Things lookin' up / Beckinsale in leather!!!!!

Well, I managed to get a new job. Although I won't be making as much, it's for a company that I'm familiar with and is actually expanding and going places rather than wasting away in a sea of self destruction. So that's a small ray of sunshine in a long cold winter.

Actually, it's been warm here, in the 40's. Heck, we Wisconsinites sun bathe in the 40's. It's also been sunny out for the last few days. So that's another nice notation.

I also decided to cash in all of my gift cards to purchase a new Xbox. Now I have to go through and play all my old games again. Oh, Shucky darn! If anyone wants to buy themselves an older, used Xbox that has a shot power supply, let me know. Due to my current and upcoming financial situation, I don't see an Xbox 360 in the near future. I may have to wait 'till next winter, if I'm not living in my mother's basement living off of Cheese Whiz and Koolaid by then.

More good news... I just spent this afternoon watching Kate Beckinsale wearing tight black leather in the sequel to Underworld, Underworld: Oblivion. Not a bad film, though, I didn't enjoy it quite as much as the first film. The plot in this one was a bit convoluted and would be VERY confusing for people who missed out on the first one. But the art direction was very cool, the action sequences were well choreographed and it had some nice story elements. And of course there's the whole subject of Kate Beckinsale in black leather. Since she played the vampiric assassin on the run, she was made up real purdy in all out action goth nature. Rumor has it that her husband (the director and writer of the movies) got much of the story lines from the RPG, Vampire: The Masquerade. I believe that the company who publishes the RPG are trying to take him to court on it. On that note, if Miss Beckinsale is ever in the mood to date a guy with a ORIGINAL sense of imagination, she need not look any further than this Blog of Geekdom. Kate, you can have your people call my people once the divorce goes into effect.... that is if she doesn't mind sharing my mom's basement with me and really likes the rare delicacy of Cheese Whiz and Koolaide. (At this point, I'm reminded that it is well past the time to take my meds.)

In other reviews, I recently rented the PS2 video game, The Suffering. It's a 3rd person action shooter that lies on the edge of Survival Horror. It takes place in a creepy old prison. It's a pretty cool, atmospheric game. But, not a lot of replay value. Still, very good for a rental. Lot's of creepiness.

Right now, I'm playing Half Life 2 on the new Xbox. It's a great 1st person shooter that has a boat-load if interaction with the environment. Where the first game took place in a very modern day Lovecraftian world, this one takes place in a very bleak, post apocalyptic Orwellian world where there is a mysterious totalitarian Government in place. At the same time there are a ton of Lovecraftain creatures running about. Though, much of the game takes place in the daytime, the settings look so good that you still feel a sense of bleakness and creepiosity. However, there are many very frustrating parts in this game. The vehicles you drive are insanely hard to maneuver and when you're trying to do some basic investigation of the surrounding area, your busy being attacked by an endless amount of creatures. But still a decent game.

Hey, I did get to try a bit of that Xbox game, Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay, based on the movies. What an underrated game! It mixes stealth (which I usually hate) and first person shooter action along with a bit of RPG interaction with certain characters in the game putting you on individual quests. From what I heard, Riddick star, Vin Deissel had a ton to do with the development of this game. There are even whispers that he's a hardcore video RPG fan. He's also been known to role a 20 sider from time to time. But I'm sure his publisists wouldn't divulge that as he's a big action movie star. I say to Vin, "Let your GEEK FREAK flag fly high, my friend!"

Oh, I almost forgot to mention that they finally got a bond girl for the next Bond movie, Casino Royale. Actress Rose Byrne as Bond's love interest, Vesper Lynd. Rose is most famous to us geeks as Padme Amadalla's double who took one at the beginning of Episode II when Padme's ship is blown to bits. So now their ready to move on and start shooting this thing. Let's hope it's a smoother ride to shoot the picture than to cast it.

That was another long one. Well, it's been a while, so there was a ton of catching up to do. I gotta go and play some Half Life 2 and get frustrated again. I'll talk to you all later.

Zangz.

Mad Mario turns 40!

More on Mario later.

Happy New Year, by the way. Let's hope 2006 isn't anywhere near as crappy as 2005.

The job search continues. Thanks for asking.

In other geeky news, I finally got to see "Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe". Much like the first couple of Harry Potter movies, I thought this movie was visually pleasing and cute. But, not much else. Tilda Swinton makes a great villain as the Ice Queen, but all the other performances were...ehh.. ok.

This puppy just wasn't that spectacular. Sure, producers tried hard to give it that "Lord of the Rings" feeling with great effects and a big battle scene. But it wasn't even close. The end battle is quick and to the point. Sure it was fun watching mythical creatures and other animals go at it with each other, but there was no bloodshed or beheadings or lost body parts. It didn't feel like a real battle. I know, I know! It's geared toward families and Christians. We can't have a close up of (highlight to read spoiler).... Asland, the lion king, tearing the head off of the Ice Queen with his fangs. Instead we get a close up of Asland's mouth opening toward her head. Then we see his body wiggling about as he does his dirty work. Not even some crunching sounds. Dag nabbit!

I guess it served its purpose. To bring families to the theater and people to the church. I do find it somewhat humorous that religious organizations are using this movie to lure people in. After all, for every Christian theme that is in the movie, there is also some form of pagan imagery (unicorn's and a character that looks just like Pan).

Though I enjoyed it as a cute little family friendly film, I don't see myself knocking down a line of children to get my paws on the DVD. Besides after I pulled that stunt with the Episode III DVD release, I got myself banned from the store.

In other movie news, producers of the next Bond movie "Casino Royale" are scrambling to find a female lead for the role of Vesper Lynd. It ain't lookin' like it's going too smoothly either. They're trying to get the likes of Naomi Watts, but it looks as though they may have to settle for Jessica Simpson. (Dear Lord, no!). They better make some decisions soon as they start filming latter this month.

Hey! Congratz to my friend Spanky who became a father not too long ago. He and his wife are proud parents to a son. I hinted to Spanky that now he actually has a legitimate reason to buy action figures.

Speaking of congratulations, there's a boatload of them in order for my gamemaster friend, Mad Mario! Mario just turned the big 4-0 last week and we're going to celebrate this monstrous occasion with a party. Let me tell you somthing, I've known Mad Mario and his wife for over 10 years now and he's run many an enjoyable RPG throughout that time. He's run Vampire: The Masquerade, Vampire: The Dark Ages, Cult, SpyCraft, Deadlands and currently Star Wars with me as a player. I'm sure there's a smorgasboard of other games he's run (D&D I'm sure.) Since I'm currently unemployed and a bit strapped for cash my gift to Mario is that I will make his turning 40 known to the world via my blog. Soooooo......

Happy 40th Birthday Mad Mario!!!

Don't worry Mario, only about two or three people will see this anyway.

That's all for now.

Zangz.

That was one big ol' ape!

The holiday season is almost at an end, thank the gods. Why is it that when the holidays hit, people become pure nastiness personified. I know a few people who are in customer service positions who have told me horrific stories of how patrons are 20 times more nasty to not only the CS personnel, but to each other. Whether it's shopping, buying groceries or just putting gas in the car, people tend to do these things with a ton of venom and hate in their souls around the holidays. This is why I'm so much more of a Halloween fan than Xmas. Xmas always tends to bring in darkness (and unemployment, evidently), while Halloween is all about FUN! No presents to burn a hole in your wallet, no big meals to cook and no nasty attitudes to deal with.

A few nice things did happen, though.....

• I got to see Peter Jackson's, "King Kong". It rocked! Though I wasn't as impressed with it as I was with the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, it still was a visual cornucopia of action and special effects. At one point I was cheering Kong on as he put a serious can of whoopass onto a few dinos on Skull Island. Later Kong was pulling at my heartstrings as he and his "love interest" had a nice little holiday ice skating redevoues. Especially when I knew that within the next few hours, Kong was going to sacrifice his life for his love for her. I don't know if I like my heartstrings pulled that much. It kind of summons up a whole "Old Yeller" type vibe. Both my Mom and sister were in tears by the end. Of course I was more interested in Jackson's flair for the macabre as he brought us visions of a real creepy tribe of Kong worshipers and their decaying temples. There was also a wonderful scene that included giant insects and slugs. Groovy. Not sure if I'm going to pick this one up when it's out on DVD. But I will say that Jackson and his gang did a wonderful job of not only paying homage to the original movie, but also adding a lot more to the King Kong mythos.
• I finally finished the old James Bond novel, License Renewed. The book came out back in 1981, and reintroduces Bond to the literary world (the previous Bond novel, Colonel Sun, came out in the late 60's). Bond is put back into service after the cold war has fizzled and MI6 has gone through a restructuring. Now Bond only answers to his boss "M" who puts him on the tail of a rogue nuclear physicist who also happens to be a Scottish Laird named Anton Murich. Murich has a little side position as megalomaniac bent on worldwide domination. What is it with Bond and evil Scottish lairds? (any of you read SilverFin yet?). Of course Bond comes through in the end and the evil Murich is blown to bits. Hope I didn't ruin the ending for you. The book wasn't a knock out of the park, but it was a fun, quick little read. Right now I'm in total pulp heaven while I page through Indiana Jones and the sorcerer's Stone. Pure goofiness, but fun.
• I did end up getting a nice amount of Best Buy gift certificates for Xmas. Since my B-day is coming soon, I may wait and pool a bunch of them together to get something nice, but what? I could go and get the "Serenity" / "Firefly" DVD's ooorrrrrr I could get a new Xbox since mine is dead oooooorrrrrr I could get a new phone. My current one works, but is a bit archaic as I bought it 12 years ago. What do you all think?
• I got the news from a fan message board that my favorite band, Type O Negative are finally coming out with some form of creative project this coming March. No CD yet, but a live DVD of an old concert from a German music festival called Sympathy for the Devil will be released. It will have band commentary which, for me, was a the highlight of their last DVD, After Dark. Now if we could only get them to come out with a new CD sometime before the coming of Christ!

Whelp, I'm going to be getting some food in me and get a good night's sleep as I have two New Years Eve parities to go to this weekend. One tomorrow night and one on the actual night. I have wonderfully weird friends.

We'll talk later.

Zangz.

Long Cold Winter....

According to the astrological calendar, winter hasn't even really started yet. Yet here in my home town we've had weeks of both snow and bitter cold, and it doesn't look like it's going to let up for quite a long, long time.

I know it's been a while since I last blogged here, but recently life gave me quite the sucker punch. After 14 years of employment, my company closed the local branch. So I get to start my holiday season by searching for a new job. Merry frellin' Xmas.

So you can understand that it's kind of hard to blog about the genres of the fantastical when you're concerned that by this time next year you'll be living in a cardboard box under a freeway on-ramp.

But, seriously, I'm going to give this the ol' "stiff upper lip" treatment and get back to the blog from time to time.

So here we go......

• I'm really looking forward to Peter Jackson's "King Kong". I've been hearing that's it's quite moving and a stunning site to see. Jackson certainly has that great eye for the fantastic. I've heard that with the boat load of cash he made from the "Lord of the Rings" he built a small haunted attraction in his own home. He also has a part of his house designed to look exactly like Bilbo Baggin's home in the Shire. At least someone is living my dreams.
• In related news, it looks as thought Peter Jackson is going to exectutive produce a movie based on the Xbox video game, Halo. It is rumored to be directed by "Hellboy" director,
  Guillermo del Toro ! That would rock! "Hellboy" rocked and Halo rocks! It all rocks! Except of course when I'm playing my buddy, Roberto in a game of Halo and he's kicking my keister all over the place. Then it doesn't rock as much.
• Even though I can't stand the holiday, I'm hoping that family will shower me with either pity money or Best Buy gift cards for Xmas this year. That way I can spend it on finally getting the DVD of the entire series of Firefly and the movie that followed, "Serentiy". Or maybe some DVD's I've been meaning to catch up on like, "Batman Begins" or the extended version of "Sin City", my tow favorite movies that came out this year.

That's it for now. I've gotta go and frost Xmas cookies at my sisters. Blah. I hope your holiday season starts off a heck of a lot better than mine has. Bah humbug!

Zangz.

Muggled.

I hope you all had a great, festive, fattening Thanksgiving. I've taken a few extra days off to add to my Thanksgiving weekend just to veg out.

I got to do some excellent Star Wars gaming with my RPG group this past Saturday. Our gamemaster, Mad Mario, came up with quite the scenario with loads of political intrigue as well as ass-kickery to please us geeks. So much so that the time just shot by. I got there at noon, we started playing at 1pm and the next time I looked at a clock it was already 6pm. We play again in mid December to finish out the scenario. Should be something to look forward to! Good job, Mar!

With my Xbox still down for the count, I've found myself hearkening back to one of my old computer games... Diablo II. It's quite a fun and easy action, hack 'n' slash RPG. Very addicting.

I went out and saw "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" yesterday. Here are my thoughts. I've never been overly impressed with the whole Harry Potter phenomenon. I've read the first book and have seen all the movies. Though I do see it as a great escape and something to light an imagination fire under the rumps of the MTV / videogame generation, it's never grabbed me the way the Star Wars, James Bond and Lord of the Rings franchise have. But, I do have to admit that it is aimed at a much younger generation than my crusty, old geek sensibilities can tolerate. I've always found the movies and stories... cute. Not horrible or awful or bad or wonderful or excellent, just... cute.

Prior to seeing the film, I heard that this was the best Potter film yet and that things start to go dark in this one. So I was hoping that maybe this would be the one that would win me over completely. That this would be the one I'd want to see again and maybe even start buying them on DVD. That this would raise the bar out of the "cute" territory on plunk it solidly into the "must see the midnight showing" realm.

Well, after the viewing I can admit that this Potter film does raise the bar from being "cute" and slightly moves it to "starting to get interesting" mode for me. Like the previous films, the thing I was most impressed with was the art direction. They continue to bring Hogwarts and the whole Harry Potter world to life while wallowing in the wonderfully absurd and (with each new movie) creepy. It's like a little trip to Disneyland for me. One the movie starts you can really throw your cares away and fall into J.K. Rowling's world of magic.

I'm also getting a vested interest in what happens to Harry in the future of the films. The fact that the story follows the same formula the previous ones did (There's some sort of mystery going on at Hogwarts and the evil mage, Voldermort, has somehow infiltrated the magic school to try and kill Harry) is getting a little stale for me. Oddly enough, I was able to put that aside this time and focus on the character of Harry. Daniel Radcliff's acting maturity starts to really shine in this one, thus I really want to know what's going to happen to Harry in the upcoming films.

I wouldn't say that "...Goblet of Fire" is hororifically dark when put in comparison with "Revenge of the Sith" or "Empire Strikes Back" or "The Crow" (ok, I was going a bit overboard with that last one), but you do get the feeling that things do start to go downhill at the end of this one.

So, I felt that the Potter series still isn't going to sit along side the great fantastical franchises that I hold so near and dear to me, but I think I'm going to look forward to the opening of a Potter flick with a little more anticipation.

We'll I'm off for some more Diablo II. See ya.

Zangz.

Coming Soon: Triptametephine Buzz

Nope. I do not know how to spell Triptametephine (apparently, neither does the "spell check" feature on the blog editor), but I do know it's the chemical that will flow through my blood and put me into a sleepy comfort after gorging out on the turkey meat it will come from.

It'll be like every year. After we've stuffed our faces, ate, drank and made merry and exhausted every frellin' conversation we could possibly have, some of us will be ready to hit the hay, while others of us will want to stay and chat for another 6 hours while our guests will be wanting to clean up so they can get to bed sooner. But, there will be that one relative (who shall go nameless..... mom) who will have come in my car, and that I have to take back home before I can ajourn back to Zangz Headquarters and put my butt into bed and then dream of Liz Vassey in her Captain Liberty outfit, who will want to stay as long as she possibly can no matter how many times both myself and the guests have hinted it's time to call it a night. This relative (who shall go nameless... mom) will not take the hint when EVERYBODY is starting to leave and I'm trying to give her that "I believe we should think about leaving before I go comatose" look and she just shakes her head or rolls her eyes.

Thanksgiving dinner at the relatives is always a good time with tons, upon tons of food and conversation. But, when that Triptametaphine hits you like a rock, it's time to say ,"Thanks for the grub, but my bed is a callin' me now." Don't be like my relative, who shall remain nameless (mom). Know when to call Thanksgiving an end.


Since some of you may feel ripped off for my slipping on updates in the past week here's something I haven't done for a while, another edition of..........

ZANGZ'S BLOG OF GEEKDOM'S WEBSITE OF THE MOMENT

The Lord of the Rings.net
I'm surprised this site is still up. I thought it would come down after the extended DVD's hit the shelves. But I guess fan appreciation has kept it alive. A few years back I got really amped up right around holiday season 'cause I knew that one of Peter Jackson's fantasy epics based on J.R. Tolkein's beloved books was going to hit movie screens very soon. Now that they've all been released in both the theaters and on DVD I kind of miss having that to look forward to. This site is filled with tons of information, downloadable goodies and interactive effects for fans of the movies to salivate over. So check it out. I think I'm going to sit back and watch them this Thanksgiving vacation.

Ok, gotta put some food into my belly and give it a good pre-layering before tomorrow night. See ya later.

Zangz.

The 360 Debacle.....

I know that I've been slacking for the last week. But it's not like there's millions of readers banging down the doors to Zangz Headquarters demanding a more consistent and timely blog. There's more like 2.5 readers who pop in from time to time and feel much better about themselves knowing that their lives aren't quite as dripping in geek-osity as mine.

But, enough about me. On to today's big, geek event. Today was the day that Microsoft shelled out their next generation video game/entertainment counsel, the Xbox 360, onto the buying public. Well... let me rephrase that.... onto a smidgen of the buying public, as the powers that be purposefully orchestrated massive shortages of the gaming system so the hype could be built up throughout the Xmas season.

Yup. I talked to someone "in the know" and involved in the distribution and sales of media merchandise (Big ElectronicsStoreSalesGuy... cough, cough... cough), and he surmises that the powers that be have well over enough of the units on hand to supply everyone who wants one over the Xmas season. But apparently, B.G. and his brood decided that they'll very slowly release a few to retailers here and there, taking their very sweet time. They want this to be the "must have" for the Xmas season. Unfortunately, according to my source (cough, cough), there won't be anywhere near enough to meet supply and demand until February or March. So both retailers and gaming fans are getting another rendition of a good ol' "B.G. Buggerin'"!

Another sleazy thing that some retailers pulled on gamers buying the Xbox 360 was that they forced them to buy it as part of a bundle of Xbox accessories, raising the price up from the usual $300 / $400 to near One Grand. They refused to sell the counsel as a lone item. So it looks like there's far more ugliness and greed upon the 360's release date rather than good things to say. It's sad to see such a nice, quality piece of equipment being marred by such shadiness. The greed machine plows on through.

Though I'm waiting until late winter/early spring to pick me up one, I did get to play a little of a store demo of a game called "Call of Duty" and it visually blew me away. Looks really good. I can't wait to see what the next Elder Scrolls game will look on it!!!

Turkey day is coming up and I'm ready for the triptometaphine (sp?) buzz that comes with it. Got a few days off afterward and will try and go see Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and see how I like that one. So far, I've found them all... cute. Though, the last one was getting a bit darker and supposedly this one ups the ante a bit. So there's more incentive for me to try and get more out of this phenomenon called Harry Potter.

Ya know, that's all I got for now. Talk to you soon.
Zangz.

More mindless stuff...

I'm still mourning my Xbox. But I figgure that it is just one more reason to get myself an Xbox360 which is due out next week. I may wait until later this winter to get mine since I just put $400 into my car this month. Plus, I want to see if there are any major flaws Xbox360 consumers are going to hit with upon release. For example, will they have FAULTY POWER SUPPLIES, MR GATES? Eherm... I digress. I'll tell you this, it's kind of ironic that this $400 piece of hardware will have 20 gigs of hard drive space whereas my lowly $1700 home PC has only 128 MB. The times, they are a changin'. Of course as soon as I get a 360, I'll most definitely pick up "Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion". The most expansive, open-ended, visually stunning action RPG known to man and woman-kind!

Speaking of changing. the weather has done a 180 this week. We went from having a really nice and mild November at the month's start and are well into the wet, cold and windy November that we're all so familiar with. All the beautiful leaves have been torn from the trees and there is no longer any reminanat of the Halloween and fall season left. Crap and blech. We also have our local newscasters completely freaking out over the fact that there may be some snow on the way. At this time it looks like it will be just flurries, but leave it to the local news media to make a big deal out of it. It's like we've never seen snow before. Like this is all new and unheard of. I wish snow was unheard of, but then we'd have nothing to usher in the upcoming ba-humbug holidays. I can't believe that next week is already Thanksgiving. Then of course comes the wallet sucker known as Xmas. Ba-humbug and blech.

Well, the three big holiday, geek movies that I'd like to check out sometime are King Kong, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. I'll let you all know what I think. (Who am I kiddin'? Nobody reads this crap.)

I found out that the guy who produced the Halloween movies, Moustafa Akkad was killed with his daughter in one of the bombings in Jordan. Bummer.

The next Bond opus, Casino Royale is still being put together as the script is still being polished and they're still casting. Rumors abound that Anjolina Jolie has a semi-interest in playing Vesper Lynd, the female lead. But, she wants the character to be far more than the eye candy that it currently is. If they did get Jolie, it would improve their odds one hundred fold to have a hit Bond movie after the mistake of firing Brosnan.

I also have to start picking up some DVDs I've been wanting. Batman Begins is at the top of the list and I'd like to get my paws on Firefly the TV series. I'm hoping they make a special edition of Sin City. The current version doesn't have squat for extras. That's a movie that deserves a boat-load of extras, for Jimminy's sake!

Well, I'm outta here.

Zangz.

My Xbox... R.I.P.

File this one under, "Just one more way that god can hate me".

After putting $400 into my car (new tires and a battery), I decided to rent the Xbox game "Gun" (GTA meets Wild West). I get the game home and hope to pop it into my Xbox to start playing. I press the eject button and.... nothing. I then hit the main power button and.... nothing. I then check the cord and make sure it's plugged in correctly.... nothing. I then unplugged it from the outlet and tried a few others.... nothing, nothing, nothing and nothing. No power going to my Xbox at all for no frellin' reason.

After doing a little on-line research I found that it looks like it could be a power supply problem and that would have to be replaced. Here are what seem to be my very few options...

• Go through the trouble of finding out how the frack to send it back to Microsoft, get it repaired for some form of cost and then have them send it back in what will probably take a good month or two.
• Hope to dear god (the one that hates me) that there is some company or store in my home town that can do it for cheap and won't frell me out of a ton of money to do it.
  
• Find a power supply for the Xbox on-line at Ebay (which I hoped to never have to use) and after I get it in the mail, find someone who has some form of IT knowledge to do the fix up on it since I'm a complete dullard.
• Buy a new Xbox and subtract another $150 out of my account this month, right before Xmas. This will also make all the games I've saved on my current counsel null and void. Eight months of playing Morrowind.... gone.
  
• Hold out for the $400 Xbox360 that comes out later this month and hope that: A. They have enough at release time (Microsoft is rumored to have dropped the ball on that one), or B. That it is far more backward compatibly friendly than it is rumored to be.

It's sad that after less than two years of owning this Xbox that it should fall apart that quickly. Leave it to Bill Gates to create something that will fall apart easily and force us consumers to pump money into it to make it right again. I did nothing to prompt this to happen! In fact the last time I used it, it worked fine and shut off fine. No problems at all. I go to turn it on today... nothin'. Everything else in my entertainment center works fine. So there are no hints of a power surge.

Guess I'm stuck with the old PS2 and GTA until this problem is rectified. If I'm not being reemed one way, then the powers that be will certainly find another!

[end exlamation censored by Tipper Gore on 11/15/05]

-Zangz.

Frack, I'm bored!!!

I'm just in one of those moods to do some bloggin', but haven't the foggiest idea of what I'm going to drone on about. I have been just foating around the web seeing nothing that really catches my mind (goatluv.com was clossed down. Har, har, har. Just kiddin'. Honest, I was!)

Actually I was trying to find out when the next Type-O-Negative and Lacuna Coil albums are to come out. No luck. Dratz. I saw these two bands perform together (Coil opened) a few years ago and both were phenominal. Hopefully we'll see some new stuff soon.

Mother of frell!! Is there anything to blog about?!?!?!?!

Last night's episode of Lost was another highlight of this season. A lot of fanboys of that show are pretty dissapointed today. Can't belive the writers decided to off one of the cuties last night. And, WOW, the way it went down was pretty demented writing. It should play out nicely in episodes to come.

Hrrmmmmm..... what else?

Oh... I decided that the next book I wanted to read should be most definitley light weight and fun. So I went back into my James Bond collection and pulled out John Gardner's "License Renewed". It's fun to read since it was written back in 1981. There's a scene in the book where Gardner descibes a "high-tech" guest room in a castle that is equiped with all the modern day acruitraments a entertainment center should have including a video tape cassete and quadrophonic sound. DVD's and Dolby 5.1 souround sound, anybody? I'm reading this one pretty quickly, so I may give it a quicky review on here soon.

Ok, I've waysted enough of all of our time. I gotta run over to Jimmy-John's and pick up a sub for dinner before The Donald fires off another, stuck up, elitist, greedy yuppie. It's supposed to have a Star Wars compitition tonight. Maybe General Greivious will get medievil on the ass-kissin' stooges. Cool beans!

Gotta run.
Zangz.