Introduction my new roommate...

Gray C. or Gracie depending on who asks



I adopted Gray C. from NOAH last night (thanks Tim and Mary Beth). She is a 6 year old declawed independent cat that is a little shy but still quite friendly. The pictures don't do the coloring justice cause it is really cool looking.

Her original adopted name was Sissy but that sounded too close to pissy and I did not want to give her any ideas. Gracie still rhymes with Sissy but without the negative connotations and also works on another level because does have quite a bit of gray in her coloring.

"I'm more in then the '70s were in during the '90s."

Watched a My Big Fat Independent Movie last night

I picked up this movie because I thought I read a review that said it was made by the same people as Not Another Teen Movie and the box cover was very cool. Turns out my faulty memory was pulling tricks on me again, because all the reviews that I looked at afterwards just say it is in the vein of Scary Movie and Not Another Teen Movie. Not that it matters I enjoyed it anyway.

When I picked up this movie it had one of those slip on cardboard cover that the retailers like because it has the title on both spines. Usually the studios are cheap and put the same cover on both the case and the cover, but this movie actually had different artwork between the two. in fact the front of the slip cover actually was a flip cover with two more covers. It was a very cool marketing gimmick that actually pushed me over the purchasing edge. I know it is a very, very small edge but its there...

It is no secret I am a huge mark when it comes to parody. I can't get anough of the stuff. When it comes to parody movies I have long held the belief that there are two types.

1. Genre Parody: Movies that take the character archetypes and situations from a film genre and tell a funny story. An example of this type of movie would be Airplane!.
2. Scene Parody: Movies that take scenes from other movies make them funny and then string them together hoping that it makes some sort of story. An example of this type of movie would be Scary Movie.

I perfer the Genre Parody genre myself, so I was please the MBFIM was this type. The film took character archetypes from Quentin Tarantino films and other from films like Amalie Swingers, Memento, and The Good Girl to tell the story of a "Botched Robbery".

I purchased the unrated version of this movie, but did not see anything that would have been required to be cut to get a PG-13 rating. The funning thing was that the DVD also had a G Rated version of the film. Basically they cut the hell out of the movie to get the running time down to about 2 minutes and even with that they has to bleep out a bunch of stuff.

Poker in the Rear, Baseball on the Grass

Last night was the monthly poker game at the Comic Stop in Lynnwood. The winner of the event won an Ultimate Fantastic Four Hardcover. I was not the winner. :(

I was the first one to lose in the first round at my table. I had pocket 10s with another 10 in the flop (the first three cards), but was beat by a flush from the river (the last card shown). The same person went on to beat two pairs by getting a three of a kind from the river. And then won the table by beating a three of a kind with an inside straight also from the river!!!!

Today I went to the 2006 Mariner's FanFest. The first thing I have got to say it was damn cold. I know it is still January but this is Seattle.

The FanFest was cool because I got to go into the M's clubhouse, run around the bases, sit in the visitor's dugout, and throw a ball in the bullpen. Pictures below:

Home plate from second base.

View of the Scoreboard from Second Base

View of Second Base from Second base

View of Home Plate from Visitor's Dugout

Still in Dugout looking at Home Plate but this time I'm standing at the rail.

See there is the Rail

Since I was running around connecting the phone to the PC, I took a quick work in progress picture of the mosaic.

My First Lego Mosac

I have been a fan of Lego for as long as I can remember. In the last few years after seeing sites like this and this, I have gotten more and more interested in making my own creations. So for the last year I have been on a quest to amass as much of Lego as I can. The unfortunate side effect of acquiring large quantities of Lego Bricks and Plates is that you must separate them. Well last night I completed the sorting of all of the Lego Plates and decided that I should make a Lego Mosaic. I chose this:

The logo for Systems Interface the controls engineering firm that I work for. I chose this for my first because it was a cool looking design that uses primary colors.

I am 95% done with it as I type this, my one problem is that I ran out of 1x1 white plates

There is a cool site that I found that is called BrickLink its Online marketplace for Lego parts. Once I get my order of 1x1 white plates I will take a picture and post it here.

I am assimilated

Now I too have a blog. Thanks to the fine efforts of Jim, Beau and Peach, I have decided to join the blogosphere.

The mission statement for this blog is similar to Jim in that I want to improve my writing by forcing myself to exercise that muscle. I will cover topics that interest me, like comics, DVD, television shows, podcasts, and anything that I find interesting or annoying.

Thanks for coming along for the ride.

Paul