WUMF: November 2012 Edition

OK… so, I really slacked this past week.. but there’s been reasons. No… it wasn’t just because I was too busy playing Tekkit. I didn’t plan to be so slacky…

No, I didn't. Honest... I ran out of gas. I... I had a flat tire. I didn't have enough money for cab fare. My tux didn't come back from the cleaners. An old friend came in from out of town. Someone stole my car. There was an earthquake. A terrible flood. Locusts! IT WASN'T MY FAULT, I SWEAR TO GOD!

Yeah, OK… it was Tekkit.

And a few other things. With that… here’s the WUMF.

Skyfall Review
I was supposed to be doing a review of Skyfall, and in essence, Bond… Well, the end of the month came around and I didn’t want to cut into that thought process mid ramble. So, that’s coming next month, I did preface it last post, but purposely didn’t really start.

If you’re really hard up for some good Bond talk, check out haphazardstuff.com. The commentary is a little dry… kind of like Tom Bodett giving movie reviews on NPR, but his videos are pretty well done and somewhat hilarious. Put it this way… the guy did not like Brosnan as Bond, and he uses a lot of clips from The Matador to describe Brosnan’s post Bond mindset.  Priceless.  Plus... Cannonball Run redone with all James Bonds.

Game of Thrones Giveaway: The Westeros League
Well, I pulled it off at the 11th hour. After Season 2 of GoT ended, I started thinking about doing some designs. I had already put out a couple of ideas, but had never seen the show. Then, a friend lent me season one and I gobbled it up. Then, another friend fed me all of Season 2 from his thumb drive… Shhhh, don’t tell…. And I was loving it…. And then scared of a vagina wraith coming to get me. Seriously…. WTF?!?!

So, because of that, I started planning out a set of designs called The Westeros League. 14 teams based on the various houses in the show. Tried to model them after professional… and a couple of minor league sports teams here in the U.S. After I was done, I put posts on each design ranging from the inane ramblings of a Sports Center type commentary to finally abandoning the insanity and settling on just talking about the designs themselves.

Finally, I put together a prize pack of 14 stickers, a shirt, a stein, a $20 gift card, and Season 1 on Blu Ray and hosted a giveaway. The turnout was small, compared to some others I’ve done, but I expected this with a more concentrated theme. In the past, I’ve done holidays or seasons and that usually opens up the base of entries to a more broadened spectrum of people. With a dedicated Game of Thrones theme, it focused more on those who were fans of the show and a few others. Still, happy with the results.

'Tis the Season
Thanksgiving snuck up on me and I was not prepared for the amount of time I’d be putting into getting shit done around the house and work. The giveaway run this past week and I’ve been working on that. I had to get out and do the shopping stuff with my kid and my wife, for all our food. I was trying to catch up on stuff to keep my DVR from exploding…. And well, um TEKKIT

My Pool
If you’ve been reading the blog for awhile, you know how much fun (sarcasm) I’ve had with my pool. I inherited it from my brother after he got a new one. It was an INTEX 16 foot round jobs that you assemble in fifteen minutes. Well, after three years of either being too lazy or ill prepared to close it down in the Fall, I decided I was going to it right. We cleaned out all the leaves, treated it with all the chemicals, and actually put the damn cover on the thing.

Then Hurricane Sandy said, “LOL Pitiful Hooman”. The cover came off with all the leaves and branches going into the pool. After it was all over, I attempted to clean it all back out and recover the pool. As I spouted every four letter word in the book, I noticed daylight peeking from the opposite side of the pool. Above the inlet hole, there appeared to be a foot long wide tear. I rage quit the job and tossed the skimmer. Someone asked if I could get a new liner… well, the whole damn pool is pretty much a liner. Now, I could probably try to patch it. However, I’ve spent too much time and money getting it up and running each year. I’m tired of just maintaining and pissing money away on it, so it’s either time to buy a real, more permanent pool… or just get another Intex. Thoughts? Remember, I am a cheap bastard and don’t plan on retiring in my current residence.

Winter Beer Exchange
I've done this a few times over the past year and plan on doing it again.  I have about 8 different beers to review for all you craft beer lovers.  I will probably keep notes on each, as I try them.  Since I won't be sharing with my Father-in-law.... he's on Coumadin and can't really touch this stuff right now... I can just drink the eight types in about four days and get a review out rather quickly.   Sorry, I'm not a big drinker, so two a night is plenty for me.

Here's what's on tap...er.. in bottles:

• Heavy Seas Winter Storm Category 5 Ale.
• Bell's Winter White Ale
• Bell's Christmas Ale
• Thirsty Dog 12 Dogs of Christmas
• Southern Tier Old Man Winter Ale
• Weyerbacher Winter Ale
• Anchor Merry Christmas and Happy New Year
• Great Divide Hibernation Ale 

D-Bag of the Year Awards 2012
Most of December will probably be devoted to the annual D-Bag awards. Unfortunately, it requires a lot of research on my part. I need to go back and look at all the stories throughout the year. Of course, the usual suspects will be nominated: Death, Mother Nature, Chris Brown…

I am actually thinking of just streamlining the process more to whittle down the effort of having to rehash all the nominees. Guess I’ll burn that bridge when I come to it.

That’s it, folks. Bring on December! Mayans, be damned!

WUMF: August 2012 Edition

It’s the end of the month. You know what that means?

Hurricane Isaac
NOLA just can’t catch a break. Almost seven years to the day from Hurricane Katrina, Isaac comes knocking on New Orleans. Meanwhile in Tampa, the RNC is holding their event and unless Governor Christie comes out onto the beach in a speedo, telling everyone to GTFO, I think they’ll be fine. Even if Isaac becomes a Category Cantore, it will be OK for them. Now, not that I want anyone to be harmed by such a destructive force, but it begs the question that if the Republican Convention were to be hit by the full force of the hurricane, would Pat Robertson say they deserved it? Somehow, I think not.

And Isaac? Come on, Isaac is not a hurricane name. Isaac is a cruise ship bartender. He’s a scientist. He’s not a hurricane. Just like Andrew, which was a really destructive storm was not a good name. “Hey everyone, Hurricane Andrew is coming.” No one flinches. “Hurricane Katrina is coming!” You get your shit and move. Hurricane Bill? That sounds like something you get from the insurance company.

Fat Guy At the Water Park
This weekend I will be going to Great Wolf Lodge in Sandusky. Now, last year, at this time we went to Splash Lagoon and I think they might have recovered all of the lost water. You can always tell when I am next on the water slide. Just look for the water to stop flowing at the bottom. Then comes the sound of a submarine collapsing under the pressure of the deep water. Then, you see the tsunami appear at the opening of the slide and WOOSH!

Now, my wife insisted that I book us a King bedroom with whirlpool tub. This is the same woman that drug me camping in a tent last weekend and now we have a fireplace in our hotel room. Go figure.  BTW, Is it coincidence that they just aired a Fat Person On A Waterslide segment on Here Comes Honey Boo Boo Child?   People are going to be looking at me, all judgmental and shit.

Kindergarten Blues
My daughter started Kindergarten this week. Now, there was a lot of hesitation and nervousness about going to the bus stop, getting on the bus, spending a whole day at kindergarten, and then riding the bus home, hoping to get off at the right stop. But, a brave front was put up and only a few tears were shed over the whole event. My wife got through it. :)

However, I’m not exactly sure I like all these new rules for school kids. I understand, 1980 is a far cry from 2012. The kid had homework the first day?!?!? Granted, she had to color in stuff. She does a good job of staying inside the lines but she did have one bad screw up.

 

Now, the handbook was pretty strict about absences and such which got my wife and I a little miffed. The kid is only five. If she were to miss a day, not due to illness, she might not learn that Friday is the last weekday. I think we can make that lesson up at home. However, there was a lot of speak about records and courts and I was thinking, “This kid is going to have a record because we went on vacation a day early?” I can see her future, “You daughter cannot be admitted to Harvard because she missed out on Yellow day back in Kindergarten.” So, apparently, there are five year olds smart enough to skip school and go do Pixie Sticks under the stadium bleachers. How do you punish a five year old for what their parents did? I guess, ask the folks who think the deportation of illegal kids brought over the border, by their parents, is a good idea.

Tekkit
OK, so I have already talked about my Minecraft addiction. But, as of late, the game is somewhat lax in exciting features. Don’t get me wrong. It’s still an awesome game and some of the latest features, like temples and trading with villagers is really cool, but having to start over on a new “world” to get these things to generate is a bit problematic.

However, I’ve been watching the Yogscast videos for a long time and apart from being hilarious, they’ve got me wanting to try Tekkit. The idea behind this is that I thought, “Man, wouldn’t it be awesome if I could build some kind of power plant, only primitive.” Nothing like a nuclear plant, but perhaps a water wheel to generate power for furnaces and mine carts. Redstone mechanics still escape me.

So, as I got into the later videos, I saw that they were starting to build stuff in Tekkit, which is a collection of mods, I guess. One of them is called Industrial Craft. These mods, bundled with a launcher and a kick ass texture pack like Sphax BD Purecraft have made the game extremely fun, if not infuriatingly complex.

It took forever for me to remember how to build some of the machines like a piston or enchanting table and now, with a whole bunch of new ores and minerals, it’s like learning chemistry all over again with a third grade level education.

You can literally automate an entire process of macerating an ore block into dust, smelting it into a bar, and placing it into a chest with a few cables, pipes, and basic engines. Not only that, but you can automate all of this further by building a quarry that will dig a large hole in the ground, sucking up all the blocks, passing them through pipes that can filter out items like dirt and rock from Iron and Diamonds and then pass them through the process or into chests.

It sort of breaks the game, though. There is a lot of setup to doing all of these wonderful things, but once you accomplish setting up a quarry that runs on fuel derived from an oil well or volcano and it automatically processes everything into chests, you don’t have to leave your house. You don’t have to fight monsters. You don’t have to mine. It’s like playing an RPG and once reaching level 20 or so, you go back to that first area that kicked your ass with your leather helmet and dagger and you say to the little bug monsters, “Who’s the bitch, now?”

Still, I will probably waste a lot of hours doing all this. If you are even the least bit interested in this, look up the Tekkit Wiki and go watch these videos.

Duncan is a member of the Yogscast and even though I do recommend watching the funnier Simon and Lewis or Sips and Sjin videos devoted to Tekkit, Duncan is more focused on showing you how to setup all of the machines and wiring associated with Tekkit.

OK, I’m out like a light. Have a good Labor Day.