Well that was a lie. Also, for Tim’s benefit I have to point out that I was probably quite drunk when I wrote that post. Anyways, these days the Tumble sees a lot more action than the blog. It’s funny – I have a moment to post… But right now, I can’t think of anything to post for the life of me.

Oh well – that’s life.

-Max

Election 2008

Posts are welling up inside me. I will comment on life… And soon.

For now, however, I feel only the need to say that tonight America won a great victory. Let us hope that we have won the war, and not merely a battle.

Journey, Life, the Universe, and Everything

It’s been a little while since I last posted. Reasons are difficult, perhaps, to express, but they have something to do with the facts that I can’t post from work and that I find myself with less and less free time once I actually make it home. Much has happened.

Yesterday I saw Journey live in concert.

They were accompanied by Heart and Cheap Trick, a fact that only serves to heighten their awesomeness. Those are by no means small-time bands, after all. The concert was everything I could hope for, but was bittersweet for several reasons I’m no longer sure I can rely in a public forum. As usual, a woman was involved.

A little earlier, the Girl and I spent a day in Annapolis. We talked, we walked, and as usual things were ambiguous. Oh well – at least I got good crab cakes out of it. Also on the weird front – I met her mom. And she cooked dinner for us. Good times.

Various other things have popped up that vex and frustrate me… But I think I’m still processing them. So I leave you with some thoughts:

1. I am now, officially, middle-class entirely on my own. There’s a scary thought.
2. South Ossetians celebrated Russia’s support of their independence… By firing guns into the air. First – way to show your civilized nature, gents. Second – what goes up…
3. Of all the organizations that could use a few consultants, DC Metro probably needs us the most. Dear lord – a train stopped at Federal Triangle shut down the orange and blue lines in both directions, just about. Only they were turning back trains at Arlington Cemetary – WTF? Why not Foggy Bottom? Why not just bounce trains off the stations on either side and run buses to cover the gap? Zero coverage failure, minimal additional cost, hundreds fewer angry customers. Come on guys – this is a no-brainer.

Until next time~

Hellboy II and Other

I saw Hellboy II a little later than I usually do. Dylan and I discovered that the Metro shuts down at midnight on weekdays in DC – didn’t cause problems when I lived in Georgetown, but it certainly hampers any sort of mid-week nightlife if I’m anywhere that doesn’t have a movie theatre within walking distance!

So we went Friday. Barely made the showing, in fact, which resulted in our being stuck up at the very front. My neck is still sore. Was it worth it? Hell yeah.

This is not the same Hellboy as the first. Gone is the focus on super-secret supernatural badassery (mostly because Hellboy reveals himself to the press early on); but with that facade gone, the door is opened to a whole new identity crisis for our hero. He finds himself hated and feared by humans, rather than revered. Gee – raise your hand if you didn’t see THAT coming! Enter the bad guy: Prince Nuada, last scion of the “elves” (modeled after the Tuatha de Danann of Gaelic fame). He’s passionate, but ultimately not all that menacing on screen, prefering instead to dispatch nastier beasties to do his bidding. He DOES, however, prove to be quite a schemer – putting Hellboy, for instance, in the position of killing the last Forest Elemental, a being of great beauty and grace, just to torture Hellboy’s conscience a little.

The weakness of the main villain, however, lets the movie focus on the development of our heroes. We’ve lost Meyers, but gained Johann Krauss – a medium composed entirely of ectoplasm. Cool beans, right? Despite the vast potential for screw-ups, Del Toro actually manages to make the character believable; and even with his shorter screen time, we see the character evolve to become part of the team in a thoroughly satisfying way.

In fact, the whole movie is thoroughly satisfying. There is one scene in particular – around half-way through the movie – where Hellboy and Abe drink, and muse on life and love. It’s moving in its natural power, choreographed like a well-written symphony, all to the unlikely tune of “Can’t Smile Without You” (sung by Barry Manilow). It’s quite possibly one of my favorite scenes of all time.

For all that, however, the movie fails to truly wow. It meanders from plot point to plot point with very little tangible conflict; just one witty quip and fantastic monster after another. It’s a pleasure to watch, but hardly world-shaking. I recommend it to any fan of folk tales, lore, and the supernatural; as well as to anyone who just likes to watch a fun action flick; but don’t go in expecting anything profound. The first movie was probably better for that.

On the blog… For those of you who don’t know, tomorrow is my last day of freedom before I’m plunged into the “real world”. I’m sure it’ll go by quickly and without celebration: after all, I have to be in bed by 9 PM if I hope to get to orientation on time and still get a decent night’s sleep. That sucks, but I guess sacrifices must be made…

I expect the first week or so will be busy, and that this blog will suffer. I’ll write when I can, though – you know, for those of you who read it…

Tags

I forgot to mention (though it’s been a few days and I’m sure anyone who actually reads the site will already be aware)… I’ve integrated tags into the blog. Wordpress’ newest version finally caught up with the trend in the Blogosphere and included them as part of the default functionality.

Unfortunately, Vistered Little didn’t. Or rather, I think VL was built with Tag Warrior in mind, because the coding COMES with tag functions prefaced with “TW_”. Needless to say – since I don’t have Tag Warrior, and the integrated WP tags aren’t compatible with any other tag service (maybe?) – that pretty much spelled doom for tags. I found a work-around, though, meaning that you can all enjoy tag-navigating-goodness.  Still working on fixing the titlebar’s glitch…

Cool fact #2 is the “Tags: ” line at the bottom of the post. I may not have figured out how to move the social networking links to the end of the post, but I DID build that “Tags: ” line from scratch. Quite the accomplishment for a 素人 like me.

And see? I’m posting. Updating the twitter feed and the tumble too…

More updates…

You know – it’s funny. I go into every long weekend with a list of affirmative, productive things I intend to do during my free time.

Of course, none of these things are ever accomplished. I have managed a few updates to the blog, though. You can now see Twitter updates off to the right-hand side – just in case you ever wanted to stalk me. All the link-porn which previously cluttered the blog is now exclusively restricted to my Tumble Log . I’m working on a way to integrate this blog and the tumblr in a logical way, but for now I’m just going to add a link in the sidebar.

Chronos also promises to post at some point. We all know what that means…

Changes…

For those of you who haven’t noticed, the blog looks a little different. My boss pointed out this theme, and I kind of fell in love with it. While I still need to make some modifications in order to be 100% happy with it, at least y’all get a stable theme that looks good in the mean time.

This change has also come with Flickr integration, meaning that I can plop photos in much more easily like so:

Nifty, huh? All the original functionality is preserved as well! This bodes well for the blog!

Hopefully, the next few weeks will see more real posts instead of linkdumps, as well as some of my thoughts, etc… Until then, adieu.

Blogs? Tumblr?

So this isn’t working. I think that should have been obvious from a while ago.

I guess I just don’t have enough to blog about? That or I’m not committed enough? Something… So I’ve decided to explore other options. I’m going to look into alternate methods of blogging, etc… and see if I can come up with something more engaging. In the mean time, y’all can expect a few scattered posts…

News, etc…

So life has been a little more busy lately. Should be a little more free in the next few weeks, though, so hopefully I’ll be able to finish the coding on the site and post a little more.

Today in the news there are two things I’d like to share…

The first is the Modu. In a rather stagnant cell-phone market it’s good to see someone making something original and creative. I might actually buy this – I’ve always kind of preferred to carry something slimmer and sexier, now I can have a work phone and a personal phone without having two phones!

The second link needs no explanation other than, “Wait… Polaroid still exists?”. Apparently they have a whopping 150 employees!

Later peeps.

I’ll bet he does…

This link certainly is interesting.

Comments later… Job Search = Death for the moment.

*Update*

This article should be titled: “Well-meaning if inappropriate joke met with typical right-wing conservative ‘creativity’!” Don’t get me wrong – I love the Christian Right as much as the next guy; I mean, how else would I get my daily dose of laughter? But this is ridiculous. You just know some southern lawyer felt god had “asked him to step up and defend his name” or some such bullshit. That or someone equally “clever” (not necessarily right-wing, conservative, OR Christian) thought it’d be funny to add a tongue-in-cheek reply. Either way – the response misses the point of the message. Probably cost the system money in filing costs and getting the whole mess dismissed. Good job, whoever. Well done.