I HATE WINTER!

Remember the rage that infected all of London in 28 Days Later?


Yeah, that's how I feel about winter in Wisconsin...

Why fatherhood terrifies me...OR Great Movies: Big Fish

I just ate a bunch of spicy wings and weak beer, it's 12:45am, and I need to be at work by 8am tomorrow morning. So, I'll be brief. But I had to get this out...

I don't want to unload on my children what my parents unloaded on me. Wounds can seamlessly transcend generations as children who are hurt grow up into parents who pass the scarring on to their own children. At some point, things have to stop. I wasn't abused or anything as a kid (in the legal sense of that word) but I'm definitely going to be a different kind of father to my kids than my father was to me. Today, I believe I can do this. A few years ago, I wasn't so sure. I was so unsure of myself, that I doubted whether I should have kids at all. But my wife has helped me to understand that parenthood for both of us is important for dozens of reasons I'm sure I'll go into in a future blog post. She has faith that we'll do a good job.

I agree with her, but sometimes, my unresolved feelings towards my own parents resurfaces. And along with them come my doubts about my own parental abilities. And that brings me to my movie choices tonight. Both deal with the love/hate parent issues, and both strike an emotional chord with me. Especially Big Fish.



I'm an occasional Tim Burton fan. Beetlejuice was a masterpiece, but Planet of the Apes and Sleepy Hollow?! So I was skeptical about Big Fish, especially as I went to see it with my mother. But the experience was incredible. One of the reasons I am SUCH a movie fan is that on rare occasions theater will rise to the level of quality literature or fine poetry. Sometimes I can walk out with a glimmer of personal clarity. This was one such occasion. And, although my mother was probably in her own world reliving some unresolved issue with her own parents, I think I left the theater understanding her just a little bit more than when we walked in. Anyone with parents should see this movie. Anyone with parental issues should ABSOLUTELY see this movie. AND, it's family-friendly.



Igby Goes Down is the second one. And I rethinking whether I should have included it. It's not a favorite of mine, but it still gets at my parental conflict focus. It's like an average-ish film version of Catcher in the Rye, but with a Culkin in the lead role. Far from a classic, but still worth a watch if you get a chance.

Now if you'll excuse me, now that I've purged, I've got to sleep. I've got to pwn noobs in the morning.

I TOLD you I'm not crazy!!!

When I tell people that I don't have a TV, I usually get a blank stare. And they can't phrase a follow-up question, because my initial answer, "I don't have a TV" absolutely befuddles them. Those who know me also know that I am an avid TV show watcher. A contradiction? I think not. Only, how do I do it?

Internet TV. Also called, broadcatching. I have a dedicated server in my basement that does two things. Scours the internet for my favorite shows, and serves them up to my HTPC in the living room. It's basically TV on-demand, if you can deal with waiting up to a day after the show airs, as well as less than optimal quality. For me, it's a "good enough" solution. Especially since I think cable is rotten. A billion channels, and all I watch is seven or eight regular shows? For eighty bucks per month?! Not for me...

Most people think I live the uber-geek lifestyle. "TV on the internet?!" they say. "YES!" I respond. And I'm not the only one...

Here's a clip from a Family Guy episode that I just watched tonight...

A wii-ley good workout!

Couch potatoes, beware. The Wii is coming for you. Honestly, this could revolutionize the American fitness industry...

Geek Girls!

The good folks over at CNET have listed the Top Ten Geek Girls of all time. A few are fictional silly characters, but there are a few cool notables. Rosalind Franklin is my personal fave... Something about geneticist chicks just gets me. Wonder that I married one, right?

I leave you with a neat youtube video. I have been watching clips of Craig Ferguson from the Late Late Show. I never see the show, but through the magic of youtube, I get to see the highlights. His schtick is pretty funny, if you like popcorn humor. Here's bit about how everybody loves the motorboat. hehehe.

Cool and funny...

Battlestar Galactica is the coolest show on TV. Observe the Season 3 trailer:



This cut-scene from G4 TV is friggin hilarious! It proposes to be a deleted scene from Return of the Jedi, tying togther stuff from the recent prequels.

TV is about to change...

I know, I know. I keep saying this. And I don't even have a TV, right? But the revolution is underway. It happened first with music. Remember Napster? No, the first underground Napster, not the piece of shite commercial site that it's become. It was a direct response to market demand that music be made available online, on-demand. iTunes quite comfortably filled the market void after Napster was shut down. But not until Apple computers brought the recording industry to it's knees with it's "Rip, Mix, Burn" campaign. Even though Steve Jobs is the Devil, I still have a soft spot in my heart for him.

And now, downloading TV shows is all the rage. Along with my broadcatching system, I gave my HTPC a face-lift and installed the latest version of Freevo! My TV on-demand just got a little sweeter. And did I mention that it costs me only the price of my high-speed internet connection? Maybe I'll post some screenshots later on...