grypeseye

If we're talking about actual arcade games, my choice would be Time Pilot. I just loved playing that. Tempest was a favorite back in the day too.

As for console games, I'd choose Zombie Ate My Neighbors on the Sega Genesis. Lots of goofy horror fun.

If we're talking about actual arcade games, my choice would be Time Pilot. I just loved playing that. Tempest was a favorite back in the day too.

As for console games, I'd choose Zombie Ate My Neighbors on the Sega Genesis. Lots of goofy horror fun.

If you don't want to read about the Battlestar Galactica series finale, stop now. I'm not going to delve deeply into spoilers (except for my comparison and minor rant on the end of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine), but I wanted to give you fair warning.

That was the most satisfying series finale I have ever seen! It rated up there with the last episode of Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni Kai. They managed to answer a lot of questions without making it feel rushed. It was much better than the last episode of Deep Space Nine ("Yay! We won the Dominion war! Oh yeah, Gul Dukat is an evil thingie now. Let's spend 15 minutes on that. I guess we have 10-15 minutes left to destroy every relationship in the series.")

My favorite line is from the quote above. I always wondered what would happen if both of them were there together. Now we know. Glee!

Tomorrow is the series finale for Battlestar Galactica. I'm actually surprised that the show didn't get canned before it reached an end point.

The Sci Fi Channel has a notorious history of canceling good shows: Farscape, Dresden Files, The Invisible Man and both Stargate series. Some of those show were canceled AFTER they were renewed.

The channel also dropped almost all of the reruns of otherwise forgotten shows. I saw most Gerry Anderson shows for the first time on that channel. I got to see Probe for the first time since it aired. They aired early Dark Shadows (pre-Barnabus) before any of it was commercially available. They showed Earth 2, Fantastic Journey, Something Is Out There, Planet of the Apes, The Prisoner (with introductions by Harlan Ellison), and Hammer's TV series. They weren't winners by any means, but at least we could watch them again. A lot of what they aired 10-20 years ago still hasn't been released on DVD.

I had a soft spot for the future news spots. Somewhere, I have a tape of the special they ran on the storyline they developed over the year from their short segments.

I loved the interviews and commentary from their news show. It was fun to listen to Harlan Ellison rant about whatever was on his mind every week.

All of that is gone now. The last show I watch on that station ends tomorrow.

Now they're becoming SyFy. It's a marketer's dream name. It doesn't mean anything, so you can make it mean anything you want. Does it mean more wresting and reality shows? Why not?

The station has become irrelevant. The owners and programmers aren't even pretending to care about their original audience anymore. After tomorrow, I don't think I'll watch the channel again.

"Yum it up" which I picked up from Red Dwarf. Basically, it means that I really liked what I'm eating.

I am so happy that Barack Obama has been elected the next President!

I guess it's a decent way to describe my musical tastes...

Your Taste in Music:

Eighties: Highest Influence Classic Rock: High Influence Electronic/Dance: High Influence Alternative Rock: Medium Influence Indie Rock: Medium Influence

I had a great weekend.

Friday: After work, I went to Showcase for the monthly anime club meeting. I don't remember what we watched besides the latest Gonzo series (magical girl meets mecha in WWII). I go more for the socializing that the actual shows most months. Still, I get a chance to see new stuff. My friend Weasel turned me on to a new group called Within Temptation. I'll have to track down some of their CDs.

Saturday: I spent the day at ConVersation. It was the first local con outside of MediaWest*Con that I had attended in 3 years. It was a lot of fun. I got to catch up with several friends, play some new games (I love Puerto Rico) and pick up a copy of Zombie Fluxx. I also discovered that someone I know works nearby and would really like to watch more anime. Hopefully, I can help make that happen.

Sunday: Andrea and I got together with Jane to watch "The Happening" Despite the horrendous reviews I had read (my favorite was "career killer"), the movie wasn't that bad. Unfortunately, it wasn't that good either. It went between lame and laughable with a few moments of brilliance. Too bad there were very few good moments.

Our cat Teesha died Tuesday night. She was 12 years old. She wasn't in any pain. She just got weaker and more frail over the course of several weeks until she died in my girlfriend's arms. I'm glad we were home for her.

We took her out to Andrea's mom's house and buried her under a cluster of trees in the back yard the next day.

Teesha the first cat (along with our other cat Singularity, or Singy for short) that ever bonded with me. In fact, Andrea took it as a good sign that the cats approved of me when she debated going out with me.

I'll miss her little mews when she begged for food. I'll miss her scrounging off our plates after we're done. I'll miss her walking over me as she moved to Andrea's lap. I'll miss her ability to get between us at the most inappropriate times. I'll even miss the little surprises she'd leave on the floor sometimes.

I just plain miss her right now.

Two weeks ago, I ordered a couple of movie score CDs from Intrada. The CDs were at my house in two days! They had to have filled the order that very afternoon and had it in transit before the day was through. I love their service (and my new WarGames CD).

Four jobs I have had in my life:
1. Insurance biller
2. Security guard
3. NOAA temp secretary
4. Microform Specialist (meaning that I knew how to work the microfiche machine)

Four movies I would watch over and over:
1. The Princess Brice
2. Wall-E
3. Iron Monkey
4. Idiocracy

Four T.V. Shows I watch:
1. Doctor Who (I'm including the spin-offs Torchwood and the Sarah Jane Adventures)
2. Law & Order: Criminal Intent
3. Ninja Warrior
4. Gordon Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares

Four places I have been:
1. London
2. Edinburgh
3. Los Angeles
4. Mackinac Island

Four people that email me regularly:
1. My friend Michele
2. eBay
3. my cousin
4. Peter Payne

Four of my favorite foods:
1. Tiramisu
2. Bi bim bop
3. Sushi
4. Cornbread

Place I would like to be now:
1. Tokyo (especially Akihabara)
2. Barcelona (the planet, not the city)
3. New New York
4. London

Things I am looking forward to this year:
1. Witchblade on DVD!
2. The TV and movie costume exhibit at Henry Ford
3. Thanksgiving in Florida
4. Finally putting all of the DVDs and CDs on shelves

I just came back from this year's MediaWest*Con. (I'll reflect on the con in another post.) Something struck me during this past weekend. I have been in fandom for 25 years. In fact, it will be 25 years next month.

I started my journey into fandom when I was a kid. I got hooked on the Star Wars movies and collected a lot of the toys. Along the way, I also eagerly watched reruns of Star Trek and Lost In Space. I even got to see the pilot episodes of Buck Rogers and the original Battlestar Galactica on the big screen. A lot of my earliest movie memories were of such SF classics as Alien, Close Encounters and Star Wars.

Then one fateful day, I found an issue of Famous Monsters at the nearby pharmacy. My mom had picked up a few issues for me before, but this particular one featured Doctor Who. I had never heard of the show, but seeing pictures of Daleks, Cybermen and Sontarans just hooked me. I wanted to see more, but I didn't know how.

In 1980, my folks took me on my first trip to England. I was lucky enough to see the Madame Tussaud's Doctor Who exhibit. Also, I happened to be there for the only time in years they showed reruns on BBC. For 4 straight days, I watched State of Decay. (I didn't discover for years that it was a weekly show. It took even longer to find out how rare reruns were in Britain at the time.) I just absorbed the show. I knew THIS was the show for me. My mom bought me a few of the novelizations in Harrods. I read all 3 of them in a week.

Fortunately, one of the local stations started to carry the show. I watched the last episode of Robot (the first Tom Baker story) and just continued from there. This was my show. Every day at 5PM, I was glued to the screen as I watched the Doctor's adventures through time and space. I couldn't really talk about it though, since nobody else in my school watched the show.

In June 1983, Eastern Michigan University hosted the first King Con, a VERY local comic con, since I lived in Ypsilanti at the time. I went to see the artist of the Robotech comics*. (Robotech was my other obsession at the time and my gateway into otakudom.) I met the artist, got an autograph and sketch of Rick Hunter, then wandered through the rest of the con. That little con really opened up my world. Not only did I get introduced to a lot of comics that I never heard of (especially Doom Patrol) and bought a copy of Mechanoids (one of Palladium Books earliest books and my introduction to RPGs), I met my friend Bruce.

Bruce was running Doctor Who in a video room at the con. I sat down and watched it for a long while. Before I left, I picked up a flier for a group he was starting: Time Lords of the Great Lakes. I soon joined and was one of their youngest members (if not the youngest). I met several of my friends through that club. I even met Julie, my cube-mate at work, in that video room. Ever since then, I have been involved in various fan clubs and conventions to this day.

* I can kick myself now for not getting autographs from Neal Adams, Dave Sim and Frank Miller, who were also guests at the con. Then again, I didn't really get into comics until 1986, right around the release of Crisis On Infinite Earths. (I only started collecting comics, because the local comic shop of that time, Big Bob's Comics, carried Doctor Who Monthly.)

What Be Your Nerd Type? Your Result: Anime Nerd   If anyone is likely to dress up in a crazy outfit, you are! You enjoy the visual stimulants of intense art accompanied with deep plots of fantasy, science-fiction, real-life; or you are just obsessed with Japan and everyone and everything in it. They love to gather with people like themselves at conventions and act crazy! The anime nerds are often associated with the stereotype of being the "psychotic" nerd, because they tend to be obsessive over their characters and series. You psycho! I'm just kidding! But seriously, all forms of art should be appreciated, and anime is definitely one of them.
Literature Nerd
Science/Math Nerd
Gamer/Computer Nerd
Drama Nerd
Musician
Social Nerd
Artistic Nerd
What Be Your Nerd Type? Quizzes for MySpace

I usually don't pass along these "add your name" lists that end
up in my e-mail, but this one is too important ..

This one has been circulating for months and months.
Please do not delete .. If you don't want to sign, at least keep it
going! To show your support for Kwame Kilpatrick not to quit his job as
Mayor and encourage him in his rerun for Mayor of Detroit in 2008,
please add your name to the rapidly growing list below and send it on to
your entire e-mail list.



1. Kwame Kilpatrick
2. Cristine Beatty
3..

I'd like to get to know you better. Feel free to fill this out. I'll be happy to respond in kind.

1.)Q. Can you cook?
1.)A.

2.)Q. What was your dream growing up?
2.)A.

3.)Q. What talent do you wish you had?
3.)A.

4.)Q. If I bought you a drink what would it be?
4.)A.

5.)Q. How did we meet?
5.)A.

6.)Q. What was the last book you read?
6.)A.

7.)Q. What zodiac sign are you?
7.) A.

8.)Q. Any Tattoos and/or Piercings?
8.)A.

9.)Q. Worst Habit?
9.)A.

10.)Q. If you saw me walking down the street would you offer me a ride?
10.)A

11.)Q. What is your favorite sport?
11.)A.

12.)Q. Negative or Optimistic attitude?
12.)A.

13.)Q. What would you do if you were stuck in an elevator with me?
13.)A.

14.)Q. Worst thing to ever happen to you?
14.)A.

15.)Q. Tell me one weird fact about you.
15.)A.

16.)Q. Do you have any pets?
16.)A.

17.)Q. What if I showed up at your house unexpectedly?
17.)A.

18.)Q. What was your first impression of me?
18.)A.

19.)Q. Do you think clowns are cute or scary?
19.)A.

20.)Q. If you could change one thing about how you look, what would it be???
20.)A.

21.)Q. Would you be my crime partner or my conscience?
21.)A

22.)Q. What color eyes do you have?
22.)A.

23.)Q. Ever been arrested?
23.)A.

24.)Q. Bottle or Draft?
24.)A.

25.)Q. If you won $10,000 dollars today, what would you do with it?
25.)A.

26.)Q. Would you date me?
26.)A.

27.)Q. Where's your favorite place to hang out?
27.)A.

28.)Q. Do you believe in ghosts?
28.)A.

29.)Q. Favorite thing to do in your spare time?
29.)A.

30.)Q. Do you swear a lot?
30.)A.

31.)Q. Biggest pet peeve?
31.)A.

32.)Q. In one word, how would you describe yourself?
32.)A.

33.)Q. Do you believe/appreciate romance?
33.)A.

34.)Q. If you could spend 12 hours with me and ask/do anything you like, what would it be?
34.)A.

35)Q. Do you believe in God? Something else?
35)A.

36.)Q. Will you repost this so I can fill it out and do the same?
36.)A.

I recently re-watched Destroy All Monsters. I like this Godzilla movie since it's the pivotal movie where Godzilla becomes a good monster instead of a destructive nuclear god. It has lots of monsters and a great Akira Ifukube score.

When I threw in my DVD, I was reminded why I hated the disc.

ADV made the crappiest bare bones DVD they could. No extras. No chapter stops. Not even a fricking menu screen. The movie starts the moment you pop in the DVD. When the movie ends, it just starts over again.

Why couldn't ADV bother with even the most basic features? Columbia-Tristar's release of Godzilla Vs. Hedorah had different audio tracks and subtitles. Even some crap film like The Screaming Skull had a menu screen!

Now, on the positive side, ADV did release the Ifukube score for the movie. Still, would it have troubled them to include a track list, so I knew what music went where in the movie? I guess so.

ADV really missed the boat with this movie. I'm glad that Columbia-Tristar and Toho have put out decent releases. Maybe one of those companies can re-release the film.

My Ultra Meta Mega '80s music compilation had been stalled at around 800 tracks because I filled up my hard drive. Fortunately, I recently bought a 300GB external drive. I can load stuff onto the new drive and clear space on the old drive.

Now I just need to sort through and edit some of the tracks. I don't really need a dozen tracks from some groups. Heck, there's some "Best of" compilations I've heard where the 1 or 2 songs I know are really all I want.

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Wood type: mahogany Length: 11 inches Core: Kelpie Hair get your own wand!