Special When Lit: A Pinball Documentary rekindles my love of pinball.

I was really bored last night and since I don't have Netflix anymore (for a few months now) I was trying to hunt up something to watch on the internet that wasn't just some crap on youtube.  I recently started using hulu to watch stuff - mainly documentaries.  As many of you may know, when I'm not watching horror movies I usually watch documentaries these days.  I'm kind of surprised at the wide collection hulu has, especially when it comes to docus of the popular culture/sub-culture variety.  After watching a docu about Star Wars fans I stumbled across Special When Lit: A Pinball Documentary (2009).

It was a fascinating look at the history and culture of pinball and its followers.  One thing I learned was pinball was illegal for nearly thirty years in most of the United States because the powers that be thought pinball was a social ill.  Another thing I learned is there is only one pinball company left in the USA, Stern Pinball.  The thing that astounded me the most was learning the name of man who created the pinball games I truly love, Mark Ritchie.  He worked for Williams Pinball and designed games like Getaway, The Twilight Zone, The Addams Family (a game I actually loathe), Star Trek: The Next Generation, and my personal all time favorite Indiana Jones (I've included a gameplay video I found online further down).

Watching Special When Lit was entertaining but also steeped in mono no aware.  By the end of the docu I was on one hand inspired to run out and find a game but I was also depressed because of the fact I haven't seen a pinball machine in years.  The last place I played was in a washateria in Austin back in the very early 00s (which had Indiana Jones but swapped it out for fucking Addams Family).  There are only Tekken, Ms. Pac-Man, and The Simpsons in the laundromat near my place.  The closest bar only has pool, ping pong, and some shit kicker hunting shooter.  The dirt mall only has four crappy arcade games (one of which is The Simpsons).  I'm not sure if there's a single arcade game on campus.  You can't throw a rock without hitting a pool table, which is great if you're into that.  So what am I supposed to do?

Well, truth be told, I think I'm gonna find me a pinball machine in Nac.  Somewhere in town has to have one, I'm just gonna have to look.  There's a bowling alley next to the movie theater and there's Skatarama.  There's a couple of laundromats.  If any of you folks in Nac know of a machine please let me know.  Might be a fun little quest to embark on.

Special Ed - I`m The Magnificent

Window shopping a new PC monitor...

with all the game time I have been putting into EVE and the minimal amount of time I have used my TV (read none), especially since I dropped netflix and my 360 is pretty much acting as a DVD player now (the one DVD I watched).

I tried to rig up my 32" Vizio to the PC but couldn't get the settings right, got angry, and wanted to punch something.  Additionally my Vizio is a plasma, it's a great TV and works like a charm but I know that if I tried to play something like EVE on it the screen burn would be almost instant.  Aaaargh, hindsight is 20/20.  If I had known I would get a kick ass computer...grah...coulda shoulda woulda...

So even though I don't have enough money to buy my "don't start shrieking at strangers" meds my stupid American consumer lizard brain wants to trade in my Vizio for a new LCD monitor.  My current favorite and one that keeps popping up is the Acer AT3265, a 32" monitor that seems like it would fit the bill.  Any of you folks heard anything about Acer quality?

I would have the 32" as the primary/gaming/movie screen and the rare times I would actually need to do some work I would have my regular monitor on the side.  Another crack-pot idea is to simply buy two more similarly sized monitors as the one I have and triple screen the bad boy.  For a game like EVE that would be fuckin' sweet and I've seen a couple of set-ups that gave me nerd envy.

Any of you fine folks have any input or two cents?  Do you use your PC as your primary entertainment center or do you still go for the TV, dvd, etc etc?

EDIT:


I think what I am gonna try to do when I get home is to rig up the Vizio as a center monitor for image then all the other stuff I could put on the regular monitor.  Hmmm...yes...

Adele - Rolling In The Deep = Om nom nom nom

The Late Late Show - "Morrissey", 4.29 (2008)

Medal of Honor Cat

Engelsblut --- Ich will kein Mensch mehr sein

Witch House? What's that? Oh...

So an old friend of mine was in the East Texas region the other day and decided to stop by and see yours truly.  We were catching up on movies and pop culture and the like and he asked me if I had heard of the "Witch House" genre he had just heard about.  I said no and he described it as techno with a strong horror movie influence.  I was certainly intrigued so I quickly looked up "witch house" on teh youtubes.  Apparently these three bands are the main witch house bands (? maybe, IDFK).  In all honesty I started laughing.  It's just crappy dark wave that sounds like someone found it one their older brother's late 20th Century hard drive or stumbled across a promo CD of suck from Cleopatra Records, put it in a disc man and dropped it down a flight of stairs. 

Now don't get me wrong I like really well done darkwavy, ambient , cinematic soundscapes with a super ominous sound to it.  This stuff, well I guess I'm glad there are people still making this kind of music (at least it's not another fucking steampunk/pirate thing) but to call it it's own genre?  

A selection of pictures I have taken while space truckin':

The last few EVE expeditions since the Yan Jung Smashstravaganza last week have been pretty quiet, primarily involving me doing cargo and supply runs and getting loot collected into central areas.  There's not a huge amount to do while space truckin in HighSec so I decided to take some photos of schtuff.  I'm actually enjoying the process and once I get back to exploring I hope to get some good shots of anomalies and the like.

Not sure where the hell this was taken.

Pretty.

My God, it's full of flare.

That speck out there?  Yeah, that's one of my boats floating in a whole lotta cold death potential.

I didn't stop and ask for directions in this neighbourhood.

"Tell 'em Large Marge sentcha!"

"Warp Gate Active."  No shit, Aura.

Are we there yet?  I have to go to the bathroom!

The Guns of Brixton lurking.

Large Marge don't cotton to sass talk.

Ghost Town coming back from a salvage run.

The Pork Chop Express heading into high orbit.

Go Federation!

EVE Online Game Intro Movie

Well, well, well. Review pending of Mental Poison.

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Action Figure Therapy - NSFW

Some of you may know that I am obsessed with AFT.  I don't know how to describe it to you, it's simply G.I. Joe figures in therapy, talking about their shitty lives (or not so shitty lives in some cases).  Not every video is a winner (if it's a second stringer figure chances are...) but when AFT is on, it's fuckin on.  My favorites feature the "Ranger" aka Beachhead (one of my top-five favorite Joes).  The one posted below works best if you've familiarized yourself with the story arc but once you have it's hands down one of the funniest fucking things I have heard in...maybe ever.

WARNING: Contains harsh language that might offend pussweeds, Marys, sensitive ponytail people, church ladies, soft talkers, and roid monkeys.

Soul Train & a blue sun

Going through the collection and found some interesting stuff:

Some of these posters are racist and/or offensive but please consider the historical contexts.  The historical images are first, the fictional propaganda is further down.

Gronk by Katie Cook, a comic about monsters:

Gronk is an awesomely adorable webcomic that has been around for over two years and has a solid archive. Ms. Cook has a really clean style of art that manages to combine cute with the whimsy required to bring Gronk to life (example, "Kitty Bath" and "Gronk Bath" .  I might have to send some copies of her book to you HYR readers that done got themselves munchkins. Check it out but be prepared for an overload of dawwww.

Thanks Katie Cook, now I have to pretend to be grumpy all over again.

The porkening.

"Swine Time" with Abuelita J. The fixed youtube video and the teaser for Part II

"Swine Time" with Abuelita J.

"Abuelita J!  Again with pork?!?" I hear you say.  To that I reply, "Fine then, be that way, I'll throw it away because it's not good enough for you.  Then I'll sit here, in the dark, alone, waiting to die, while you kill yourself with fast food."

Seriously though, I love the piggie flesh.  Swine is divine.  Plus I'm skipping class because frankly I'd rather clean my kitchen and cook than schlep through the heat to sit in a class I don't want to take for two hours then schlep back.  Plus I don't have work today.  Winning.

Gonna take another crack at the verde, this time using more chiles, nopales, tomatillos, ginger, and a little from column A and a little from column B.

Here's the process of making the verde sauce.  I'm trying something different and cooking it separately from the pork so I can do different things to the pork.

The Continuing Adventures of Scoville Bessler: Sco gets conned by Browncoats

I know I was planning not to do another EVE post but the experience I had last night, I just have to write about.

I got conned.  Yup.  I had the feeling it was a set-up but hey, win some lose some.  Now the funny part is not when the pirate lured me off the beaten path (he was posing as a fellow n00b who wanted to practice PVP plus he offered me candy and a puppy and puppy made of candy) and proceeded to SVU me, what amuses me to no end is what happened after he stopped shooting at me and tried to hold me for ransom.

The pirate demanded that I pay him 5mil ISK (the in-game currency) and he'd let me be on my way.  Yeah, right.  Besides the boat I was in with all the equipment wasn't worth 5mil.  So I offered to pay half and the rest when I was safely out of harm's way.  He refused, I don't blame him because I wasn't gonna pay him the other half.  So we are at an impasse the pirate and I.  Then I remembered something I saw during the EVE Tournament, you can set your ship to self-destruct.

"Then he got an idea. An awful idea. The Grinch got a wonderful, *awful* idea!"

What would happen if I set my ship to self-destruct and abandoned ship?  So that's what I did.  I Kobayashi Maru'd the motherfucker.  Sure he could salvage the wreck but I had The Pork Chop Express  insured for the full amount so no real harm done.  I was laughing so hard I couldn't breathe.  What a cluster-fuck of a mugging.  My hat was off to the guy though, I haven't fell for something like since I was underage and trying to get alcohol.  I sent him a million ISK any way just for amusing me so much.  At least I didn't get nabbed by these guys:






AND, to things even better, the schmuck (I was duped so I was a schnook) was part of  the Browncoat Mercenary Corp, led by one Saffron Reanolds!  I'm lucky I didn't end up naked on a rock in the middle of nowhere.  I just wish I had been in "The Hero of Canton".  I suddenly felt a slew of people sing, "The man they called Jane."

I love this game, in case you couldn't tell, because of shit like this and other stuff too.  Plus they never make you pay for new content.