Pocket Universe

I’ve been trying to learn Japanese, although I have slacked off on my software lessons over the past month or so. I am in a Monday morning Bible study at the ungodly (ha ha) hour of 6:30 am. However, I am pleased that Daylight Savings Time has kicked in, which will make the mornings even worse, but the wonderful sunlight in the evenings will more than make up for it. I have a TiVo with a possibly corrupted hard drive, which means that we may lose all of our recorded programs when we replace the drive, unless we pay an extra $79 to have someone transfer the shows over for us. I still haven’t gotten the last of my tax information in, but when I do, I can expect a nice fat federal refund, and an IOU from the state. I took my third voice-acting class, Bringing Characters to Life, and it was alternately fun and challenging. Inspired by the death of Gary Gygax (a year ago now!), the release of the fourth edition of Dungeons and Dragons, the Penny Arcade podcasts where they play through the aforementioned game, and the nascent interest of my son and daughter in the role-playing experience, I have decided to start playing…another role-playing game, GURPS, which requires a lot of work on my part to convert D&D modules (yes, I am enjoying it; no, you don’t want to know the details). I have just started watching the new Battlestar Galactica series on DVD, apparently about six years too late. I am almost at the end of Kingdom Hearts II for the PS2, after which I will be left with only about 500 more games to play. And I just shot a cameo for a Jonathan Coulton music video.

What’s new with you?

As other friends have noted, blogging activity seems to be on the decline lately. In the spirit of the new year, I am going to try something I started back in 2007—wow, was it already two years ago now?—my weekly movie reviews. As always, these are going to be movies from my DVD collection, either ones that I haven’t seen in a while, or ones that I have never seen. (And yes, Citizen Kane is still sitting there in the shrinkwrap.) My attempt from two years ago only lasted about six weeks, but hopefully I can do better this time. If nothing else, I have a much larger television now, a complete 5.1 surround-sound system, and a recently-acquired Blu-ray player, so I am hoping to make my weekly movies more of an Event this time around. As always, please refer to the explanation for my movie rating scale if you need a refresher. Other than that, look for the first review this week!

For those of you who don’t know me—or more importantly, for those who do—here is an interesting personal fact:

I don’t laugh.

I mean, sure, I will smile when something is entertaining, and occasionally chuckle at something funny. And when someone tells me a story that I perceive I’m supposed to laugh at, I even have a polite, fake laugh that I use (but even then, I can’t maintain it for very long; I often have to pad it out with a half-hearted, “Oh, that’s great!). But on a general, day-to-day basis, I don’t tend to laugh at things. I’m not self-conscious about it, but it is something that I am aware of. I suppose I could be all Howard Roark about it and not care what people think, but I am polite enough that I feel the need to laugh when I am expected to, or at least make an effort.

In grade school, we had some comedy tapes of Bill Cosby that our family listened to, and I always thought they were funny. And I watched TV shows and cartoons, all the typical things that kids watch and do. But at that time, I wasn’t really conscious of the fact that I didn’t laugh very strongly, or very often. Then one evening when I was in sixth grade, I was over at a friend’s house (it’s always a friend, isn’t it?), and he was listening to a tape of George Carlin.

I just about died. I was on the floor laughing, tears streaming from my eyes, barely able to breathe. That probably went on for several minutes until I was able to regain control of my body…but then another bit would set me off again. I couldn’t believe how unbelievably, painfully funny this comedian was. I had never experienced anything like it. And that was when George Carlin became my favorite comedian.

At my junior high, we had an annual speech meet, and one of the events was Humorous Interpretation. When I attended the meet in sixth grade, my brother’s friend Wayne Jebian used George Carlin’s routine “Icebox Man”; I can’t remember what place he got, but it was hilarious. In seventh grade I tried doing a bit from a Monty Python movie, without much success. So in eighth grade, I decided to go a different Carlin bit, “Fussy Eater.” Of course, I had to tone it down quite a bit, but over the course of the year I was able to refine and improve my performance. One day, when we were practicing in Speech and Debate class, my teacher asked what we should do, and a bunch of people said they wanted to see my routine again. I wasn’t a popular kid in junior high, so it was really gratifying to get that kind of response. I ended up getting first place in Humorous Interpretation at the speech meet, to thunderous applause, and that remains one of the high points of my junior high career.

At one point in the ’80s, Carlin claimed a strict policy of appearing in only one movie every decade. He later broke that streak with his role as Rufus in the underrated Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. He later became the narrator on Thomas the Tank Engine, an odd choice for a man whose most famous work is “Seven Words You Can’t Say on Television.” He is also worth watching in the Kevin Smith flick Jersey Girl, where he gets to play a greater emotional range. And for you younger readers, he was also the voice of Fillmore, the hippie VW bug, in Cars.

I’m not sure what I can say about George Carlin that hasn’t already been said a million times. He was raunchy, groundbreaking, controversial, animated, and a master of the human voice. He was a definite product of the ’70s hippie culture, and as time wore on, he became increasing cynical and critical of politics and society. He had a profound influence on society and the world of comedy, but I will always remember him fondly as the first comedian who literally made me fall to the floor with tears in my eyes, unable to control my laughter.

When I went to E3 in 2004, there was a magazine reseller with an amazing deal: four magazine subscriptions, four years each, for $44. I couldn’t pass that deal up, so I bought one set of subscriptions for myself, and one for my generous host who let me stay at his house while I was in town. The magazines I got were Electronic Gaming Monthly, Official U.S. PlayStation magazine, GMR (a general gamer magazine), and XBN (Xbox Nation). When I hadn’t received anything after a few months, I thought I had been scammed. But by October of 2004, the magazines started rolling in.

Then in February of 2005, both GMR and XBN shut down. I was informed by mail that my remaining issues on both subscriptions would be transferred to some new gadget magazine which I wasn’t interested, so I called and talked to them, and they split my remaining issues: half went to Computer Gaming World, and half went to extend my EGM subscription. Then at some later date, the PlayStation magazine stopped as well, so I used its issues to extend EGM as well. When I checked my EGM subscription later, I saw my expiration date as “Aug 15.” I wondered, August 15th of which year?, but then later discovered that it was actually August of 2015.

Jump ahead to 2008. Computer Gaming World is now Games for Windows, but in April, they also ceased publication, deciding instead to focus on their online component. With 46 issues remaining, I could either extend my EGM subscription even further, or take a cash refund for the remaining issues. My EGM subscription has inexplicably ballooned to 2020, so I’m not sure that extending it to 2024 would provide much added value. When I asked, I was informed that the cash refund would be $83.51, or nearly double the price I initially paid. If I had known that four years ago, I would have bought more subscriptions.

Um, remember that Jonathan Coulton t-shirt contest I told you about? Well, he just announced the winners.

Yeah, wow.

In the wake of my superlative concert experience, I decided to post an entry for the Jonathan Coulton T-Shirt Contest, where fans compete to design a possible new concert t-shirt. My entry is an artistic interpretation of the song “I Crush Everything,” about a giant squid who is in love with a sailing ship, but is doomed to a life of solitude because he destroys everything he touches. The song is hauntingly beautiful and sad, and seeing it played live was just an amazing experience. My design was inspired by Escher’s interlocking images, which elegantly portray two individuals who are helplessly intertwined, but eternally separated. I hope you like the image, and I would appreciate any votes you see fit to toss my way.

It’s been kind of a crazy week since the Jonathan Coulton concert, so I thought I’d post a few links documenting the extent of my little fifteen minutes of internet fame.

Jonathan Coulton posted a nice entry thanking everyone in S.F. for the great show.

Paul and Storm also mentioned the then-upcoming show with Jonathan Coulton, and a few people (including yours truly) commented to thank them for the show. And again, Paul and Storm made an entirely too-generous response thanking me for my participation.

Merlin Mann summarized the recent episode 133 of This Week in Tech, which featured the reunion of the Rock Band band (Merlin, Leo, Veronica, and Jonathan Coulton) from the concert. (I was mentioned by name at around 31 minutes into the podcast, and Jonathan himself said, “God bless Andy Bates!”) I made a comment to correct some errors, and Merlin made a very gracious response.

Jonathan also posted about the episode of TWiT, and I again made the same factual corrections.

Some posts were made to the forums in the aftermath of the DVD show. I now have many new titles, including “Andy Bates (of now-immortal fame),” “the legendary Andy Bates,” and “the inimitable Andy Bates.”

And here is one more title, from Jonathan himself: “The Great Andy Bates,” with a picture of me and two fine-looking young gentlemen from Harmonix. Also read the comments to find out how I have affected people’s lives.

Oh, and here is the original forum thread where I asked for an extra ticket, then won the coin toss against Abby (who ended up getting another extra ticket later, and went to the show too!). I posted on this thread too, and even started one of my own. What can I say? I was desperate!

After the show, I asked on the forums if anyone had a completely set list, and the guy who stole it from onstage (and had it signed!) kindly posted it.

Colleen was in our group, and she posted this lovely summary of the show experience. Rex was the one who got the group of single-ticket-holders together, and he also posted about his thoughts on the show.

Colleen kindly posted a YouTube video of Oded’s recording of the part where I raised my hand and went up on stage. Unfortunately, he didn’t record the song itself, but if you want to see the beginning part, there you go.

There are also a few pictures from the show on Flickr, and even some which feature my smiling face, including (but not limited to) these ones. Some of my favorites are the near-handshake, “It’s THAT guy,” my zombie friend, “Smile!”, duet, pining, and friendship.

I need to start at the end of this story, because that is freshest in my mind right now. I’ll get to the beginning and middle parts later.

It has been said that luck equals preparation plus opportunity. If that is the case, I got very lucky last night. But first, let me back up and provide some background.

When I saw Jonathan Coulton perform the first time, he asked for an audience volunteer to help with a song. Naturally, my hand shot up, but then he said, “Well, wait a minute, let me first tell you what you’ll be volunteering for,” so I put my hand back down. He explained that he needed a robot voice for one line in a song, and then he picked…the guy in the back of the room, who raised his hand (the second time) before I did. So that guy got to say the one line in Chiron Beta Prime (which you can download for free), while I sat and watched. On the way home, I said to Dean, “And you know what would have been cool? I could have sung harmony with him on the chorus!” So ever since then, I regretted that missed opportunity.

The second time I saw JoCo in concert (in a bigger venue, the Great American Music Hall), he performed with Paul and Storm, who also sang backup vocals on many of his songs. Since they were already up there singing harmony, he didn’t need an audience volunteer. And besides, he didn’t even perform Chiron Beta Prime at that show. So it looked like my one shot to sing with Jonathan Coulton had come and gone, and all I could do was practice the harmony part in the shower, as I had done for months before (and since).

Cut to last night (Friday), where Jonathan Coulton had another concert at the Great American Music Hall, with Paul and Storm opening for him once again. I ended up attending the concert at the last minute (more on that later) with a bunch of other people who had bought single tickets. So we’re all sitting there, in the middle of the set, with Paul and Storm on stage singing backup for Jonathan Coulton, and he says:

“Okay, now for this next song, I need a volunteer from the audience.”

I leapt up from my seat with my hand in the air.

As he started with his “Well, before you volunteer” warning, I kept standing there, ready to go up onstage. So finally, he called me up, and I jumped up on stage. He asked for my name, announced it to the audience, and said, “Have we corresponded before?” I told him that I had emailed him looking for a comp ticket (more on that later), “but I finally got one!” Cheers broke out from the audience! And then I whispered, “Can I ask a favor? Can I sing harmony on the chorus?” He responded with, “Sure, you can do the last chorus. That’s kind of the tradition.” I shook hand with both Paul and Storm, then they offered me a seat on the couch on stage, gave me a few dolls to hold, and made sure I was comfortable until the third verse. Oh, and he gave me a waiver to sign. I also pulled out my camera to take a picture on stage, and Jonathan said, “Oh wait, Andy is taking a picture. No rush Andy; we have plenty of time.”

When the it got to the keyboard solo, there was not a keyboard on the stage, so he asked, “Hey, do you want to do the solo?” So I belted out a vocalized approximation of the solo, again to thunderous applause. I kept the microphone for the third verse, where I nailed my two-word solo. Then Paul joined me, and the two of us sang harmony for the final chorus. The song ended, the crowd went wild, I got the “Ladies and gentlemen, Andy Bates!”, and a shook a few hands and left the stage. As I shook Storm’s hand, he leaned in and said, “Really, we couldn’t have asked for a better volunteer.” And as I returned to my seat (getting high-fives from audience members the entire way), Paul said, “We’ll have to call this DVD, ‘Jonathan Coulton in Concert, Featuring Andy Bates.’”

Did I mention that this concert was recorded for a future DVD release?

Afterwards, I talked to the band members as they were signing autographs and shaking hands. Storm said, “We were just talking backstage about how perfect you were. I mean, the harmony, plus that keyboard solo and everything.…” Jonathan said, “When you stood up, somehow you managed to be taller than humanly possible. It was like one of those tricks where a magician forces you to pick a certain card; as soon as you stood up, everyone was pointing, and we just had to pick you.”

Meanwhile, I had random audience members walking around saying, “Is that the Andy Bates?” I had people coming up to shake my hand. People asked to have their picture taken with me. I even signed a Paul and Storm CD, right after Paul did. And when I met the guys from Harmonix (again, more on that later) and asked to get my picture taken you them, they said, “Are you kidding? We want to get our picture taken with you!” In all, I was able to sing with Jonathan Coulton on stage for a DVD concert, I got to be a pseudo–rock star for the duration of a concert, and I got to rectify a missed opportunity that I had been regretting for months. How often does that happen?

On top of everything else going on this week, my wife went out this morning to find her car window broken and her purse stolen. Thus began a fun-filled Valentine’s Day of canceling credit cards, closing accounts, calling insurance, arranging for glass repair, and obtaining a new driver’s license. The police came to examine the crime scene and write a report, but they were wondering why the driver’s seat had been moved so far forward. For a while we couldn’t figure out what would have been stolen from the back, and then suddenly, Marcy figured it out:

The laptop.

Specifically, it was my daughter’s pink Fisher-Price laptop. With a street value of roughly thirty dollars, I’m sure the thieves are on their way to Aruba as we speak. Since only one other car was burgled in our area, it appears that the laptop was what enticed them to break the window in the first place. I wouldn’t call it ironic, but it is funny, sad, pathetic, and frustrating, all at once.

My mom is not doing well over the last week or so. She has been sleeping a lot more lately, and when she’s awake, she is maybe 10% coherent. I don’t know if this is something that will continue to progress, or if she’ll improve, or if she’ll just be in this state for a while. In any case, here are some recent photos of her, from my birthday and some previous activities with the kids.

Some call it Mardi Gras. Others call it Super Tuesday. I have a different name for it: my birthday.

Another year has gone by, and I am still walking the earth. To celebrate, I decided to cast my vote on an important national issue, one that will shape our country for years to come. This is perhaps the preeminent concern of our generation, and I thought it was time to take a stand and make my position known:

I bought my first Blu-ray Disc.

After the shocking announcement by Warner Bros. at CES that they would be dropping HD-DVD support (after which the HD-DVD consortium cancelled their press conference), Blu-ray now has support from 80% of the major motion picture studios, with Paramount and Universal being the remaining holdouts. There are rumors that even they will commit to Blu-ray by June. Combined with plummeting HD-DVD sales, it looks like Blu-ray finally has the marketshare and the mindshare to become the new high-definition standard for home video. But the reason I decided to make my first purchase today is out of nostalgia: It was on this day ten years ago that I bought my first DVD. I think it is only fitting that I make the switch to HD on the same day. (For the curious, my first DVD was Little Shop of Horrors, which had just been recalled, and the Blu-ray Disc I bought today was The Fifth Element.)

In other election news, I continued my celebration by doing what all good Americans should do: voting for Mitt Romney. Hopefully he can pull the Republican nomination out. In any case, it’s nice to vote in a national election where my vote actually counts, since California is not a winner-take-all state. Most of the time, my voice is drowned out among all the liberals around here. I guess we’ll know later tonight if my birthday truly is a day for celebration, or a day of mourning.

This is probably old news to most of you, but I got a new TV! Through a series of circumstances that are best left to the imagination, I ended up with the money and spousal approval to upgrade my current television. Almost overnight, I went from this:

…to this:

Yes, I am now the proud owner of a Sony SXRD 55A2020 55" HDTV. It has a resolution of 1080p, and makes my 13-year-old 27" TV look like…well, a 13-year-old 27" TV. Granted, it was in excellent condition with a really nice picture, but having a larger TV with more controls makes a world of difference. Just to drive home the contrast, here is my traditional movie-watching experience before, and after:

While I was taking these pictures with my digital camera, I discovered that when I zoomed all the way in on my old TV, the image is the same size as my new TV when zoomed all the way out. Notice the huge differences in detail, contrast, and color fidelity (click for a larger view):

And when I zoom all the way in on my new TV, well…

So in short, I am very happy with my purchase. If you’re in the market for a big TV with impeccable picture quality and stellar reviews, I would highly recommend it.

A word of advice: If you ever come to a point where you think, “Yeah, I finally have my computer set up exactly the way I want,” you may want to take a few minutes to back up your Home directory.

On Monday afternoon, I arrived to find my laptop making a clunking noise. A quick trip to the repair shop revealed that yes, the hard drive was completely dead. The most recent backup I had was from six months ago.

My first thought was, “Well, if nothing else, at least I can reach that Inbox Zero that Merlin Mann is always talking about.” Fortunately (or unfortunately), I was wrong about that. Any email messages from my work IMAP account are safely stored on the work server, as were any personal email messages that I had filed myself. In my personal Inbox, it looks like any unread messages remain on the server. In fact, the only messages that appear to be completely lost are the ones that were in my Inbox that I read, but neglected to file. I think it’s oddly appropriate that those are the messages that I lost. Let this be a lesson to you: File your email when you read it!

I was also worried about pictures of the kids. Luckily, I had put most of the pictures from the last six months on my wife’s machine at home. The one missing event was our Santa Cruz vacation from a few months ago…but I found those on a memory card at home, completely intact. So it looks like my iPhoto library survived relatively unscathed.

As for the other files, I am in decent shape. I have been very good about backing up my databases (of course), so besides a little extra data entry, those should be fine. I lost all of my text files I created to work with Quicksilver, and of course I lost all of the configuration for Quicksilver itself. That will be the most difficult to recreate, because I have been tweaking my settings for months as I’ve been using it.

So let this be a lesson to you: Back up frequently. In anticipation of the future, I am working on a streamlined layout of my Home directory that will enable me to back up the most important data quickly. When I come up with something, I will let you know.

Since I don’t live in Los Angeles, my celebrity sightings are a little less frequent. However, when they do happen, they tend to be pretty significant. A few months ago, I was at the Apple store, minding my own business, when the two guys from MythBusters walked in. Long story short, I shook hands, asked a few questions, and got my picture taken. The End.

I blog so rarely that sometimes I think, “I wish I had another blog, so that I could avoid posting to two blogs at once.” Well, my wish has been granted: I am now a contributor to Garden of WiiDS, a Nintendo-oriented blog created by a friend of mine. As much as possible, I will be making some of my videogame posts there. You may want to check it frequently, especially if you are into classic Nintendo games (as I’m sure none of you are).

My dad just had coronary bypass surgery. My daughter starts kindergarten this week. My wife and son are starting home school, and I need to clean out the former computer nook to make room for the new home-school area. I got a new TV, along with a stand that I haven’t put together yet. And my blog posts have been sporadic at best.

So with all this going on, what’s the first thing I do? A site redesign, of course!

To be fair, this new design has been in the works for quite some time. Ever since my upgrade to Movable Type 3.32 nearly a year ago, I realized that my old format wasn’t taking advantage of the new features. I set up a test blog to try out some design ideas, but the TypeKey comment authentication wasn’t working correctly. Since reducing comment spam was the main reason I upgraded, I didn’t want to switch to TypeKey until the problems were fixed. It appears to be working now, but if you have trouble registering or commenting, please email me at andy@babybates.com.

In case you’re wondering, I took my new color scheme from Mark Rothko’s painting Red, Orange, Tan and Purple, which can be seen here. You may be interested to know about how Rothko has influenced other people.

As for the other life updates, I’ll give you the quick rundown: My dad had coronary bypass surgery last week, after one of his stents began clogging again. The surgery went well, and he is recovering nicely and should be returning home today. Meanwhile, my mom is doing pretty well (or as well as can be expected, considering the cancer), but she has been sleeping a lot lately, which concerns me. I am hoping that it might be related to blood sugar or medication.

Molly starts kindergarten on Wednesday, and is very excited about it. Meanwhile, Marcy will be starting Trevor in home school. There are many reasons that home schooling would be better for him, personality-wise. We will see how things go over the next few months, but we are all very excited about this new phase.

And finally, through an abbreviated version of One Red Paperclip, I turned an iPhone into a new HDTV. The Xbox 360 looks amazing on it! I’ll post pictures once I get it set up.

As many of you probably know, last Friday was the thirtieth anniversary of Star Wars. And while many claim that Star Wars opened at their local theatre on May 25, 1977, it actually only opened on 32 screens nationwide, simply because that was all the theaters they could book at the time. I have always claimed that it was at my local Century 22 theater on opening day (although I didn’t see it until at least August), and I am pleased to report that my memory has been proven correct in this fantastic article about the release of Star Wars, and its significance to the culture and the movie industry.

For those of you on a Mac with iPhoto, or with an RSS-capable newsreader, you can now subscribe to my E3 2006 photocast. Either click on the link above, or go into iPhoto and select File: Subscribe to Photocast, and paste in the URL. You will then be subscribed to my photocast, which you can view at your leisure, place on your desktop, or set as your screensaver. Just go nuts! Later, I will post the accompanying guide to the various celebrities I ran into at the show.

When I read truth, I love to share it. And thanks to 43 Folders, I found a fantastic article about living a backlogged life. The gist of the article is this: At one point in time, if we missed something, it was gone: a phone call, a TV show, whatever. But now, thanks to the wonders of technology, these time sinks are now collected and sorted and aggregated for future enjoyment. Instead of letting technology free us, it has removed our ability to let go of the past.

As I’ve been trying to get my life organized, this point particularly resonated with me. As I try to get my life organized, I have realized that the more you hang on to the past, the more difficult it is to enjoy the present. The more I worry about sorting and deleting and responding to my old email, the less time I spend actually working on things that I need to do today. And sure, I have hundreds of hours of shows recorded on the TiVo, but which are the ones that I watch as soon as they are recorded, and which are the ones I think that I might get to someday, maybe?

This has also affected my life in a purely financial sense. A long time ago, I read a great book by the Motley Fool entitled You Have More Than You Think. The authors offered a piece of advice about purchasing luxury items which has great application to daily life: Don’t buy something new unless you’ve used up what you already have. For example, don’t buy a magazine at the newsstand if you have a magazine you haven’t read sitting on the coffee table at home. Don’t buy a new book if you have a shelf of unread books in your office. It’s really a simple rule, and it’s very lenient if you’re using what you have. I have been trying to follow that rule, in general, but recently I have gotten very specific in applying it.

A few weeks ago, I was feeling very poor, and feeling like my spending was getting out of control. In an effort to get ahead of the game, I decided to go into lockdown. I have so many unread books sitting around, and so many unwatched DVDs, and so many unplayed video games, that I could literally not buy any media for probably a year, and still have plenty to do in my free time. So, until I have made some headway on what I already own, I am not buying anything new. I expect that at some point, something will come along for which I will bend these rules a bit, but I hope that will be the exception rather than the norm. Until then, I hope to find a new appreciation for the things I already own. Maybe I’ll finally get to that great book that I’ve heard so much about, or that videogame series that I never finished. It’s as if my entire life were leading up to this point. I’ve collected all this crap my whole life; time to start enjoying it.

I�m just starting to read this article about hoarding, but it seems eerily descriptive of my personality. It seems to be a common affliction, and hopefully I won�t degenerate into one of the more extreme cases. Still, I suppose that knowing yourself is half the battle. (The other half is getting rid of all the crap that you�re saving for no good reason.)

or: Why Do I Want to Do Dishes After Paying My Bills?

Whenever I watch a movie where someone’s life is spiraling out of control due to drug addiction, whether it’s Goodfellas or Midnight Cowboy, I am always frustrated. The character is usually using drugs as a way to escape the depressing reality of his daily life, but I always think, “Why doesn’t he just stop using drugs? Doesn’t he realize that his addiction is the cause of all his problems??” And the answer, of course, is that it’s easier to seek a temporary escape from your problems, instead of confronting them head-on. And the more you avoid them, the worse they get, which just compounds the avoidance instinct.

So what does this have to do with me? Quite a lot, actually.

For those who have or haven�t thought about it, Marc Eagle and his wife are safely ensconced in Texas, away from the flooded town once known as New Orleans. They have no idea what state their home will be in when they get back, but they�re safe at this point and that�s the most important thing.

Some of you may already listen to the DVD Weekly Podcast, but if you don�t, I was featured this week in the call-in segment at the beginning of the show, giving my quick rundown of the new features on the upcoming Sin City special edition DVD (which you are already familiar with). In fact, my coverage of the topic was so thorough, they ended my phone call by saying, �And that�s our show for this week!” Anyway, it�s a great show, so give it a listen if you have any interest in DVDs.

Under tremendous peer pressure, here are some pictures from my recent trip to New Orleans.

I was in New Orleans attending the wedding of an old college roommate, Marc. Here is the interior of the church…

…and here are my traveling companions, Chris, Todd and Dave. Let’s see…Chris and I became friends in grade school, Dave and I became friends in high school, then Chris and Dave met through me, became roommates in college with Marc, then later with Todd, and when I ended up attending the same college, I roomed with Todd and Marc. Does that all make sense? If necessary, I can attach a diagram.

Here is one of the mausoleums that we drove by. Because New Orleans is at sea level, it is too wet to bury anyone below ground. Thus, the area is dotted with these gothic graveyards. I felt like I was in the middle of a Mike Mignola comic.

I have no idea what the story is behind this case. I suspect that if I did find out, I would wish that I hadn’t.

The wedding reception was held at a building in the city park, which is set on—what else?—a swamp.

And here is the man of the hour himself! Chris looks particularly fatherly in this picture, and perhaps a bit condescending. I think his newly acquired degree has had a negative effect on him. Or perhaps my own biases are showing through.

And here are Todd, Dave and Chris, looking quite proud. You may have noticed that Chris tends to squint in pictures. He always does that when he’s really, really drunk.

And there we are, the Gang of Four.

…and with the groom himself! I’ve uploaded this picture at a higher resolution, so you can use it as a desktop picture on your Apple 23" Cinema HD Display.

And there are the happy couple, enjoying their first dance. I haven’t seen Marc look this happy since…well, to be fair, I’ve never really seen him be unhappy. But in the range of happiness levels I have seen him in, this is up there near the top. Somewhere between playing the bass and watching Army of Darkness.

It really was a pleasure getting to visit New Orleans and attend the wedding. Thanks Marc, and best of luck with your new life together!

And so begins my favorite day of the year! All winter long, I look forward to the day when Daylight Savings Time kicks back in. I think of it as saving an hour of daylight from the morning (when I am either asleep, busy, or too tired to appreciate it), and giving it back to me in the evening. But of course, maybe I think of it that way because that is exactly what it means. In any case, thus begins the glorious six-month period of late-evening sunshine that I love so much!

Flash poll: Do you enjoy Daylight Savings Time as much as I do, or are you some sort of black-clad dark-loving goth loser freak? I would appreciate any thoughts on either side of the issue.

People don�t often ask me about my early work as a gaffer. But then again, I don�t ask my friends either.

Yesterday, I got to meet one of my idols, and perhaps the person who has had the most influence on my life and career. A few of us were having lunch at a restaurant, and as we walked in, I noticed a man sitting at a table with about ten other people. After we passed him, I said, “That’s Steve Wozniak!” I didn’t want to bother him, since he seemed to be in the middle of a conversation, so I sat down and kept an eye on his table.

Just a few weeks prior, I had seen an episode of Icons on G4TechTV, where they talked about the history of the Apple ][ and its creators, Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs. I used the Apple ][ (note the proper spelling, “Apple ][”) back in junior high and high school, and that started my love for computers, and consequently my choices for higher education and my career. Oh, and Woz also created Breakout, which of course was on the Atari 2600, the game system which fostered my love for video games. So, as you can see, saying that he was a large influence on my life is perhaps understating it just a bit.

But besides his numerous contributions to the computer and videogame industries, what really struck me is that it seemed like Steve Wozniak has always just done what seemed interesting and fun to him at the time. After leaving Apple, he spent a lot of time working with school children and helping them to learn about computers, which I also admire. So really, I just wanted to shake his hand and tell him how much I admire him for what he has done.

And without seeming too anticlimactic, that’s just what I did. I waited until he was on his way out, stopped him shook his hand, and basically told him what I wrote up above. I asked him about what he’s been doing, and he said he’s been very busy with his start-up company, Wheels of Zeus. Then he had to catch up with some people and said goodbye.

So that’s about it, my brush with greatness. Oh, and Chris asked me if Jobs and Wozniak still interact at all, and I said I didn’t know. Well, if you go to Woz’s personal page, you can see a picture of him with Steve Jobs from the 2005 Macworld Expo keynote, along with a picture of the two of them from 1975. Amazing.

Oh, and then today, I met Steve Jobs. But I’ll save that story for another time….

Just got an email from the ticket company regarding the finale of Last Comic Standing. It turns out that they will be taping a final episode after all, but it looks like it will only be a half-hour show instead of an hour, and the start time will be 3:00 pm instead of 11:00 am. Yep, just late enough to make it inconvenient, if not impossible, to attend the taping and still make our return flight. At this point, weve decided that its not worth the trouble to fly down, just to be bitter and nervous during a taping that is much shorter than what we originally expected. Congratulations NBC…youve taken a show I really enjoyed, and an event I was excited about, and made it into something that leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Thanks.

Where to begin? Some of you may be familiar with Last Comic Standing, the NBC show where various comics compete for audience votes, until only one remains. Then he gets some money and universal acclaim as the Last Comic Standing…at least until the next season starts. For season 3, the format was a competition between the ten comics from seasons 1 and 2. (Actually, Bonnie McFarlane, one of my favorites from season 2, declined to show up for season 3, since she was the first comic kicked off of season 2 (with something like 10% of the votes), and she was the first comic kicked off when they brought back some previous comics as audience favorites.) The format of season 3 was almost none of the reality stuff, and all stand-up competition between the various comics.

Now to the personal part of the story. The season finale is airing next week on October 12th. The weekly shows are taped that day, and air the same night. Being the forward-thinking woman that she is, my wife looked online and found that we could get tickets to the final episode in L.A.! So we signed up, got tickets for us and a few of our friends, booked plane tickets, and were planning to make a quick 24-hour turnaround trip to L.A. to see the finale.

Then the bottom fell out. Here is the email I received from the organization handling the tickets:

Sadly, NBC�s The Last Comic Standing has been cancelled and the October 12th taping has been cancelled as well. We are extremely sorry for this inconvenience and would like to offer you VIP tickets to another taping. ALF�s Hit Talk Show will be taping six episodes on October 8th–11th with co-host Ed McMahon and a slew of celebrity guests including Doris Roberts, Tom Green, Kevin Nealan, Lance Burton and more!!

Disaster! All our plans gang aft agley. I will acknowledge that the show might have had flagging ratings, but cancelling just the finale episode? It seems completely illogical. Oh, but as a consolation, we get free passes to Alf�s new talk show! I can�t believe we�d be so lucky! I figured all the tickets would be sold out long before now!

So in the end, we�re left with insult added to injury. If anyone is in the Southern California area, they also have tickets to The Late Late Show available, so if you want to go, I can give you our VIP passes and you�ll go straight to the front of the line. Let me know if you�re interested. But meanwhile, we�ll just be sitting at home, miserable.

There are moments in life when everything changes. Sometimes the changes are so subtle, so seemingly unimportant, that we don’t recognize their full significance until much later, if ever. Other times, the change is immediate and pervasive, where it feels like the world is suddenly spinning on a different axis, and you realize that nothing will ever be the same again.

This is one of those times.

Prior to today, you have lived your life in blissful ignorance. From time to time, you may have paused and said to yourself, “I wonder what Andy is thinking about? I wonder what interests and obsessions matter to Andy today? And, more importantly, will he still care about them tomorrow?” Perhaps you have been fortunate enough to talk to me, either in person or through some sort of mass-communication medium. And then, with a little patience and lots of concerned questions, you may have been able to get me to talk, if only for a brief moment, about what I’m currently interested in or fascinated by.

But like a brief ray of sunlight on a cloudy day, the moment is gone, and you are once again alone in your own world. Perhaps your life has been made a little richer, a little brighter, but the moment is all too brief, and you are left thirsty for more. But now, thanks to this website, you can at last slake that thirst. You can drink from the fountainhead and bathe in its cool waters. Here, you can always come and have life’s critical questions answered for you, questions that have plagued mankind since the dawn of time: Has Andy seen any good movies lately? Has he found any interesting websites? Is there something that he wants to do, to make, or perhaps, to buy? Has he bought any new DVDs, and if so, has he watched them? And most importanly, what makes him such an amazing, unique, and charismatic person?

Together, we will explore the answers to those questions, as well as questions that you never even thought of asking. The journey begins here; let’s make it together.