October | 2005 | Fizzle & Pop 2005 October

October, 2005

Cue the Choir.

October 24, 2005 by Collin

Sure, it looks good, but will it stop a vampire?

To really make it perfect it needs a little Jesus attached to the cap like a pen clip wearing His own little iPod. Pressing His feet would trigger the play/pause button and light up His eyes. Yes, I’m probably going to a hot place some day. Not Florida.

On a tangent, is there any word not in Welsh that is pronounced any less like it looks than “choir”? Kwyer vs. choerr. Change one letter and you have “chair”. Heck, I’ve looked at it so long now that it’s taken on that non-word quality that happens when you… um… look at a word too long.

Look at that. Three posts in one day. I may take tomorrow off. Perhaps do a bit of repenting.

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This Just In

October 24, 2005 by Collin

I was on my way upstairs to buy a soda from the machine in the break room at lunch. In our lobby by the stairs we have a multi-tiered water fountain. It’s one of those things that accumulates coins at some point during the day. I have no idea if the coins were tossed in by actual people or if they were seeded there by management in an attempt to boost profits. Regardless, there’s coins in that there fountain.

This time there was also a toddler in that there fountain. Well, from the elbow down at least. He was around three years old and he was coin fishing. What’s more, his mother was right there with him, chuckling and cooing at him , “Awwww. You’re going to get wet. Yes you are!”

That’s my idea of bad parenting.

Not only was she encouraging her child to take money that wasn’t his, when he finally had a penny in his pudgy mitt she followed up with, “Now, make a wish and throw it back in.”

Maybe it’s me but that’s just wrong. It goes against the whole spirit of making a wish on a coin. It’s not as though you can go in to a bank, walk up to a teller and say, “Could you pass me some coins? I’ve got some wishes that need wishing. You’ll get them right back.”

Seriously. What the Hell is she thinking? Lady. Crack open your own wallet and give your kid a penny. You might avoid looking like an idiot and your child might avoid learning that it pleases mommy to engage in petty theft.

The impression I had as I rounded the top of the stairs was that the wee little coin snatcher wasn’t too keen on tossing back his shiny. Mamma had to extend his hand out over the fountain and apply pressure to get him to drop it. I’m betting he wished she would make up her damned mind.

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Time sure flies

October 24, 2005 by Collin

I hope everyone had a wonderful last four days. True to my word I goofed off for the most part. I didn’t even think about my site until last night and the thought was, “Well, now what?”

Now this, I suppose. How about a random thought post? That’s always fun, I’m sure.

Let’s see…
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We had a mandatory semi-annual 401k meeting this morning that I was 15 minutes late for. Judging from the glazed expressions on the people about the room as I ninja’d my way in, I’d already missed oodles of wonderful information that would have guided me to a future full of riches rather than burger flipping. Darn. I did manage to take away the impression that I might be well served to invest in 419, and possibly the lottery.
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I actually had a reason for being late today. I stopped off at my dentist on the way in to pay the $100 that my insurance didn’t cover and get a receipt so I could be reimbursed blah blah blah. I mentioned to my dentist that the tooth that was filled is very sensitive and he made me stick around for an “adjustment”. I hadn’t planned on that. I was hoping the answer would be “give it a bit of time and it’ll be fine”. But no. Soonish I found myself in THE CHAIR with him poking at my tooth. He then shaved the filling down in a couple of spots that didn’t seem to be aligning right and told me to let them know if that didn’t fix it. Apparently, even though it was a minor amount that it was off, the repetitive pressure on those spots had bruised my tooth over time and if I’d left it untreated eventually my mouth would have exploded. So, yay.
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When Heather came over last night we watched some of the Bronco game until she had to go to work. At one point when the Broncos were still doing well the camera panned over the crowd and one woman was jumping up and down and clapping her hands because the opposing team (the Giants, I think: look at me showing off my manliness.) were doing something spiffy at the time. I said to Heather, “They’re her little dumplings.” and that amused me for a bit.
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There was much movie watching this weekend. We saw ‘Stay’. It was an interesting film, however I had a reasonable idea of how it would end by the middle. It reminded me of another movie I’d seen but won’t mention the title of because I want Heather to see it and I don’t want the end of that film spoiled. Or this one for that matter. The only annoying thing is the trailer made the film look like it would be creepy and it wasn’t. I hate when that happens.
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The other film we saw was ‘Wallace & Grommit in the Curse of the Were-Rabbit’. That was very enjoyable. A veritable onion of funny. Just as it was starting to feel a little bit overlong it got fun again. Well worth seeing. It really sucks that Aardman’s storage unit burned down.
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I bought the new game ‘Stubbs the Zombie’ for the XBox. Surprise! First off, very fun. It’s so satisfying to creep up behind a cop who is firing at other members of your undead hoard, hoist him up by his armpits and take a big bite out of his melon. It might get old after awhile, but give it a day off and it’ll be fun again. Now the downsides: Too short. I beat it the same day I started playing it. That’s rare. Annoying controls. You have to remain still and facing your zombies to be able to call them to you because it uses the same button that you push to bite heads. It should have been mapped to the black or white button instead. Too linear. I was really hoping for something along the lines of Grand Theft Auto: Zombie Edition. Instead you have a linear level progression and no randomness to your enemies. Obviously this is due to it being made on the Halo engine rather than the GTA3 engine. Hopefully someone at Rockstar North will push for a zombie themed game at some point. In the end, however, I don’t regret getting it because it was fun while it lasted. If you like zombies and have an XBox you might want to give it a rent to see if it’s for you.
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That’s probably enough for a Monday. I hope everyone has a good week. I may – may I say – give another go at one of the creative things I’ve done in the past. Possible a PoE cartoon. It’s been awhile since I’ve visited them.

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It’s Friday!

October 19, 2005 by Collin

No, really, this time it is!

For me at least.

I’m taking off tomorrow to take delivery of my new (rental) washer & dryer. Yeah, I know, renting is stupid. In my defense it’s not through Rent-A-Center and it works out to $1 a day. In one week at my complex’s laundry room I spend $6.75 so that means I’ll be paying an extra 25¢ a week for the convenience of being able to wash what I want when I want. It’s worth it for now.

I’m also taking off the REAL Friday because I realized that I wanted to. Awesome, huh?

“Does this mean that you are going to work on something awesome for your admittedly pathetic-as-of-late site?” you ask. Of course not! I’m going to get my laundry caught up, do a little house cleaning and organizing and then goof off like a crazy person. You just KNOW that crazy people goof off. They have to. They even get special clothing because of it. With buckles. Shiny, shiny buckles.

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Heheh.

October 18, 2005 by Collin

B², formerly of “Trout Fishing in South Central Wisconsin” down in my music blog link list has apparently changed his site over to “What!”. I just found this out because his link-through appeared in my sporadic “Referring Web Pages” thingie and I followed it back. I’ve enjoyed his sense of humor from the first time I read his original site and it’s good to see that he’s doing something again. I got particular enjoyment out of his “Powered by Anger” tag at the bottom of the page. Awesome.

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Standing in line.

October 18, 2005 by Collin

So I was standing in line the other night at Little Caesar’s Pizza, picking up dinner for the kids and me.

“Line” consisted of me and the woman in front of me.

As luck would have it, rather than ordering one of the ready-to-go $5 cheese or pepperoni pizzas, she had a custom order. I could tell that she was making it up as she went along – “Do you have…mmm… cumquats? How about jujubees? Styrofoam?” – so it was taking absolutely forever.

Okay, she didn’t really ask for cumquats, jujubees or styrofoam, but honestly, she was dithering far more than is acceptable by me when I’m hungry and in a hurry.

So I’m standing behind Ms. Indecisive, and I realize I’m tapping my foot in annoyance. I say to myself, “No, self. This isn’t the way. Just relax. She’s not being slow on purpose and it’s not doing any good to get annoyed.” and then, for the life of me I don’t know where this came from, I thought, “She’s probably someone’s little dumpling.”

What?!

The thought was so unexpected – darn you sneaky brain! – that I couldn’t help but smile and my foot stopped tapping and everything.

An hour or so later when it was my turn to order I was done and out the door in less time than it took the dumpling to decide on one topping.

My point? There’s no point that I know of. Except, perhaps, when you’re being annoyed by someone try to picture them as someone’s little dumpling. Just be sure to stop the thought there before it can cause mental harm and anguish.

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Monday.

October 17, 2005 by Collin

I’m learning as I’m leaving comments around at the various sites I visit that I’m feeling amazingly antisocial today. Everything I’m writing feels like it’s falling flat and I would be better off just staying as mute as possible for the day. For at LEAST the day.

I hope your Monday is going well.

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My Care-Less Band.

October 14, 2005 by Collin

As I mentioned in the post that I removed because it was annoying me, my girlfriend Heather made a Care-Less band for me in the style of Matthew over at Defective Yeti. I thought it was cute and it certainly suits me:

It’ll go well with my zombie peanut butter costume.

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It’s Friday! Yayyyyyy!

October 13, 2005 by Collin

Oh. It’s not? It’s Thursday? DAMMIT!

Fine.

Here are a couple of quick sketches I made of an idea that’s been tweaking the spongy bit of my inner noggin since Tuesday. I was on my way to have my mouth tortured for an hour and was running a bit behind. While not in a patient mood I ran into one of these two situations. I’ll leave it to you to guess which one. Click them and they will grow magically before your very eyes! OoooOOoooo.

For those of you who may be interested… more Zombie fun:

Land of the Dead is being released to DVD next Tuesday in rated and unrated versions. Guess which one I’ll be getting.

Undead, the Oz made zombie flick came out last Tuesday. I’ve still not seen it, but I will. Oh yes, I will.

Stubbs the Zombie, a game made for the XBox, PC and Macintosh using the Halo engine, is also due out on the 18th. I’m betting on a delay of some sort simply because I really want that game.

Let’s see… anything else of zombie note. Oh yeah, David Wellington, the guy who has been giving away his great zombie stories online, has been offered a book deal. Details here. That’s awesome and I’m going to certainly pick it up.

Speaking of zombie stories that are free, I’ve been working out the story progression for my own ‘Zombie Blogger’ for the past few weeks. Unfortunately, only in my head. I’ll see if I’m able to actually sit down and put some words on the screen soon.

That should just about do it for this fine Friday morning. Thursday morning. Whatever.

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Since I suck.

October 12, 2005 by Collin

And I’m not doing anything special, creative, intelligent, awesome or even mediocre, I will once again shunt you over to Head Injury Theater to see Jared’s crazy creativity in action on a recently completed project that I have way too many kids to try myself.

So please, enjoy “Jerome IS Special!” while I figure out just what it is that I do. Apart from suck.

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