Booyor’s BLOGgh!

This Saturday, to help out Kelly Tracy’s family, the band student that was killed:

Mesquite HS - Sonic Restaurant, NE corner of Val Vista and Williamsfield, 8-noon

Gilbert HS - 24 Hour Fitness, SE corner of Val Vista and Elliot, 9-noon

Desert Ridge HS - Valero Gas Station, SW corner of Guadalupe and Ellsworth, 9-noon

For those of you who know me personally, you know that this year has been an interesting one full of transitions. The last dagger that I was hit with was that my normal hair cut place is now charging 40 bucks for a guy’s hair cut, and unless that’s going to be a life-changing hair cut experience with a shampoo hair massage by a super model, it’s not worth the 40 bucks.

Today was the start of my journey to find a comparable place that wasn’t expensive, and I took someone’s advice and headed over to the Arrowhead mall salon in JC Penny’s. I was surprised that I could get in without waiting for an appointment, but then I realized why when I was greeted by this:

This woman, to me, looked like what would be produced if my grandma’s old chain smoking decrepit neighbor and Emperor Palpatine had a love match. I was gauged about 3 different times around the neck and ear, and the conversation went about like this: Haircutter- “Come with me.” Slade- “Ok.” and dead silence from then on until she pulled out a hair gel bottle called, and I kid you not, “Short Fit Sexy Hair…guaranteed for Hard up hair” and right after I got past the initial w…t…h.. reaction I said, “Don’t ever use anything with the word ‘Sexy’ in it on me.”

I ended up walking out and my hair looked like this:

All I’ve got to say about that experience is

Are you ready for the film of 2009 that is going to rock your planetary orbit?

You at least have to be excited about Simon Pegg as Scotty?

How about Leonard Nimoy playing…Sarek?

I’m just excited to see James T. Kirk riding a motorcycle.

It almost makes up for when he was riding the horse…

Why???

Star Trek

In Theaters May 8, 2009

Small steps, my computer brethren. But trumping the CDC is no minor feat. From the article: ” In the 2007-08 flu season, Google accurately estimated current flu levels one to two weeks faster than published CDC reports in each of the nine U.S. surveillance regions, Google said in a statement.”

Impressive.

First, thank you to J and crew for watching my two kids today. In a day that started with a film project, I’ve been kinda busy. While eating lunch, a pipe under the sink burst. It is now fixed (as far as I can tell…whenever I make repairs I hold my breath until I forget about it).

I propose a hypothesis: the number of trips to Home Depot will be directly proportional to the importance of the repair. After the third visit to Home Depot within a two hour span, I realized that it was a good thing to get the sink fixed.

Water is flowing freely, flowing like…water, I guess.

A neighborly gent commented, “Ah. The joys of home ownership.” I muttered under my breath a less than joyous response. Tonight, though, we sat down to watch Kit Kittredge (keep in mind the demographics of my house) and people were losing their homes to foreclosure.

In a time where people are struggling and some losing their houses, I’m thankful for what I’ve been given.

Now to shower and get the iron shavings out of my hair and eyes.

Addition: This is the first time where I’ve been helped by a sales assistant at Home Depot. I was helped three separate times, representing the three trips. I think it’s my Amish beard. I’m no longer a suspected thief but now a reputable barn raiser.

Finally, it’s a reality…Guitar Hero: Metallica brings the music of one of my favorite rock bands of all time to the gaming systems. Ever since the original Guitar Hero came out I always thought that the franchise isn’t really complete until they pick up some of the greatest and most challenging hits from Metallica. There’s nothing like ripping through songs like “Enter Sandman” and “Master of Puppets”.
The only thing I really hope they include is some sort of bonus tracks for the Symphonic-enhanced versions of their songs. Next up…Guitar Hero: Genesis! (Not likely but I’d be one of the first to pick that up)

*Nathan Hale’s face as he yells, “I’M NOT A FRIGGIN’ ONE MAN ARMY OVER HERE”

Resistance 2 is on the way with a release date of November 4th. I can’t wait for this game to come out, and I can’t believe it’s finally here. With Square-Enix having betrayed their fanbase and crossed the lines by having Final Fantasy on both XBox 360 and PS3, this game is the only thing that PS3 owners can hold over the XBox owners’ heads.

I’ve been working on the district site and delving into PHP programming. I stressed for an hour as to why my logos were showing up but not my links. I even searched some crazy articles.

Then it hit me after dinner. index.php was what I put up today. index.html was from the weekend. I hadn’t removed it from the server and the browser defaulted to it instead of the .php. I had wondered why it wasn’t updating.

I’m sure this has happened to all of you.

Simple solution: delete the old file.

Also, The Conduit may have a publisher. On the Sega ftp site, they had a folder up for The Conduit, suggesting by their web presence that they will be hosting The Conduit.

The Bioware/Star Wars MMO is official. Slade, you were right. But I’m excited, too. It seems that they are actually thinking about storyline.

One of the more difficult challenges is finding a way to highlight the power and prestige of a veteran Jedi without embracing a stylish flair that’s completely at odds with the Jedi mentality.

Beautiful prose.

Scroll until you find your appropriate portion.
The Star Wars Portion
First, every single time I watch A New Hope, I tear up at The Force theme, the song that plays right when Luke screams, “No!” and starts firing randomly after the Kenobi/Vader duel. Every time.

I finished Force Unleashed today. There are some moments with the Apprentice theme that the same feelings occur. It does capture the Star Wars mood. And a battle damaged Vader versus the Apprentice, with Apprentice screaming, “You should have killed me when you had the chance!” as you are locking Wii Remotes quickly and savagely to push Vader back - yeah, fanboy moments galore (ever want to throw a squad of stormtroopers into a test-firing Death Star chamber?). Nice job on fanboy moments, LucasArts…now to make a classic game. We’ll see about replay value. It’s pretty much paced like a movie.

Today was the funeral for an old student from our junior high and on Sunday I have the funeral for my friend Chuck. If you see me in person and wonder if my heart is worn out, it is. Today was a good day for Star Wars. (On that topic - when are we meeting, paper and pencil friends? (Non-gamers have now assumed that I make origami companions.))

The “Happy Tech Could Help” Portion
Hey, the message from Renaissance Bible Church is up. We put it up earlier this week, but I got distracted by a Legend of Zelda theme that burned my brain. Check out their podcast for the message. Some context: the local church body that isn’t connected to Wachovia is connected to Lehman Brothers, so Matthew 6 is kinda gutsy and needed. He’ll mention how a “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” mentality is like telling someone to not think of something: they automatically think of that unwanted thing. To demonstrate, he mentions some “meal” involving bacon, syrup, and I’m assuming a defibrillator. For my non-Southern readers, substitute a steak (or, in my case, a toss up between sashimi and a Hot Pocket (although the Pillsbury Toaster Strudels bring back good memories)(Did I mention that I lost 10 pounds unintentionally using Wii Fit?)).

The Baked Goods Portion
Really, you should check out that Toaster Strudel website. Flaky crust Flash player hotspots. Peter laughs then cries.

The Proud Father Portion
My oldest got complimented in pre-school today. The teacher sat my wife down to tell her that my oldest is very artistically advanced. Woo! My daughter also has made up a word. To remember which feet her shoes go on, she calls them a backwards butterfly. Her word for that?

doval (n) - DOH-val a backwards butterfly; usage - “To remember which shoes go on which feet, ask yourself: Does this look like a doval?”

The first time she said it I thought she said dovin basal. (Refer back to The Star Wars Portion.)

The “Okay, So I’m Not Quite So Jaded, Just Cautious” Section
I went back to read my reviews of Obama’s Audacity of Hope (Review 1, 2, and 3) Even then I was jaded about this election, it was just in haiku form.

I remember enjoying the book, for the most part, but finding some key parts that bugged me. Check out the 1, 2, and 3 links for more detail. His peer evaluations for teachers has some flaws and he does clump in National Right to Life with the NRA, which makes me kinda cringe. I do (non-sarcastically) like Obama’s megalomania quote.

Innocent blood and a distaste for extremes: I wish we could take an average of the two parties. My big issue is abortion, plain and simple. It’s like a William Wilberforce abolitionist issue with me. Where were the slaveholder’s rights? Sometimes we have to infringe when it’s life-death issues. This is not a Republican/Democrat thing, because you can bet if Giuliani (or, my goodness, Bob Packwood) was the Republican option, I would not stick with party ties. Being a father of a daughter born a month early and the brother-in-law to a guy born two months early, we must be very cautious as to when we determine a person is a person. Yes, I agree with Obama that we need to increase the Family and Medical Leave Act to help with the financial burden of having a child. (Although I have more than one co-worker who is spending way too much money to adopt a child…there’s a disconnect.) Something that I think is forgotten is that rich women have abortions, too.

Check out my good friend from college (Mike, you’ll want to click) who just got accepted to be an adoptive parent.

I’m also a big proponent of feeding the poor (taking care of widows and orphans and all that). The government and big business do not have a good track record with this, both Democrat and Republican. This is why two of my mentors, Randy Alcorn and Don Miller, are sometimes at odds. (Although now seeing Donald Miller’s “Mentoring For President ‘08″, I dig Don even more.)(To add info that Don Miller doesn’t have is that McCain goes to North Phoenix Baptist. I can’t see into either candidate’s heart, though.)

Check the voting records for Obama and McCain for more details.

Check out Alcorn’s and Miller’s blogs for great insights from great writers.

And continue to be annoyed by Internet rumors that smear and/or relate to how Bill Gates will pay me a million dollars for forwarding that e-mail.

Editor’s note: Can anyone do a word count? I may have rambled more than Slade rambling about Shaq. (Messing with you, fool. CAN YOU DIG IT?!)

The Phoenix Suns center Shaquille O’Neal(The Big Aristotle, The Big Cactus, The Big Asthmatic) has undergone a total personality change. From the troubles of his time in Miami where the team was on a 17 game losing streak, to the Kobe drama in which he performed a rap about how Kobe can’t win without him, to losing in the first round of last years playoffs to the San Antonio Spurs. He’s now noticeably much happier in his tone, and appears to be on the offensive against Spurs coach Greg Popovich.

Here’s an interesting article…..

“Wed Oct 15, 2008 10:00 am EDT
Shaq calls Spurs cowards, rips Nash and Suns’ defense

And the fun/embarrassment didn’t stop there. Later in the media scrum — earmuffs, Nash and Raja! — Shaq asks how he’s supposed to stay in front Tony Parker and company if the Phoenix guards can’t, and then notes a blown defensive rotation on Tim Duncan’s [fudge'n] three in Game 1. He also takes credit for James Posey and Jason Kapono’s fat free agent contracts. <a “

I’m a fan of Shaq. I think the guy is one big goofy guy who doesn’t take too much seriously unless you tell him he can’t. This will be an interesting year as the Suns vs. Spurs heat seems to be turning up once again.

BTW, Shaq is responsible for leading the efforts to world peace if anyone hasn’t noticed.