Order 67!

Didn't have a darn thing to say yesterday, so I didn't. It be like that sometimes.

Today I got the pattented "Con Review" email that many of us get from our friend Leslie after she returns home from a great Sci-Fi, Fantasy or Horror convention that is out of town and the rest of us are too poverty stricken to get to. This time around she was lucky enough to go to the Star Wars Celebration III (or C3 as it will hence be known as in the Blog of Geekdom) in Indy. I love it when I get these emails so that I can live vicariously through her. But who I would have loved to live vicariously through was her friend, Eric, who got to spend 4 hours with blue Twilik Jedi actress Amy Allen being her leaison for half a day! I don't think he had any idea of how lucky he was. Leslie also sent along some fun pics of some of the costumes she and other people wore there. Very cool.

The only part of the review of the con that left me with a bad taste in my mouth was her comment about "I can see why GenCon left Milwaukee...yada, yada, yada". Long story made quick... GenCon was a fantasy gaming con here in Wisconsin (mostly in Milwaukee over the years) that was bought out, uprooted, moved from it's home of here in Milwaukee and taken to Indy all in the name of greed and big business. GenCon became a company more than a convention (more machine than man now) that runs all of thier cons in Indy, including C3, and is now all about money and bad security guards. It is for that reason that I use my power as Grand Emperor of the galaxy to invoke "Order 67" (that's one up from "Order 66", don't ya know.) Which is to declare members of the big business mentallity as enemies of the Empire and to be hunted down like the DOGS THEY ARE, and further more..... eh... um... I'm in my "damn dream world" again, aren't I? I thought I'd forget to take the meds today.

Sooooo... on to nicer subjects (...says Zangz, hoping nobody noticed his sudden outburst and subsequent drooling).

I didn't read all of it, but it appears that fellow fan-boy turned famed writter / director, Kevin Smith, has posted a review of Ep.III on his website at veiwaskew.com. I didn't read all of it 'cuase the thing is dripping moist with spoilers (and curse words... cool!) that not even I, a spoiler junkie, knew about. After I stopped reading due to the spoilers (Not the curse words.) I was able to surmize that this SW movie is the one that will silence all the naysayers (like my friend Spanky). This puppy is supposed to be way darker then even Ep.V ("Empire") and it sounds like many body parts are light sabered off of characters in thsi one! In general, he seemed estaticly happy with the results. Just one more reason to jones over the coming May 18th midnight showing!!! Dearest Lord, why can't you just speed up time for us puny Star Wars geeks, just this once, you sadistic bastage!!!!

Jeeze. I really do gotta go and take my meds now.

Zangz

The SW cash cow continues on.... Thank God!

Well, the word is out from C3 that Lucas palns to do a Star Wars TV series that would be set between Ep.III and Ep.IV and would feature at least one peripheral character from the SW movies. Don't expect to see anything on the air for at least another year. Lucas wants to have the first season completely written before they start shooting anything.

You had to know that Lucas wouldn't let this money tree of pure geek heaven be uprooted after the release of the last film, would you? Heck, call me a capitalist bastage, but I'd suck out as much marrow and blood from a cash cow that I created also. People may point the figure at him for being "greedy", but any of these same finger pointers would do the same darn thing if they were in the shoes of The Flanneled One. So there will still be SW stuff to geek over well after Ep.III is out of the theaters and out on DVD!

"24" is on tonight, so I'll be getting my weekly series of phone calls from my friend Spanky as the show airs. It's kind of girlish, but we have some good chuckles predicting what will take place after the comercial break. I'm still holding on for that Chloe / Michelle mud wrestling scene that I wrote out and sent to the shows writers, but Spanky doesn't see it happening this season. My fingers are crossed.

And speaking of "24".... there are 24 more days until Ep.III, BABY!

Well, that's about as geeky as I feel like getting today. We'll talk soon.

Zangz

Darth Malak is my Beeeeotch...

Here's a quickie.

Today was a very Star Wars-esque day. I went over to my Mom's to do some wash and get a free dinner. I lugged over my Xbox and finished the game "Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic" or KOTOR for short. After that, I happend to find out the "Star Wars, Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back" (you know I'm a geek when I use the full title!) was on FOX this afternoon. So I was in Star Wars Geek heaven today.

If anyone out there is wondering just how the heck you beat the final boss, Malak, at the end of KOTOR, just make sure you have a ton of med-packs and some form of ofensive force power that you can blast at the imprisioned jedi before Malak can use their energy to strengthen himself. You'll also have to do a fair amount of running around to avoid Malak as your Force Power grows back to normal after using it up fighting and defending against him and.... oh god, I really am going to die alone.

The Passover meal I went to last night was a lot of fun and very interesting. Much wine was imbibed. Good times!

On that note, I'm hitting the hay. It's been a nice 4 day weekend for me and I want to be mentally prepared for Monday.

Zangz

My day of being Hebrew.....

Went out last night with my old friend, Goof and his wife, who're visiting from Virginia this weekend. Tonight I'm going over to his family's home for a Passover meal. Goof did prepare me that this experience is quite intricate and that there are many parts to it. It's not exactally a sit-down meal like Thanksgiving or Xmas. It is very involved and there is lots of food, prayer and talk and can last a few hours. Hey, this gentile is up for anything. Once in a while it's to experience other religions. Should be interesting.

Not much other news on the geek-front right now. The only thing I have to gripe about now is how frellin' envious I am of all the Star Wars fans who get to converge on Indianapolis this weekend for Star Wars Celebration 3. This is the BIG convention for SW fans (that have the cash) to rub elbows with many of the cast and crew of the movies. Non other than George Lucas and producer Rick MaCallum (SP?) are there right now giving Q&A seminars and the like. Sadly this will be the last Celebration in the foreseable future due to the fact hat they only have them when they are releasing a new SW movie. If I were indepentantly wealthy, I'd be there!!! Rumor has it the majority of your time spent at the convention is standing in very long lines for several hours to get to see whatever Q&A session you want to. My friend Leslie is there now and I'm really hoping she'll give one of her famous, in-depth reports with pictures when she returns. She still owes me some pix of the lovely Claudia Black from Leslie's visit to the Farscape convention late last year. Ehem...Ehem, Leslie?

This morning I was watching some TV, lying on the couch, channel suffing and I came accross this "American Idol" clone called "Nashville Star". Now I'm not exactally the biggest country music fan (heck I'm listening to a little Love/Hate at top vollum right now as I type this. Yep...Playlist!) but, I couldn't stop watching it. Maybe it was the down-home friendliness of the contestants, maybe it was the excellent tallent that came through on stage with each and every contestant. More than likely it was the fact that every female on that frellin' show was incredibly gorgeous in one way or antother. Even the female judge who had the "Simon" roll, was quite an incredible vision. Maybe I should start thinking about moving to Nashville to find my significant other. Hmmmm...

That's about it for now.
Zangz

The Power of Completely Useless Knowledge....

Since I had off today I did some cleaning of Zangz's Headquarters, went grocery shopping, played a little "Fable" on the Xbox and watched the documentary on the making of the original Star Wars trilogy. Here's some completely useless information you may want to know...

Did you know that Terry Nunn (lead vocalist from 80's synth-pop band Berlin) read for the role of Princess Lea and that William Cat (from the 80's action adventure show "Greatest American Hero") read for Luke and that Kurt Russell read for Han Solo. Even more useless of knowledge is the fact that actor Perry King also read for the role of Han Solo. Though he didn't get the part, years later he would be the voice of Han Solo in the radio adaptation of the movies. Now you're all 0.1 % smarter than you were before you read this blog. See you can actually benefit visiting my Blog of Geekdom from time to time.

Outside of still being giddy over getting tix to the Gigantor-screen's midnight showing of Ep.III (which sold completely out!) there's not much else to talk about here today.

Talk to you soon.

Zangz

IT'S ON, BABY! It...Is...On!

Do you folks know what precious good I hold in my little hands right this second? Is it the keys to a brand new sports car? No, better. Is it a $1 million dollar bill? No, better. All right, I'll end the suspense for you.....

It's a 4 person ticket to the MIDNIGHT SHOWING OF "STAR WARS, EPISODE III: REVENGE OF THE SITH AT THE UBER-MEGA-ULTRASCREEN!!!! And I'm wavin' it in your face, foolish mortal.....IN YOUR FACE!!!! IT IS ON, BABY!!! (Imagine a 37 year old nerd jumping up and down, alone in his apartment bedroom waving a freshly printed piece of paper in his hand to no one in particular at 11pm in the evening. After you’re done laughing your ass off, or if you're a relative of his...weeping silently to yourself, please read on).

I was smart enough to get on the website selling the tix about 20 minutes before they were to presumably be on sale and while doing the ol' "refresh, refresh, refresh, refresh" routine. Well they went on sale 10 minutes before I was told they'd be on sale so I clicked away, hit "print ticket" and wallah, me and some friends will be geekin' it up at the midnight showing! THE MIDNIGHT SHOWING, BABY!!! IT IS ON! ON, BABY! ON!!! (more waving, laughing, weeping).

I'm off tomorrow and have some good friends coming into town this weekend. So I'll check with you later. ON, BABY, ON!!
Zangz

The Lamest Blog of Geekdom of All Time!

I really don't have much to say today, except I was really disscombobulated and out of sorts today. Lot's of odd craziness was going on from 11pm last night, right on through the day. So I'm a little out of creative juices right now. At least I have off tomorrow and Friday. Perhaps that's something to cheer me up since I'm starting to realize that my upcoming attemp at scoring Ep. III midnight showing tix is shrinking smaller and smaller and I'll probably end up seeing it at a far later showing, well after all the fun crowds have seen it. More on that tomrrow.

I think I need some Zanex. Anybody got a few.... jars full?
Zangz

One Month to Go!!!!!!!

As of today there are 30 more days until "Star Wars, Episode III: Revenge of the Sith" (yep. I spelled it out that time, just for effect). You may say that a man well into his 30's counting down the days until Ep.III is pretty pathetic. Well, one man's "pathetic" is another man's "kitch".

Still trying to get some info about ticket buying for the presumable midnight show, but it appears that I'm getting different answers from different people. So who knows at this point.

In other news of the world, it looks like we got ourselves a new pope. While Pope John Paul II was a bit moderate (although conservatives thought he was too liberal and liberals considered him too conservative) this new guy, the German Pope Benedict XVI, is supposed to be a real Naz...er... he's supposed to be pretty conservative and not nearly as much as a people person. I guess the cardinals want even more people to flee the Catholic church. Smooth move, fellas!

When I learn more about Ep. III tix, I'll blow white smoke of my... bathroom window for ya.
Zangz

Curse of the Zipperheads.....

A slightly frustrating day today concerning the Ep.III tix. Called up the local theater that we want to see the midnight showing at. For some reason they're changing their policy that they've kept for past Prequel releases. Seems that tix will go on sale on-line first rather than for people who show up in person to purchase their tix at the theater. In the past the big theater chain here in town always gave the people who actually showed up in person at the theater a 2 hour lead in buying tix. In fact the chain is giving people who go to a website that sells tix several hours of a lead before the tix officially go on sale on Friday. I guess money talks. Obviously the big theater chain here in town has some finacial ties to the website in particular. Outside of money, I really don't know why they've decided to play it this way. Theoreticly, someone could just buy up the whole theater in one click if they wanted to, unless there's some sort of limit electronically placed on the website. Another problem that this theater chain is having is that they've yet to announce if there actaully is going to be a midnight showing at any of their theaters. Now, don't you think they'd put that up on thier website at least? There's this wacky thing here in the promotional age called, PLUBLICITY! Why is it that whenever you're dealing with a big business chain, you're automatically dealing with a bunch of greedy ziperheads?

So it looks like the best option right now is to sit online before the appointed time they go on sale and hope to god my slow as dirt, land line connection, doesn't fumble it up.

Stay tuned to this growing concern.
Zangz

Tribute to the King....

- and I was thinking how the world should have cried on the day that Jack Kirby died, I wonder if I am ill, yeaaah. I will never trust myself again, but I don’t care. Just set that plastic soul on fire and watch it MELT! -

That's a great lyric! What does it mean? Heck if I know, but any hard rock band that pays homage to the late comic book artist / god, Jack "the King" Kirby in one their songs definitely gets kudos from Zangz's Blog of Geekdom. It's from Monster Magnet's song "Melt" from their album, "God Says, No". If you've been reading, I've finally discovered the "Playlist" feature on my 5 year old computer and have Monster Magnet's last three albums on my computer, shuffled up nicely so I can sit and cruise the web with up to 3+ hours of Monster Magnet playing along. I've done with another of my favorite bands, Type-O-Negative also.

Today's plans seem to sprout out like this. Go to my mom's and start my wash, then head back to the east side and hit an impromptu birthday party (the second impromptu activity this weekend). Then head back to finish up on the wash and have dinner with Mom, watch some TV and head back home to rest up before Monday hits.

Hope I'll be able to take this coming Friday off if tix to Ep.III do indeed go on sale, 'cause its may look like I could be the one from my group of Ultrascreen, Midnight Showing Enthusiasts to be in line for tix due to other's scheduling situations.

That's it for today.
Zangz

More Ep.III Tix info as I digest massive quantities of meat...

Couple things this time around....

First and foremost, It is being reported that Ultrascreen tix for the midnight showing of ROTS (Let's just call it Ep.III from now on. Sound good? "ROTS" could stand for "Roberto's Orifice Tissue Sample" to those not in the Star Wars Loop) ... ummm, anyway, tix may possibly be on sale this coming Friday. Now we got to try and ...

A. Confirm it!
B. Find out what the rules and regulations are for buying them (Is it a limited amount of tix per person - better be! Will people standing in line get first crack while they release tix over the internet 2 hours later - hopefully!).
C. Find out who can be available to get in line and get tix.
D. Calculate how many tix we need to get, total.

See, there's a whole process to this that has to be meticulously planned and executed. If we, sadly, don't get tix to the midnight showing, then we'll take the next available showing.

So that's that with that for now. More on that Ep.III stuff later.

Ah yes, I was going to tell you more about a place called House on the Rock which is featured in the Neil Gaiman novel "American Gods". Having been a big fan of Gaiman's graphic novels (read: comic books), "The Sandman", I was quite amused that he used one of the local landmarks as a featured setting in his novel about ancient, mythological gods being humanized here in modern day America.

House on the Rock is basically an oddly designed house that does sit on a huge slab of rock. Connected to the house are many warehouses filled with tons and tons of odd collections that are on display in a very artistic and fantastical way. It's like a museum of odd collections. The place is huge and will take you at least 2 hours to go through. If you're inspired by imaginative oddities, do yourself a favor and head out to Spring Green, Wisconsin (not far from Madison) and trip out on the place.

Lastly, I did greatly enjoy the impromptu cook out we had last night. A bit chilly, but nothing a raging (and I do mean RAGING) fire pit couldn't comfort. There was lots of meat injested by yours truly (which I still owe on... I haven't forgotten, guys) as well as lots of laughter. Sometimes, I'm quite surprised and pleased that I have the friends that I have.

That was a big one! Which reminds me, I gotta go take care of all that meat now. Enjoy the weekend.
Zangz

Cook out time! Kids, go get the cucumber salad, PRONTO!

I'm goin' to a last minute cook out tonight! It's such a nice night out that a group of friends decided to get together and toss a few stakes on the grill. Beer+Meat+Cucumber Salad= Happy tummy!

I had hoped that Hot Head Chris would get canned from the "Apprentice". It all fell into fruition quite nicely in last night's episode. Not only did Trump fire him once, but he gave Hot Head the ol' double shot, "You're Fired, Chris! You're Fired!” Which prompted Hot Head Chris to start crying, at which point I actually felt a little sad for Chris. That sympathy lasted about 1.5 nano-seconds, until I started laughing uncontrollably while pointing at the TV. Here's a guy that's a self made millionaire who's crying on national TV 'cause Trump fired him. Go home and bathe in you millions, you whiney, hot headed simp!

I can be such a cold, heartless, envious geek, can't I?

Well, I'm going off to have some steak and beer!
Zangz

Tix, anyone? Tix???? Anyone??? Anything???

"Lost" was a frellin' rerun last night! For a show that's really good, they sure show a lot of reruns of it during its first season.

In other "favorite TV show" news, "The Apprentice" is on tonight and I'm hoping that spoiled, little hot-head, Chris gets the axe tonight. He's obnoxious and this past weekend his out of control temper got him tossed in jail in Las Vegas after he was told to pay a cover charge to get into a club and then threw a fit. How did a 21 year old like him get to be a millionaire? Does God just say, "Ok, all the jerk-weeds and dipsticks of the world, like Hot Head Chris and Boston Rob, I will bless with great luck and wonderful prosperity. Now, all the 37 year old male, Star Wars fans who wear glasses, live in the Midwest and are sitting on their computers, blogging and whining about Hot Head Chris and Boston Rob and other reality show goof-balls, I will curse one million times over! So says I, so is the law of the earth!"

On to far more pressing issues at hand.....

The word on the street (the net) is that ROTS tix go on sale soon. Possibly within the next week, perhaps sooner. Now, me and my cohorts need to get a plan together to see how, exactly, we're going to get our geeky little paws on tix to the midnight showing at the Ultrascreen. That's the dream, that's the plan and that's THE place to be on May 19th! For a year that's, so far, been cluttered with dark clouds, I'm hoping that this one little ray of sunshine will come into fruition and I'll be able to see ROTS with a boat-load of cheering fans at the best theater in the area.

There are two ways we could go about it, on-line or in line. On line we'd have to be by a computer when tix actually go on sale (noon on the appointed day???), then hope the connection / computer / server is fast enough to process the tix without some glitch or clog up from other purchasers, then hope they print out ok. Or.... we could go IN line if we can actually get a day off from work at the last minute (they only give about 12 hours notice when they go on sale), then get up EARLY on that day, get to the theater and wait in line for hours to hopefully get a ticket to a show that will most certainly sell out.

Decisions, decisions. Of course we could worry more about things like, famine, world peace, disease, the state of the economy........... nawwwww. I WANTS ME MY MIDNIGHT SHOWING ULTRASCREEN TIX!!!!!

Well, that'll be it for today. I'll keep you all posted on this grand endeavor and on ROTS happnin's as time progresses closer to May 19th.
Zangz

Grump, grump, grump...

Don't have much geek news going on today. Trying to get the energy to start on my spring cleaning since my appartment looks like a dust ridden storage facility. Maybe next week before my amigo, Goof and his lovely wife, Wife of Goof, come visit from DC. Doubt they'll be over here in the Casa de Vault 'O' Geekdom, but I gotta find some reason to clean the place.

So here's how to destroy a great pop idol career... Marry a freeloading oaf, then let him get you preggers at a relativley young age just so you can make a feeble attempt at finding some form of stablility in your over celebritized, overpaid life.

Do I have anything else to grump over? Let's see, the cost of living keeps rising more and more while corporate America keeps finding new ways to pay the workers less and less. When the frell is it going to get nice and warm here? Bring back "Farscape" or "Firefly" two of the best Sci-Fi TV shows on the air that were never given thier fair shake. Ok, I'm done for now.

"Lost" is on tonight, so that's something to look forward to!

Can't think of much else.
Zangz

"Hey, Ambah......I'm Evil."

Evidently this probably won't be a daily blog. I went out last night to see a friend perform a monologue at a popular theater in the theater district of downtown. It was for a class being given by actor / comedian, John McGivern. She did a really great job and I'm quite proud of her. This isn't brown nosing since she never reads these things anyway.

What else? Well, there's murmurings that tix for ROTS will be going on sale, possibly April 21st. That's next Thursday. Certain websites are reporting that theaters can't sell tix for the movie until after April 20th for some odd, Lucasfilm Ltd. reason.

Can I ask you all a proverbial question? I'm watching "The Amazing Race" right now, and if you've watched that or "Survivor" you'll understand the question.

What do girls like Amber see in guys like Rob?

Sure, Rob has looks. But, the guy is human nastiness personified. He will stoop as low as he possibly can, screw people over, left and right and Amber will love him all the more for it, thinking he's THE greatest thing since sliced bread. You have to wonder what Rob did to keep her after he conveniently weasels his way into her arms after she won 1 million $$$ on "Survivor". Did he lay great lines on her such as, "Hey Ambah (that's Amber in Rob-speak), guess what? I just punched a girl scout in the throat and stole her cookies!" or "Hey Ambah, I just snapped a puppy's neck! Look at how the body just sags." or "Hey Ambah, I just pulled out the morphine tube of a terminal cancer patient. We can watch him writhe in pain together." I just don't get it. I guess there will always be people in this world who tend to go after the dregs and slime balls of humanity.

Well, enough of my contemplating on the absolutely inane. I'm going to go read some more of Neil Gaimen's "American Gods", a dark, modern day fantasy. Some of the story takes place here in Wisconsin at the House on the Rock. More on that trippy place at another time.

See ya
Zangz

Day Skipper....

Well, it looks like I will be missing a day's blog here and there. Yesterday proved quite busy and I didn't get to do the Blog thing. Actually I could have found time to do it in the morning, if I wasn't in battling it out with goblins and bandits in the Xbox game "Fable", a real excellent, yet slightly flawed action role playing video game. Visually it's quite stunning, very beuatiful worlds to explore. It's also heavily interactive and the game takes place during the lifetime of your main character. The main problem I had with the game was that I was already spoiled by the gargantuan Xbox RPG "Morrowind", which literally took me almost a year to explore the entire world and finish up the main quest. Where with Fable, I've been playing for about a week to a week and a half, and already my character is quite old and I'm at the final battle of the main quest. Hopefully, there will be more to do after the main quest, like in "Morrowind".

Anyway, my afternoon was taken up with the "Call of Cthulhu" RPG (dice and paper) game I run for a few friends. All went well. Took us a while to get off the ground (the one liners were pouring out of everyone at a rapid rate), but it ended up being pretty good and climaxed with a twist ending (the main villain ended up being one of the charcters who's player quit the game.).

Well, I gotaa go have lunch 'cause I'm heading out to see "Sin City" this afternoon. I've heard that if you're a fan of the comic by Frank Miller (and I am!) you're going to love it. However, if you're a snotty, film crittic who thinks movie like "I Heart Huckabees" or foreign films are brillaint, you're going to hate "Sin City". Thank god I was a comic book fan back in the day.

Talk to you soon...
Zangz

End of another week....

Holy cripes it's late for this blog. It's the last half hour in the day and I'm FINALLY done with that frellin' Cthuhlhu game I'll be running tomorrow. I hope I haven't overdone it. I went through a process were I kept adding and adding and adding to the story, then I tried to streamline it, leaving some plot holes. Then I tied those up and added some more to the sotry to tie up loose ends. I'm hoping it's not to convoluted. I guess I'm trying to make up for the lack of Cthulhu games this year. I think the last time we all palyed a full game was back in May of '04. So it's been almost a year, if you don't count that min-game I ran for a few of the group back in September when I vacationed with them at a lake house.

I also went into ROTS withdrawl and hit the local Toys 'R' Us by Northridge (or what's left of Northridge) and picked up an evil Anakin and a female, blue twilik Jedi (her name escapes me right now... Allya Seccura??? I know it's palyed by Lucas' Production Assistant, Amy Allen.) figures. I'm weak! Oh dear lord, why can't May 18th and 19th come sooner before it tears apart my wallet and bank acount?

Well, I gotta get something to eat and then hit the hay. So I'll talk later.

Have a good weekend.
Zangz

Greedy Weasles are funny......

Gotta toss a quickie Blog to ya since "The Apprentice" comes on real soon. What is it about reality shows and Star Wars spoilers that are so addictive, yet so mind numbing to me?

Still jammin' to Monster Magnet. "Hotel, Baby" is one of the greatest rock'n'roll tunes I've heard in a real long time!!!!

In any case, I'm still banging out he Chtulhu game for Saturday. At this point I'm pretty far into it, but will probably spend my Friday night cramming out the finishing touches on it.

I'm going to go see a good friend of mine do a story telling monologue on Monday night. It's part of a class that is taught by local comedic actor John McGivern through UWM. I wish I had the funds to do something like that. So I'm looking forward to that.

Whoa, "the Apprentice" is starting! There's something about greedy yuppies back stabbing and tearing each other apart to get "the Donald's" affection that is so frellin', sadistically humorous that I gotta go and watch these weasels duke it out now.

Talk on you later
Zangz

ANNIVERSARY!!!!!!

It's the one week anniversary of the opening of Zangz's Blog of Geekdom! Whooohooo!

Ok, enough with the celebration, on with the bloggin'.

Welp, I'm finally getting somewhere on that Cthulhu scenario for the game I'm running on Saturday. I'm finding ways to tie things together. To bad half of the gaming group can't make it 'till later in the afternoon. May have to ask people if they want to meet later for the game.

I don't think I've mentioned on the blog that the TV show "Lost" just frellin' rules! The writing is brilliant, the characterizations of the ensemble cast work well together and that Evangelista Lilly is pretty cute (parent's weren't hippies, were they?). In any case, if you haven't caught an episode yet, treat yourself and check it out. It's on Wednesday nights, 7pm central. All you really need to know is that it's about survivors of a plane cash trying to survive on a very strange tropical island. If you're sketchy on joining in on a serialized show that is well into it's first season, don't be! I'm sure there are websites dedicated to the show that will help you figure out what's going on. It's worth it!

In other...stuff.... I’m finally coming to terms with the fact that I'm addicted to Ep. III: ROTS spoilers. My co-worker, MaMa Schoo, will attest to this. Every year one of the prequels comes out, I promise myself that I won't try and investigate what will happen in it before I go see it. Every year I find myself tossing that resolution into the dumper and peruse websites that tell pretty much everything you'd want to know about everything. One good one that I try real hard to avoid is, http://www.millenniumfalcon.com/. If you go there, I warn you, it is ridden with IN-YOUR-FACE SPOILERS all over the place. It's like crack cocaine...without the jail terms and vomiting up blood.

Oh, by the way, is it possible for Amber and Rob to be mauled by lions on the Amazing Race. C'mon, God! Can't you just make them die.... like you did the Pope. (groans of disapproval infest the blog of geekdom)

Now's a good time to make a B-line for the exit...
See ya.
Zangz

Slooooooooooooow week.......

We're not even over the hump for the week and it already feels like it should be close to over. Bleh....

I don't have much to spout out about today. I have more work to do on Saturday's "Call of Cthulhu" game. Things are slowly working their way out and I think it should be a good game.

"24" rules, even though last night's episode wasn't as big of a "plot twist" as the network was bragging about. In fact we all saw it coming for several episodes now. Don't know how many more episodes we have to go until the season finale. I think we're over the half-way mark. Wish I could say the same thing about this week. Bleh....

Hey, this is my first really lame blog. How cool is that?


Whooooaaaaa.... wait a minute! Things are heatin' up! As I have been perusing the web for a while, I've found an interesting story going on over at the line for the midnight showing of Star Wars at Hollywood's famous Chinese Theater (Liningup.net). For the last several years the Prequels have been released at historic Mann's Chinese Theater, a group of diehard fans have set up a huge line, weeks in advance. They also work at raising money for the Starlight Foundation while in line. Well, due to corporate greed and it's bad habit of destrying tradition, it was announced late yesterday that the Chinese theater WILL NOT be showing "Episode III: ROTS" and some other less famous (or seemingly well liked) theater called the Arclight will. Unfortunatley, one SW fan suggested on the lineup's message board that they should possibly use the fact that they're doing this for sick kids to sway the media to their cause. In turn this post ended up on Defamer.com (a weblog run by shallow, bitter Hollwood insiders who write about and bash.... shallow, bitter Hollywood...the irony). Of course Defamer.com blew the whole thing out of proportion and made the Liningup.net group look like geeks having a tempertantrum (a media outlet being nasty to SW fans? Perish the thought). Evidently this fiasco has not thwarted the group at Liningup.net. They plan to stay at the Chinese theater for traditions sake, to continue to raise the money and boycot the Arclight. Good for them!!! I don't know where the frell they're going to see the midnight showing, but good for them anyway.

I guess that wasn't lame after all..........(puts face into hands and weeps).

Zangz

Cthulhu-ing I go.....

Much like an oldster on Metamucil, I've been pretty regular with pinching out blogs so far. We'll see how long that lasts. You can see that my slightly twisted humor is starting to fester to the surface here.

Not much going on in my feeble, little odd mind today. Just that I've got to get back to working on my "Call of Cthulhu" RPG I'll be, hopefully, running this coming Saturday. For those of you not up to par with the Horror genre of fantasy role playing, "Call of Cthulhu" is based on the literary works of the late H.P. Lovecraft. The game takes place in the 1920's and the players must solve mysteries, defeat cultists and destroy ancient monsters while at the same time trying to keep their sanity. I've been running it for about two and a half to three years now. I usually run about 4 games a year. This past year I got WAY behind, much to the chagrin of my players. I've been working on this scenario for a while and I think I put way too much information into it. I'm having trouble tying up loose ends.

Well, I'm off to do some Cthulhu streamlining.

HAIL CTHULHU!!!!!

P.S. Pope...still dead.

P.P.S. I just added a drenload of my favorite links just to the right of this post, enjoy.

I'll blog on you soon.
Zangz

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday....

Well, my Star Wars Saturday is done and over with. I nerded it up big time with some friends and a nice game of Star Wars roleplaying. Our group has been playing this game for three years now and our game master, Mad Mario, has come up with some doosey scenerios for our characters to mess with.

I currently play two characters. One is in quasi-retirerment as he will pop up from time to time to help out. He's a scoundrel / fringer named Jodz Burdoz and is completley based on the Kurt Russel character of Jack Burton from "Big Trouble in Little China". I've had a blast running this character, but thought it was time to get into somewhat new teritory. My new character is a scoundrel / space pilot named Netto Loz, he is an alien species called Lepi (imagine an anomorphic rabit-like humanoid...who's green.). He's more active than Jodz, but I'm still trying to get into his character (personality-wise, he's based on Bruce Campbell's Ash from the "Evil Dead" films). Gotta work on that.

I've also started "Stage One" of my plan to see the midnight showing of ROTS (that stands for "Star Wars, Epsiode III: Revenge of the Sith"...remember that) in that I've glommed onto (read: invited myself) to go along with Mad Mario and his lovley wife, Hope. We'll probably be adding people onto our merry band. But, "Stage Two" doesn't get going until we know more about the date that tix go on sale. Usually it's less than a day's notice about two weeks before the release date (May 19th, if you've had your head in the sand for the last year or so.). The tix also usually go on sale on a weekday, so it could be tricky. Last time, for Ep. II, Mario and I ended up waiting at around 6 or 7am in line. It ended up being lots of fun. Kind of like waiting for concert tickets to go on sale, except instead of people trying to bum smokes of of you and sell you some skunk-weed, there are people who brag about how many limited, mint condition Jorge Sucul action figures they scored at C2.

Well, I'm at my Mom's right now and got suckered into moving a bunch of dressers around. So I may Blog tomorrow, if I don't break my back moving this stuff around.

In other news, the Pope finally passed on after a day and a half of the media's deathwatch frenzy. They've got him lying in sate at the vatican. Kind of creepy...cool.

46 MORE DAYS, BABY! YEAAAAH! ......sigh...what a dork.
Zangz

Gotz Me some Greivous!!!!

Well, I trepidatiously headed out to the ol' Toys'R'Us out in Bookfield earlier this morning, thinking it was going to be mass bedlam after last night's midnight opening, premiering the ROTS collectables (aka: Toys). But to my surprise it was actually not as crazy as I thought it would be. Sure there were a bunch of us adult collectors there, but I found all but one of what I was looking for. Although the 12" General Greivous was long gone (sigh), there were plenty of the 3, 14" manifestation of him along with some of his creepy lookin' bodyguards to boot. I also found a Darth Sidious (that Emperor Palpentine to those of you not "in the know") as well as some old sets of Separatist / Confederates aliens from "Attack of the Clones" (AOTC) on sale going down from $20 to $8. So my microwave of Star Wars evil is becoming more populated with treachery and villainy (if you didn't know, I display my collection of villains from the Star Wars saga on top of my kitchen's microwave).

Well, I gotta get movin'. My buddy, Mad Mario is running another session of our Star Wars RPG today. I'll talk more on that later. What a wonderful Saturday to geek out about Star Wars. God... I'll die alone.

P.S. Pope still not dead. Holy cowz, this guy is resilient.

I'm off to geek out, Star Wars roleplayin' style.
Zangz

April Zangz Day....

It's the first day of April, 2005 and millions around the world sit in contemplative wait with concern in their minds and hearts. A dark shadow looms closer and closer, inevitably arriving very soon! Many are heading to thier local churches to find answers and perhaps some solace. We're all collectively thinking the same thing....

"Will there be enough General Greivous 12" and 3, 1/4" action figures released tomorrow so that there's enough for everyone and the dealers and horders won't wipe them off all the shelves only to be found on-line for 3 to 4 times their actual price?"

I know, I know. It's been on my mind all day also. But, we must have hope that there will be more than enough for each and everyone of us who want one to be able to get one. And if by chance the people of Hasbro made the horrible decision to make far more Senator Jar Jar than one of the more popular villains of the prequel series (as they have in the past with Darth Maul and Count Dooku) we must all have faith that eventually the store shelves will be stocked with more than a few Greivous action figures within the next few months.

Oh, yea, then there's that whole pope thing.

Just call me DARTH BASPHEMOUS!!!!

I'm outta here, enjoy the weekend.
Zangz