I think I'm turning Japanese

Despite all of the political and social influences in my life, how did I manage to become who I am? I was born in New York City into a family comprised mostly of white Catholic Republicans. Yet here I am, almost 30, and I'm working for a major software company, completely obsessed with online RPGs, Japanese horror movies, Kareoke, Rythym games, bears in cat suits, asian women and electronic music. Where did this come from? Why did I turn out completely different then everyone else in my family?

I've thought long and hard about this, but there is only one possibility: Nintendo turns children Japanese.

Check out this cute little number I picked up for my wife...


MEOW 

Old news, but new to me: Kevin Smith to do commentary on Donnie Darko Director's cut release

Kevin Smith did the commentary track for the Director's Cut release of Donnie Darko back in July. Fans had an oppourtunity to ask questions of Richard Kelly on the official View Askew message boards.

How does Kevin Smith have anything to do with Donnie Darko? I don't know. Maybe its just his success with his own commentary tracks...

Pay close attention, you might miss something...

Donnie Darko is finally playing in the Orlando area. Bill and I caught it over at the Altamonte 8, the only independent theatre in the area playing it. We were very excited to finally catch the Director's cut of this top notch movie. However, the movie theatre itself turned out to be a story in and of itself.

We arrived at the Altamonte 8 just after dark. There is a dim light eminating from within the theatre, but otherwise it appears closed. The ticket window is sealed with masking tape and a hand written sign directs us to purchase tickets inside. The figure of two men are outlined by the dim light behind the ticket counter. We cautiously approach the men, as we draw closer, the shadows depart to reveal cardboard cut outs of Legolas and Gandalf. Visibly shaken, we turn to our left and find a slightly less animated gentleman who is either going to sell us tickets or kill us. Bill is the first to speak, "Two tickets for Donnie Darko please." The clerk who is best described as the atypical Scooby Doo villian replies "Errghghg Donnnrriiiee Daaarkooo 14, no 7, no 14 dollars." Old man withers points us to another hand written sign which advises that all movies start on time, because no one is stupid enough to advertise at this clearly abandoned theatre. We hurry to our seats, anticipating either death or a good movie.

The theatre was devoid of people, so we chose to sit in the DEAD center of the room. Some more people filtered in just before the movie started raising the headcount to a seat packing 4. The movie began promptly at 7:20 as advertised and despite poor sound and video quality it was a great experience. The darkness and silence of the movie theatre lent the movie a more dramatic setting then one would experience at home.

When the movie ended, we made our way to the exit through the empty theatre. It was fairly dark in the theatre and no employees were to be found. All the lights were out, and the exit was a one way door. From the outside, you would never be able to tell a movie was just shown. We discussed the movie experience and decided that we would not be surprised if we went back to this theatre the next day and found that this theatre was never open for business and we had just experienced some strange supernatural phenomena. If you're a fan of Donnie Darko, you know we wouldn't have it any other way.

India is bad Mmmkay?

Blood sucking monkeys at Hindu Temple attack hundreds of children!

Bush is into Christianity. Lions are not.

I'm a democrat. I'm dissapointed that Bush won. However, our furry friends are winners this day!

Man tries to convert lions to Jesus, gets bitten

Early voting causes pink eye!

There has been at least one verified case of pink caused by the late October "early elections." The victims optometrist has been quoted as saying "someone at the voting place give it to you..." I would like to warn everyone away from early elections in the future due to long lines and the possibility of conjunctivitis.

On a lighter note, this weekend I fixed my sprinklers, took the kids out trick or treating, and got about 4 AA. Pretty productive weekend, but nothing of note.

We found out the new members of our team today and their names are Jack and Steve for those in the know. Both of them have been around for quite some time and will make great contributions.

Skinny Puppy Concert in Orlando

Well, I finally got to Skinny Puppy live! After missing the 1992 last rights tour, the last time I was aware they were in Orlando, I feared I would never get to see them. But alas, with their latest album "The greater wrong of the right" came a new tour. To say the least, I was not dissapointed. They seemed to have a great handle on what their fans wanted to hear and the concert was essentially the best of all their albums live.

They opened up with Downsizer off GWOTR. Ogre (or ohgr, whatever he's calling himself now) was nowhere in site, and singing off stage. Then they went into I'mmortal and ogre stomped onto stage in what appeared to be an Egyptian Jackal looking costume made out of gauze and burlap straps. It was a somewhat bloody color and was mostly full body. The mask was the coolest part of the costume, it had long pointy jackal like ears and a long snout that extended downward and past his neck far enough so he was able to fit a microphone underneath it. The mask was expressionless and mummylike. I wish I had some pictures of the costume, it was really interesting. The last new song was Pro-test.

SP then played some older stuff including VXGasAttack, Vivisectvi, hexxonexonex, Warlock, Tin omen etc... VXgasattack and hexxonexxonex in particular have always been very political songs, which you would think would have lost their relevance, however the new war in Iraq with the new President Bush has lent some new life to these songs. There was one theatric they did on stage, I think for hexonexxonex where two Al Qaeda like terrorists come on stage dressed in black with black masks. They act out a violent decapatation of ogre which ends with him limp on the ground. He then stands back up and unravels their turbans to reveal two guys in Bush and Cheyne outfits and they start shrugging and laughing at everyone. That went over real well with the crowd, it was quite humorous.

They did two encores one of which Convulsion off Too dark park and the other was The Choke. The Choke was missing most of its sound bites and wasn't really done that well. Most notably it was missing the delayed/repeated screaming thats present in the original version of the song. The good news is that a friend of mine who was at the Tampa show said the encores were different for his show, so they are making an attempt to mix it up at that level anyhow.

My favorite song live was probably Warlock. They had blue lights shining everywhere during the part which mentions them and the song was dead on. One of my favorite songs off the albums is vivisectvi, but the guitarist/bassist was an assclown and obviously didn't know the bassline for the song. During the real quiet times where they usually break out the bass lines the bass was silent or fudged. This was obviously because they had to hire a guitarist to tour with as Cevin was playing drums full time on this tour.

Overall a great experience I will never forget. I hope they continue to produce albums and tour, I would like to see them at least one more time. Afterall, I got the tatoo...