For those times you need a ravaging horde on the steppe: Burning your yurt, kidnaping your women, and eating your livestock since 2001

I have to say, when he does update, Nick's blog is a fun read.

So tomorrow is Canada Day. It's the Canadian version of America's Independence Day. Sort of what a bible reading is to a kegger.

It seems that my posting schedule is falling into a once a week habit. I don't know about the rest of you, but I don't like it. It's pretty sad when I bring up my own page and am surprised to see it hasn't been updated.

Chalk it up to being busy with work and sleeping while not at work. Add to that that not much interesting happens at work, (a kid peed on the floor and wiped some of it on a TV box, tell your friends,) and I'm asleep most of the rest of the time.

I'm heading over to the John Labbatt Centre this Friday to watch the WWE show. Tickets cost as much as the Smackdown show but it's a dark show. Knock a couple of bucks off if I'm not getting on TV, I say.

Some friends are getting an RPG group together. It's going to be a get together instead of an online meeting kind of thing. I expect it to last a few weeks with no problems then people don't show up when they're supposed to and eventually crumble and fall apart. Except this time you can actually punch some of the other players. We're going to play Rifts, which seems pretty cool. Or as cool as role playing can get. The GM brought out a large stack of books and manuals on it. I wasn't really surprised since this is the same guy who buys Yu-gi-oh cards. He doesn't play, he just buys them. We had a kid at the 24 hr relay who had a deck and we told him he should play the other guy. His repsonse was "I don't have enough cards to play." I asked "Why don't you buy a starter deck then?" All I got was a blank stare. Sometimes you just can't be logical with some people.

Class Dismissed. Except you, Jerome. - asmyth82 5:33 PM -

You can dance you can sing, like a puppet on a string

Since when did scheduled days off become a "maybe"? I was supposed to have Friday off, and I had some plans. I went to Tim Horton's and bought myself lunch. I return home to find a message waiting: "Hi, just wondering if you could come into work." So off I go and work a shift. At least I went to see Hulk after.

Jump ahead to today. A call comes at 6:15 this morning. I, of course, ignore it. A co worker who was scheduled to work this morning said she would give me a wake up call and I told her I would ignore it. I didn't think she'd be childish enough to go through with it, but the phone was ringing. I tried to get back to sleep, only to be woken again: "Your work called, they want you to call back." So I call back, no answer. I go to get coffee and doughnuts at Timmy's and get home to get another message to call work. I do. "Tell me you're not doing anything today." "Nothing that can't be cancelled on short notice." "Good, because your coworker called in sick. Would you mind coming in? I'm the only one here until noon." "Fine, if you need me in."

So I get to work and it turns out there are FIVE people in in the afternoon. Jeebus, thanks for calling me in on my day off when it was unnecessary. It was about as busy as any other day and we only have two or three people on those days.

I swear if they call tomorrow I'm flipping out.

Nothing a homicidal rampage wouldn't cure. - asmyth82 8:59 PM -

Damn you, Lou Ferrigno!

As fate would have it, I did get a chance to see the Hulk movie yesterday. So of course I took the chance, who am I to say no to fate? Pissing her off is a bad idea.

First thing I liked about the movie: Buying my snakcs at the snack bar cost $12.00. I hand the guy $20.00. The change he gives me: $12.00. I kept the extra as a stupid tax. Stay in school kids.

First things first. This is a long movie. A very long movie. Lord of the Rings long. You should have heard the gasps from the parents who brought their 5 and 6 year olds to the show. This caused some more bickering between the father and son who sat next to me. But that was mostly about getting popcorn. Now if you want to get up and get popcorn before the movie, fine, it won't bother me. But if you want to do it during the movie, you better hope I don't have any sharpened objects at my disposal if you want to walk in front of me. Of course the happy family next to me went before and during the movie for popcorn. Now I know what you're thinking, why didn't they get a larger size popcorn so they wouldn't have to get up? Well the thing is, they did. They bought the largest tubs they had. The dad bought one and the kid bought one. Then they had them refilled. Can you beat someone to death with a plastic popcorn tub? I'm wondering for future reference.

Now the movie. There will be some slight spoilers I'm sure.

It's supposed to be about two and a half hours, but I'm pretty sure they included the half hour of commercials and previews in that time estimation.

The movie starts off before Bruce is born with scenes of his father trying to create a regenerative immune system. He's working for the military and is told to stop his experiments. He experiments on himself, injecting himself with some concoction. The story then jumps ahead a little bit to the news his wife is going to have a baby. The gene gets past to the son, and it does the usual shots of childhood. From baby Bruce happy, to toddler Bruce getting punched by the playground bully and instead of fighting back, stands there shaking. The gene past down from his father's experiments causes Bruce to break out in a slight green rash when he gets mad. Can I just say "Ugh"?

His father is found to have done human experiments and he escapes, setting the base to explode. He runds home and fights with his wife. What happens next is unknown at this point because teenage Bruce wakes up. He now lives with an adopted family. It cuts to him going to college then to the present day Bruce.

At this point I'd just like to say that there are far too many goddamned dream sequences and flashbacks in this movie. By the time you finally get to see the Hulk, it's nearly an hour into the movie and you want the pace to pick up. I know they have to get some backstory in for the viewers who know little to nothing about the characters, but this was just painful.

Bruce is working with Betty Ross and some other guy, (name unimportant,) to try and develop a way to regenerate cells using gamma radiationand nanomeds. While repairing the big gamma ball thing, the unimportant guy gets stuck and causes a short in the sysytem, turning it on. Bruse gets him free and blocks him from the radiation. He wakes up in the hospital feeling fine. The reason the radiation didn't kill him is because of the gene his father passed to him. He meets his real father, who continues throughout the movie to chew scenery like he hasn't eaten anything in years. Back in the lab, Bruce's anger gets to him and he hulks out. So instead of him changing being a simple reason of a freak accident with gamma radiation, the reason he changes is because of a gene passed on at birth, radiation and nanomeds.

The military gets involved and it's headed by Betty's father, General Thunderbolt Ross. He knows about the Banner past because he locked away Bruce's father and sent Bruce to an adopted family. They were on the same base. How convenient. Ross puts Bruce into house custody. His father calls to let him know he sent his dogs, now mutated to kill Betty. At that point, Talbot, (formerly Colnel Talbot, if you remember the tv show, cartoons or early comics,) show up. He is the "science for profit" kind of guy and attacks Bruce for turning down an earlier offer. Hulk shows up, beats up Talbot and a few agents and goes and fights the dogs at Betty's cabin. The military catch Bruce the next day and take him to the dessert facility that used to be his old home. Small world. Talbot takes over the project and causes Bruce to hulk out to get a sample of him. It fails, Hulk escapes and ends up in San Francisco. He calms down when Betty arrives.

That could have been the end of the movie. But oh no.

Bruce's father mutated himself as well. He can absorb energy and become whatever material he touches. He surrenders and asks to be allowed to see his son one last time. The military sets up the large bunker with some device that could incinerate them at the touch of a button. After some of the worst acting ever seen, and a pointless rant, Bruce's father absorbs the electricity, turning into a huge electic monster. Bruce hulks out, and the two launch into the sky, landing in a lake quarry miles away. Bruce beats his father and disappears. A year later, it turns out he's gone to South America to hide out, helping people as a doctor.

So that's the jist of it. The flashbacks were overdone, as well as the split camera and picture in picture. Basically, they got fancy with the camera work and it only works to annoy. Nick Nolte was just horrible, and if the script writers tried a little harder, they could have come up with a script that kept the fatehr/villan out all together. The ending feels tacked on, which it surely was to give the viewers a superhero/supervillan fight. Stupid. Ang Lee has done some impressive stuff, but he just doesn't seem to know which way he wants to go with this movie. Fantasy, realism, artsy. Choose one, just make it a good choice. yes there is a lot of emotion mental battle stuff in the hulk mythos, you just don't need to bore half of us with it and beat the other half over the head.

It's a PG movie and you can tell they did a lot of stuff just for the kids. While fighting the Hulk dogs, Hulk picks one up by the hind legs and punches it in the balls. Hilarious if your seven. Ripping the top off a tank, Hulk is standing over it the wrong way and the turret hits him in the crotch. Oh so funny.

And yes, they put the hulk dogs in here. Every fan of the Hulk groaned when they first heard about them, hoping it wasn't true. Sadly it is.

Hopefully for the next one, (and there will be a next one, the cast is signed for two more,) they'll take a page out of the comic and do something along the lines of what thy've been doing in the comic the past year. Imagine "The Fugitive" except every time Harrison Ford got mad, he turned into the Hulk. Now that would be cool.

And I gotta say this. I have to roll my eyes every time I hear somebody say they should have gotten a wrestler or some guy to play the Hulk. The only reaosn they did that back in the 70's was because they didn't have the technology to do it right. Yes, the 70's Hulk was good, I'll admit it. But the Hulk is actually a huge creature. I roll my eyes every time somebody says he's too big. The Hulk is supposed to be that big. And he gets bigger and stronger the angrier he is. I roll my eyes when people say the movie will be stupid because they saw the trailer and the Hulk is flying. He's not, he's jumping. The same with the people who say that the Hulk jumping really far is stupid. That's how he gets around. He has super strength so he can run fast and jump far. Was it stupid when Superman jumped really far? Originally he didn't fly, he jumped. Is it stupid Thor doesn't fly, but throws his hammer really hard and holds on? (OK, I'll give you the last one.)

So basically, I've been doing a lot of eye rolling lately. - asmyth82 11:25 AM -

The State of the Empire

Or: The Burning Monkey Update.

The Empire of Combustonia is a small, economically powerful nation, remarkable for its barren, inhospitable landscape. Its hard-nosed, hard-working population of 12 million are highly moralistic and fiercely conservative, in the sense that they tend to believe most things should be outlawed. People who have good jobs and work quietly at them are lauded; others are viewed with suspicion.

The large government is mainly concerned with Defence, although Law & Order and Healthcare are on the agenda. Citizens pay a flat income tax of 19%. A substantial private sector is led by the Door-to-door Insurance Sales industry, followed by Uranium Mining and Trout Farming.

The mining industry is making inroads into environmentally sensitive areas, marijuana is legal in the privacy of your own home, military spending is on the increase, and corporations donate huge sums of money to favored politicians. Crime is moderate. Combustonia's national animal is the burning monkey, which teeters on the brink of extinction due to widespread deforestation, and its currency is the combickle.

Not only that, but only days after moving to Fare Terra, to correct a hold up in the writing of legislation, and to avoid some, shall we say, "criminal charges," Combustonia is the fifth fastest growing economy in Fare Terra.

How I became a Moralistic Democracy is anyone's guess, seeing as how I set out to be a corrupt dictator who kept the people down while making myself rich off their backs. Hell, Combustonia has the WMDs to prove it.

This is a cool game - asmyth82 12:12 PM -

Hulk smash!

With nothing of importance to really post about, I came up with some filler:





I'm interested to see what they do with the character when the movie opens Friday. With the number of excellent screen adaptions over the past few years, it bodes well for the movie. Unfortunately I doubt I'll be able to see it on Friday. Hopefully I can make time on Saturday.

The ever-lovin' Hulk. Hulk. Hulk - asmyth82 4:29 PM -

"When in doubt, set it on fire."

The Empire of Combustonia is a tiny, pleasant nation, renowned for its compulsory military service. Its hard-nosed, hard-working population of 5 million have some civil rights, but not too many, enjoy the freedom to spend their money however they like, to a point, and take part in free and open elections, although not too often.

The large government juggles the competing demands of Law & Order, Education, and Healthcare. The average income tax rate is 20%. A substantial private sector is led by the Door-to-door Insurance Sales industry, followed by Trout Farming and Uranium Mining.

Crime -- especially youth-related -- is relatively low, thanks to a well-funded police force. Combustonia's national animal is the burning monkey and its currency is the combickle.

Cool, Nick - asmyth82 5:48 PM -

My morning creep out

So if you read the previous post, you'd understand I was pretty tired yesterday. You'd figure I would sleep as long as I could. Well the morning had other ideas.

I woke up a little after 7 this morning. My nose was running. I don't mean sniffly, I'm talking about it ran down to the tip of my nose and dripped off. So without getting up or opening my eyes or getting up, I wiped it on my arm, (like I said, I was tired and wasn't getting up for anything minor.) But that didn't stop the drip like it would a normal runny nose. So I figured I better get up and grab a kleenex and do it right. I cupped a hand under my nose so I wouldn't drip snot all over the place but was surprised to see that the liquid was dark. Turning on the light, I found that I had a nose bleed. And it wasn't a minor little nose bleed either. My forearm was half covered and my hand was drenched. I grabbed a kleenex to stop the bleeding and went to wash the blood off. For some reason I thought of that X Files episode where Scully was making some presentation and her nose started to bleed and she suddenly collapsed. It was a tumor or cancer or whatever because they removed that chip from her brain or whatever the hell it was.

So as I'm washing the blood off, I notice that I had sleep lines in my arm below the smearing of blood.
I'm not shitting you here:

It spelled AWAKE.

Well I certainly was now - asmyth82 10:54 AM -

So that's what it feels like to work myself into a coma

I figured an update might be in order just to let people know I'm still alive. Pretend you care.

I just got back from the Labbatt 24 Hour Relay. Well, to be absolutely literal, I just got up after sleeping five hours after getting home from the relay.

I had been asked to run on a team by a couple of friends. We had set up the tents and gotten ready on Friday night and spent the remainder of the eveing drinking with the 1st Hussars. Nice army guys with a mini keg they wanted help finishing.

Saturday I was woken up at 6:30 am for some reason alien to me even now. The relay didn't start until 10, but here I was awake and desperately trying to squeeze a few more hours sleep out of the morning.

The course was around 2.5 km I believe. For you Americans reading, I'll leave it to you to figure out what that would be in miles if you so desire, because for one: I don't care and two: I'm too damned tired to bother. I had gotten a few comments before the relay, such as "Should we pick you up at the morgue after the relay?" and "He's going to run. Because he's in such good shape." Followed by laughter. People in my family are cruel bastards if you hadn't noticed. Well I'll have you know I did run most of the laps. The ones I didn't run were the ones walked with friends. I ran the hell out of that sumbitch so blow your negative comments out your ass.

Most of the people on the team spent the day Saturday asking each other "Are you staying up? Are you running the night shift? Yeah, me too." Can you guess how many people were up to run at 2:30 am? Myself and my friend's mom. Everybody else wussed out and went to bed. And I'd buy the excuse that they were tired if it wasn't for the fact they had spent the afternoon napping in preparation to stay up. I stayed up and I didn't take a nap during the day. So while they slept, I shivered in a chair between runs. They asked me in the morning why I hadn't gotten a sleeping bag to cover myself with. I explained that during the night, the tempature drops, causing condensation, which leaves everything cold and damp, myself and the sleeping bag included.

Sunday was just a wrap up, but I was able to catch nearly two hours of sleep at around 6:30-7am.

I then got home, sent out a quick happy birthday email to a friend and crashed.

Shhhhhhhhzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz- BOOM! - asmyth82 6:08 PM -

I can't do that Dave

I just gotta say this; As much as I love my family, they can be a bunch of halfwits. There seems to be some sort of running joke where whenever I do anything, be it computer modifications or otherwise, that they feel the need to comment with something like "So what are you breaking now?" While at first it can be construed to be in the same vein as something like "Are you working hard or hardly working?" (which people still find witty even after all these years and the umteenth time the damned phrase has been said,) it is really starting to get on my damned nerves. After I purchased and set up my router, with absolutely no problems whatsoever, I explained that no, I wouldn't have to modify anything on the computer and if it weren't for connecting the router to the modem, I wouldn't need to go near the computer. I also explained that no, we wouldn't need a new ethernet card. I explained a billion times of how the router would connect. I also explained after it was set up that the router would handle the internet connection and instead of the computer dialing up when the computer was turned on, (DSL,) it was now going to act more like a cable modem where the computer turned on, and you where connected. No dialing up, no nothing.

Yet after that, after ALL that, I come home today to find a note in front of the monitor: "ADAM! I couldn't get onto the internet! What have you done! FIX IT!!" So I tossed out the note, turned on the computer and opened a damned browser. Next I'll smack whoever gets home first.

Like those monkeys touching the freaking obelisk - asmyth82 12:05 PM -