Busy elf.

In lieu of doing any actual leveling progression in LotRO this week, I've been taking my level 50 elf Champion Maladhros out to grind some deeds. I killed 150 trolls in the Lone Lands, all in one go, for Troll Slayer 1 and 2. The next night, I did the whole Quick Post run and Shire Brewmaster to complete Shire quests. Then I traveled to the North Downs and killed 70-something goblins in Dol Dinen for something I don't even remember, and found three or four points-of-interest for two more deeds.

Delivering what is probably really unimportant Hobbit-mail

I also completed two tiers of sickle-fly slaying in the Bree-lands and three deeds in the Old Forest: found all those Ent-wife flowers, finished the POI deed, and killed 40 Huorns. Quick aside: I still have Head-butt traited and slotted on my level 33 Dwarf Guardian Aurrok, and I always try to finish off trees with it. Just so I can head-butt a tree to death. Also, even with the map, I still get lost in the Old Forest all the time. I think it's great.

Bears like glowy, blurry areas. I learned that watching Survivorman.

Next night, I rode back to the North Downs and killed 50 Drakes and something like 260 Worms. I was going to just work a little on Worm-slayer, but I got carried away and finished it and went ahead and did Enmity of the Drakes*. In all, I leveled up six or seven virtues (three slotted) and earned one race trait, plus I finished two class traits in the process, even though I was only fighting grey mobs.

Added bonus: I looted absolutely everything. Vendored the trash I picked up in the Drake/Worm run alone for just shy of 2 gold. That'll help offset the 5G I spent on the Mathom Society horse last week. And the 5G I spend on the same horse for my level 47 Hunter, Maethur. And the 4G I spend on the Bree rep horse for Aurrok. It's a lot of money for just horses, but I want all four of my active characters to have a 250-morale mount. Kwali, my 41 Rune-Keeper, got his 250-morale goat through the Ale Association last year during the Fall Festival.

Then I bought the Steed of Night for Mal, so. Yeah. I did. I still like the Mathom horse, but I wouldn't have bought it if I'd known I was weak enough to buy that stupid damn Steed of Night. Jenny bought one, too. We actually had to buy points (double bonus point sale) for her to afford it. So well done, Turbine. You put it on sale before pulling it from the store again, and we spent twenty bucks on points to afford it. Are you happy now?

Anyway. My only other character is a level 23 Hobbit Burglar. I'm not leveling him because I don't like the class and I'm hanging onto him for the name until I roll another Hobbit. But he isn't totally inactive. I've been fooling around with him, swimming rivers from border to border, killing low-level mobs for cosmetic drops, stuff like that. Just running around Middle Earth goofing off, because I don't have anything to really do with him.

Has anyone ever farmed here? I mean, ever?

So I decided to do something really fun. I rode, on his slow starter pony, from Celondim in Ered Luin to the Last Bridge at the edge of the Lone Lands. The plan was to see if I could get him to Moria. But first I think I'm going to send him some silver, ride him back to Hengstacer Farms, and buy a standard mount (+62% speed, I don't want to try this on the old +32% slow pony). Since he's a burg, it'll obviously be the bay pony.

*Going back to the race trait slayer deeds... Drakes? Really? Race of Man has wights, hillmen, and wargs. Not too difficult. Dwarves have goblins (not orcs... goblins), trolls, and dourhands. Even easier. Hobbits have to kill wolves, spiders, and goblins. That's a walk in the park. But elves? What the fuck, man? Goblins, orcs, and drakes? We have to kill friggin' dragons? I don't care if the ones in Ram Duath were grey, those big ones beat me up. I didn't die or anything, but I had to stalk them and get them away from the worms before attacking them. Took forever, and that was only for Enmity of the Drakes ONE.

/rant

It was a fun couple of days, really, and I'm not finished. Still two or three left in the Shire, and then I start on Evendim and the Trollshaws. See you on Meneldor.

Beyond Black Mesa

This is just something all Half-Life fans have to see. It's a short film based in the Half-Life world, after the Black Mesa incident but before the events of Half-Life 2. It's eleven minutes of awesome.

Over the years, Valve has continually turned down offers to buy the film rights to their signature franchise, and with good reason. I think of this as just a glimpse of what could be made if the film was in the hands of people who really cared.

I'm not going to embed it here. Hit the link, and watch it full-screen at 720.

http://beyondblackmesa.com/

Blake Griffin might be Superman.

I'm not kidding. This is getting ridiculous. I'm not a Clips fan, I mean, who is (really)? I mean, there's this video. There are several dunks in this reel that I have never seen anyone do before, ever. And it's only from the first two months of his career.

Now I want you to watch this one. It's his 47-point on 24-shot humiliation of the admittedly-terrible Pacers.

Total number of dunks: one. On a team rebound broken play (ok, Griffin broke it, he got stripped). Point is, he doesn't have to kill you in the no-charge zone. He can kill you on fade-aways and wild, double-clutch layups, just about anything but three-pointers.

Don't even call him Blake Griffin anymore, you might as well start calling him Clark Kent.

Opposites attract.

Tonight Jenny came home from school all wound up, for some reason, like a Jack Russell on speed. I'm trying to wind down. As she was (rapidly) talking, I leaned back in my chair and started this song:

She paused, and said, "We're like complete opposites right now."

Can't really argue with that, but I wouldn't change it for the world.

I'm in pain.

Like the title says, I'm in pain. My teeth hurt, and I can't do anything about it. It's actually pretty bad. Painkillers are running through my system, as are about eight beers, so I can only imagine how bad the pain really is. It's a combination of wisdom teeth that should have been pulled ten years ago and just plain old broken, rotting teeth. It happens to all of us, but most of us, these days, have either extra income or dental insurance to take care of this kind of thing. I don't. In Galapagos, Kurt Vonnegut asked, "What chain of events in evolution should we thank for our mouthfuls of rotting crockery"?

It's a good question. Our mouths just don't work properly, do they? Even with all our knowledge of tooth care and modern dentistry, orthodontics, periodontics, and other -dontics that I'm not aware of, we all end up toothless, eventually. Our teeth are evolutionary casualties of all the other stuff we upright bipedal primates got right. We have binocular vision, we have opposable thumbs, we can walk upright for, well, our whole lives, we can reason and empathize and invent civilization (and, eventually, Civilization, the digital simulation of civilization). But we're stuck with teeth that fall, inevitably, inexorably, into a painful fucking mouthful of rotting crockery.

I only read Galapagos once, when I was on a Vonnegut bender a few years ago, and I barely remember the book. But that one phrase, "rotting crockery," lodged itself into my head. It's just the perfect description, isn't it? It floats back into my consciousness whenever my teeth start hurting again, which is fairly often.

Look, I'm no martyr. I want to get 'em fixed, but I don't have the means. The extra money we just don't have, we're paycheck-to-paycheck around here. We have insurance at work, but it's a group plan. We needed one more person for it, for at least a little coverage. $1,000 per year for something like $20 per 90 days. But my retard roommate Richard (who I work with and is in fact the way I found out about the job in the first place two years ago and I don't know to this day if I should be grateful or burn him in effigy for putting me at that place) didn't want to pay it, because he gets his own dental work done at a local fucking dental college for a bargain. And then he wants to gripe -- endlessly and repeatedly -- about how awful they are and how long it takes.

This is my life.

So I'm sitting here unable to sleep on Thanksgiving night because my teeth feel like they're trying to wrench themselves free of my skull to do, I don't know what, put on a musical production about making me miserable and unable to enjoy my turkey (had no problem with dressing, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, or green bean casserole) or something equally fucking stupid.

I'm going to watch another episode of Dexter and try to ignore the pain for another hour. Then I'll watch another one. Happy Thanksgiving everyone. Please give thanks for all your loved ones and whatnot, and be thankful your rotting crockery has a professional looking after it. I wish mine did.

Here's a belated movie review.

So tonight I finally got around to watching Zodiac, which I've put off for a couple weeks. I'm normally pretty vigilant about clearing out our one-disc Netflix queue, but the last few weeks have been hectic, to put it mildly. With my mom in and out of the hospital (mostly in), my schedule has been all kinds of fucked, and I'm a creature of routine. It's a long movie, and I didn't want to commit to it.

Anyway, I finally watched it, and yes, it's very long. Overly long, in fact. Like all David Fincher movies, I liked it, but good god, it is long. 158 minutes long. Like the actual Zodiac investigation, the film sort of peters out from a great start and goes nowhere for awhile. Then is does some stuff, which you think will go somewhere (again, like the true story), but it doesn't. Then some things kind of start to happen, but don't really, and then it's over. Finally. There's historical accuracy, and there's entertainment, and the two don't mesh when you make sure your movie is as dull as the fifteen years the case it's based on was dead.

Again: very good and entertaining for about an hour. After that, not so much. I love Fincher's movies, but I haven't seen the even longer Benjamin Button, or that new Facebook movie that I just realized this afternoon he directed (why didn't I know that? He's one of my favorite directors...). But this is not a good precedent. Zodiac is highly recommended by the Flyer's Chris Herrington, who I consider a go-to local reporter for both film and Griz news, but he must have much more patience than I if he didn't mourn the death of the nearly three hours of his life he spent waiting for Zodiac to reach its inevitable, unsatisfying end.

Oh, okay, I'll find something positive here. The acting is uniformly excellent, with a lot of "hey it's that guy" actors turning up and doing a fantastic job. Jake Gyllenhaal (I had to look him up to spell that fucking name right), Mark Ruffalo, and Brian Cox were, as usual, fantastic. Anthony "Stop calling me Goose" Edwards turned up unexpectedly, and was terrific despite the awful, awful wig they put on him. The Howard Shore score is so low-key that I didn't even notice it, but the more memorable soundtrack was perfectly selected. And they did a great job setting the film in the late sixties/early seventies. I'm getting nostalgic about the seventies in my old age (I just turned 34; holy shit I'm 34 now), and I love movies set or, even better, filmed in the seventies and early eighties. It was a weird time with weird fashions and decor. I want my future kids to know how bizarre my childhood was compared to today.

So, on a scale of Buy, Rent, or Don't bother, Zodiac gets a Rent. That's what I did.

Your mom's birthday is coming up.

The Lovely has gone berserk with the crafting lately, digging through her boxes and boxes of beads, strings, jewels, and whatnot. Suddenly she has dozens of hand-crafted jewelery... things. I don't know how she does it, I'm just sitting here playing Half-Life, and I look over and boom! Three more pairs of earrings or a necklace or bracelet or something.

The best part is, she's made a new blog where you can see it all and even friggin' buy it! Want a jade colored necklace with a genuine bone Shiva carving? She's got it. Suddenly realizing that you need some silver and black earrings for... baseball practice or whatever? No problem. Jenny's hand-made jewelery is perfect for any occasion: court hearings, Christmas, Civil War reenactments, grocery shopping, Arbor Day, she has you covered.

Check out River Rock Jewelry and buy some kickass custom jewelery today. You'll find something you like, or my name ain't Nathan Arizona!

LeBron James says "ME!" really, really loudly.

I hope the Miami Heat miss the playoffs for the next decade or so. And I hope they win an NBA Championship exactly one year after James, Wade, Bosh, and Riley retire.

See, I have nothing against the Heat or their fans. I just really, really hate it when a bunch of players individually decide to join up on some random franchise solely to win a title or three. It's the absolute antithesis of team sports. They don't give a good goddamn about the Miami Heat any more than Bosh gives a shit about Canada. If Memphis had better winter weather and a larger television audience (and tons of salary cap space) they would have signed here. It would have had nothing to do with the Grizzlies, it would only be about where these three egos could go to win themselves some rings. The team doesn't matter.

It's the same reason I was sickened when Malone and Payton took, on their scale, pennies to play with Bryant and O'Neal in Los Angeles a few years ago. They weren't just bandwagon-jumping, they were influencing the balance of the league for self-advancement. Karma caught up with them by pointing a sniper rifle at Malone's knee during the playoffs, and the league was turned right-side up. I was thrilled.

Now it's happening again, only worse. These aren't aging stars trying to add a championship to their already-Hall of Fame legacies. It's three superstars in their prime, aided by a prima donna GM/coach, forming a Velvet Revolver-esque supergroup just to fuck with everyone else in the league. Well, fuck you, too.

Dynasties aren't supposed to be born this way. The New York Yankees way. That's fucked up. It's why everyone is screaming for MLB to do something, anything, to restore parity before baseball turns into the NHL, which, slowly but surely, it is. Dynasties are traditionally born of franchises with passionate fans who build teams the right way for years and years. They recruit players who want to be great and who believe in A. the team, and B. the franchise. Players who want to contribute to the legacy of, say, the Celtics, the 49'ers, the Packers, whoever.

Evidently that's not how it works anymore. Now, we have players who believe most of all in the overwhelming need to advance themselves and their individual agendas. Players who buy hour-long infomercials on ESPN to showcase... what, exactly? Themselves? Yes. Themselves. "Look at me! I'm going to win a championship! What? Oh, in Miami. Why, does that matter?"

I still remember my Blogger password. Neat!

It's Father's Day, but I'm broke so I called my dad to tell him I'll take him out for dinner next weekend when I'll have a small amount of disposable income. But he didn't hear the phone ring, so I left a message saying, basically, gimme a shout. He did a few hours later, and I'm going to pick him up after work next Sunday to go get some awesome Italian at Garibaldi's. It's basically a neighborhood joint near the U of M, but it's friggin' sweet. He loves it, I love it, I took The Lovely Jenny there a couple weekends ago and she loves it, it's just all-around a very cool place to get a pizza or a nice plate of ravioli while watching the Tigers on TV. Can't wait for next weekend.

What else. It's been hot here, like Africa hot (Biloxi Blues reference FTW). Well over 90 degrees every damned day for weeks. The only break I've had from it at work has been driving out of town, and those jobs have been scarce. Last Wednesday I drove out to a prison a stone's throw west of Reelfoot Lake with Richard to install a new forklift battery and bring back the old, scrap battery. That was a decent day of air-conditioned truck cab, brief, beautiful views of a soon-to-be-gone lake, and random talk of our addictive MMO's (LotRO in my case, WoW in Richard's).

Tomorrow I may be sent to another prison in something called Able, TN, which is apparently a town a little ways past the Tennessee River, to do the same job. That's going to be an all-day trip, and as easy as that will be for me, I don't want to do it. Driving east on I-40 is like hypnosis for me. It's two lanes, straight as an arrow, for hours. The most boring drive on earth. Nothing to look at but lines of identical trees on both sides of the road, for mile after mile after soul-sucking mile. No curves, no hills, no nothing. Hopefully, I won't have to go alone. I could do the job alone easily. But I tried to convince my boss that another person is necessary, so I don't have to drive all the way out there and back as well. I'd rather ride back, so I can read a book and not fall asleep and plow off the road into a fucking tree.

What was I talking about?

Look, I'm going to pretend it hasn't been four months since my last post. Are we all okay with that? Yes? Good, moving on.

Today we had some hellfire and brimstone-style storms blow through the city, and because of reports of widespread flooding in Raleigh, I drove Jenny to work in my truck for her three hour shift. I decided to spend the time shopping at Poplar Plaza rather than driving back home, and that was not a great idea. Walked into Spin Street and immediately found $20 special editions of Serenity and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, which I really, really wanted. I didn't need them, but it was close. I settled for a couple of used CD's. First, Live's Throwing Copper, one of those seminal Gen-X albums that I always meant to own but never got around to picking up. Sure, I could download it, but that's not the point.

Second is Lewis Black's classic live CD, The White Album. Ten years ago, when I was living in Germantown with a couple guys I worked with, we Napster'd this record, and spent night after night laughing at it while we Quake III'd the night away. I've tried to find it a number of times recently, both in record stores and with things like Soulseek. Never came close, but today there it was, for $7.99. Money well spent, my friend. I'm going to rip this fucker and put it on my cell phone so I can inappropriately laugh my way though a few days of boring, grinding work on industrial battery chargers.

So after spending a few bucks at Spin Street I spent a few more at McAlister's, where I got to meet Jenny's new manager and get a very good lunch. Then I went to Bookstar and forced myself not to buy at least a dozen books I really wanted. I've become so used to randomly finding cool books for next to nothing at places like Goodwill and Salvation Army and that used bookstore in Millington (latest buys: Band of Brothers, Life on Earth, and Harry Potter 5), that I forgot what it was like to find exactly what I want for full price. I won't list all the stuff I had to make myself put down, but the last one, Hell Hound on his Trail, was a real struggle. I stood there and read the entire first chapter. I'm not kidding.

What else. Oh, I'm loving this Netflix thing. Jenny talked me into it a couple months ago, and damn if it isn't worth the nine bucks a month. Even setting aside the fucking awesome instant, unlimited streaming of all kinds of movies and TV shows whenever we want, I'm just hooked back into renting movies again. I'd slipped into a mode of selectively buying cheap DVD's that I really wanted, which severely limited what I got to see. Now we're throwing whatever seems interesting into the queue, and with a 2 to 3-day turnaround, even getting just one disc at a time is plenty. Right now I'm watching The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. Two days ago we watched Where the Wild Things Are. Next up will be Kindergarten Cop and Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story. It just makes having esoteric tastes for movies so simple to satisfy, and it comes wrapped in the convenience of never having to go out in public to rent something. Okay, that was a joke, since there's nowhere within 20 miles of here you can actually go to rent something in person. Seriously, every Blockbuster, Cinemagic, and Hollywood I was aware of is shuttered now, excluding the Blockbuster outlet store on Summer. That would really suck if I didn't have a Netflix subscription, which is why they're all closed in the first place. Is that good or bad?

Anyway I'm off to my new obsession, The Lord of the Rings Online. Wait. Fuck. It's three in the morning. Okay I'll play all day tomorrow. Wait. I have to go to Aldi, the awesome low-price grocery store for 70% of the stuff you need from a regular grocery store. Right, so I'll spend an hour doing that, then it's LOTRO for the rest of the day. If you need me I'll be on the Meneldor server. Don't look for me. I'll find you (creepy, but true).

Oh the weather outside is... winter.

It's been a strange Christmas season. It never really felt like Christmas for me. There's a certain Christmas feeling, that of anticipation, excitement, a lovely rosy feeling connected to light displays, well-worn songs, and the smell of pine and candles, that I never had this year. I can't explain it, because I know it's deeply connected to my childhood. But it never really clicked in me this year that it's Christmas time. It's happened before, but not for awhile.

Sure, we hung lights on the house, and yes, I had the entire week off work (using nearly all of my vacation time), and hey, it sure is cold outside. But it just felt like another week, only with giving and getting of stuff and lots of unusually heavy traffic at the grocery store. Something is missing here, and I don't know why or how I missed it.

Still, Jenny and I had a much better than average Christmas holiday. Because I took the week off and The Lovely Jenny only had to work two days of my off time and didn't have to go to school, we had ample, rewarding "us" time. I have been reminded many times over why I'm so in love with her, and didn't bother to correct my nephew Nicholas today when he said he was waiting to start a video for when my wife came back to the room. She is my wife, that's how I think of her. Just not legally, not just yet.

Also, we shopped a lot, for our friends, family, and each other, and we received even more than we bought. Tomorrow we're driving out to Tipton county for her family's Christmas deal, but even now here's our swag count:

• A big, bad Black & Decker food processor
• A whole mess of socks (his and hers)
• $650 cash*
• A $150 Walmart gift card**
• Two winter shirts for me
• An autographed Dick Vitale book (sweet!)
• Season 3 of Venture Brothers on DVD (hell yeah!)
• 600 classic cartoons 6-DVD set***
• Wireless home phone w/ answering machine and call-ID***
• Box of chocolate cordial cherries
• Refillable diffusion aromatic scent kit

* Used for new 2.1 speakers for both of our PC's, clothes for Jenny, bills, etc.
** Used for a Griz fitted cap, Star Trek 2-disc DVD, make-up, etc.
*** I bought for Jenny

It more than offsets all the stuff we bought for other people this year. It was really satisfying to be able to go out and shop for gifts without worrying too much about the cost. Easily our most giving Christmas, monetarily, in years. Here's the give list:

• Framed mini-poster for an '88 rock concert
• Tinkerbell earrings
• A home bar/mixed drinks accessory set
• Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince 2-disc DVD
• Monty Python and the Holy Grail special edition 2-disc DVD + extras
• Jeremiah Johnson DVD
• Good Night and Good Luck DVD
• Steamboy DVD
• A custom-made bracelet (by The Lovely)
• A big wall-hanging, bronze-looking star thing
  
• A specially selected sew-on patch

After I wrapped our gifts, Jenny hand-made awesome ribbons, bows, and tags. It doesn't mean too much to the people gleefully tearing off the paper, but it means a lot to me to know how we made their gifts look so festive. I even took a picture, and this wasn't all of it:


So, no, it didn't feel like the Christmas season I remember as a kid. But it was a good Christmas nonetheless, and it reminded me over and over of why I fell in love with Jenny. Christmas is supposed to be a special time that reminds you of all the people you care about; it's about family, and it reminded me of the little family that Jenny and I will soon be starting. And I can't wait.

O.J. to Marc.

This is the greatest pass since the invention of handing things to people.

Marc is the Gasol we've been looking for.

Yes, that was a Star Wars reference. Anyway, Marc Gasol has come to play this season. If I hadn't seen him in person, not once, but twice this year, I wouldn't believe it. But the big fat kid from Lausanne has officially arrived in the NBA. Last season, he put on a great show (for a rookie), and impressed a lot of people (for a rookie). But that was then. This is now, and he has spent the entire season serving notice to the rest of the league that he is here to fuck your shit up.

Offensively, he's looked like Pau from his All-Star year; turn-and-guns, fade-aways, lefty hooks, fast break slams, the whole range. Defensively, he's doing this:

I spent hours of my life -- hours that I will never get back -- defending Pau Gasol. I never understood why I had to defend him, but I did. He's clearly the best player this franchise has ever had, and he always covered his shortcomings by being, I don't know, the best player the franchise has ever had. And now his trade to the Lakers has given us what may well turn out to be something even better: a little brother that may turn out to be the best role player in franchise history.

Yes, Marc has the ability to surpass Shane Battier in that category. You have NO IDEA how hard it was for me to write that. Shane is my favorite player ever. He's a great guy who knows his role and plays it to perfection. He's all heart and hustle, and a natural leader. He's great with fans and the media. And he wins.

You know who else fits that description? Marc Gasol. What's more, he's putting up nearly Pau-like numbers offensively while being vastly superior defensively. If the offense didn't include shot-happy players like Rudy, O.J., and Randolph, and if the Griz weren't "coached" by a hack like Hollins, Marc could easily be averaging 20+ points per game. He's that good right now.

I'm not saying Marc is "the answer" (Get it? Because A.I. was a disaster? OK, it wasn't funny). But he's a fundamental piece to a winning team, and the Griz need to recognize that any effort to build this team into something special must include Marc as the focal point. I hope someone in Heisley's ear figures that out.

KOTOR makes for a happy Jenny.

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic was on sale yesterday for $2.49 as a part of Steam's five-day Thanksgiving special. I got up late, but Jenny was sick and wanted to sleep even later. So I came downstairs, let the dog out, started the obligatory Weekend Coffee, and sat down at my PC to check Steam, because I knew they were running specials every day for five days. I figured I'd find something for The Lovely before the sale ended, but KOTOR for $2.49 was beyond anything I expected. So I bought it via my Steam account on Jenny's rig and downloaded it for her. By the time I got her out of bed it was ready to play. Yeah, I'm thoughtful like that.

Anyway, she's diggin' it, as you can see. Having beaten in on XBox years ago, she insists that it's one of the best RPG's ever and that if I'm ever going to see eye-to-eye with her on this whole "RPG's are worth your time" thing that I have to play -- and beat -- this game. It's not a small request. I have a whole post on my experiences with RPG's, and if you've read it, you know how picky I am.

I started KOTOR while Jenny was at work yesterday. I downloaded it to my rig because I wanted to try it, and because I knew I could max it out in every way with my specs. It runs great, and I'm a few hours into it. It looks like the sort of action RPG I like, but it doesn't play like one. It's a story-driven tale with lots of talking and quest-hoarding, punctuated by semi-interactive fighting. So far, it's very JRPG-ish, which is not good. Being set in the Star Wars universe helps, so I'll keep playing. I have to admit that it's addictive.

Going back to that old post, I should point out that now that I have the specs to run it well, I do intend to try to get further into S.T.A.L.K.E.R. than I did before. I liked a lot about that game, but the fact that it was so goddamned ugly didn't exactly make me want to stick with it. It looks much better with my 4870, and I do want to try it again. I also have The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion now, which I haven't tried at all. It came bundled with BioShock, which is why I bought it: BioShock for me, Oblivion for Jenny.

She's still playing KOTOR, by the way. I'm looking to my left, and, yes, there's Jenny playing KOTOR. So at least she's enjoying her little gift. Now I just have to upgrade her entire computer so I can get her Spore for Christmas.

The Forum experience.

I've been a die hard Grizzlies fan since they moved here in 2001, but I've never been able to get out to the Pyramid or the Forum to see them live until this season. The lovely Jenny, love of my life, being her usual super awesome self, got me my first ever Griz tickets to their win over their former Canadian sister team, the Toronto Raptors, back on October 30th. She got me some excellent seats: top row of the lower bowl, right behind the Grizzlies bench.

The Griz absolutely schooled the Raps that night. It was perfect for my first game. I went with my dad, who like me has always rooted for the Griz but hadn't seen them in person. He raised me to love basketball. I grew up rooting for the Keith Lee-era Memphis State Tigers. He's worked at the U of M since before I was born. I went to grammar school at Campus School, an excellent "optional program" Memphis City school right on campus (hence the name). Dad put up a basketball hoop in the backyard, and I played every day for ten years. It was a sad day when I outgrew my '85 Tigers Final Four tee shirt.

Anyway, I loved the Forum. It's a beautiful facility inside and out. I've been to the Pyramid for dozens of Tiger basketball games as a member of the U of M band, and the Forum blows it away in every category but one: it's not a giant fucking pyramid sitting right by the bridge from Arkansas. For all its problems, you cannot deny that the Pyramid is striking from the outside, and it makes our skyline, sitting up on the bluff over the river, look damned impressive.

Otherwise, the Forum puts the Pyramid to shame. It fits organically into Beale Street. The concourses are open and airy, with Memphis-centric artwork everywhere you look. Near the escalators to the terrace level, for example, you'll find a gorgeous five-by-fifteen-foot hand-made ceramic tile mosaic mural of Memphis basketball that has to be seen to be believed. Concession stands are creatively named, and the food is uniformly fantastic. It's clean, tasteful, and heavily staffed by competent, helpful, friendly people. Whimsical touches are everywhere, from funny restroom signs to a double row of kiosks where you can play Memphis-themed video games like a FedEx version of Pac Man.

Tonight I attended my second Griz game in as many months, which makes me a very happy boy. My mom was my hook-up this time, having somehow stumbled upon a great promotional deal. Two tickets for the price of one, and that one heavily discounted. I got two seats on the front row of the terrace (top level) just right of center court for twenty bucks. It was very nearly the view you get on TV, only in person, and infinitely more awesome.

Again, I went with my dad. I came prepared this time, gear-wise. I wore my Shane Battier '01 throwback jersey again, but I made Dad wear my current-era Griz hoodie. You gotta represent, right? Interestingly enough, I've now been to two Griz games without seeing a single throwback jersey other than the one I was wearing. Where's the love, Memphis? We went to the playoffs for the first time in the Vancouver colours! Don't tell me you don't remember the '04 campaign, because I'll know you're lying.

Anyway, we lost the game tonight. The Bucks came in wounded, with two of their best players, Michael Redd and Andrew Bogut, out with injuries. I say "two of" and not "two best" because rookie Brandon Jennings is the real damn deal. I posted this to 3 Shades of Blue:

Just home from the Forum. A depressing end to an entertaining game. For whatever reason (iffy coaching, lack of a capable point guard, perhaps) the gameplan was scrapped and the team relied on jump shots for most of the fourth, despite fifty (FIFTY!) paint points.

Aside from that, Brandon Jennings nailed the coffin shut. That kid is terrifying to watch if you're on the opposing side. He's so quick it's just... unnatural. Every time he touches the ball you just cringe. Conley, Mayo, and Williams took turns trying to stop him in the fourth, and they all got torched repeatedly. The Bucks may have won the draft lottery after all.

That's really all I want to get into in terms of tonight's game, other than this: the Griz put on a great show, and I witnessed some truly memorable plays. My favorite was O.J. Mayo's steal and dunk when the game was all but lost in the final moments, but a close second was Marc Gasol's two monster rejections. Here's one of them:

So thanks to Jenny, my mom, the Grizzlies staff, and the Grizzlies players. It was awesome to finally see my favorite team in person after eight years of TV. Dad thanks you, too.

Sunny is weird.

Richard and/or Donny's dog Sunny has this odd habit of howling when she's excited. She usually does it when playing fetch. She lets out this triumphant howl to let us know how awesome she is as soon as she picks up whatever you threw. "I got that damn toy! Do not fuck with me!"

You have to see it for yourself.

Picture time: work edition

Here are some random pictures I've taken on the job over the last few months. So. Yeah.

Titans win; I'm right again.

It's a heavy burden, being right so often*. I'm not trying to show anyone up, I'm just constantly vindicated in the long run. I can't help it. At work, for example, whenever we're trying to figure something out down in the shop, Dale's always wrong. He just is. Not just in the shop, but out in the field as well, on a PM or a maintenance call. Whatever he decides is wrong, which is why I usually override him. Because I'm right.

In this case, I was right about the Titans benching Kerry Collins and starting Vince Young. Of course, everyone else in the United States of America was right about this as well. They were oh-fer almost half way through the season, there was just no reason at all not to throw Young in there to see what he could do. Two losses later, they finally did, and what happens? Two straight wins.

Young showed his comeback is legitimate, outplaying fellow first-round draft pick Alex Smith down the stretch. Young has been clutch twice in as many weeks, getting the Titans (2-6) in the end zone when it mattered.

So yeah, I'm right again. You're welcome, head coach Jeff Fisher. I know you read this blog.

Anyway. We cooked out on the grill this afternoon, and I stuffed myself way, way beyond any reasonable level of... um, eatingness. I still feel like I'll never have to eat again. I put eight pork chops, five cheddar-stuffed kielbasas, and a monstrous smoked sausage on the grill and burned them over fire until they tasted good. Haley and Jenny roasted some potatoes in the oven, and cooked some sweet corn in, well, in the microwave. We cheated a bit on that.

But it was all unbelievable. One of the best meals I've had in a long, long time. Jenny tweaked the grilled pork chop recipe we made up last weekend, and she absolutely nailed it. Pork perfection. The potatoes, as well, were fantastic. I love red potatoes to begin with, but they cut, seasoned, and cooked them to a state I'd characterize as perfection had I not just used that word to describe the pork chops. We ate outside on the back porch by the grill as I cooked up some extra meat for leftovers and Richard burned the shit out of some beer brats. Topped it all off with a dessert recipe of Haley's: baked bananas with brown sugar, cinnamon, and butter, served with ice cream. Addictive would be a good word for it.

We fed five tonight and still have plenty of leftovers. Best of all, we bought most of the ingredients at the local Aldi for a song. After two trips there, I'm definitely an Aldi convert. Even better, I noticed that they use industrial batteries in their pallet jacks, talked to a couple managers, and I think we can get some work there. So it was a win-win-win weekend. Because I was right. Don't doubt it, just believe it.

*My egotism in this post is generally fictional; Jenny is so smart that she routinely makes me feel like an imbecile, consistently reminding me that whatever I think I'm at expert at, someone else knows more. Except about football. And my job. And Quake.

I WANT TO LIVE IN IT

So somewhere in Tennessee (actually, it's here) there's a treehouse bigger than the block your house is on. And I will be moving my stuff into it shortly.

That shot is just a teaser. Stare with your mouth open at a bunch more pics in this extremely badly-translated article at something called ZuZu Top.

Oh, and here's an SI.com article called "Vince Young will start for Titans." My only question is, what the fuck were you waiting for? Were they considering setting an NFL record for stupidity? Maybe try to follow up a 13-3 season with a 3-13 season? I mean, there's nothing wrong with being symmetrical, but at some point you have to realize you have OCD. And you're also crazy.

Seriously, it took losing 59 to zero to get Jeff Fisher to try something different. Being oh-fer five games into the season wasn't enough. Bah, whatever. I just hope they don't fire the guy. He's been so good for so long that he's earned a pass on a terrible season or two.

The robot invasion has begun.

It's official. They have infiltrated our society. There's no other way to describe this video.

That kid clearly has tiny robot brains individually operating his hands. The wild, random head thrashing is his primary robot brain glitching out as the compute cycles that should be dedicated to his human mimicry programs are monopolized by the hand-brain music software.

Think I'm crazy? Maybe you're one of them.