The Attic Apartment: June 2010 - Ahead in the polls

Don't play Red Dead Redemption or this will happen to you

I know, I know, my mail-in video embedding probably won't work. But SUCK IT.

I tried CHIME on Xbox Live tonight and it was okay, not quite great
enough for me to pick it up, but then, I'm not much for puzzle games.
Maybe I would play a puzzle game that was a just a Rubik's cube that
came together to form images of nearly undressed librarians, but I
mean, I have yet to find that Rubik's cube. Anyway I found out about
CHIME by reading this recurring feature which reviews games under $5
(and usually free and browser-based). That's how I found out about
some other good stuff online like REDDER and RAPTOR SAFARI.

I know, I know, you're probably saying Tim, what's with all the
all-caps titles? Well, I have no idea how the fuck you're supposed to
indicate a title on the internet. I used to think, what does it
matter, we'll figure it out someday, I mean come on, you can already
twist italics into your email, but really still it's unclear. I mean
I've seen publishing professionals indicate a title with regular caps,
with no caps, with italics, with little _underscores_ around the
title, with the whole mess in UPPERCASE, which, I guess, is attractive
to me tonight.

My sister's family is here and it is greater than I imagined. I drive
35 minutes to a house shaded in the suburbs and mellowed by central
air and eat grilled food and drink tequila. MAN. Also all the kids are
old now, or old enough at least to shock me. And smart, and fun.

Here's a part of the post where I write about a literary magazine:

I came very close last week to starting a literary magazine. I follow
a couple lit blogs and on one run by some editors and writers I said
something like, How about a literary magazine online that doesn't
publish what all the other ones publishes but instead just publishes
serials? And then after I left the comment I was like, in my head,
thinking to myself, turning it over, tasting the idea, mellowing it in
the casks of my brain, and it seemed pretty great. I mean, I'd rather
read something that builds over issues than that stands alone. Every
fucking journal online it seems is publishing the same fucking sub-3k
words pieces over and over and over.

So I came home and started using the godawful GIMP to layout a new
format and I started fucking around with Kompozer and got together the
scraps of a page and then I formatted some sample documents. And then
I thought, this is a lot of work.

Here's A Tissue

So this Mediacom thing is so damn wacky. I can either claim my innocence in writing and be open to ass litigation from Disney OR allow Mediacom to watch my every internet action until I download two more illegal movies in Gambia to which they will let Disney litigate my ass. I cannot win!

Rominger once told me Iowa City was full of Asians. I didn't believe him until today when I noticed a lot of Asians. This is also true about Spiderman 2. Spiderman 2 has a lot of Asian extras.

I need a new keyboard as well. I lost one of the legs and the left control button is busted. I also have a row of F-buttons I never use. Does anyone use the F-Buttons? I use F5 occasionally to refresh a certain image board but...are they used by anyone anymore? I can't think of any programs that use functions like that.

Has anyone seen Jonah Hex? If anyone has, let me know if it's any good. I am staying away from Rotten Tomatoes because that place is more butthurt than Amish when he's tired and at the grocery store.

Picture time!

Listen, both of you

There is no defeating me in this challenge. I forgot all about it until just right now and look, here I am, typing into my email. The "to" line says "Attic Apartment." It's like I'm writing directly to the blog instead of into the blog. At least I have the decency not to climb inside her.

I'd like to address Nick first.

Those fish sound good. Fish on a plank sound good. Beer sounds good. Please make this happen again if and when Sarah and I live again in the Midwest. Even if we're in Minneapolis. Is that too far to drive for patriotic hijinx? I don't think so. And what cop is going to arrest Uncle Sam, even if his face is greasy with fish and his breath is sour with discount alcohol and he's trailing six feet of barbed wire and a morse code of blood?

Now I'll address Dave.

Dave, I hope your movie turns out well. I think it will. I hope mine turns out well as well. I hope all ours turns out well. What lesson do you think you'll learn? I think my lesson is this:

Well, nothing came to mind, so I guess I haven't learned it yet. It may have something to do with palm trees or with literature. I'm not sure which. One lesson that I've learned that surely is not The Lesson is that I should have started running earlier in life, because I feel pretty good. Really I'm unlearning that lesson though because now that the race I participated in is over my trips to the gym have become less regular and now with my sister's family in town it seems certain that they will be forsaken altogether for a period of time.

Another lesson that probably isn't The Lesson is that it's fun to cook. It is! You can get all creative and impress your girlfriend, at least a little.

Now, to close out, some book recommendations:

CHRONIC CITY, by Jonathan Lethem. Pretty good. A retired and grown-up child actor gets involved with a reclusive culture critic and tries not to think about a giant tiger terrorizing the city. So much pot that you'll start to think, there's a lot of pot in this book.

LIKE LIFE, by Lorrie Moore. Some of these stories are just okay, but a few are so good it's hard to believe anyone put them together. The first ones are the best, so you could even just get through half the book. There's a particularly disgusting description of the behavior of a woman who works in a cheese spread shop.

THE COLLECTED STORIES OF PHILIP K. DICK: Some hits, some misses.

SAVAGE NIGHT, by Jim Thompson. Pretty great! Have you seen the trailers for The Killer Inside Me? I'm not sure about the movie, but that book too (by this author) was great great. Maybe I wrote about it on here before.

Tell a Moon Dough

Despite how much I love Donettes, they are not a dinner by any means.

I welcome Nick to this week's challenge, and welcome anyone else who wants to jump on to do so.

I came to the conclusion today that someone in our youth told us we were going to be rich rock stars and have giant houses, millions of women, and so much money we can swim in it. I started thinking about old 40s movies, and they told the same story. Yet most of us are creative types and we have neither made giant amounts of currency or live in palaces. Although, some of us are swimming in relationships.

Which led me to believe that my life is currently in some sort of coming of age stage. I do not like this idea. But no matter what happens, I'm going to learn some sort of lesson from it. And that frightens me.

So here's today's image macro.

Player 3 has joined the server.

Grilling is a must. I ordered this 12 pack of cedar planks for grilling that I hope arrive before the fourth. As well as these wire skewers for kabobing but with more of a space saver vibe. I'm sad I didn't get any entertaining explosives before the upcoming weekend as now the state line will be better guarded than the Mexican boarder. But the planks. I can't wait. I'm going to grill the fuck out of some fish. I don't care who supplies the fire. I got planks and I will have fish. Mary's got to work so I'll be solo and the kid's will be at the babysitters. Man I can't wait for some grilling action. A round of salmon all around. Bring the brew. I gots me some fish. Fish. FISH. And maybe chicken. Kabob.

Got Your Nose

Well I decided to accept Dave's challenge, issued through Gmail chat earlier tonight while I filed bullshit academic advising records, to blog every day. Blog a day. Blogaday. I should get bonus points for doing this while my sister and her entire family are in town. How many people are in town? My sister and her entire family. Thankfully they're not staying with us, as this place probably couldn't handle ... seven people.

I am looking forward to seeing them, and I'm sure my sister and her husband are looking forward to getting out of Iowa (they were vacationing here before I moved here, although they're not really into the theme park thing), but it seems their kids are now just moving into the relationships-crushes-etc. parts of their lives where they unsurprisingly are not excited about leaving their state for better than a week. How do I know this? Through the weird magic of Facebook.

Anyway I bring this up because it has me feeling awkward already.

. . .

People ride bicycles here with benches fixed to the back. Actually they drive a lot of rickshaw-like things. I've been playing Red Dead Redemption lately and now every time a rickshaw tools by outside it sounds like a wagon carrying TNT on its way to blow the door off my building.

. . .

Do you remember my horror novel about the time-traveling sex fiend who jumps from generation to generation stealing body parts from the women of one family, until he has enough to sew together a thirty-generation sex doll? Well, now I have a new novel, and it's called Got Your Nose. It opens at a young boy's birthday party. His uncle weaves toward him, logy with cake and beer swallowed cheap and fast before the party. "Hey, champ," the uncle says. His hand snakes out to the boy's face and comes back with the thumb between the fingers. "Got your nose." The boy erupts in tears, screams, hands to his face, runs for the house, crashes into the door, sees blood coming between his fingers. Twenty years later he's a school janitor by day and by night a serial mutilator. If this were a movie the trailer would end with a dark screen, with frantic breathing, and then the wet sound of a saw. Someone screams. Someone else says, "Got your nose."

Smile, Jackass!

I vow to talk about something every day this week to restart the blog. Hopefully.

This weekend: Kevin's barbeque, possible Allison being around. I would like to see the Senior Center (That being Martin and Morgan and Bil and sometimes Karl) sometime this weekend, as well.

Borderlands: I missed some shit! I have to go back and do it again.

I hate children. I especially hate children at the grocery store. The only thing I hate more is parents on their damn cellphones driving around a parking lot at the grocery store with their kids unbuckled in the back. A wreck would only fill me with morbid joy. And that fat mother of poor judgment would blubber and ball due to her bad decisions, and I would cackle.

And go STRAIGHT TO HELL with Harry Potter and all his wizard friends.

Pooperang

So, turns out I have to work the 3rd. Thus, I won't be in Iowa for the 4th of July, unless somehow they give me the 4th and 5th off. Doubtful. Apparently tons of people requested off that weekend. Who'd have guessed?

On a side note, I keep throwing poop, but it keeps coming back. Pooperang. Fun for everyone!

Hurr Durrrrrrrr

In regards to the letter from Mediacom and Disney: if I were to turn the paperwork in, Mediacom would HAVE to give Disney my information, and then Disney would have the option to pursue legal actions if and when they wanted to. But if I don't submit these papers, they will still monitor my internet use as "flagged" and anyone in Gambia could continue to download movies and blame me for it.

Seriously. Damned if I do, damned if I don't.

Josh and Amanda's wedding is this weekend. Who is going to be around? I move shit back to Coralville Sunday afternoon, so some- wait. I'm dumb. No one plans anything, so why bother!

Bunch of animals... What's going on the 4th of July? Other than a possible Billying.

He's not the firstie. He's not the lastie.

He's the Gillaspie.

The outbreak has begun

For those of you that were planning on coming to visit Illinois on the weekend of July 10th...if you have not already heard, I have to attend a wedding that day. Thus, I think a reschedule would be best.

Also, depending on my work schedule, I am going to try to go to 80 35 for 4th of July weekend. I'm thinking camping somewhere with a couple of people. You guys should join...assuming it happens. I'll let you know my work schedule as soon as I figure that out.

On a similar note, I finally found a new job! I start next Tuesday. I will be working as a Retail Coordinator for Goodwill. It sounds like there could be a lot of potential for advancement, but it also sounds like it might blow a lot of the time. However, it's over a 50% pay raise, I should be working about 20 minutes away and paychecks will not be 3 months late. So, Hoorah for Lincoln on that! Thus, in a few months I should be able to afford an apartment, so depending on when you all decide to visit, we may not have to awkwardly interact with my parents. Huzah!
The downside: My current boss is still very far behind on paychecks...he'd better effing pay me or I will have to bring you guys out to help make him pay...

McDonald's Frappes taste so good, but they always make my stomach hurt after consuming them. I really should stop.

A few days ago, I saw a lady that I could have sworn was a zombie. I was on a westbound train, heading home, and we stopped to let passengers off in Wheaton. I was looking out the window and saw a 70ish year old woman inside the train station building. She was slightly hunched over, walking very slowly, with her eyes looking both upwards and a little bit outwards, with her mouth hanging all the way open. She walked a few feet until she got to the door to leave the building and just stopped while gently pushing on the door, never blinking or closing her mouth.
Creepy.

I have been adamantly against this movie from the first time I heard about it. Why would I fucking illegally download it while I was at work?!

Sit Down and Shut Up: We Got a Lot to Cover

If I wrote music, and directed my own music videos, it would probably be like this.

Earthworm Jim HD was released on the XBL this week. It's nice to go back to a game like this because I didn't realize how much of an impact it had on me. In retrospect, it got me out of the confused Ninja Turtle phase and into the weird, awkward teenage years where I may still currently reside. I'm speaking of character design and style, mind you. Doug TenNapel, the artist responsible for The Neverhood and director of Sockbaby, really had a huge unknown impact on me.

Pretty much all that differentiates this game from Ye Olde Days of SNES are a boosted resolution, nice shiny graphics (that's a pun; the studio that developed it originally was called Shiny), and higher frame rate.

Tim wanted me to touch base on why Earthworm Jim is a worm. Why? BECAUSE IT'S A FUCKING VIDEO GAME. The game's humor is just bizarre, let alone why a space suit plummets to earth and lands on a worm, endowing him with a super body and a gun. None of the game makes sense, to tell the truth. At one point, you ride a giant hamster. One of the bosses has a monkey for a head. There's also underwater cats, not to mention the launching of a cow because "you can". It's the suspension of disbelief all over in this bitch. If you are looking for character development and a huge hero's journey riddled subplot about the origins of the suit, you should not be playing this game.

I have also forgotten how god damn hard this game is.

What else... Oh. My mom had a small possibly non life threatening stroke. Apparently it dealt with some sort of medication she's on? Something about high blood pressure, too. No worries for now.

And also: Borderlands has taken most of my free time up. And it should for you, too. If you are into collecting games and shootin' games. I will invest in Red Dead Redemption in July...hopefully.

Just Like One of My Japanese Animes...

Kiss it goodbye...

....productivity that is.

WELLS or what Tim missed

Man, look at this review of Red Dead

http://www.slate.com/id/2255619/

Is there no end of the conspiracy to get me to buy this game?

As those of you hooked into the goofy network that is Facebook know, I
possess a $50 Amazon giftcard that I, as a Horse Academy employee,
received for answering online radio-selection questions about my
health. How many times a week do I do 15-30 minutes of exercise? How
many drinks do I drink each night?

The answer to both of these is: about three thousand.

Anyway I am of several minds on how to spend this money, which I barely earned:

1) ON VIDEO GAMES (specifically, on Red Dead)

up side: Everyone loves this game. My friends love this game, snarky
internet reviewers love this game.

down side: I hardly need another distraction, particularly one with a
strong narrative element.

2) ON BOOKS PUBLISHED BY SMALL PRESSES

up side: These are books I probably can't find in the local library.

down side: Who knows if these books suck serial killer dick, or are
righteous explorations?

3) ON MOVING EXPENSES (because Sarah and I hope to leave this sweaty
purgatory this fall)

up side: well, there's always stuff you need to buy once you move.

down side: What in this category can you buy for $50?