results of this interrogation where not forthcoming. Nor were they the answers I wanted to hear.

Apparently the dog belongs to my brother, who is at this time going through a divorce. He's living in an apartment now (indefinitely according to the results of my interrogations), and cannot keep the dog at the apartment.

The question that is still unanswered is why that is any problem of mine, and why it equates to having this animal in my house.

Now, I like animals. I own a cat -- he lives with me in the basement. And, animals like me. My cat is waiting at the top of the stairs to greet me every day when I come home from work, and he will attack me if I do not pay enough attention to him.

But I will admit that I am partial to cats. Not dogs. Dogs are noisier. They require more maintenance. They don't clean themselves. They have to be taken outside. They are bigger. They are dirtier.

I don't even know what kind of dog this is. It might be from another planet, I'm not sure, or perhaps from a radioactive sewer. That could be the case as well.

All I do know is that I don't like him, and he certainly doesn't like me. My household better hope I don't find the key to my gun cabinet.

I don't discuss politics very often, because I despise politics and politicians. However, even though I hate the entire structure of polics, I still ensure that I read and know what is going on in my own country. I refuse to be classified as an "ignorant American".

Thus, I made an observation on Tuesday. After Barack Obama delivered his speech (yes, I read the transcript and watched the video -- all 37 minutes of it), I knew it was going to cause a media storm. There was something about that speech that seemed different than anything I have seen in a presidential campaign since I can remember them. And I knew one thing for sure: Eventually, at least one journalist is going to start comparing Obama to Martin Luther King Jr.

And it only took 24 hours for that to happen.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/03/19/america/react.php

I'm not offering my opinion on the speech, or this campaign, or who I think should be the next president of the United States. I'm just sharing with you my observation of what I knew would happen, and the media doing exactly what I expected they would do. It's all too easily predictable.

I came across this article yesterday while attempting to avoid any news article related to the 2008 presidential election. I thought I'd share, since I found it entertaining:

Click here, the link is too big to display in full.

Lost in Translation

Ordering Chinese food is always a treat, because I don't understand what the hell they are saying, nor do they understand what the hell I'm saying.

Today was made even more difficult by the fact that I knew this restaurant's menu better than the girl taking my order. There wasn't even a chance that I was pronouncing the names of the dishes incorrectly, because I was using their numbering system in addition to the name. And still the girl didn't know what the hell I was saying.

Then, another person got on the phone AT THE SAME TIME. How many Chinese people does it take to get my order right? Rhetorical question. If this lunch is accurate when (if?) it arrives, it's going to be a Buddhist miracle.


I find the map and draw a straight line, over rivers farms and state lines.
The distance from 'A' to where you'd be, is only finger lengths that I see.
I touch the place where I'd find your face, my finger in creases of distant dark places.

-- Set Fire to the Third Bar by Snow Patrol

Ow.

There is a lot of static electricity in my office, which is a pretty natural occurence. Any time you go through a door you can be assured the doorknob will zap you as you touch it. I got zapped on the hand so badly once that the discharge was heard clear across the office. I'm sure it would have lit up the room had it been dark.

This morning, I stood up from my desk to talk to a co-worker behind me. We're separated by the wall at my back, where I have a dry eraser board hanging by metal clamps. As I leaned up against the wall, I made contact with one of the metal brackets, which then proceeded to send what seemed like 500 volts of static electricity right into my left nipple. I would compare the pain to being kicked in the scrotum with golf shoes. Of course, my co-worker was peeing herself laughing as I'm laying sprawled out on the floor, twitching as my nipple was wondering why the hell it just got sent to the electric chair for a crime it didn't commit.

The weather around here has been really nuts as of late, and I keep waiting for the meteorologists and scientists to coin some new phrase for it. We've already had two versions (at least) of El Nino, so I'm sure they can come up with something even more creative this time. Global Warming just doesn't have the same ring to it.

In any case, we've been hit with about 3 inches of snow which was immediately followed by 60 degree weather and 3 inches of rain. Which melted the snow quickly and basically left a mess in its wake. Given that I live in a basement, situations like these tend to make me nervous.

Rightfully so. When I got home from work yesterday evening, the carpet behind my bar was showing visible signs of moisture. This spread to the area close to my bed by the time I turned in for the night, and was still prevalent when I got up this morning.

Thankfully, today has been dry outside. Overcast and miserable, sure, but no rain or snow to speak of. It's also insanely windy, which I'm hoping will help dry out the ground and solve my whole problem before it gets any worse. The ground is simply too saturated with water and it's running out of places to go.

Seems I'm not the only one with problems caused by this over-abundance of rain. I hit a massive traffic jam on my way home yesterday to find out there had been a landslide, blocking one side of the freeway. It was mostly cleaned up as I drove past, but I could tell that a huge chunk of the hill was now gone completely. I can just imagine how much mud and rock had fallen onto the road for there to be a section so large missing.

Mother Nature is obviously cranky and needs to get laid. I just hope she's a MILF.



Angels on the sideline, puzzled and amused.
Why did Father give these humans free will?
Now they're all confused.

Don't these talking monkeys know that Eden has enough to go around?
Plenty in this holy garden, silly monkeys, where there's one you're bound...
...to divide it.
Right in two.


-- "Right In Two", by Tool