OK so I am way damn behind on things again but thanks to Gleeful Gecko (Curses to the glee) I was put on to another damn fine production.

Dr Horrible’s Sing along Blog is a great little piece of work. Tragically it will be going away before many of you read this. When I say going away I dont mean it permanently. It will be around for download for a nominal fee. I for one am willing to spend a little on it even though I caught it.

If you need a reference think of it like “Once more with feeling” The Buffy the Vampire slayer musical episode. Except its about a supervillan. And what could be better than that. Not much I tell you. Joss Whedon is a freaking genius!!!! Here is what Joss Whedon says the idea is:

The idea was to make it on the fly, on the cheap – but to make it. To turn out a really thrilling, professionalish piece of entertainment specifically for the internet. To show how much could be done with very little. To show the world there is another way. To give the public (and in particular you guys) something for all your support and patience. And to make a lot of silly jokes. Actually, that sentence probably should have come first.

So go check out the web site and ignore the rest of this post because I am going to be very very very redundant and repetitious. Go watch Dr Horrible’s Sing along Blog. Go buy Dr Horrible’s Sing along Blog. Go watch Dr Horrible’s Sing along Blog. Go tell everyone about Dr Horrible’s Sing along Blog.

Be bad…Its good.

-gg

The Smithee 17 Screen, originally uploaded by Tancread.

ALMOST LEGAL

So I am completely lame and have not posted much about ORIGINS. I play some fun games including “Kobolds Ate My Baby/Midnight Massacre” and a game of “Morrow Project“. These were all good but the highlight of the weekend was for me the “17th annual Smithee Awards” Yes the Smitthee’s are now almost legal. God knows when they hit 21 we can all drink enough to forget the incredibly BAD movies they had this year. For a complete listing look HERE. You can see all the movies they have done but 2008 was a really tough year.
For those of you who don’t know about the Smithee’s, here is a quick summary.

Once upon a time there was a very ill pyschotherapist, we will call him Bob. His real name is Bryan Cassidy. Along with Greg Pearson, a man known for his ability to produce a purple notebook at a moments notice, they came up with an award show of the Worst of the worst.

Being lazy I will let the Official Smithee FAQ finish this part of the story… Just remember Bacon is your friend.

So how did this whole thing start?

Bryan Cassidy and Greg Pearson were avid role-playing gamers living and going to graduate school in Ann Arbor, Michigan. In 1991, Bryan discovered a new game from Stellar Games called It Came From The Late, Late, Late Show, in which the players take on the roles of Actors taking on the roles of characters in a B-movie. Already interested in schlock, Bryan began Directing many different highly successful “films” such as Mars Needs Sheep, The Second Husband of the Bride of Frankenstein, BUGZ, Invasion of the Intestine Eaters from Planet Xeno, and Vengeance of the Sea Chimps, to name but a few.

Concurrent with the gaming sessions were occasional (tri-weekly?) Cast Parties, when all the players would simply sit around watching gut-wrenchingly awful videos (for reference) and eating junk food. It was around this time that it occurred to Bryan and Greg (one of the game troupe’s main stars) how great it would be if there were only a way to distill the best parts (i.e., worst parts) of these kinds of movies and compare them. Sort of a training film for B-movie actors. Hey–how about some kind of an awards ceremony?

Being just crazy enough to try it and using the Late Show rulebook as an inspiration, Bryan and Greg came up with 19 categories where movies tended to be Bad. They started to collect horrible videos and bugged their audio/visually-connected friends to help them edit the worst parts (i.e., best parts) together. After one or four all-nighters in late May, 1992, it transformed into an evening of friends, unhealthy snacks, and the most hilarious parts of the most hideous films we could stand.

That turned out so well, we were compelled to do it again the following year, though some claim that they never fully recovered from the first. Like some mutant hell-beast, the Smithee Awards™ have been growing out of control ever since.

So these sick pups came up with the best idea ever. Distill down the time it takes me to watch all sorts of movies and find the few that are soooo bad I have to say “WOW that crap is BAD” Now I can go to Columbus OH every year and get that done for me. Its like TIVO on steroids, except TIVO doesn’t usually include 300 some people sitting in a room together. And if it did why the hell would you have TIVO?

But I digress (surprised?). So our man Bryan…opps I mean Bob, leads us through 19 categories of the worst parts of some of the worst movies ever made. These Categories include:

THE MOST LUDICROUS PREMISE AWARD™, THE OBLIVIOUS AWARD™, THE “WANNA RUN THAT BY ME AGAIN?” AWARD™, THE “LET’S UP THE RATING TO ‘R’” AWARD™, THE “ALAS, POOR YORICK”AWARD™,
THE DEUS EX MACHINA AWARD™, THE STUPIDEST-LOOKING MONSTER AWARD™, THE WORST SCIENCE AWARD™, THE BEST ONE-LINER AWARD™, THE WORST COVER COPY AWARD™, THE “CUTTING BUTTER WITH A CHAINSAW” AWARD™, THE INANE DIALOGUE AWARD™, THE “WHOOPS!” AWARD™ (THE WORST EDITING AWARD™), THE “WHAT?!” AWARD™, THE ACTING APPROPRIATELY STUPID AWARD™, THE WORST SPECIAL EFFECT AWARD™, THE CRUMMIEST ENDING AWARD™
THE WORST ACTING AWARD™, THE WORST PICTURE AWARD™.

Spend a little time at the Smithee site to get a feel for each category.

I need to mention a few of the movies from this years awards.

Nemesis 4: Death Angel was up for several categories, including “Wanna Run That By Me Again?”, “Let’s Up The Rating To ‘R’”(winner), Worst Special Effect(winner), Crummiest Ending. This movie, which I found for sale on e-bay for 29 bucks for a VHS copy, really does fit the categories it was in. Oh MY GOD this was atrocious!!! I noted that in the comments on IMDB that some really needs Byran Cassidy’s help, and I quote

Nemesis 4 was simply made to showcase Sue Price’s beautiful naked body. The film succeeds marvelously, showcasing her nude body as much as possible. This film also succeeds in showing how beautiful female bodybuilders are. My only question was why didn’t they do this in the previous two sequels with our dear Sue. If you are a Sue Price as I am, you’ll love this movie.

Here is a person that can find that glass half full of Dysentery. Especially the “Up the Rating to ‘R’ section, I think the best way to summarize the movie was made by someone in the audience, “I CAN NEVER UNWATCH THAT!”. But if you have a masochistic bend for bad movies, please do watch this. Just tell me beforehand.

Metallica (Captive Planet) was the one movie I feel like I NEED to see because its bad, not it the kind of Nemesis 4 way, but more of a “I just had a brain damaging accident, I feel like I should make a movie now”. This one got in the categories of “Inane Dialogue”(Winner), “Whoops”(Winner), “Worst Special Effect”, “Worst Picture”(Winner). I must say, being a child of the B movie era, this movie left me with a minor eye twitch but in a good way. It wasn’t a slasher fest, it wasn’t epic, it was a bad “B” spaghetti SciFi movie.

I did like the IMDB comment for this one also

Even weirder is the sequence about three quarters through the movie in which three scenes that should have been at the start of the flick turn up in no apparent order (Though this may just be on the DVD copy I own -part of a 20 movie box set called Space Quest) when we see the gambler hero in the casino, the auction where “Sol 3″ is bought by the Alien, and a scene in the Human control room where the High Command take a break from their “who has the gayest moustache” contest long enough to realize that the Earth is utterly screwed.

The Smithee Awards make going to Ohio like a real vacation. I was truly bad this year and didn’t get into the games I normally get into. Procrastinating got pushed off until too late. But being able to see these little gems of cinematic cholera make driving through West Virginia worth while.

I need to go lay down for a while. My brain hurts.

Thanks for Gleeful Gecko and his amazing photographamatizer, it was like a road trip with rocks.

-later
gg

So before I ran (ok walked…ok shuffled) to lunch I ran over to Penny Arcade. Gabe and Tycho being the ones I can get a quick pulse on the gaming world condition. But today they linked me to something I just cant really think how to put into words. So please enjoy this little tid bit from You Tube.

Usher - Love In This Club (Performed by Showbiz Pizza Band)

Also a little White Stripes…

How AMAZING was that?!!!

I can’t say enough about the positive use of Disney Animatronics for things other than Robot domination of the world!

Disney 2010!

peace and goofy grease

IMG00116.jpg, originally uploaded by buckleyjohn.

So this picture is our first night in Columbus, OH. A tornado was sighted and we ALL got to go to the basement of the building. Ah the swimming sea of humanity. Can you spot how many people are on cell phones?

More to come from the convention.

peace and Tornado grease

So I survived the heat yesterday. I did not ride home in the afternoon. There were important errands to run with Stacey, including, picking up the Blackberry Curve she got me for my birthday.

In one day, I feel I have not figured out a damn thing on this. But I did get a few pictures taken.

This is of Stacey driving away from the Verizon Store. Not at all fast like one would image most people do after visiting a Verizon Store.

She was driving us to see Garrett preform as the Narrator #1 in the Shadow puppet play “How Wolf and Turtle learned to befriends to everyone in the forest”. That wasnt the actual title but it was very close. We got there for most of it. Garrett’s whole first grade class put on a well done performance. Their teacher actually cried a little.

But the best thing out of all this. I got this really terrible picture of Lewis Black.

Lewis was on Talk of the Nation some NPR show that I don’t know too much about. Which goes for about any of the shows at NPR. I smile knowingly when people talk about them, but the most I know is that Stacey works on some of them and then others she doesn’t. Back to the topic.

Lewis Black was promoting his new Book “Me of Little Faith” I would suggest everyone go out and get it. One because of what I read so far of it, it resonates with me. I truly appreciate anyone who searches for answers, be it science, justice, religion. But I also appreciate someone who has a sense of humor about the search. That is Lewis Black in a nutshell. Nutshell is a pretty good term for him too. Second, I am shameless in promoting things for folks that I like. Thirdly, did I mention you should just buy the book. If you encourage Mr Black, he may write more, if he writes more , we all may laugh more. If we all laugh a little more, the world - de facto - becomes a better place.

The audience was pretty good. I am happy to say that I was one of the few people that didn’t work at NPR that watch the interview. I enjoyed the guy sitting behind me who talked on and on about some other junk and then asked his friend “So who is this guy?”. I almost had a moment but contained myself. I just turned //Insert Age HERE// and I think I am now mature enough to not turn around and call someone an idiot.

There was a caller from somewhere that set Lewis off. The guy called him militant, and several other things, and then proceeded to dance around the point that he had never really seen, read or heard anything Lewis Black had ever done. Lewis said it was like the Tucker Carlson episode that Jon Stewart went off on a rant.

I can also say that I was one of 2 people from the in studio audience to ask Lewis a question. Dont ask me what it was, but something either Neal Conan or Lewis Black said made me get up to ask it.

The picture was as Lewis was being herded out and he got a photo op, which made me think…HEY I got this new Blackberry that can take pictures… So by the time got it out and figured how to get the camera part it was almost too late. So the picture is kinda crappy but I got it. I did get to shake his hand. All in all a great day. I can put it up there with the day that Michael Palin kicked me in the stomach

But that is a story for another day

I wonder i I keep writing Lewis Black, Lewis Black, Lewis Black it will move me up on Google

peace and ecclesiastical grease

June 9…a day that will live in history….AS A GODDAMN HOT DAY. So what does your hero do today? The dumb arse rides his bike into work. I had to because its my birthday and why wouldn’t you ride in.

So I updated the “Recognize your Abbott/Buckley” post. I found a few other pictures.

I am heading out into the heat to meet up with my sweetie pie.

peace and birthday grease

I have been sort of busy lately. It is not an excuse for not posting. Everyone knows I dont do that. But I have elected to come out of blog hibernation to post some pictures for Stacey in China. She has been gone SOOOOOOO long that she has forgotten what her family looks like. Everyone one else in the world could benefit with a refresher course in “Know Your Abatt/Budley Family”

SAMANTHA B

Samantha is 10 years old soon to turn 28. I quiet times she like disrupting the silence with singing both real and instantly made up songs…the louder the better. Or should I say that the more irritating to her little brother. She has recently participated in Honors Choir, in which 5 fifth graders from all the elementary schools in the county got together and sang. It was marvelous. She is a shining beacon, a singing shining beacon and the joy of my life.

GARRETT B

James Garrett Alohilani Murgatron Rhea GURRR A whurrrr BOOM Buckley is 7 years old and apparently doesnt have time to get older because it would get in the way of playing with legos. He is bright, cheerful and a question about everything. Questions can range from amazingly astute (How do black holes form?) to on the odd side (If the sun goes nova, do I have to go to school?). He has an huge interest in astronomy, and jumping in puddles. Garrett also is a Cub Scout and is happy to tell everyone that he is a tiger. He is another bright star of my life and the Bhudda in the clown suit.

STACEY A

Stacey is the love of my life and the most amazing mom in the world. She seems to disagree but that just proves even more so, and that she is modest. She gets to travel to exciting places (although my company one time sent me to exciting Gaithersburg MD, ha so beat that) and she love her job. SHe was the reason I decided to do television work because she has so much fun at her job, I figured I had to get in on some of that. Turely deeply madly.

John B

I need no introduction. Being a famous gamer addict, and guinness drinker, I find time to practice Kenjutsu (jiki shinkage ryu kenjutsu) and build theater sets. I am, as you can tell from my posts, a man of few words.

I hope this helps with your Abutt/Bugley recognition.

peace and fish grease

I realized once again that I haven’t posted in a while…DUHHHH. So who is surprised? When I loaded up Live Journal, it seems I had a draft started that never got published.

I still is true and it was only one line so I will publish it now to sooth my conscience <cough>

So I finally finished up the never ending grind of Dragonmaw quests in WOW. For those not in on it, just suffice it to say it is a mind numbing bunch of repetition. Actually drove me off of playing WOW for a bit…but there are tons of games out there less tedious and repetitious like Spider Solitaire, and Freecell.

It is one of the biggest problems I have with the game is farming, grinding, repetition. If it werent for the social end I wonder if I could justify paying Blizzard. Maybe Ill try some PVP but the thought of getting my arse handed to me by a 15 year old from Korea just doesnt do a lot for me either.

<end of the old>

On to the New!!

Bunch of crap I could rant about since I drafted that. Crisis of faith in my Jobs. Please note the plural. Both the Job at the National Cancer Institute and Montgomery Community Television have gotten to be pains in the gonads. NCI is just a huge governmental organization. Now, to renew my ID Badge I need to go through a back ground check, be finger printed…just waiting for the colonoscopy. It is this kind of information infringement that makes me worried about the government. Not like there is anything interesting, they can find that I drink Guinness and eat oatmeal for breakfast…Take that FBI. The world knows before you did. HAHA.
It is just a pain. I must admit it makes filling out the paperwork kind of easy to say “I BEEN HERE 19 <GODDAMN> YEARS. Oh what, list all your jobs over the last 5 years? Morons…19 Years!

130.4 months to go until full retirement.

The Television Job is just getting to be a waste of time. It kills a Tuesday night. I am not learning anything new, and that hurts the most. My boss left, and now there is only one person on staff with any professional Television experience. That person appears to be barred from doing any television work though. Funny that a Television Station seems to be fighting very hard to NOT be a T.V. station. It does not bode well that a 200 Million dollar short fall is looming in Montgomery County. I cant imagine how a station not producing shows is going to survive.

Other Stuff that I meant to write about.

Last week Arthur C Clarke passed away at the age of 90. An amazing writer, and visionary, he published works both fiction and Non for over 50 years. He is credited with the idea of geo-synchronous satellites. Maybe he is best known for Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of 2001 A Space Odyssey.

My all time favorite of his was the short story called The Star. Probably the best crisis of faith story ever done in such a short format. It won a Hugo award in 1956 for Best Short Story. Here is a quick summary stolen right out of Wikipedia:

“The Star” is the story of a group of space explorers from Earth returning from an expedition to a remote star system, where they discovered the remnants of an advanced civilization destroyed when their sun went supernova. Their chief astrophysicist, a Jesuit priest, is suffering from a deep crisis of faith, triggered by some undisclosed event during the journey.
As the story unfolds, the reader learns that the destroyed planet’s culture was very similar to Earth’s. Recognizing several generations in advance that their sun would soon explode, and with no means of interstellar travel to save themselves, the doomed people spent their final years building a vault on the outermost planet in their solar system, whose Pluto-like orbit was distant enough to survive the nova. In the vault, they placed a complete record of their history, culture, achievements, and philosophy, hoping that it would someday be found so that their existence would not have been in vain. The Earth explorers, particularly the astrophysicist-priest, were deeply moved by these artifacts, and they found themselves identifying closely with the dead race’s peaceful, humanlike culture and the profound grace they exhibited in the face of their cruel fate.
The final paragraph of “The Star” reveals the source of the priest’s pain. Determining the exact year of the long-ago supernova and the star system’s distance from Earth, he calculated the date the emitted light from the explosion reached Earth, proving that the cataclysm that destroyed the peaceful planet was, in fact, the very star (or supernova), that compelled the wise men on Earth to travel to see the Child Jesus. The scientist’s faith is shaken because of the apparent capriciousness of God:

[O]h God, there were so many stars you could have used. What was the need to give these people to the fire, that the symbol of their passing might shine above Bethlehem?

Maybe it was because I read this while in High School, but it has resonated with me ever since I read it. I am going to miss Sir Clarke, if only because he was smarter than Issac Asimov.

Oh well enough of all this. Get back to work you dogs!

peace and Rama grease

-gg

I am.

So here is the all to cryptic part. I am too tired to be angry.

-GG

As I walked into work today, I passed a limping man. My mind had been mulling over the list of horrific things I have to inflict today. Also the number 132.5 months rolls in my head a lot. But those thoughts stopped when I realized that I passed this limping man. Several other people passed him and he just plowed along…slowly.

I recall myself in that same situation, same stretch of sidewalk, 2-3 weeks ago. So I wondered to myself was he mad people were passing him, was he thinking all the ‘FAST’ walkers don’t appreciate the fact that they can just ‘walk’. It wasn’t Deja Vous. It was more a wake up call about the fact, I wasn’t appreciating the fact that I was walking fairly normally. There is some background aches, and a flair up now and then but I am so used to that I don’t gnerally notice.

But noticing that all the time I was limping along, my thoughts turned to the simple fact that we dont give a quick nod to the simple things we do…until we can’t do them. We dont stop to smell the flowers.

I practiced Martial arts for the first time this year last weekend. I did Jiki Shinkage Ryu Kenjutsu on Saturday, and then Shindo Muso Ryu Jo early Sunday morning. My ankle was hurting but I did what I could and if it hurt, I stopped. But doing that put everything into a sharp focus. Where were my feet? How was I going to move next? Will moving hurt? Will I show my opponent that I am hurt? It was one of the better, if not most painful, training I have done in a long while.

Several people asked if maybe I shouldnt train. Well even the hurting parts weren’t crippling, but there was a more important point. If I didn’t train, my head would explode. I am not going to make any stoke jokes here, but beyond the physical need, there is a slipping mental focus that is slowly going back to all my old bad habits. My eating habits are dropping in the can again, It has been a while since I sat in at a weight Watchers meeting and surprise! my 35 pounds I lost is slowly creeping back. I really do need it to stay lost, maybe crate it up and ship it off to Madagasgar, or Tazmania.

It is on the edge of that depression that I watched that man limping along today. Then I thought “If we dont stop and smell the roses, what do Roses do?” Do they sit and watch, waiting for people to come by and stop? And if people do stop, do the roses say to themselves “Move along dude, you stink”.

-GG