IT'S OFFICIAL: THE UNIVERSE IS SERIOUSLY F**KED UP!!!!

I've been a bit vacant on this here blog lately.  I know that it is especially strange since the Halloween season is starting to rev up and I'm usually blogging like a fiend during this time.

The truth of the matter is that our Halloween season has run into a bit of a snag.  Actually one big, huge frackin' snag!  To put it in a nutshell without divulging too much personal info, some people I care deeply about and who help celebrate the holiday with me every year are going through an unexpected, quite harrowing time in their lives.  The news of the situation had us all decrying "THE UNIVERSE IS SERIOUSLY F**KED UP" (origin of quote goes to my friend Iris Von Beaverhousen).  Though I'm more than confident they will be more than capable taking on this challenge that life and the f**ked up universe has put in front of them, I still feel a little silly celebrating Halloween when they're dealing with their life altering situation.

Originally I was all out going to not celebrate the holiday at all.  No pumpkins in my windows, no local haunts visited, no pumpkin carving, no decorations, hardly anything at all except for a few horror movie rentals (since I already had them in my on-line movie club queue (pronounced queef for those of you not in the know.)

I wasn't quite sure how to approach Halloween this year and not much in the mood to do anything at all, when a wise sage told me, "John, you're Mr. Halloween!  I'm pretty sure your friends would want you to celebrate Halloween, still."

I thought about this for a while and came to the decision that Zangz's Blog of Geekdom  will still celebrate Halloween here!  It might be somewhat more subdued compared to years past, but I'm still going to throw up some Horror movie reviews, perhaps a spooky tale or two and maybe, just maybe, at least one local haunt review if luck should shine my way.  One thing I do plan on doing is attending the Type O Negative concert in late October!!!!!  They're making a special Halloween tour of 10 cities and Milwaukee is one of them!!!


At the end of the day it all comes down to my friends kickin' ass and taking no prisoners in their great challenge.  I'm not sure that by my sitting on my ass in a state of depression and Halloween deprevity will make things any better.  Hopefully they'll be checking out the blog and get a good dose of the Halloween spirit (pun lame, but still intended) here.  I'm still not completley sure that this is exactally what they'd want, but a geek has got to get his undead love on durring this season.

Hope it's all good.


In other news, I've been told that my buddy Bruce is putting his finishing touches on his review of this year's DragonCon and could be posted here within days.  So keep a heads up for it.  God, I've got to go one of these years.  Anyone have any extra lottery money lying around?


Also, I've finally finished the main quest of Fallout 3. I've also finished the extra content of Operation Anchorage, The Pit, Point Lookout and am currently starting up on Broken Steel.  I'm hoping that they come out with a disc for Mothership Zeta.  'Cause that would complete the whole game for me.

That's all for now, kids.  I know it's short, but I wanted to fill you in on the situation here in the blog.

Before I go I want to ask one quick question to you all.  Is it wrong for an adult, heteralsexual male geek who usually listens to the likes of  Iron Maiden, Dream Theater and Type O Negative to pick up a copy of Lady GaGa' "The Fame"?  It's not like I have, or anything.  Honest!  It's a...er...a freind of mine who has.  Your thoughts? 

Zangz.

A Meeting of Legends!

There are certain points in history that have remarkable power that last well into the future of mankind.

One such moment took place this weekend at an event that many of us geeks refer to as a incarnation of Geek Valhalla. DragonCon ran from this past Wednesday night through Monday evening in Atlanta, Georgia.

To call it a Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Horror or pop culture convention would not be doing it justice. To say the least it is a grand explosion of the imaginatively blessed who converge on the city of Atlanta and let their geek flag fly high and mighty! It is a cornucopia of fantastical delights!!! Not only do the fans of the genres gather to become one there, many of the celebs, actors and actresses of the genre TV shows and movies also take part in panel discussions and meet and greets while rubbing elbows with the fans.

One such panel discussion was an event that will live in wonderment for time to come. I'm am speaking of the William Shatner / Leonard Nimoy panel discussion that took place.

Sadly, there was no possible way either financially or logistically that I could attend (and besides, there's no way I was going to miss Robahin). And I'm pretty sure thousands of other geeks were in my same situation this weekend.

That is why I was thrilled when I was cruising YouTube yesterday and came across the Shatner / Nimoy panel discussion that a very wonderful person called WhatJaneSays posted for those of us that missed out on the event of a lifetime.

I highly suggest that if you have about an hour, you'll want to check out the links of the panel discussion below. It is not only very humorous, you're also given a glimpse of Shatner and Nimoy's friendship and how well they bounce things off one another. It's pretty hilarious! So if you need some cheering up (and I know a few people who do right now!) have a gander at these......

William Shatner & Leonard Nimoy Panel Discussion at DragonCon 2009
Brought to you by WhatJaneSays @ YouTube.

PART I
PART II
PART III
PART IV
PART V
PART VI
PART VII

In a DragonCon side note, I'm hoping to get a report out of my buddy Bruce who got to attend this weekend. Hopefully he'll have some pretty cool stories that I will post here soon. We'll have to give him time to settle down a bit upon his return home. DragonCon is a 24 hour, 5 day party for geeks and I'm sure it took a bit of the piss out of him.

On another subject, we celebrated the birthday of my good friend Roberto with the annual Robhain festivities (see last post) were we always joke that someone will eventually end up in the hospital. Again it involved construction and destruction contests as well as trivia contests. And there was the ever plentiful amount of wondrous food and beverages. A good time was had by all.... until someone actually did have to go to the hospital. It's nothing that will involve any litigation concerning Robhain, however, I would ask all readers of the blog (2.5 of you) to send good vibes out my friend Iris' way. It is much appreciated.


I'm heading out to run some errands before I return to work tomorrow. So take care and remember those good vibes!

Zangz.

Time Travel to the Fantastical

Last weekend I had a bit of a fun adventure. I traveled back in time to a place where the history of the Renaissance was meshed together with Medieval Fantasy. A place where one minute I was avoiding an armor clad Klingon heading right in my direction and the next I was scoping out a beautiful young harpist playing by the side of the road. Another minute I would be watching a cute little Wood Nymph play with a young, visiting child.

This place of great mystery, oddities and magic can only be one location. I speak of course of the local Renaissance Fair.

Last Sunday some of my family and friends hit the road, out of the city, and out into the Southern farm lands. Once we traversed the traffic and mass amount of needless construction we found ourselves on a quaint back road that led us to the wonderful little township of Bristol, a berg that time forgot.

As soon as we got out of the car we noticed the many folks dressed in Renaissance, Medieval and Fantasy clothing. All the while I was thinking, "Now these are my kind of people!" As you may have guessed, I have a very soft spot for people who really get into the Fantastical.

And this would be the place that they would be able to let their hair down and feel welcome and comfortable, far away from the mundane, judgmental and yuppie-esque "real" world.

As soon as we made our way through the main gates we found ourselves immediately plunked, smack dab into a magical little township. The yells of storekeepers selling their goods, the smell of delicious foods and the music of a time thought long gone attacked our senses.

A jester entertaining a small band of royals and wealthy was the first introduction into our immersion into the fantasy world that these imaginative people who run, work at and attend the Ren Fair had for us.

We finally reached our initial destination of the jousting field. The knights, both good and evil, put on a great show where one of the evil knights won the contest. Huzzah for the dark ones!

As we made our way further into the heavily wooded township we saw a bevy of young wenches selling pickles, mushrooms and cheese fritters. Of course my eyes were glued to those tasty cheese fritters the whole time......... honest.

There were many leather good shops and blacksmith stores selling all manner of battle tool. My Bro-In-Law played around with one a bit. It was a wonderfully nasty instrument that was a staff that had an axe at its head with what looked like a pronged meat tenderizer on the opposite side of the axe. Not being a weapons historian, I have no clue as to what it was called, but I'm sure quite a few knight in shining armor got sliced and diced by one of them back in the day.

There were a few shops I enjoyed quite a bit. There was the little occult shop where I picked up a book on Zombies for my Halloween reading. There was also a shop dedicated to walking sticks and staffs. I have to admit, I was eyeing up one particular large, black staff that had a twist design going up it. At it's head was a Samuel Adams Black Larger tap. It was a bit out of my price range for this month's budget. So Sadly I missed out on my "Staff of Everlasting Grog" It would have given me a +50 against weak, skunky domestic beers.

"PBR Me? I think not! Get me a good micro-brew or import you silly lackey!"

Which reminds me of another good thing about the Ren Fair! They have five or six pubs throughout the township that not only sell the usual domestic swill, they also have a few lager and stout imports on hand.

The best part of it all were the people who come to these things dressed in full fantasy regalia! These aren't the people who work or run the fair though. These are the incredibly imaginative and talented folks who come in their own armor, with swords and magic staffs in hand. They're always ready to do battle with whatever invading army or dragon that may come to threaten the fair. Actually the only threat are the foul-minded yuppies who show up and shake their heads in disbelief. Sadly, they just don't get it. But, this isn't their world. There are no stock portfolios to plot and plan over, no golf courses, no business suits, no trophy wife / husband and no greed or boredom. Only the magic of imagination.

My only regret is that I never get a chance to hang with these Ren Fair people. Rumor has it, they throw real good parties after the fair shuts down for the day. And what self respecting geek wouldn't want to party with a bevy of wenches?



In other geekified news....

I've gone back to playing Fallout 3 since I have a couple of add on packs that I've installed. I finished up on both "The Pitt" and "Operation: Anchorage" and now I'm working on "Point Lookout" and "Broken Steel". All the bloodshed and character development a gamer could ask for in the post apocalyptic world of Washington D.C. and Maryland. Point Lookout looks particularly creepy as it takes place in some swampland and involves fighting off inbreds.


The Festival of Robahain (my friend Roberto's B-Day party) is coming up next weekend. There's sure to be bloodshed and fun. You can read about past Robhain's HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE. I'll report back, if I make it out alive.


Concerning reporting back, Zangz's Blog of Geekdom is sending a special agent to the geek festival of DragonCon, a five day Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Horror and gaming convention held every year in Atlanta. Since Gen Con has become pretty lame since it left Milwaukee, DragonCon has become the "go to" con for Role Players and fanboys alike.

My buddy Bruce is heading down there and I'm trying to get him to prep a report on his findings. So watch for that soon!


You do know what is also coming up, don't you? C'mon! All the signs are there. The slight change in temperature, the ever so change in the color of the leaves in trees, the Octoberfests and Pumpkin ales are already starting to hit the store shelves and the fact that a bunch of Halloween Express' are already popping up around town! The Season of the Dead is coming quicker than you may think. I've already bought a pumpkin scented candle. Is it too early to get into the Halloween vibe. Perhaps......... NAW!!!! It's never too early to get into the Halloween season!!!!


And with that, I close this blog. Until next time, as a wise man once told me, Stay Vertical!

Zangz.

Back from the "Big T" in Time to Remember John Hughes

I can't say that I was an uber-John Hughes geek like many other fans of filmdom are. But, like hundreds of thousands of people within my age range, I was saddened to hear of his untimely and sudden passing this past week.

The Breakfast Club, Uncle Buck, Weird Science, Some Kind of Wonderful, Pretty in Pink, and my personal Hughes fave Ferris Bueller's Day Off were great comedies aimed at teens that spoke to them, not at them. The movies didn't portray teens as sex hungry knuckleheads , like many of the teen romp movies did during the '80's (well...Weird Science kind of did.....but who wouldn't be sex hungry after taking a shower with Kelly LaBrock?).

John Hughes' young characters were people we all could easily relate to. They all could have very easily existed at that time and place that was known as the mid eighties. These movies were something special for those of us going through our young high school lives at the same time these movies were being released.

Rather than continuing to pathetically attempt to eulogize him here, I came across a personal blog via Ain't It Cool News. It's by an outstanding woman who, as a teen, had a pen pal relationship with the late producer-director. It's pretty phenomenal reading whether you're a John Hughes fan or not.

Click HERE to take a gander.

RIP John Hughes.


In other tid bits....

I got back from the family road trip to Houston, Texas relatively unscathed. There were a couple of tense moments once we drove into Houston and got a bit off track due to some faulty directions from AAA. But, it all came together in the end.

Highlights included seeing the George Lucas exhibit at Houston's NASA center. It was quite small, but there were some cool props displayed. Perhaps I'll post some photos for all to see someday.

There was also a visit to the Kemah Boardwalk on Galveston Bay. Avery fun place, but it was waaaaaayyyyy too hot and muggy that day. We didn't stay too long. There was a visit to the USS Texas. They let you climb up into the gun emplacements and operate the side to side and up and down movements!! My Bro-In-Law regressed to ten years old each and pretended we were shootin' down zero's. We also saw the nearby battlefield at San Jacinto.

There was much eating done on that trip. I believe I ate my own weight in BBQ, pancakes, Fajitas, pizza and Korean cuisine. The bathroom breaks were plenty but well worth it to make more room for the next meal.

All in all, it was great seeing dad and my step family again. My sister got to take her "little side trip" to Dallas and myself and Bro-In-Law made great time driving back.

I hope to go back and see more of Texas. I definitely want to check out Austin someday.


What am I listening to right now? We'll I just picked up Dream Theater's "Black Clouds & Silver Linings". It's an incredible piece of music about personal pain and how it's dealt with. If the song "Wither" doesn't bring a lump in your throat, you have no soul.

We'll folks, I have a baby shower to go to this afternoon, so I gotta get movin'.

Later.

Zangz.

The Chocolate Luv Scent of Zangz.

Though I'm venturing into middle age, I still like to present a good appearance....and scent. I'm a single guy who doesn't like to be plagued with body order. And you never know who you're going to bump into.

I went grocery shopping a few weeks back and realized I was running low on body soap for when I shower. I decided I'd try something different. Perhaps something a little more manly than the usual bland body soap. As I went down the isle filled with bodily care creams, rinses and other smellerific stuff, I came to the body soap section.

Tons upon tons to choose from. I went to a brand that may be aimed for younger guys and started going through the sniffing process with each of its scents. They all of course had cheesy names like the name of Greek gods, names of U-Boats, names of automatic weaponry. Stuff that would bring the machismo out of lame, unsuspecting, lonely men (ehem...).

I sniffed on down the line until they all started to smell the same. Then I came across one that was named something like Darkest Passion. I opened the top of the manly, dark brown container and took a whiff. The cent made me reminisce of a time when I loved to wear musky colognes, like Drakkar. I was sold and pulled it from the shelf dropping it into my cart.

The next morning I decided to give it a try. While showering I squeezed out a plentiful amount of what appeared to be dark brown goo onto my body sponge. I then start sudsing up all over. The musky smell wasn't as prevalent as it seemed when I was taking the whiff in the grocery store. I guessed that wasn't a bad thing since I didn't want to be too overpowering. But, it did seem to have a different kind of smell that I couldn't put my finger on.

I got out of the shower, dried off and got dressed for the day. I had to run out and do a few errands that day, but relaxed in front of the TV for a bit before heading out the door. As I sat there I could distinctively smell someone in the apartment building, on my floor, baking brownies. My stomach started to gurgle with hunger and I made myself a bowl of cereal. I then went out and did some errands going to a local mall to pick up a few things. The smell of the brownies seemed trapped in my nose the entire time.

I came home a few hours later and could still smell chocolate brownies all over the place. As the day progressed into a video game marathon, the brownie scent continued.

As I rattled through some Fallout 3 on the '360, I raised my arm to itch my nose. As my hand came up to my nose, the scent of the brownies overpowered me. "Holy Crap!" I made a realization. "I SMELL LIKE FRACKIN' BROWNIES!" I ran into the bathroom and grabbed the dark brown container of what I mistook for the scent of "musk" and gave it a pure whiff, not an altered whiff after sniffing several different scents beforehand as I had done in the grocery store.

Sure enough. The smell of musk was gone. Instead the smell of Mom's chocolaty home cooking came from the DARK BROWN container named something silly like DARKEST PASSION.

Here's what I instantly envisioned at the board meeting of the manly body soap company where the idea for the sweet scent was introduced.....

CEO of Corporate Advertising Firm Filled with D-Bags: "We need a new scent for our manly-man body soap line. Something different.

Corporate Advertising D-Bag #1: "Hey guys, I've been brainstorming in my office for a while and came up with what will be quite a doosey!"

Corporate Advertising D-Bag #2: "Really, do tell."

Corporate Advertising D-Bag #1: "Well, women really like to cook, right?"

Corporate Advertising D-Bag #2: "Yup. They sure do."

Corporate Advertising D-Bag#3: "Of course!"

Corporate Advertising D-Bag #1: "And they like chocolate, right"

Corporate Advertising D-Bag #2: "Yup. They sure do."

Corporate Advertising D-Bag #3: "Of course!"

Corporate Advertising D-Bag #1: "Well, THAT'S our new scent! Chocolate Bakery Products!!!! We'll call it Dark Passions or something equally as silly! I'm just sure there's at least some tool who'll think that it smells like just another musk."

CEO of Corporate Advertising Firm Filled with D-Bags: "Excellent! Let's have that out on the shelves by next week!"

And that is why I spent the better part of the day smelling like Betty Crocker's finest. And I didn't even get mugged in an elevator by a brood of visually stunning women like on the body soap's commercials....sigh.

In other stuff....

Since I have other travel plans this weekend, I decided to do a virtual visit to Geek Valhalla, the San Diego Comic Con. I did this by visiting several postings on YouTube. From what I can tell the whole Twilight / New Moon franchise has taken over a good portion of the show this year. Thus mixed in with a lot of middle aged men with lots of facial hair, Spider-Man T-Shirts and a lack of body soap (hey, at least I have that chocolate gunk) will be young, screaming, female tweeners. Not a great mix.

Maybe opting to go take a road trip with family members to go visit my dad in Houston was a better idea than trying to drum up the major moola it would have cost to even attempt to visit the con. The San Diego Comic Con is sadly just a pipe dream for me right now.

I do plan to have a great time in Houston, though. We'll be visiting NASA. They currently have an exhibit of the works of George Lucas! So that should fill up a bit of my geek appetite.

I have to get packing, folks. Enjoy your week and I'll report back.

Zangz.

Blow Stuff Up!!!!

The Independence Day three day weekend couldn't have come any sooner! After another grueling week at work I have arrived at a weekend that will hopefully be filled with fun, explosives, beer, explosives, cigars, explosives, good friends, good laughs, good eats and explosives. Is it any wonder that the 4th of July is one of my favorite holidays. I hope all of you have a great holiday weekend and get to see some good explosives going off.....hopefully within a safe distance of you.


Ya know, I've been looking at my past posts of this year (if I don't do it, who will) and have noticed that they are far less in quantity than in years past. It's not that I don't enjoy visiting here or am getting bored with it. I think this year I've become far busier and when I get home from work I'm so beat, the last thing I want to do is try and do some creative free writing. Especially when it's free writing that 2.5 people read regularly. So if you're truly bothered by my less frequent blogs. I apologize. I can always try to be a little more attentive to my silly little spot on the world wide web.


It certainly is summer in the Brew City. The sounds of the huge, local music party, Summerfest, can be heard off the lakefront, bouncing off the buildings where Zangz's Blog of Geekdom's headquarters are located. I was hoping to get down there last night to catch Judas Priest, but after getting out of work later than I had hoped, the last thing I wanted to do was go down and pay $15 to get into the fest only to end up buying overpriced beer, marked up cigars and trying to get a glimpse of Priest amongst of throngs of people who probably got the day off to stake out a spot earlier in the day.

Instead I opted to hit a local Irish Pub near work where a co-worker won an "office party" (15 free pitchers of beer) Oddly enough only six others from work showed up. I believe we could only polish away 10 of them between us before we gave in. I decided to stay for dinner to sop up the some of the free beer. An excellent pub burger was ingested very quickly.

Later in the evening I found myself out back in my parking lot enjoying the nice weather and a cigar. A perfect start to a very well deserved three day weekend.


In geek related topics, I recently picked up the add on supplement to one of my favorite video games of the past year, Fallout 3. The add on allows character generation to go beyond just a measly 20 levels as well as adding more game content including scenarios called "The Pitt" as well as "Operation Anchorage". Originally this content was only given to those with an Xbox 360 Live Internet connection as downloadable content. But the wonderful people at Bethesda have provided in on a update disc for those of us not hooked up. Rumore has it there's even more new scenarios and adventures planned for Fallout 3 in the near future and I'm hoping they'll be provided on a disc also!

The sad thing is even though I bought this a month ago, I still haven't played any of it because I'm still traipsing through Two Worlds. The game is getting a little frustrating as I'm finding that it has quite a few glitches that actually don't allow you to complete quests. I'm glad I got that game for real cheap.

Music wise, what have I been listening to latley? I've found Shiny Toy Guns to be a pleasent little electronica diversion from my usual much louder and aggressive interests. Check them out, won't you?

What else can I tell you? Not much. That's about it for today.

Again have a fun and safe 4th of July!

Zangz.

And the Grim Reaper laughs heartily...

In modern day entertainment and pop culture the character of the Grim Reaper has been pretty humanized. In the Neil Gaiman graphic novella, "The Sandman" Death was a cute Goth chick that would appear right after one's spirit would leave their body. She would then usher you into the afterlife, but not follow you there. After all she had more work to do here on earth.

On the TV show Dead Like Me, Reapers are deceased people who still walk the earth in different bodies and are given names on post-its as to who they need to "visit". They also usher the recently deceased into the next life.

But, I've always preferred the old tried and true blade carrying, skull headed, hood wearin' mo fo. He's the one full of menace and downright nastiness. And recently this S-O-B has a hearty appetite for big name celebs of the 70's and 80's.

The first to go under the scythe was Kung Fu star David Carradine a few weeks back. Apparently,the Grim Reaper has a pretty sick and twisted sense of humor.

Second, he narrowed in on Ed McMahon earlier this week, giving Ed the old "complications to many different health problems" routine. I grew up watching Ed on the Tonight Show and was slightly bummed out at the news.

Then Reaps took a few days off, got caught up on some things, perhaps took in a movie or just hung out and relaxed before his really friggin' big day.

The 26th of June started like any other work day for us all. I wonder how it started for the Grim Reaper. Was he all excited rubbing his boney hands together and licking his chops in anticipation? Or was he completely stressed out at the prospect of the grand double whammy stunt he was going to pull off that day?

In any case, yesterday ended in an incredibly surreal way for most of us. As for me, I was sitting at a local Irish pub enjoying a pint with other patrons. Up on the HD widescreen was some sports channel going through big stories of the day both related and not related to sports. At the time the sound was off and I looked up to see that poster, THAT poster, of Farrah Fawcett. Underneath it were the dates 1947-2009. We all knew that Farrah was very sick. She boldly and bravely showed us her sickness in a two hour documentary that was televised earlier this year. But, even though it was no surprise that she had passed, it still took a bit of the wind out of me. After all, Charlie's Angels hit the TV when I was going through puberty. I will not go into extreme details of a young boy being introduced to the detective talents of one Jill Monroe or that poster, THAT poster. Suffice it to say, she made an impact.

But the Reaper was far from done. Very far indeed. He still had his magnum opus to perform. Farrah was only the opening act. The headliner had yet to take the stage. I sat at the bar talking to the bartendress about how much of a bummer it was that Farrah was gone when someone at the other end of the bar said, "Turn on CNN!" The bartendress took the remote and pointed it at one of the screens. The big headline across the screen read: MICHAEL JACKSON IN CARDIAC ARREST.

At first I though, "What kind of wacked out publicity stunt is he up to this time?" Not being a big MJ fan, I could of cared less. Though, the pop culture lover inside of me wanted to see what was going to happen next. I really thought that this was going to be another hair-on-fire incident where in the end he'd be in the hospital for a while then get out and go on being Michael Jackson. Then the headline changed.... MICHAEL JACKSON IN COMA.

Things went downhill from there as not 20 minutes later the headline confirmed, MICHAEL JACKSON PRONOUNCED DEAD! The sound came on and they were referring to him in the past tense.

As I said, I'm pretty unaffected by Michael Jackson. At first no one in the bar really noticed how the headline changed. The bartendress passed by me and I pointed it out to her asking, "Are they for real?" I think there may have been a , "oh my god" out of her mouth, but I was too stunned to remember. I wasn't stunned in the way of "Oh dear lord, a god has left us!" as I will be when Connery or Harrison Ford or Ozzy Osbourne kick the bucket. But, when a massive pop culture icon/character buys the farm unexpectedly, you can't help but be a little gob-smacked.

The bartendress went over to the computer that controls the TVs and audio system, booted up i-Tunes and clicked on a Michael Jackson mix. The people in the bar were starting to catch on to the big story. My friend Spanky, who always calls me when a big celeb has died rung up my cell phone within minutes of the announcement. I'm sure he made some sort of pedophilia joke, but I can't recall it at this time.

Though I'm no MJ fan, i did feel that it was a pretty surreal event. And for the rest of the day I was in a state of, not shock, but a weird feeling that it wasn't real. I wasn't depressed or saddened by the event. It was just weird to no longer have the wild and crazy world of Michael jackson to hear about anymore.

That night, the Grim Reaper went to bed tired and beat down. It had been a full couple of weeks with a boatload of special projects that had to be dealt with. He cracked open a six pack of Blatz that he picked up at the Pump-And-Go and ended up on the couch in front of his TV which had Seacrest on expounding all his MJ knowledge to the world.

Then GR would pass out in front of the tube after a ballz-out busy day.

Speaking of passing out, I myself have to get up early to work tomorrow morning. Much like the Grim Reaper, there's always some work to do.

Zangz.

UPDATE: Since this was posted, two more celebs have bowed before the reaper. TV Pitchman, Billy Mays and veteran actor Karl Malden have passed. A note to any celebrity reading this: HIDE. The Reaper is on a celeb hackin' rampage!

"Ok, let's say we clear out this warehouse and had an enormous cage match...

.....and in it we had Darth Vader fighting against Superman, who would win?"

This is a question that was posed to a few of us at work today by a fellow employee. Though it was one of the many insanely busy days that have cursed / blessed us of late, we still had a brief moment of levity sneak in.

Of course I went with my man, Vader. The reaction was one of disgust and disappointment from the Superman supporters. I defended my answer with the obvious reason. Sure, Supes is the "Man of Steel" but Vader has crushed steel with a flick of his Dark Force enhanced wrists. As soon as Supes would land and do his patented, big chested boyscout pose, Vader would twist him up in a gruesome pile of flesh and bone with nary a thought......

Dear Jebus, it was stupid conversation. Yet, it was still very welcomed to have that slight geeky break in the middle of a very monotonous day. Work has been wearing me down lately and I am very happy it is the weekend.

I'll be finding myself dog, cat and house sitting this weekend. And you can bet I'll be fully equipped with the ol' '360, some beer and some nice cigars to enjoy out on the patio that is at the home. They're anticipating some very nice weather after these thunderstorms that have been lingering for the last day pass.

I really love thunderstorms. As a child a nighttime thunderstorm was terrifying. These days they seem to lull me to sleep.

Ok, this post is getting a bit ADD. On to some geekyness...


I recently picked up the action RPG Two Worlds and find myself already deeply entrenched in it.

It's not a great game by a long shot. The graphics are sub par for the current generation of game system. A lot of the visuals are repetitive. The map / quest log system can be downright frustrating. The voice acting is on the same level as Kevin Costner as Robin Hood. When it was first released it was promoted as being the "Oblivion Killer" and missed that mark by a long, long shot!

But, for some reason, I find myself playing it for blocks of several hours. Perhaps it's because the game system takes me back to the days of discovering the first Diablo. It's that quest-hack-pillage-upgrade game play that makes it work. The storyline involving your character's missing sister is quite compelling also. The world itself is quite vast and does have some changes in scenery. When your character heads into to Southern lands beyond the great river you'll find yourself in marshes, bogs and swamps. Venture even farther south and the sky turns blood red. A little Oblivion influenced me thinks. Silly as the game may be, it's still addictive as nicotine!

I'm calling it here. It's been quite the week and Old Man Zangz is going to catch a little shut eye.

G'night folks!

Zangz.

"BILL "has left us....

Got some really crappy fan-boy news today....

David Carradine has passed.

His role as Bill in Kill Bill really set him apart from the rest. He was one cool, laid back dude, and it sucks that he decided to leave us well before his time.

I hope he's somewhere he wants to be.

Zangz.

Gaze Upon The Oddity That is... THE CULLITAR!

Ummmmm...... yep. I don't quite have the words for this either. This could be so many levels of wrongness that you couldn't even concieve. But, it could also be a grand homage to a new fandom that is growing and still taking shape

So here's how I understand it all came to be. A couple of blogs ago I posted about my sister, Dizzy Lizzy, being a pretty huge Twilight fan. I myself, am not swept up into all the hoopla surrounding this vampire romance novel and movie series aimed solely at gothy tweener girls. But, my sister's best friend, Holly, really takes fandom to whole new levels. Evidently she's pretty over the top when it comes to young vampire Edward Cullen. She also happens to be a huge player of the interactive video game Guitar Hero. She had a graphic designer friend of hers get creative and put together this brooding piece of pop culture magic.....or monstrosity. Whichever way you lean on the whole Twilight phenomenon. She has named it The Cullitar!

Apparently, this picture is making it's rounds amongst the Twilight legions on the Internet and message boards. Like this one here.

Not long ago my sister had me view the movie based on the book, Twilight. And I was surprised at how it wasn't nearly as horrible as I thought it would be. After all, way back in the day when I first started gaming with my good GM, Mad Mario, it was Vampire: The Masquerade we played. That RPG seemed to have a very good grasp on vampire lore, taking a bit from Bram Stoker to Anne Rice. I'm not fully sure that if the game were to be completely revamped they would allow a lot of the sometimes silly Stephenie Meyer's version of vampire mythos into the pantheon of vampiric history, facts and traits (as god is my witness, vampires DO NOT simply twinkle when exposed to sunlight. They BURN THE FRACK UP like screaming beeotches!).

I had to see what all the hub-bub was about. I watched the film and found it ... simply ok. The performances were all pretty darn good. The story was typical romantic dren. Though, it was nothing to write home about (no all out vampire gore or real spooky atmosphere that a real good vampire flick/story should have) it wasn't a complete loss for me. After all, how would one complain if a vampire looking like Rachell Lefevre, Nikki Reed or Ashley Greene would latch on to you and suck the life outta ya? A good way to go out, huh? Ok, enough with the creepy old man syndrome.

I guess everybody has to find their fandom. I'm glad that my sister and her Guitar Hero playin', Edward Cullin lovin' friend, Holly, have found theirs.

Have a good weekend and enjoy a well deserved brew or two on me.

Zangz.

Oh, on a personal notation to Mrs. Meyer.... vampires don't produce bodily fliuds since they are undead. No boogers, no poop, no whizz, no spit, no vomit and.... none of the baby makin' stuff! So there's no way Edward would be able to impregnate Bella in the last of the books and upcoming movies. Read up on your vampire lore, would ya honey!