Saturday, November 26, 2011

Pumpkin Heads, Frozen Earths and Bitter Antelopes


Greetings halflings! And, what the heck, hello to the wholelings checking in as well... if my voice sounds funny, it's because I'm in the middle of my annual bout with sinus-related head-stuffiness. Yes, it affects my singing voice... here, I'll demonstrate... "He was once a little green slab of clay... Gumby!"

See? Yeah, it just doesn't sound right, eh? I do like the effect, though... it adds depth and gravel to the bad accents I annoy everyone with. And yes, I mean everyone! Even you! If you get an anonymous call on your celly in the next day or two, with someone on the other end doing a bad, but wonderfully deep and gravelly Russian or British accent... well, it could be me. Don't call the cops... I have to keep practicing my accents, or they'll never get better! We actors are annoying like that....


So I'm buying games and books like they're going out of style. There's just so much good stuff out there! I'll never catch up. Here I am, fully absorbed in Skyrim, and Steam goes ahead and has a great Thanksgiving sale, forcing me (yes, forcing, I say!) to buy even more games for my overloaded library! And don't get me started on my digital book collection... sheesh! I'm tearing through more samples of late, just to clean out the clutter in my Kindle App. Mostly fantasy, but some sci-fi.

I did buy Theft of Swords, which is the first volume of Michael Sullivan's Riyria Revelations series, which just came out. I read the sample and was very impressed. His is a cool story... he decided to write an entire six-volume series completely, before publishing any of them. Now, that's confidence for you. I like the reasoning he gives - that it makes going back and strengthening/tweaking earlier volumes possible. If book one and two (for example) are published and locked in stone, and you're writing away on book 5 (for example!) and stumble upon a story element that would require tweaking volume one to get the best effect, you can't do it if Vol one is on the shelves already!

Anyways, he acknowledges that it was a risky strategy, but it seems to have paid off. He's getting a lot of love in the fantasy blogs, etc. of late. When I finish the book, I may send some love his way as well...

This video is currently making the rounds, and it's quite amazing...



What an amazingly clear video image... I'd love to see it in HD some time... it's from a BBC nature series called Frozen Earth. Here is the link, in case the YouTube embed gets taken down (because of copyright nonsense).

So I got a Jury Summons in the mail today! What gives!? I thought if you've served on a jury, you get a reprieve of 3 years before you have to serve again? I did that city trial in 2009 and the Federal one downtown last year. Ah well, part of me wants to complain, while the other part of me wants to show up and see if I can get selected for a third trial in a row. They don't call me "Hanging Judge Wagner" for nothing! String 'em all up, I says!

OK, I don't really says that... except about Christmas lights...

If I do get on another criminal trial, I will post about it every day here on this blog, with polls based on that day's evidence, so you can all tell me how to vote! That is, until I get caught and kicked off the jury. Then I can claim my rights have been violated, and I'll have to Occupy the courthouse. Or maybe I'll just Occupy the nearest Starbucks instead. "This Pumpkin Spice Latte is not hot enough! Equal coffee rights now! Heck no, we won't go! Without a free refill, anyway..."


Wrong movie, Leo!

It's after midnight. I'm eating Smart Food (thus begrunging my keyboard) and drinking tea. Among the items on my desk are the following: An empty Sam Adams bottle (from Thursday), a sharpee pen, a box of Kleenex, my jury summons (along with the rest of today's mail), a set of headphones (with retractable mic) and my daughter's big, goofy sunglasses. How the glasses got here, I'm not sure. I'd try them on, but I'm not feeling it right now. Oh, what the heck, here, I'll try them on.


If I die tonight, that will be the last picture ever taken of me! Yes, I'm as tired as I look. But at least I'm fashionable and stuff. Because nothing says "trendy and fashionable" like a pair of ridiculous glasses! I saw a pair of sunglasses for $25,000 at the Crystal Mall in Vegas last summer. What, may I ask, the heck?

Here, I have one more video clip for you...



And that is why you don't go mountain biking in Africa! Well, that, and malaria. Although that might be a myth, for all I know. That antelope was just bitter because it rhymes with "cantaloupe"... If my name rhymed with "cantaloupe" I'd want to run people over as well...

OK, fine, I'll stop for tonight. My head feels like (and likely looks like) a pumpkin at the moment, so I'm going to pound some Ni-Quil and go the heck to bed.

Adios for now,

Dave the Semi-Lucid

PS I used "heck" six times in this post... well, seven, if you count the "heck" in the PS. Make that eight...

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've used two computers at the same time - one for the "text book" and one for writing a report....how does one utilize three computers at the same time????

BA (cool new initials :)

Abbie Josephsen said...

haha, i only found "heck" seven times, including the two from the ps :) but that still is a lot :) Hope you feel better soon!! see ya!

logankstewart said...

I can just see you now, sitting in your office, Skyrim on pause as you hear a knock at the door. It's a telegraph. Hesitantly, you open the mail and read your jury summons. Overcome with grief, you throw on your daughter's sunglasses to hide your manly tears. "Music," you think. "Something to capture my mood." You put in your headphones and play some sad 80's tune and let the tears flow. Another knock, this time a magi bearing gifts of Sam Adams. You gladly accept and tear the top off with your teeth, guzzling down the brew with one quick head-tilt. Still distraught, you begin to scribble inane messages onto Kleenex tissues with the nearest instrument you can find: a blue Sharpee. Three hours later you come to, your collection of tissues strewn everywhere. "I think," you say aloud, "that I see a blog post somewhere in here." And you smile, because you know you do.

David Wagner said...

BA: I believe my record is 5 at once, if my iPad counts. What you can't see in that picture is a second iMac to the right. And the two screens on the left are actually just two monitors on the same computer... I do that to double my desktop size, giving me more real estate to open the programs I need... Anyway, I've had my PC, both iMacs, and my laptop running, while I was checking something on my iPad...

Believe it or not, it made sense to do so, but I won't bore you with why...

Abbie: You were right - I miscounted. I was tempted to edit in another "heck" so I could not look foolish, but that would be just sooo dishonest! Let me play the fool nowhere but in my own house!!! (A little Hamlet for you there...)

Logan: That's exactly what happened! Except there was (sadly) a lot more wind involved...

Odhynn said...

Taking a punch at the Occupy movement, are we? Naughty.

Yet another mortal enemy to bikers: antilopes.
Yep, that's why I wear a helmet.