Comedy of Errors

Do you ever have those days where you just know the universe is sentient and it is out to get you? The days where nothing seems to go right, from the moment you wake to the moment you crawl, defeated, back into bed, there is just no getting away from it. The planets have aligned, the Fates are angered at you and a past life is coming back to haunt you, you stepped on a crack in the sidewalk…well it had to be something, didn’t it?

Take for example, my day today. It started with my oversleeping for no apparent reason and getting out of bed only to step on a juicy hairball left, with love I’m sure, by one of our many cats. At that moment I had a sudden, sinking feeling that today was not going to be my best day ever. After searching out my toothbrush which one of the aforementioned cats had graciously left in the spare room for me, I came downstairs wanting only my first oh so divine cup of coffee. I puttered about with one eye open, cleaning out the coffee maker, opened the freezer and found a near empty bag of coffee. My husband, allergic to all forms of cleaning, left it there rather than throw it out and tell me we needed more. I was not to have my lovely first cup and instead had to get dressed and walk to the corner store for more.

Opening the door I was met by a wall of heat, ironic as yesterday it was near freezing. I returned dripping in sweat from my short walk, started my coffee, sat down at my computer and then shot a dirty look at my husband who decided that was the time to tell me he wanted lunch. He, of course, was sprawled on the couch playing his latest favorite video game it being his day off and a day off tends to result in the temporary inability to use his legs. After he begged sweetly, I grumbled my way back in to the kitchen, only because it allowed me to sniff my brewing coffee like a crack addict while I waited for it to finish.

The next few hours were the only decent hours of the day, piddling about on my computer, gaming, modding, tweeting and generally being lazy until I had to leave for work. Blissful in comparison! I arrived at the pizza shop where I waitress, cook, prep and generally do a bit of everything, at the same time as my co-workers. To my dismay, I saw the usual woman who works the kitchen with me was not there. In her place an old employee who hadn’t worked in years. Once she was very good but the years away dulled her skills but that would tell later. I waited for our boss to open the door, looking forward to getting out of the heat only to hear her curse loudly. The Air Conditioning had died sometime during the night. A pizza shop is not somewhere you want to be on a ninety degree day without air conditioning. The cursing was only getting started. We went about setting the shop up for the night, our busiest as Friday’s always are. I turned on my ovens. We have two stacked atop each other, only the top one works properly. The bottom oven refuses to heat properly no matter how high you set the temperature. A few minutes later I cracked the top oven door to check if it had been cleaned and wasn’t met by the customary blast of heat in the face. Yes, the oven had died.

Our busiest night of the week when two ovens are barely enough to keep up and we were now relegated to using only the bottom where everything takes twice as long to cook. The phones began ringing and we were off. As the orders began to pile up so too did our dining room begin to fill. We were so busy my boss kept me up front, no tables for me tonight, leaving them to our old employee. While she waited tables, I ran the oven and the kitchen at the same time. She had forgotten how to do almost everything and seemed incapable of even staying atop her dishes. As fast as I could wash them she would add more and for some reason, seemed to loathe putting away those I’d cleaned. Instead, she puttered about, frequently vanishing to ‘have a puff’ and reappearing to thank me quickly for doing her dishes, making her food and in general being her kitchen girl all night. As our business finally wound down late in the evening, exhausted, I went to put a pizza in. Bending over and practically kneeling to get into the bottom oven, I tipped the pie on the oven door, dumping it and most of its toppings onto the door and the floor below. It was a frantic race to scrape the bubbling cheese off the door before it could solidify and send out a stink that would never dissipate. Adding insult to injury, as I was sweeping up the floor beneath the oven, the head of the broom fell off. No reason, it just decided it was unhappy as a broom and decided to become a hand brush instead.

So ended my night and now I sit sipping something that’s both wine and beer and sparkling, cheap but well-earned and pondering why the universe sometimes decides I need a little reminder that I am not in charge and my world can be upended at any time, no warnings necessary, for any reason or no reason and I may never know which. The lesson, I suppose, is you can’t control when your day is going to go to crap. You can only deal with the aftermath and hope tomorrow will be better…and perhaps indulge in an adult beverage or three while you’re at it.

Where ignorance meets hate, here lies Glenn Beck

Ok. Gloves off. Glenn Beck you, sir, are an ass. I have tried, mainly for my father’s sake, to listen to Glenn with an open mind. My open minded attitude was dented a few weeks ago as Glenn, on The View, when asked if he fact checked said no he does not. He’s a commentator not a journalist and can say whatever he wants. I have now given up altogether after his disgraceful behavior on his radio show yesterday while commenting on Lawrence O’Donnell and a letter he read. Specifically, Lawrence stated he has many friends who rely on Planned Parenthood and Glenn broke in with “Hookers?! Who depends on Planned Parenthood? I’ve got 400 abortions that I have to have! I have to have these children aborted! I’m depending on Planned Parenthood!” Implying the only possible use for Planned Parenthood is prostitution related abortion.

I used Planned Parenthood for a decade or more. I had no insurance and Planned Parenthood gave me an affordable way to get the services I needed, checkups, exams and the like. Contrary to the now popular Republican lie, abortion is NOT ninety percent of the services Planned Parenthood offers. In fact it accounts for only three percent of their services used each year. It is a wonderful organization of caring professionals who make healthcare available to women with little or no insurance or income. They are often also brilliant at handling situations hospitals make unnecessarily awkward, not to mention budget busting.

As far as Glenn Beck’s listeners are concerned, I must be an abortion happy hooker. For the record, I’ve never been pregnant and cannot become pregnant. I deeply resent the reprehensible comments Mr. Beck made yesterday. How dare he? Ah but he dares because he does not care to fact check and can say whatever he wants, no matter the consequences. The more upsetting part for me are the people who can hear these things from him and still defend him as having anything trustworthy or worthwhile to say. How much paranoia and hate speech does it take before they open their eyes?

Sorry Dad. Glenn Beck has destroyed any chance you had of convincing me Glenn Beck has anything worthwhile to say. Because I love you I won’t bring him up on our next road trip because we will never agree. We’ll stay to safer topics, like what homemade pies Kay will have for us this time at our stop!

Glenn Beck on the View 

Glenn Beck radio broadcast 

To soothe the Savage beast

Music is a powerful tool. It can make us laugh, cry, cheer and curse. Music can drive us to frenzy and be cathartic or give us relief when we are angry or sad. It gives inspiration and heals our hurts. My tastes in music are, I would say, eclectic at the least. I don’t love or hate any one specific genre. I’ve found songs in all genres that move me in one way or another. What I listen to is dependent on my mood. Often what I listen to suits my mood rather than offsets it. When I was feeling angry and betrayed, this song gave me comfort, made me smile and drove me hoarse singing along.

When I want to feel empowered, this song gets my blood pumping as I identify with the refrain. “All I know for sure is I’m trying. I will always stand my ground.” Words to live by, well for me anyway.

Now sometimes I’m just happy and want something that makes me grin, makes me dance and even makes me laugh. My list of those songs would take up way too much space. Lord help me if anyone ever plants a camera in here and catches me listening to any of those songs. The video evidence would be enough to have me committed I think….or spawn my own YouTube channel. Heh.

This one always reminds me of trips home to visit my family every summer. Somehow we always catch this on the car radio. Hearing this generally results in people in the cars around us pointing and staring while I, my sisters and sixty year old father rock out like geeks.

and never underestimate the ability of Eurovision to give you gems to watch and laugh at!

When I’m feeling melancholy, I tend to find similar songs. This isn’t wallowing, rather it’s accepting how you’re feeling and being okay with it. Makes it easier to deal with when it’s not so overwhelming and the music helps.

Share your favorites with me. What songs move you and why? I leave you with one of my favorite songs with a montage from one of my favorite shows. :P

Chinese-ing

Chinese food is so much more than just tummy filler. My friends and family have always had a tradition of “Chinese-ing”; heading out to a Chinese restaurant with as many people as possible for a meal. Where else do you conspire with your table mates to order so that food can be shared by all? It’s almost bad form to order the same dish as someone else.  

Chinese-ing is about spending time with your friends or family, chatting, laughing, sharing food and trying new things. I remember sitting with six or seven friends in a little Hunan place in Fairport New York on a lovely summer day. Great food, plates being passed round the table, plum wine and the owner quizzing the table next to ours about the animals typically used in Chinese food to which one of my friends meowed like a cat. The owner, without breaking stride, turned about and said “Meow? No.” and had us in stitches. It’s one of my fondest Chinese-ing memories…along with being nabbed by the cops in the park outside the restaurant later that night and watching them sniff all our drinks. They just couldn’t believe we were that cheerful and rowdy AND sober.

Other great memories: Introducing my Dad to War Dip Har over a pot of Chinese tea and watching the awe on his face. It’s a sinfully divine specialty of my favorite Chinese place here in Columbus, Golden Phoenix. How can you not love bacon wrapped, battered and deep fried shrimp in sweet and sour over a bed of onions? Thumb wrestling over the last Crab Rangoon, watching friends fumble with chopsticks and the waiters trying not to snicker, watching my husband’s grandmother argue with my Pad Tai noodles while I swipe bites of her War Su Gai.

It’s quite possible Chinese-ing could be the solution to world peace. Imagine if we could get all the world leaders around a table, sharing eggrolls and betting who can use chopsticks better. One pot of tea shared by the right people and suddenly you have peace in Gaza…okay maybe not but it’s a thought worth having.

Chinese-ing, whether in a restaurant or at home, is meal with a mission. You can’t help but smile and feel good. Having a bad day? Some tea and a few crab Rangoon will make you smile. Well it makes me smile. Time to convince Himself that it’s Chinese night at home tonight. I’ve a craving for some Stir Fry and he makes the best.

Happy Chinese-ing!

Beyond Gaming

I’ve had many hobbies over the years, some I still dabble with from time to time like painting which I do not excel at. That doesn’t stop me from painting; it’s still a great way to relax even if I roll my eyes at the results every time.  Modding TES IV: Oblivion though has turned out to be one of the best hobbies I’ve ever had. It’s a great time killer, which we ask of any decent hobby and it requires constant use of your imagination and creativity, not to mention patience.  I love sharing my work with others almost as much as I love making it to begin with.

Modding is something that can be picked up by anyone really but Modding well requires, I think, a certain level of ego and self-assurance.  As a breed we modders seem to be plagued with both in spades, some more than others. This is not to say that all modders are superior loners. Far from it! We are in fact a close knit community. We routinely help and support each other and when it’s needed, defend each other. If there is a single group we tend to look down upon, it would be the players. As a general rule, the players who use our mods tend not read the things we give them to read to use our mods well and, when they find something has gone wrong, the modder gets the blame.  If the modding community has a motto, it would be RTFM. Read the Fu*&ing Manual, something the average player does little of and whines about the consequences later…but I digress.

I got started in modding with the help of a good friend who convinced me that, contrary to what I thought, I could learn this. I’ve never been gladder to be wrong. Honestly modding is a bit like a virtual extension of my real life fixation on shifting furniture every other month, much to my husband’s dismay. I rearrange the house less often now I have modding to turn to. Indeed my real estate empire in Cyrodiil is ever expanding. My friend has created a monster.  Heh heh heh heh

I love creating mods; Touring Cyrodiil to find likely locations, planning the landscape, the type of house, the décor and even the feature most modders groan at…cluttering. Oh how I love it! Building a house and giving it personality is so rewarding. I always see the house in my head before I even open the construction set. Once I do it almost seems to build itself. I create a character in my head for each house, a former owner, and imagine their personality, their story. Then I decorate the house so that it reflects that person. At least I hope that comes across for the people who use my houses. I see it clearly but who knows what my players see.

Some of my homes I’ve created because friends have given me inspiration. One asked for a home on a ship and that spawned the Eska Cair. Another of my homes was born because of a new resource of Hedge maze pieces and a friend whose name includes the word Hedge. So, I built an exterior home from Hedges. Okay it sounds silly but it works for me.

A few homes I created for community modding contests. No I didn’t win but the fun was in the making. I also have a love for building dungeons; devious, lethal, make you cuss dungeons. Mwahahaha Even there my need to clutter and give some personality shows. A dungeon is an altogether different beast than a house but some of the same principles apply. You wouldn’t want either to be bland or boring. Personality is a must to help a player feel connected and to provide the right atmosphere whether it’s an arrangement of clutter on a desktop or roots, vines and plants in a dungeon. Lighting can be the most important factor. We use lighting to highlight some areas or occlude others, to set a tone or create tension by the simple lack of it. It can make a place feel warm and cozy or cold and uninviting. In a dungeon a light source amidst the dark provides the player with a beacon of safety or can lead them unwittingly to some diabolical trap.

The most important ability, I think, for a modder is to be able to use the things given us in ways the developers never thought of. Mashing dungeon tile sets together creates a whole new environment not seen in the original game. Taking house interiors that received a bland treatment originally and turning them into something that actually looks like someone lives there is an art all itself.

Some modders are exceptional at this, my teacher for one. He taught me, from the beginning, to look at the items I have to work with with an eye for more than just their intended use. I like to think I’ve become fairly adept at MacGuyvering what I want in game from the limited resources the game gives me. Of course, there are countless brilliant mods created just to expand those resources. Everything from wine racks to whole new tile sets for homes, dungeons and cities.

I don’t know everything I need yet to be what I would consider a master modder. I’m a demon builder, I can certainly throw a dungeon together faster than most but there are still many core skills I lack. I can’t script nor write quests yet. Two things that are critical to any truly good mod. Up until now I have relied on friends, other modders, to make up for my lack in these areas but I am determined to learn them. I’m not sure I’ll ever be a master scripter, as most of it makes my eyes cross, but I need to learn enough to get by at least. Then again, I didn’t think I would be able to learn my way around the construction set either. Texturing is another skill I’m attempting to master. I can do it at a basic level but I learn a little more every time I try something different. Modeling may be the one area where I don’t tread. Not that I wouldn’t love the ability to create myself the things I want in game and don’t have but I’m not sure I have the patience to learn to do it! I salute those who do and have. They astound me regularly with their skills.

Modding is a hobby that truly speaks to that creative streak in some of us and gives us the opportunity to bring to life the things in our head and even share them with others. I would love to get a chance to teach my brother and sisters how to do this. I think they would love it! One of my sisters in particular who, like me, has a real flair for artistic expression. I can just imagine the things she would create given the knowledge. If you’re looking for a new hobby, something different and involving, you really should try your hand at modding. Age means nothing if you were just about to say you’re too old for this. I’m thirty-nine, which seems to be about middle aged for modders. I know quite a few over fifty and a couple over sixty! It’s a rewarding hobby, even if you don’t feel comfortable enough to share your work with others. I have the privilege of belonging to an exceptional community of modders and players that specializes in teaching new modders and I invite you to come join us. Anyone can learn to do this and you might just find you love doing it as much as I do.

TES Alliance  - Home of the first Elder Scrolls/Fallout Modding School. Learn. Teach. Share.

B Movie Queen

What is it about B movies that just makes some of us twitch with barely suppressed glee? Monster movies, sci-fi movies and that golden egg of the B movie genre…Disaster flicks. I have grown to love weekends on the Syffie channel. (Note: Sci-Fi channel chooses to give itself a silly spelling, SyFy, I will insist on giving it a silly pronunciation to match.) An entire weekend devoted to every monster, mutant creature and disaster movie they can dig out of the vaults? Nirvana.

Is it the special ‘deffects’? Perhaps. You don’t watch movies of this caliber because you expect you to see Industrial Light and Magic in the credits. You expect men in rubber suits, spaceships on strings and shoddy green screen work. It’s all part of the charm. No one ever complained that Godzilla was a guy in a giant suit. We expected it. That’s why, in part I think, the remake in 1998 with Mathew Broderick so distressed those of us who grew up with the campy lizard. CGI Godzilla just was not the same thing. Oh he was cool, but he was not Godzilla.

Sometimes we watch them to laugh and ridicule. Sometimes to sit in happy awe at the success created on such a small budget. The first reason is a form of entertainment all its own. Rent and watch Twenty million miles to Earth if you don’t believe me. If you can sit through that entire film without mocking, you’re either short a sense of humor or dead.

The larger budget B films can be just as much fun. Tremors for example: Giant underground worms with three prehensile tongues laying waste to a desert town…and Kevin Bacon. Classic! There are many movies that fall under the bigger budget-B movie heading. Twister, Lake Placid, Supernova and Volcano come to mind. 

Now disaster movies are by far my favorite genre of B movie.  Any movie that trashes the planet or at the least destroys a city or three is catnip for me. I can’t get enough. These have the added benefit of often crossing over into the Alien genre. Day of the Triffids is one of my all-time favorite end of the world, survival B films. Even in Black and White it’s a tense, paranoid thrill ride and the art class project Triffids are perfect. A better budget could not have made them more paranoia inducing. The entire population of the planet turns out to watch a meteor shower and wakes up blind the next morning only to be preyed upon by the Carnivorous plants left in its wake. Among others, it follows the story of one poor soldier who’d been unable to see the meteors while in hospital recovering from temporary blindness. He is a sighted man in the world of the blind trying to save as many as he can from the nightmare. One scene in particular stands out. Find the movie. Watch it and if you aren’t hanging on the edge of your seat, biting your nails when they escape in the ice cream truck I’ll eat my favorite hat. It’s one of the eeriest, tense scenes ever filmed.

Now, natural disasters; Oh goodness I need something to wipe the drool with. When humanity meets her end either from a random event or the actions of man you’re guaranteed a worthy cheese-fest, not to mention these often spend the most on special effects. The recent 2012, while light on character development and Oscar worthy writing is a tour de force of beautifully rendered destruction. As an apocalypse B movie, it succeeds brilliantly. As mentioned before, these aren’t the type of movies you watch for the acting or writing. You see them because you want to see tidal waves and earthquakes, volcanoes and planet killing meteors, the Eiffel Tower falling over, the Andes flooding, tornado outbreaks or maybe L.A. being turned into a smoking cinder.

Another feature of the disaster film is the usual casting of a big name actor…or one who used to be. Ghosts of Mars and Anaconda share one of my favorites. Ice Cube. Whatever you think of his music he makes a great B movie hero, or anti-hero. Then of course there’s the Syffie channels love for starring Dean Caine. Campy monster films and eye candy; you just can’t lose. My favorite Syffie-Dean Caine film is I think where he battles a dragon in a helicopter: Dragon fighter. Although Arctic Predator is a keeper as well. Snakes on a plane is another fantastic example. You will laugh so hard your face hurts. I promise and the cast is brilliant.

Monster movies; from Mummies to Megasnakes they’re great for entertainment and usually a host of laughs. Any fan of Mystery Science Theater 3000 knows that this genre is brimming over with class A cheese no matter who’s in the cast. A recent gem that should grace any B movie fans shelf is a Syffie original picture: Megapython vs. Gatoroid; A camp-fest starring Tiffany and Debbie Gibson. From beginning to end this one delivers. I laughed and jeered for two hours and eagerly watched it repeat later if only to see the end again.

I pity people who see a B movie title and change the channel. You just do not know the fun you’re missing or the hidden gems you might turn up. I recently spent a Saturday watching giant snake movie after giant snake movie with my brother in law and neither of us regretted it. That was hours of MST3K fun. Anacondas 3. I recommend this film. Giant snakes with spear pointed tails and shark like teeth with a penchant for biting off heads. The laughs never stop. B movies are true entertainment for the sake of entertainment. They’re not deep or meaningful, thought provoking, dark and depressive or life altering. They’re just fun.