Giant Sea Squid Photograph: GET!

Okay, so the Japanese finally photographed the legendary sea-monster squid creature of ancient myth and lore. This one's about as long as an extended Chevy van, or a little longer than a '78 Buick. I'm not a scientist, so please excuse my archaic units of measurement. I guess they tried to reel it in, too, but it got away... well, minus one squid-arm, that is. They still seemed pleased as punch to be able to pull up one of his enormous tentacles. What is it with the Japanese and tentacles, anyway. I remember when I used to work at an Italian restaurant in the summer of 1995, and I used to prep calamari for deep-frying. Once there was this one squid that was, like, a couple inches longer than the others. Yeah, that was pretty cool.

Random Pictures of Where We Live

The pool after Rita



Downtown from our building



Downtown from W. Gray

On A Side Note

I'd like to point out a couple of links I found on the Mystery Science Theater 3000 info club site, Mst3k.com.

First is a recent list of the top 50 cable television programs of all time. These were compiled by Cableworld.com. MST3k landed at number 49. I know I'm a fan and everything, but I think it still needs to come before Wrestlemania (WWF), Emeril Live and The Real World. It even got beat by The O.J. Simpson Trial. But, hey - it still fared better than C-SPAN's Booknotes.

Secondly, the fine individuals at Boston.com, an arts & entertainment site by the Boston Globe, did a list of the top fifty sci-fi television shows of all time, and placed MST3k in the top 10 at number 9! It was edged out by Dr. Who by one spot. I like to think of that as more of a tie. They both beat Xena: Warrior Princess, but neither one was better than Stargate SG-1, apparently. But a top ten mention for a low budget show from Eden Prarie, Minnesota is a pretty impressive thing.

Click here for the classic intro.

Coming Back

Well, we tried to go shopping today, but the grocery store was all out of produce, most meat products, dairy products and many of the essential canned goods. A telling sign that things were amiss at the grocery was at the deli counter where the same trays of cole slaws and pasta salads I saw browning in the display case on Thursday were in an even more advanced state of brown, today. We were, however, able to eat lunch at a local deli restaurant which was serving a limited menu of items. You could choose between a deli meat sandwich or a baked potato. The potato was really good.

Our local CVS was closed as well. In fact, I'd say Houston is only back up to about 50% operational capacity at this point. Not due to the hurricane as much as people fleeing the hurricane. We're both still off from work tomorrow, so that's a pretty good indication that it'll be a while before this town's fully back up and running. I surely cannot complain, though. Just look at New Orleans.

Whoosh!

Okay, here’s a riddle:

You’re taking a nice Sunday morning stroll with the actor, Michael Caine, star of such fine films as Get Carter, The Cider House Rules and Batman Begins, and what with his fragile age, he begins to lag behind a bit. With a reverent tone in your voice deserved by an actor of his prominence and respect, you say to him, “Hurry, Michael!”

He says to you, “Son, I will only oblige if you address me by my last name and my last name only.”

What do you say?


After all the hullabaloo over Houston’s certain demise in the wake of hurricane Rita, it turned out to be little more that a robust wind storm. That doesn’t mean they had an easy time of it in Port Arthur and Lake Charles near the Texas/Louisiana border. There was also a fire on Galveston island that destroyed a few buildings in the historical “Strand” district. I think the real story this week is the botched evacuation (or “exodus” if you watch Fox News) of Houston and low-lying coastal towns in Texas. One overheated bus carrying senior citizens away from Galveston caught fire on the expressway and caused their oxygen tanks to explode killing many of them. Twenty-four, last I heard. But as 2.5 million fleeing Texans will tell you, “better safe than sorry.”

"I still see her dark eyes glowin'..."

Name that lyric.

I just got back from Galveston where I've been staying for three days to do a show for a bunch of rich McDonald's owners/operators. Right after we left the island, they announced mandatory evacuations. Hurricane Rita's coming. 'Summbitch is fixin' to bear down! I guess they're putting them in Houston and moving some of the current Louisiana/Mississippi evacuees to Arkansas, or something. They were beginning to smell bad, anyway. Of course, Galvestonites don't smell much better, really.

But we kid our evacuees. We're cool like that.

Fun With ROMs Vol. I

Here are a couple of old NES games I've recently downloaded to relive the old days.

Anyone remember "Rollergames?" Here's a game I used to have and played a lot back around the 8th grade. I remember beating this after school one afternoon with my friend, Nate. It seemed pretty epic at the time.

It begins as a lot of these games based on violent organized sports did - with stale announcers catching you up to speed on the action. In this case, it looks like they've hired Charlie Watts and Jonathan Frakes. I've always said those two should team up.

Now it's time to select your team. If you select "Hot Flash," you get to play as a girl. "Rockers" are my favorite. They're all long-haired punks. By the way, who thinks the hostess is hot? Me, no, I don't think so. But I can, like, see where some people might think so and stuff.

Is this supposed to be a threat? Not very intimidating coming from someone's grandma. "Bad Attitude?" Hey, I guess the first step is admitting it.

This is what happens if you select the "T-Birds." You have to play as this tubby looser. He's slower and can't jump very far.

As fun is "Rollergames" can be, sometimes you need something a little more "adult oriented." This is where "Ring King" comes in.

Every fighter in this game looks exactly alike. The only differences are in their skin and hair colors. You can be the white guy with the red afro or the brown guy with the green afro. There's many more variations on this basic theme. As for the game, it starts off innocently enough - as boxing games go, anyway. In Japan, this game was called "Family Boxing."

But then you get to this scene. This in in between rounds when you go to your corner to receive oral sex from your twin midget trainer. Maybe this kind of stuff flies in Japan, but in the U.S., midget fellatio is generally frowned upon - in most family circles, anyway.

Stay tuned for another fun-filled edition of "Fun With ROMs!"

...the HELL?

Nintendo finally revealed the much speculated about controller for their new game console. The Revolution controller looks like part iPod, part TV remote, part suicide bomb detonation device - for the hipper, more 'with it' metrosexual terrorist. As you can see, I found these images on ign.com, and you can read this article for more details. Basically, it senses where the controller is in relation to a 'home' or 'neutrlal' position. Tilting, slashing and moving it around in your hand will have in-game effects.

Neat, huh? I said, "NEAT, HUH!"

Well, anyhow, I see it this way; with this controller, Nintendo has officially and irreversibly dropped out of the console war with Sony and Microsoft. Perhaps there will still be an add-on that will mimic a more traditional controller in form and function, but we'll have to wait and see. As for me, I'll buy it. I've gotten every Nintendo console so far and have yet to be let down. But for Nintendo's sake, they had better show some pretty bitchin' applications for this thing, or it might go the way of the Virtual Boy. And by that, I mean straight to the Isle of Misfit Toys.

"Who's ever heard of a 'Charlie' In The Box?"

Quick One

Okay, here's a fast post.

I have to be up pretty early to drive to Galveston for the third straight day. There's a group from NASA and the German and Russian space agencies holding a meeting to discuss a possible manned Mission to Mars.

M2M, daddy-o. The real thing.

I get to hear all about it in this little meeting room where all I do is babysit a laptop and load their Power Point presentations. Should I steal them and post them here? Yeah, right - and get fired. They're mostly all about centrifuge issues, anyway. They're discussing a centrifuge on the spacecraft to generate artificial gravity and give the crew members resistance-based exercises so they don't become weak. After all, there won't exactly be a team of doctors on the Red Planet to help them get back into shape as they adjust to the gravity when they get there.

In other news, the new McCartney album is really good. His best in a while. I've enjoyed his last few efforts - pretty much everything since and including Flaming Pie. Anything's better than 1993's painful Off the Ground. The new record, Chaos and Creation in the Backyard, was produced by Nigel Godrich of Radiohead and Beck fame. McCartney has said the process was "painful" and like being "pulled through the hedge backwards" or something like that. I know Nigel wasn't afraid to tell Paul something was "shit" if he thought so. He even made Paul ditch his band and record most of the parts himself. But the result is really good and very different for Paul. Not in terms of melodic quality, though these are mostly all really strong melodies, but more in terms of texture and production.

Pop-Up!

Guess what I found for three dollars at a used book store in Galveston during my lunch break at work today. Huh? Did you answer a Return of the Jedi pop-up book from 1983?

You're right!!

Best. Pop-up. Book. Ever.



Just look at that glossy cover!



What happens here??



Uh-oh!



I guess someone really does loose an arm in every Star Wars movie. And heads, apparently.



Sorry if I ruined the ending for anyone.



It's kinda' hard to make out the 3D effect in this picture, but trust me - it's AWESOME!

Okay, there you have it. Time, now, to take your naps, children. Finish your milk, Charlie. Sweet dreams.

Absenteeism

I'm sitting here drinking my first Capri Sun fruit drink pouch in about 15 years. Katrina said they had a similar drink in the Philippines called 'Zest-O'. Sounds funny.

I've not had a chance to update the blog for a while due to working twenty-nine hours in the past two days. I'm sure the same thing will happen next week since I'll be in Galveston for work for three days, staying there for two nights at the hotel where they're supposedly accommodating me with a room. It's way better than the forty-five to fifty mile drive there and back.

Hideous

Another gigantic bug tried to ruin my day. This is in the outdoor laundry closet. Sorry for the poor quality of this photo, but in order to get the camera at a better angle to take this shot, I'd have had to put myself in a position where I could have potentially become trapped. If he decided to take flight in my general direction, I'd like to have the ability to flee.

You can't really tell, but this thing is missing one of his hind legs. What a trooper.

Virtual Beagle

We picked up Nintendogs, the new virtual dog training game for the DS. Actually, it's not so much a game as it is a simulator. Katrina's been the one playing it, mostly. I really just toy around with it. The dog she picked out at the in-game kennel is a beagle puppy she named "Arnie."

It recognizes her voice and she's trained it to do about a half dozen tricks and commands so far. The amount of things you can do in the game are astounding. From daily feeding/watering to grooming and bathing. You can enter various contests to earn money you use to buy doggy related things and even decorate your virtual pad. If you take the DS with Nintendogs with you when you leave home, and have it 'on' or in 'sleep mode,' and you happen to come within, say, thirty feet of another owner, the dogs will even begin barking and interacting with one another, thus encouraging you to interact with another actual person in real life and allowing you to unlock new items and dogs in your game. I imagine this feature is bigger in Japan with their digital social culture than here; but with 250,000 units sold in the U.S. in the first week alone, who knows.

It's Official

Weekend Summary

Katrina's sister and cousins came to visit for a fun-filled weekend of shopping, eating, driving, movie watching, shopping, safe-at-home tequila drinking, going to Galveston beach, swimming, shopping and driving. It all went down pretty much without a hitch. Our trip to Galveston (pictured above, left to right: Grace, Abby, Katrina and Pamela) was fun, but it came at a price yet to be named - I got a speeding ticket on the way down there. Other than that, it was all pretty nice. Oh, and as we dropped the final relative off at the airport, the car began to overheat. So we'll have to deal with that, tomorrow.

We rented two movies last night: Layer Cake and Hide and Seek. Hide and Seek was okay, but I really recommend Layer Cake. It's a British crime flick pretty much in the same vein as Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch. In fact, it was directed, not by Guy Ritchie, but by Matthew Vaughn, the producer of Lock, Stock' and Snatch. It's a little grittier than those two movies, but still very stylish and slick. Check it out.

Crowded House

Many people in our hotel are those who fled the hurricane in Louisiana and Mississippi. I heard the place was booked solid. One of the things I had to do tonight was play DVD's in a little make-shift movie theater in the Exhibit Hall in the basement of the hotel for a bunch of little kids who had nothing else to do. Thankfully, the hotel supplied them with cookies, cold water, and activities. Other than that, it was a pretty mundane night.

Tomorrow, Katrina's sister and two cousins are coming to stay with us for the weekend. When this group gets together, I become the black sheep and the butt of every joke. I really love the feeling of Katrina looking at me, muttering something in a language I don't understand, and then having all three girls start laughing. It happens a lot. Then it's "here, you drive!"