A major stumbling block appears in my attempt to become a PC gamer.

If you've been paying attention to the last couple of tech related posts you'd probably know HYR is considering and attempting to achieve the first steps on the path of becoming a PC gamer.  EVE Online was the catalyst and so I began learning about monitor technobabble and digging through forums and the like.  I realized a fundamental flaw in my desire to become a PC gamer Thursday evening when I finally realized what specs I wanted as should look for in a monitor.  Talk about a fleeting sense of victory...hey stupid your CPU won't even support...fuck.

My overall mistake was not beginning with the CPU and seeing where I could go from there.  By researching and daydreaming about monitors and everything else I failed to realized that I was doing the PC equivalent of someone researching rims and low-lights and hydraulics and failed to realize they drive a fucking Plymouth Horizon.

So for now my entry into PC gaming will remain with games that my system can handle - which truth be told are plenty.  Awesome and flashy ka-boom Baysplosion games will be played on the 360 - which truth be told I don't play many of anymore because they are so god damn expensive and I'm still pissed off about getting screwed over by DLC, GOTY editions, and the like.   

Happy Friday: Gillian Anderson in a catsuit.

Flies caught in the World Wide Web: HYR loves kittens #413/Q81

Cowboys & FreddieW (ft. Jon Favreau)

T's Sandwiches is moving...

Here in Nacogdoches there's pretty much boring shit as far as choices for food goes (except for Delacroix's). T's Sandwiches is a small Vietnamese & Burger joint in the dirt mall.  We swung by there yesterday for Bánh mì and saw this sign.

Okay folks, I have need of some second opinions...

What with the current financial suck that has been my life I am considering selling my TV and my XBOX360. The problem is here in East Texas no one seems to use craigslist very much.  Anyone have any suggestions?  I was thinking the Sentinel but it turns out that's washout lane for classifieds.  I was looking at peddlernet.com and that might be promising.

If you or someone you know if looking for a TV and XBOX360, lemme know.

Woo Hoo!

http://www.rockstargames.com/newswire/article/17961/the-free-red-dead-redemption-myths-and-mavericks-bonus-pack-dlc-.html

Review pending of my favorite Carlin performance, here's a taster.

On a semi-serious note:

As some of you fine folks may know I am a microcosm of the national debt right now.  Subsequently, I no longer have a phone, which doesn't bother me in the least really.  I also am circling on fumes both fiscally and mentally.  This is part of the reason I rage quit FB (it was either that or smash the living fuck out of the monitor with the keyboard a la the ape in 2001) along with withdrawals from alcohol, cigarettes, and anti-depressants.

So this summer has been and continues to be a difficult one.  My patience and empathy meters are very low.  I am not economically viable.

Please do not worry, I know everything gets better and I'm not going to go apeshit and verbally or physically attack strangers (except for that one fat bitch who was giving the employees a hard time at Jack in the Box so I gave her a talking to).  Once fall comes around I will probably be back to my regularly scheduled lovable curmudgeon instead of Howard Beale.

In the meantime enjoy one of my favorite scenes from the "Dude losing his shit" genre:

In our darkest hours...

the internet provides small instances of joy.  For example from wikipedia:

"This article may contain an excessive amount of intricate detail that may only interest a specific audience. Please relocate any relevant information, and remove excessive trivia, praise, criticism, lists and collections of links. Too much statistical data is against policy. (July 2010)"

Star Wars humor FTW

The Toybox (2005) Dir Paolo Sedazzari

The Toybox was one of those movies I remember seeing on the shelf of the local Blockbuster back in the mid-aughts.  The cover is a shot of a girl in pigtails and a school girl outfit holding a bloody hammer looming over a bloody toybox with the tagline that reads, "Some fairy tales can be deadly."  I never rented it or even picked up the case for further investigation because I figured it was another cheapo OVA with minimal T&A and a shoddy story, etc etc.  Basically like any other crappy horror movie that ends up dusty on a Blockbuster new releases shelf.

Last evening, bored out of my gourd and browsing hulu.com for a horror/thriller/suspense/anything bloody to watch I saw The Toybox was available for free so I figured, "Why the hell not?"  The real selling point was that it is a British movie set in Norfolk so what with my predilection for British horror movies I started watching.

The basic premise is: a brother (Brian) and sister (Bernice) explore fairytales of the region (Norfolk and Suffolk) and build  imaginary adventures and characters around those fairytales.  Fast forward roughly a decade, sister is away at university and brother hangs out in the garage at home making music and being weird.  Bernice is on her way home for the Christmas holidays with her boyfriend Conrad.  Conrad is very nervous about meeting Bernice's family, primarily because he's extremely uncomfortable in family/group surroundings.  Bernice tries to assuage Conrad's worries by telling him her family is normal, Mum and Dad are aging flower children, Nan's a sweetie, and Brian is Brian but he's a good guy.  They arrive at her childhood home and then everything goes fucking mental.

I don't want to give away any spoilers but The Toybox has now entered my horror movies for Christmas playlist.  It's not a good movie per se but it has many elements that make for a disconcerting cult movie experience.  The best parts of the movie revolve around the holiday psychosis a la, "And you thought your family was crazy."  It's not Motel Hell  crazy but just, well you ever been invited along to Christmas or some other holiday by a friend or significant other and you get there and all you want to do is run screaming or are shell-shocked by the level of bile only family members can dish out to one another?  Yeah, that's The Toybox.  There's one scene that will stick with me for a long time like the New Year's party in Dalton Trumbo's Johnny Got His Gun (1971).  Truth be told thinking of Johnny Got His Gun makes me think of surreal/bizarro cult horror movies of the late 1960s early 1970s before the Craven/Carpenter explosion.  Again, these are not excellent movies but they have a seriously high creep factor simply because of the sense of unease they cause.

The only actress I recognized from the movie was Suzanne Bertish who starred in The Hunger, Red Dwarf, and The 13th Warrior.  She played the mother and was my favorite character.  The rest of the cast was solid but made of either British TV actors or otherwise.

The Toybox is worth checking out.  It's not brilliant but it's certainly better than a lot of teen scream, bullshit giant animal gone amok flicks and cheapie tits'n'gore stuff out there. 

My plan for the evening:

I plan to make and consume the sandwich I wanted to make and consume earlier but had to go to work.  Curses!  My sandwiching foiled!  However I have had time to think of the sandwich I am going to create.  We are all familiar with the Reuben or if you are not well tough titty for you.  I love them though I refuse to put salad dressing on a fucking sandwich.  So I realized I have the makings for not just a Reuben at home but a Reuben that I will dub, "The Bear Jew".

This is the plan:

• 1 18" loaf of bread.
• 1lb Pastrami
• a shit ton of Swiss cheese
• roasted onions and jalapenos
• spicy mustard
• sauerkraut
• construct and place in oven 
• consume while half naked and wearing fat pants

Photos will be pending...of the sandwich not me in a disgusting orgy of sandwichian destruction.

An interesting update on the monitor front

As I posted last week I am attempting to rig/re-rig my tv, computer, monitors, and sound system* over the week I tried a few different set ups but nothing really worked for me.  The current layout is pretty solid and I managed to run a HDMI from the CPU to the TV without much fuss.  I did have to monkey with some settings on the TV to get the picture to fit right (mainly just went into advanced video controls and increased the V(ertical) and H(orizontal) settings until the image fit correctly).  So far I have had the best results using Extend window to secondary monitor instead of duplicating, though I guess it would be pretty simple to just duplicate image and then just tweak the V & H.

I am very pleased with the image from the PC to the TV but there are a number of problems I am trying to figure out how to deal with:

1. The TV is plasma and while my model has a built-in screen cleaner to help defend against burn in, the TV is pretty much still only good for movies and the XBOX.
2. I'm having a difficult time imagining how distance is going to work, viewing and sound alike.  Gadgetbench.com has some good advice that involves some math or something (joking aside it's an excellent site).  The rule of thumb that I always stuck by was diagonal of screen * 1.5 - 2.0 = preferable viewing distance.  So if you have a 32"  screen then you should set up the viewing area 48"-64" away.  This also helps you set up your sound system, that is if you have a sound system.  Which I do, which causes an interesting set of problems concerning setting up a viable sound stage if I use a 32" center monitor and then a secondary, smaller monitor for other stuff.

Post will continue shortly...

* Oxford comma FTW

Hey buddy wanna read a blog?

An old friend of mine who's an actual blogger (and all educated and teacher dude and stuff) but has descended from ye olde 'zine tree (some of you younger readers might not know what a 'zine is.  I don't have the time to waste educating you) has some excellent work on several sites the primary of which is Twenty-Four Hours.


The site leans towards interviews with artists, writers, people with tattoos, and articles about lefty politics.  The writing is solid, though I have to admit that I internet skim articles instead of sitting down and giving the work the time it deserves.  I hope that you folks take time to check out the site.

Review pending: Cat Shit One - The Animated Series

A while back I found out there was going to be an animated version of Cat Shit One, an anthropomorphic combat series based loosely on the manga Apocalypse Meow.  I had forgotten about the series until I was reading through some of the HYR archives (favorite joke from the archives so far is, "John, 'Fly yes. Land no." Denver").  So I poked around online a little bit and found the episodes free, subbed, and in good quality.  I will write a review after I get the chance to watch the series tonight.

You know you're a Yankee when...

after getting kind of fed up searching for the hats and clothing you are looking for but can't find you end up saying fuck it and going back to L.L. Bean and Orvis.  Classics are classics for a reason.

"They're all so beautiful! I wish I had three heads!"

It's only been during this summer that I've really begun to appreciate the value of a hat in my life.  Normally I hate hats for the same reason I hate umbrellas, sure they serve a purpose but they seem like more of a hassle than they are worth (yes I am a crazy person).  Walking around in the East Texas heat has been particularly bad this season and after a pretty grim burn I decided to bust out one of the ball caps I have in my closet.  The one I wear is a Rangers cap I bought a couple years ago at a game.  The problem is it's a fitted cap that works more like a sweatband than something that actually keeps the sun off of me (plus the sweat has turned the bottome of the cap white).  So I'm looking at hats for summer.  My current favorites are as follows (barring the fact I probably couldn't wear one or two of these without some asshole in a Hemi shouting shit at me).

1. "The Kolchak" from Baron Hats Classic Reproductions based on the straw hat Carl Kolchak wore on the show Night Stalker.  Not only is the hat kind of bad-ass in a "I really don't give a fuck what kind of monster it is, I'm gettin' the scoop." way but it looks like it would be comfy.
2. Nón lá (leaf hat) the classic conical sun hat ubiquitous across Asia.
3. If I had the $500 to spend on a hat I would have to go for a Brent Black Panama.  Now that's a class hat. 
4. Since I am broke though I have the following two options:
1. The hat everyone will recognize - the white bucket hat that Gilligan wore and was featured in Fear and Loathing.  I found one for about ten bucks.
2. A hat similar to one I think I was forced to wear when I was a kid at the beach and the flying field my grandpa took me to.  Yes, the classic old fart flat top bucket hat, 

Chances are I will go with the old fart bucket hat.  If I'm gonna buy a hat I might as well buy one that will look classic even while fighting mutants for water in a post-apocalyptic wasteland.

Batman Arkham City E3 2011 Catwoman Reveal Trailer [HD]

These are the groceries of a warrior.

Today's expedition to the grocery store was an epic win both in value and shopping experience.  I love going to the grocery store during the day, usually early in the afternoon when all the old folks and regular (not normal - fuck normal) folks are puttin' around, getting a jump on the Friday/weekend specials.  I loathe getting groceries home but that's a different thing all together.  I figured I'd do a short run down of today's experience and some recipes I am putting together in my head.

1. While wandering the aisles an old lady (I mean old like stereotypical tiny woman, Coke bottle glasses, weird old lady smell old) parked her cart next to mine and we got to chattin about nothin really, small talk and I looked in her cart.  Was it piled with cat food?  Nope.  In her cart were two thirty-packs of Old Milwaukee and a couple of food related items.  I was kind of blown away.  In my head I said, "DAAAAAAMMMMNNNN!  Mee-Maw likes to drink!".  I didn't say that though.  I did feel like a sissy though, what with my six pack of High Life.
2. In the meat aisle where I picked up my "making fuck berserker" 13th Warrior steaks, I was considering picking up a brisket too.  Hell I always consider picking up a brisket.  This woman comes in, flips through the slabs of moo-cow, and we start chatting.  She was kind of awesome in a stereotypical middle-aged country lady, the kind that is mainly held together with sinew, gumption, and Virginia Slim nicotine, wearing a t-shirt that has some kind of American Fuck Yeah logo on it (a la Dale Ernheardt riding a bald eagle, holding guns while draped in the Stars and Stripes).  So we were bullshittin about brisket and the deals on steak and what not and how her old man smokes his brisket, etc.  Then out of the blue I asked, "Y'ever wonder what would happen if you deep fried brisket?"  I swear there was a rapture moment between us, like when you ask people, "Have you ever thought about deep fried bacon?"
3. While at the fish counter I was talkin to the guy asking what was on special but what was actually good, etc, etc.  Then I asked him if they ever get shark in.  He said no, the FDA decreed shark has too much mercury in it.  I replied, "Oh horseshit."  So yeah, if you haven't seen shark in the market lately it's because the pussweeds at the FDA don't want us to become the Silver Surfer.

Okay recipe ideas:

• A pasta salad with feta, yellow tomatoes, scallions, capers, and roasted peppers.
• My rojo slow cooked pork on blue corn chips with a sharp Mexican cheese with a cilantro/sour cream blend on the side.
• My verde sauce using aloe juice.

And that's it for now.  Hope you cats and kittens have a good weekend.