The Middle

After a trip to the doctor's office, a long night of pain, and a trip to the orthopedist for a cast this morning, I walked out with a bizzarro spaceman boot that travels all the way up to my knee, and 6-8 weeks ahead of me not getting to know my new toy, much less doing anything else wacky like walking or climbing stairs. Long story short, I was playing basketball with one of my new roomates, went up for the ball, and came down just below him. Of course, gravity was doing its work on him too, so he came down on poor old me. The moral of the story is, if you have to place your ankle horizontally somewhere, don't do it with concrete below, a falling dude above, and you standing upright. It's a bad combination. At least I don't have to walk all around a convention center all day for a week. So there, J$

So, tomorrow I'm moving to a new pad, and this experience has reminded me of something. Moving is the worst process a person can undertake on the entire planet. The disassembly of my myriad electronics alone can takes hours. I hate it. Thank goodness working for The Man gets me out of all that carrying and other work-type stuff.

So, I've finally done it...I went out and bought a motorcycle this weekend to quench my thirst for new transpportation. Here's a rough pic of the bike:

I've also been feeling the digital camera bug lately, but after the bike purchase that'll have to wait, so take the picture above and deal with it. The bike's in good shape, although the mileage is a little higher than I'd like. Additionally, the battery's given me nothing but grief since I brought the machine home. At the very least, the machine is younger than me, although just barely. Now, if a guy could get some insurance over the net rather than waiting until the Tuesday after Memorial Day I'd be happy. I read a very choice quote from Scott about bikes as a "money sink", but I can't seem to place it right now. (That's a thinly veiled hint that J$ should put up a "Scott Quotes" archive). Overall, I'm fantastically pleased with the bike, a 1983 Honda Nighthawk CB650SC that I couldn't be prouder to own. And don't worry, gentle reader, I'm all signed up for the Motorcycle Foundation of America's rider training course. Safety first, of course. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to get back to the bike...

It warms my heart that the Baseball Tonight anchors now refer to the Yankees as "The Evil Empire"

Getting warmer...

"An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools." ~ Ernest Hemingway. Amen, brother. Amen.

As an addendum to my previous comments, today seemed like the perfect day to take the afternoon off and go see "Matrix Reloaded".

I still stand by my previous viewings comments, but this movie is infinitely better in a second viewing. I was much more impressed this time around with a night of sleeping on it and advanced knowledge of the plot. Or I may just be convincing myself it's good based on it's heritage.

So, freshly returned from my private Matrix Reloaded screening (okay, my 400 closest friends and I saw it together), I'm a little confused. My breakdown:

The Good

You have never seen more ass kicked in a movie. A little slow in the begining, and then non-stop ass-kicking. And then more. And more. And the bullets, oh the bullets.

More cars completely destroyed than I could count in a span of ten minutes. Now I understand why they built their own stretch of freeway to shoot this movie.

There was an "I am your father" type moment. I'm not going to spoil it, but there is a cliffhanger that leaves a lot to be answered in the final film.

The Bad

Some of the CG, especially in the "Neo vs 100 Agent Smith's" was pretty bad. Don't get me wrong, it's an impressive scene, but more than once during it I winced a little as Neo or Agent Smith moved way too much like Spiderman.

The plot of Metal Gear Solid 2 was clearer. Most of you probably don't get the reference, but just take away from this that it was somewhat convoluted and seemed a little strained. As in "how can we strain another movie out of this story?". Maybe I'm just confused, or maybe it's all part of the Wachowski brothers' grand plan, but I just wasn't feeling it.

The Ugly

This movie just isn't as cool as the first. I can't really put it any better than that. It's an incredible super-action movie that has the characters from "The Matrix" in it. Is it as good or fresh or revolutionary as the original? Nope. Did I expect it to be? No, but I was hoping.

Just go see it. It's certainly worth it, just don't expect it to be The Greatest Sequel Ever.

So, I'm sitting just a shade under 24 hours until I go see The Matrix Reloaded, and I'm really starting to worry about the hype factor. Nothing can live up to hype like this. Non-stop trailers, Powerade commercials, billboards, magazine ads, hell, it's own /. category. I'm obviously enough of a superdork to be going tomorrow night, I just hope it's not too much of a letdown. At least X2 was good. Fear not, gentle readers, I'll let you know how it was once I get home.

They're haunting me. All day. All night. I can't resist much longer.

Because I seem to forget every few years, I thought I'd make a public service announcement for the general health of the internet readers out there. Ghostly white people like me (are you listening, J$?) who spend all Saturday morning drinking on the beach, and all Saturday afternoon sleeping on the beach, are in for a very painful week. You've been warned.

So, reviewing my webalizer stats recently, I noticed that the number 3 search referral to my site was "bullpen from hell cleveland indians". Ouch. Sure, they're struggling, but that hurts. I blame this on you, Dad.

Nothing makes me happier than watching poor Kobe and Shaq gettting pasted by the Spurs. Hehe.

So, my fancy-pants new laptop decided sometime in the last week or two that it would no longer recognize one of the two 512MB RAM sticks in it. Embarrassingly enough, it took me several days of sluggish behavior for me to realize this. Tried both sticks, they're fine, one of the slot's connections just isn't there. I've seen a lot of busted old computers doing a lot of weird things, but I've never seen a two-month old laptop just stop recognizing RAM. Stinking IBM, I'd call them up and give them a piece of my mind if they didn't pay my salary and hadn't given me the laptop in the first place.

sniff DVD is all growed up. Two problems, first and foremost, the first movie in this set is titled "Raiders of the Lost Ark", NOT "Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark". Second, when the hell is Lucas going to get hit with the cluestick and do this for "Star Wars"? It's money in the bank, I don't get it.

cheap...small...old...close...Perfect. Let the refreshing-frenzy begin.