News you can use

I had the honor of attending an academic discussion with renowned author and zombie expert Max Brooks tonight. He appeared completely in character and schooled the assembled crowd on the ways of zombie survival in an honest and frank way, but with a certain degree of self-awareness about it. Things I learned, presented in bullet-point form for your convenience:

*A sledgehammer or blade is preferable to a firearm for the simple fact that you do not need to reload one.

*Were zombies to invade a college campus, like say UWM, jocks not only make excellent workhorses but also serve as cannon fodder.

*The phrase "Hey babe, wanna be in my zombie group?", in addition to being a poor preparedness-builder, is not particularly effective as a pick-up line either.

*The line between zombie and stoned-out hippie is much thinner than you might expect, though you should put a cap in either of them just to be sure.

All in all, perfectly worth missing House for.

I returned to the Ancestral Motherland over the weekend and slipped back into the role of Dungeonmaster to preside over a game of Dungeons and Dragons for my younger blood relations and some other guy. Among my devious machinations were the Corruption Corpse and the Gelatinous Cube, a D&D standby. The players escaped with little but their lives and a tale to spin at the local inn.

Roommate the Second is having a very lively discussion with a Bot right now. And goodness-do-I-really-have-a-class-in-eight-hours?

In which our hero is accused of being a racist.

At Borders, if you are a member of our club, you get coupons. Lots of them. They offer a discount on any one item. I had to clarify this to a customer who proceeded to act like I was trying to pull one over on her. I respond with slight curtness. She yanks her bag from my hands and walks off in a huff.

This is where I stick my tongue out at her departing back. Supervisor sees this, but shrugs it off. Twenty minutes later, he tells me about a call he received. Customer had called back and claimed she was treated very rudely (and here's the best part) because of the fact that she was African-American. This same supervisor was there while I rang her up, which she must have realized, because she asked for a different supervisor and hung up after being told there was no one else on duty. Supervisor tells me he knows it's BS and then says "I don't think she saw you stick your tongue out, though."

So that was fun.

OMG, Flashforward last night? Totally Godwined itself. And it took them only three episodes to introduce a Nazi! This is right after episode two, with Mysterious-Evil-Guy-Holed-Up-In-An-Abandoned-Doll-Factory-Because-That's-Creepy-Right? trying to kill our heroes.

And speaking of Heroes, shit went down. Sylar's back which is good, Hiro discovers the futility of his power (also good), Tracy is lame (par for the course), and Claire ambles around with no discernible plot function again.

Tekken 6 is out in about two weeks, and it'll fulfill my annual quota of three (3) video games a year to be super excited about, along with February's excellent Killzone 2 and the upcoming probably-excellent Assassin's Creed II. I've been playing the Tekken series since I could express my age on my fingers and I'm eagerly anticipating this installment. It's likely to be the best Tekken game since Tekken 5. If only because you can play as a fat guy and a cyborg teenage girl with chainsaws for hands

'Cuz you can't get anywhere without practice.

I have an exam tomorrow. This one is for English 291 - Introduction to Television Studies. I'm studying for it now, and by "studying", I of course mean Internetting while having the UWM D2L site and a study guide open in the other tabs. I don't think I'm going to bother.

Eins, I watch loads of TV. Have been for years now. I like to think I know what's going on.

Zwei, I took loads of film classes and not much changes between film and TV. And this is all from memory now, same basic lighting scheme (key, fill, and back lights), same seven types of shots (extreme long, long, medium long, medium, medium close-up, close-up, extreme close-up), and TV directors still follow the 180 degree rule as well as the 30 degree rule. (Though Castle did break it the other night.)

Drei, the study guide was just a plain ol' list of terms (95% of which I knew) and the whole thing was written without a single capital letter. It's like she didn't even try.

In other news, I really liked this.

The moral of the story is that, um, love... conquers... all... ?

So I was at work right? And I have a cold, so my head's all stuffed up and that makes me interact with customers weird (like referring to a lady and her young daughter as "dudes", or being kind of an asshole* to that customer in the Children's section)? And I had to rearrange graphic novels again because corporate keeps changing their minds?

And then I saw these things.

Oh yes. Those are taglines alright. "Edward and Bella's favorite book!" "The original forbidden love!"

As much as I love the Bard, I'm almost certain the concept of forbidden love had been around for quite a while before, gosh, 1590-ish. And if there's one thing the kids are really into, it's Bronte. And that's just the beginning of my problems with this entire... thing.

brb, mourning the next generation's appreciation of literature





*Not entirely reliant on me having a cold, admittedly.

He didn't really get much accomplished there, other than growing some fierce muttonchops.

This post contains House spoilers. But not until the final paragraph.

Rgh, do you really think you can get away with pre-empting Castle tonight, ABC? I don't care who the Packers are playing, I needs me some Captain Reynolds being smarmy and solving crimes. Argh. Another TV show sacrificed at the altar in the name of the horrific and writhing deity that is Monday Night Foot Ball.

I put together the Arche Gundam. Mine doesn't look quite as pink as that, though. A fairly quick build, took about three hours over the course of two days between the snap-fit and the detailing. There may be a post devoted to it later.

Hey! I got accepted into an online Play-by-Post game of Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition! That is to say, my character Dagarth Crossroad did. The game will be the Scales of War adventure, something I'm not really familiar with, so it should be rad.

Also! Look what Roommate the Second bought! I'll let you know how they taste.

So listen, dude who sat near me in Meteorology today. Don't read over both versions of the test that you were given, because one of them is supposed to be passed to me. The professor did not decide to give you the opportunity to compare the two and decide which test you would rather take, he decided you would be competent enough to merely TAKE ONE AND PASS THE OTHER TO YOUR NEIGHBOR, who is waiting very patiently, even though he studied and could probably deal with either version perfectly well. I'll be way interested to know how you did, though.

What else? House tonight. Epic.

If, back when the show started, you had told me that Chase would ultimately be responsible for the fate of a nation, and that the episode that this occurs in would involve James Earl Jones guest-starring? I'd have said there's no way that this show could get that cool. However, if you had told me that Thirteen would be angry at Foreman and their relationship would be boring and lame, I would've believed that completely 100%.

In which our hero makes a bad financial decision.

And here's what it looks like.



(Not pictured: a bottle of Pepsi Wild Cherry and a bottle of orange Juice.)

Two model kits for about $50. I didn't really need to eat this week, after all.

And it has transparent effect parts!!! Pretty!!! And the Cherudim's GN Rifle barrel snapped off the tree in transit!!! No biggie!!!

I hadn't counted on Lost World of Wonders in Milwaukee actually restocking anything (because they never do), but welp, here they are. On the plus side, I drove through downtown Milwaukee with more or less complete confidence and didn't get lost once.

So OMG, Brothers Bloom is finally out on DVD this week! I have not been so completely sure of a film's quality in quite some time. I'll let you know how it is. (It'll be awesome.)

Meteorology test tomorrow, but not terribly worried about it. Taking it for the accursed Natural Science requirements. I wonder if they make all the Engineering Majors take classes about poetry and the ramifications of "being". Fortunately, I can satisfy that requirement by taking stuff that 7-Year Old Alex was way interested in, like dinosaurs, space and weather. Also, you can't really take practical Lab courses for any of those things so the Lab sections are way easy and way short.

I'm eating a Nestle Drumstick for supper right now. But there's a pizza in the oven, too, so I guess that's... dessert?

That's okay because that's all right.

(This evening at work.)

Borders Second-in-Command: Hey Alex, are you able to work at all tomorrow? We'd need someone 2-7 or 2-8.

Alex's Id: Nah, I'd rather sit around the house.

Alex's Ego: The responsible thing to do would be to come into work, you know.

Id: What? You have Friday off. Greater men than you have tried and failed to get Fridays off!

Ego: That's well and good, but I do have plenty of work to do here.

Id: You were going to have a lazy day! The Internet's not going to surf itself, after all!

Ego: And how do you propose we pay for that Internet, and indeed, that house we use it in?

Id: Fine, there's errands and schoolwork you could do...

Ego: Now that's pathetic. You and I both know we're not going to be doing any of that. We're going into work tomorrow.

Id: Well fine. She said you could work the 2-7 shift, that's five hours! You'd be back home before you know it!

Ego: I'll take 2-8. That way I get a break and I get a little more pay. End of discussion.

Id: *pouts*

Alex: Yeah, I can do 2-8 tomorrow.

Borders Second-in-Command: Oooooookay. Thanks a lot.

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I'm so glad that Hulu puts up The Daily Show and The Colbert Report immediately the next day. This way, I can sit at home and watch them at 10 and 10:30 in the evening, just like at my parents' house! Except on a laptop! And in a less-than-comfy chair!

And they say Jon Stewart has a democratic bias. He just spent half the show cracking jokes about how the Democrats haven't gotten shit accomplished this year.

In other news, my life has recently become clear again. Existence has meaning once more. They are opening a Five Guys burger restaurant within WALKING DISTANCE from my house. I now consider my choice to move out fully and completely justified.