SuperSatellite

Here’s a Big Fat Digest

// August 12th, 2008 // 1 Comment » // Brain dumps, Creativity, Tech, Web, Writing

Okay, here’s a summary post to cover a bunch of different crap.  Turns out I’m very busy lately, and there have been some changes that will probably impact my normal blog posting routine.  I know… you’re heartbroken.  Now, I’m fully aware that I have no routine as it is, but I aspire to, and those aspirations are being interrupted somewhat.

So, the first big news is that I am now blogging “professionally” for .eduGuru, which is a web technology development blog sorta thing for higher education.  That means things that I used to talk about here will probably get diverted there.  Now, generic web stuff I’ll still post here, as well as things like dotCMS guides and my personal stuff will be here, so don’t panic or anything.  If anything, it means stuff around here will be less dry, and I’ll get to tickle your funny bone more.  And believe it or not, my first post is already up at .eduGuru.  I invite you to go read it, of course.  Here’s a snippet:

Is Hosted Search Really Ready for Prime Time?
In my years that I’ve now spent in higher education, one universal truth I have found is that nothing quite moves a project along like when someone much more important and much less web savvy than you deems an issue worth addressing.  Such was the case only a couple months after I had started at the university, when the Director of Marketing noticed that new information she had put up on the site wasn’t coming up in search results, and the results that were hitting weren’t particularly relevant to the topic in the first place.  Thus, a mission was born, to find a way to make our search better, and to do it NOW.  That’s the other thing about people higher up than you, when they say jump, generally you jump…
[read the rest of this at .eduGuru]

Naturally, that will probably appeal to all two of you.  Something more interesting, however, is that I have a new play idea I am currently researching.  It’s the sort of thing that I feel has the potential to be great, too.  I just got the memoirs of the chap that’s at the heart of the story that I finally tracked down on interlibrary loan (I only found one copy for sale online, and it was over $200).  I have one other book that I need to track down a copy of as well.  Hopefully it will be everything I expect.  I will give you more information once I have a better idea of if it will pan out the way I hope it will.  Research must come first though.

I relaunched Penpedia tonight.  I decided Drupal was a little too robust for my needs, and I don’t have time to learn it to a degree to really leverage its power well.  I’m like a monkey with a jackhammer when it comes to Drupal.  WordPress, on the other hand, I know inside and out, so I switched to that for the new system.  I was lazy and did not design the theme, though I plan on doing some work to customize it a little in the near future.  So if you’re a fountain pen person, go give the new site a look-see.

Brandon showed me a cool site the other day I’d like to share.  It’s an online stock trading game called UpDown.com.  Basically, it’s a total nerd type game.  Think fantasy football, only with stocks (but I have a fantasy football league going too).  You start with a million bucks, and see how well you can play the market.  This sounds stupid, only it isn’t.  For one, it’s actually kinda cool, because you really are fighting the system, and you have limited time to do it (the stock market isn’t open 24 hours a day after all).  Plus, it can help you get an idea of how to play the market, should you want to do it for real later, so it’s great practice, especially for you kiddos out there who actually understand the only way you will survive retirement is to have your own money.  So go check it out.

YouTube MADNESS

// July 2nd, 2008 // No Comments » // Entertainment, Life and Times, Movies, News

I’ve been busy molesting the YouTube lately, and have tossed up a few videos recently.  It’s been a while since I actually used YouTube, and I sorta hope I can find excuses to do it more (Steve, time to hunt down more energy drinks).  I figured that stuff, combined with some cool crap I saw recently, was worth making a post full of videos for you to waste 15 minutes on.

This weekend, Steve began his quest to find the most vile, awful energy drink on the market.  Naturally, I had to have my camera handy for the event.  Keep in mind, these things are only a buck a piece.  Popular drinks like Monster are about two and a half times that because… well… the actually care about important things like taste (sort of).  This first one was called Ol’ Glory.  Even though it had an aftertaste like homeless guy rubbed in orange peels, it was actually marginally tolerable.

Round two was a knock out punch though.  A couple days after the Ol’ Glory test, Steve decided to brave the blue can of death flavor of Steven Segal’s Lightning Bolt.  He had already tried the vile and disturbing Cherry Charge flavor a few weeks back.  That can had two things going for it: one was that it had a name that at least implied a flavor, and second was that it had some vague cherry Robitussin distillate overtone to try and cover the taste of your soul being burned away.  Asian Experience flavor had neither of these.  I’m pretty sure if you tried something that one might call a real Asian experience, it would not taste good, and probably leave you robbed and beaten in an alley, with untold STDs.  There is no logical path one can walk that would result in this concoction’s creation, where someone would try it and think, “Yes, this is absolutely marketable!” This must be what they give to prisoners at Gitmo to get them to talk.

I haven’t talked about any movies recently.  I will mention that Wanted wasn’t too bad, but I still haven’t caught Wall-E like I wanted.  Hancock is much more interesting to me now than when the first trailers came out.  And what I’m reading about The Dark Knight is beyond encouraging.  Then, out of the woodwork this morning came this redband trailer for Mirror, a remake of the Korean film Into the Mirror, and starring Kiefer Sutherland.  I know nothing about the original, and Alexandre Aja hasn’t endeared himself to me through his past work, but this trailer is certainly cut well, and implies a very good, creepy film.  Hopefully the movie itself is more than just the sum of the parts of the trailer.

Being a big Joss Whedon, NPH, and Nathan Fillion fan, I have no idea how Dr. Horrible managed to sneak under the radar and be missed by me until now.  But this looks plenty funny and entertaining, and I haven’t a clue what it’s really about, and I’m already planning on buying the DVD.  The matter is pretty cut and dry, really.  Joss does no wrong, except when he kills people.  Then I cry.  But they’re manly tears.  Don’t judge me.

Speaking of Joss, and having nothing to do with him, but everything to do with movies and awesome people, I am absolutely stoked about Repo! the Genetic Opera.  It looked quirky and interesting before.  I dig quirky and interesting.  Then the latest trailer came out, and it has moved from an oddity I wanted to see, to a top shelf, will-not-miss theater moment.  First off, the new trailer makes the flick look and sound badass.  Paris who?  I don’t even care.  The Repo Man is none other than Anthony Stewart Farking Head!  I had no idea he was even in it.  Then there’s also Bill Moseley.  So say what you will, I’m going, and you’ll miss out if you don’t.

Lastly, I was on TV last night!  Okay, so it’s not that big a deal, but hey, it’s exciting to me.  PSU got its single largest donation ever, a $10 million pledge to go towards building the oft delayed and much needed fine and performing arts center.  Being the only youngish theatre alum at the press conference, I was summoned to give some opinions.  Naturally, I DVR’d them and uploaded the two clips to YouTube, one from 6:00 and a different one at 10:00.  Apparently they also used me on the morning segment today.  I guess they were really short on interviewees.  In all fairness, this money totals about one third of the cost of the building, so we still have some time before we see ground broken, but this gets all the right gears in motion now.

Clean up

// March 12th, 2008 // 2 Comments » // Brain dumps

Marisol is finally over with.  The play ended well, and ran smoothly throughout.  I think I accomplished my goal of gaining back lost ground.  Everyone seemed to think that the sound was more than adequate.  Memorial Auditorium came through with their stage mic.  However, I think it’s time for a break again.  I enjoy it, but it is very stressful, and I find myself so busy that committing the time to taking care of sound for a show is not the easiest thing in the world right now.  I’d also like a chance to pick up a few new pieces of gear before the next show I do.

That said, I did get a group together after the post mortem today to do a reading of Freefall, my one act that I’ve been writing since finishing Walking.  It went well, and the feedback was very positive.  I was pleased with the comments made on the dialog, something I’ve been taking a lot of care with.  I plan on doing the first round of major revisions now, as well as lengthening it some to address what I found out today.  I could sure use someone looking to direct a new one act, hint, hint.  I do need to start scouting festivals and such to submit to though.  I think Freefall is some of my better work recently.  So, while I don’t want to work on a show again right away, I do plan on using the down time to funnel creative energy into my own projects.

Speaking of creativity, I’m in the middle of redesigning my blog.  I’m about 45% done so far.  I haven’t done a WordPress theme in quite a while, so it’s been a little slow getting back in to it.  My development environment is also not ideal, it turns out.  It’s just giving me some bugs when trying to work on it at home.  I think you’ll like it though, quite a bit different from the way it is now.  I’m pretty happy with how it’s shaping up, and I don’t normally give myself a ton of credit in the design realm.  It’s not that I can’t, it’s just that to do it well, I generally have to put forth more effort than I want to do for myself, or for free.  Just so happens that this covers both of those.  Sure, I suppose I could pay myself, but where would that really get me?

Michaele and I took advantage of the play being over to start some wedding planning.  June 6th is the big date it looks like.  Next year, not this year.  I’m not that crazy.  I also posted one of the pictures we had taken.  Wal-Mart does pretty cheap portraits, though the other picture came out awfully dark.  It doesn’t help that I don’t photograph well.  I’m not good at smiling on command, as as you can see, I look bucktoothed.  We’re trying to get a budget in line right now.  Unfortunately, I’m a little new to the whole marriage thing, so I’m not totally sure what we should be shooting for.  Advice?

Once in a while I get finicky

// February 26th, 2008 // No Comments » // Books, Brain dumps, Theatre

Sorry that I’ve been too busy lately to write much. Marisol is running at the studio theatre at PSU next week, Thursday thru Saturday (I think that’s right anyway…). I’ve been pretty tied up doing the sound design/board op stuff for it as we prepare for full tech rehearsals. I have to make up for lost ground due to Alice in Wonderland (don’t ask). Anyway, sound for this show is shaping up to be quite a spot of all right, and so far the cast has been happy with it. It’s just a time suck, as usual. I stand by the theory that I could go for a shorter year if it meant each day could have a couple more hours to them. Be sure to stop by if you get the chance, it’s a short show. I think once this wraps, I’m going to take a longish break from theatre, and get back to writing (as well as finding someone to produce Walking).

It’s a good thing I’m not actually in it though. My voice is apparently taking a vacation from my body at the moment. I feel fine though otherwise, which I’m hoping isn’t a bad sign. I say that only because of that super crappy throat infection I had a couple years ago that was similar. Like swallowing molten shards of glass. I’m keeping an eye on it, so far there isn’t anything resembling that former pain, so it might just be random sore throat. But I sure do sound funny.

I finished Yakuza Moon last week. It was all right. You could tell it had been translated (some of the language was awkward, and it was far from without typographical errors). It wasn’t quite what I had expected. Very “young lady overcoming adversity,” not so much “young lady fighting the dark shadow of the Yakuza boss father.” It is, however, a fast read, which makes up for some of the lack of details. I just expected a little more information about the skeletons in the closet her family had or something like that. It was just more personal than I expected. But, it was also her first (and so far only?) book. I suspect future work will be a little thicker around the middle, hopefully. I’m probably coming across as very “don’t bother reading this book,” though, and I don’t want to give that impression. It wasn’t what I expected, but it was still a fine read. And it’s short enough that even if you don’t like it, you aren’t out much time.

Jamaica we have a bobsled team!

Dinosaurs Attack!

// October 9th, 2006 // No Comments » // Brain dumps

So I am lapsing into longer and longer periods between writing.  Oh well.  You can deal, right?  I should try to establish a routine maybe.  Or do more interesting things that give me funny stories I can tell.

So the Alpha Psi group went to see Urinetown in Wichita at the Century 2 theatre Friday night.  If anyone likes them some funny musical theatre and will be in Wichita, I highly recommend going to see it.  What was crazy was what I found when I got home.  The picures below sort of explain it.  Yes, that is a cactus balanced on the faucet.  My only guess is that my cat decided that the cactus no longer belonged in the window, and decided to rectify the problem with some unique rearranging.  How the clumsy ass managed to not skewer herself is beyond me.

I have decided to buy a house I think.  My landlord is looking to sell the place I am renting, and while it is cheap and convenient, I’d rather not deal with the hassle of a new landlord, new rules, and potentially higher rent.  Besides, at this point I’m really just throwing away $375 each month when I could be building some equity.  Making an investment.  There are some cheap, cheap houses around here that need some work, that when done, would net me a tidy little profit.  I talked to him about buying my house and the duplex next door, but it turns out they are substantially more valuable than I would have ever guessed.  I looked at a couple places Saturday, and am gonna look at another tonight or tomorrow.  We’ll see.

So I was over at Fark.com this morning, and I found this article about Dinosaurs Attack.  It was awesome because I have the complete set.  And the cards are every bit as cool, vicious, and graphic as they describe.  If you ever want to check them out, let me know, I’ll be happy to share.  Imagine if someone tried to market these today.  Really, I would suspect they just managed to slip through the cracks, but still.  Ahh, childhood memories…

After several days with the new guitar, I really am 100% pleased with my decision to buy it.  I couldn’t ask for a better sound for the money I think.  Granted, I’m wearing my fingers down to the nubbies, but it’s good for me!