Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Shamus/Al's LiveJournal:

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Thursday, July 30th, 2009
1:37 am	New TRON movie! Woot! Dude, the new TRON movie is going to be so KICK-ASS. TRON is one of my favorite movies of all time, and if the trailer is any indication of how the end result is going to turn out, I will be cheering by the end of the movie. Here, check this out. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6jfm0hq0bk And the new light-cycles are SO CHERRY. Current Mood: ecstatic (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, March 12th, 2009
11:18 pm	Headline news... John Stewart DESTROYED Jim Cramer in a head-to-head interview. It was just a massacre. Kudos to you, John Stewart. I mean, wow. Current Mood: impressed (Comment on this)
Wednesday, January 28th, 2009
7:47 pm	Musical interlude Speaks for itself, really. A song that was shown to me by a friend of mine, and I liked it so much, I decided to post it. I got plenty of good feelings now thanks to this. Hope you will too. Current Mood: peaceful (Comment on this)
Sunday, January 25th, 2009
4:32 pm	Thoughts on comedy I've toyed a little bit with the thought of actually writing up a stand-up routine for the heck of it. Something to break the ice at parties, or something to actually perform in front of my coworkers at the next work function. So it occurred to me that it probably would be a good idea to have a fall-back routine in case I get heckled...because my self-confidence isn't the best in the world. So, I plotted this little scenario in my head. "I can't deal with hecklers, I can't. I just don't have that mean mentality. I got heckled once, this guy yelled out from the stage, 'You're not funny!' So I replied, 'Oh yeah, well you're not...pregnant.' A little obvious, I'm sure, but now I had to follow it up, or else I'd look like an idiot. 'Er, but keep trying though, maybe one day it will happen.' I could tack on a little more, but I think that stands alone by itself. Current Mood: thoughtful (Comment on this)
Friday, January 23rd, 2009
11:29 pm	Mr. Explorer from La Mulana OK, so I doubt anyone here has heard of the game La Mulana. I know I didn't know of it until about a week or two ago. I found a walkthrough of the game on YouTube, and for a lark, I followed along. It's a pretty impressive game for a home platformer. What impressed me the most was the amount of depth the game had, but second to that, the music was pretty impressive, and quite catchy. So, I tried to look for music tracks to listen to, but I have yet to find the game tunes without audio commentary. I'm sure if I look hard enough, I can find it, but someone was able to do a live guitar version of the first song, which is on the overworld area. Probably my favorite piece of the whole game. The guitar is pretty close to what you hear in the game, and although I like the game music better, the guitar is a nice second. So, check this out and rock out. It's got a nice adventure quality to it, don't you think? Current Mood: bouncy Current Music: Mr. Explorer (La Mulana overworld track) (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, January 14th, 2009
8:42 pm	Fail? Win? So lately there's been a lot of talk of the words Fail and Win. I enjoy them. Simple connotations for very basic tenants. Fail is the one you hear the most...when someone does something really stupid, or for lack of a better word, fails at something, it's a Fail. When they do something really cool, or succeed at something, it's a Win. Actual milage on the terms may vary from individual to individual, but usually people can agree on what is a Fail and what is a Win. But surprise surprise...there are actually LEVELS to how badly or how greatly one can Fail or Win. Let's start with Fail and Win. Those are the basics. Your standard, if you will. Then you have your Classic Fail. I do not believe there is a Classic Win, but I could be mistaken. Classic is a timeless Fail. You know it's coming, because you've seen it. Or it's done the rounds enough to be recognized. Then there's Total Fail. Total Fail is an unusually bad Fail, but still leaves something to be salvaged, usually. Like the possibility of doing it right a second time. Then on the other side of the scale, there's Full of Win. Full of Win is a Win you can really sink your teeth into. A little higher up on the scale is Full of Win and Love. That's a Win you have to tell other people about, because it's just so Win. Next, on the other side of things, is the Massive Fail. This is a Fail so fail-riffic, it defies the imagination. A Fail that you want to ask the person who failed, "What were you thinking?" A lesser known subset is the Ultra Fail and Ultra Win catagories...I think to think of these as the compounded versions. Something happens, then something else happens to top the first thing. Not used very much, I've found. Then we get into my favorites. The Epics. There is an Epic Fail and an Epic Win. These are the ones that blow your mind. Here's the interesting part...an Epic Fail can also be an Epic Win, if the circumstances are right. Just the fact that it's Epic, makes it Win, you might say. If there's a catagory above that, it's gotta be legendary. Like Legendary Fail would be killing yourself with a penny, or Legendary Win would be surviving a 100-story fall without an injury, or winning the lottery twice in a row. Really insane junk. These catagories, of course, are subject to opinion, and it's hard to gauge, but it's fun to think about, isn't it? Current Mood: silly (Comment on this)
Thursday, December 25th, 2008
10:07 pm	Reflections on Christmas It's been a long time since I've checked into Livejournal. About a year, maybe more. Don't know why I stopped, I just did. But I was reminded of it not too long ago, so I decided to see what was going on. Amazing what you miss when you're out of the loop. But I digress. I find myself both full of Christmas cheer and depleted of it. Probably not one would wish to hear around this time of year, but it is so, and I don't wish to bandy words. There have been good things going on and bad things, both in a social sense and in a worldly sense. A lot has changed over the year, and more changes are still on the way, so it doesn't bode will to be standing still while the world moves merrily on. But I will say this...to all of you who might read this journal and even to those of you who don't...take a moment to look around yourself. Go outside (with a coat on if it's cold), put your hands in your pockets, and take a look up at the sky, then take a look around you. Or if you prefer, just look out the window, but I guarantee, going outside would better suit. The point I'm making is this...the world is a very big place. It's bigger than most of us can even comprehend, and if we take the time to do so, it could easily overwhelm us. There are lots of forces in the world that are pushing and pulling at each other, making the world into a much more complicated place than it needs to be. But even with all the complications of life and the troubles that they present, the world can be a blessedly simple place, too. Because that's life. To each of us, to our own point of views, life happens in such a way that every day is made for us. No one can enjoy the day for you better than you can. So enjoy the day. Every minute presents possibilities, and if we don't make use of them, we have no one to blame but ourselves. However, if something is just enjoyed, well, that's hardly a waste. I'm not really an orator. I am sure there are some feelings that I am trying to relate that just aren't translating well. But it's enough that I try. To all of you who celebrate it, I wish you a Merry Christmas. To all of you that don't, I wish you a Happy Holidays. And to all those in general, I wish you good tidings. Current Mood: relaxed (Comment on this)
Monday, August 4th, 2008
1:52 am	Electro Gypsy Wow. There are just so many awesomeness levels to this vid and song. Yay! Weebl stuff! Takes me back to the 80's, totally groovy. Current Mood: pleased (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Saturday, July 19th, 2008
1:47 am	I'm still alive! Yeah, I know, it's been a long time since I made an update. So sorry, my bad! It isn't even because I've been so horribly busy that I haven't had time; I just took a bit of a break from LiveJournal for no good reason. I've only read posts moderately, and I haven't posted anything either, because I just haven't been on it. I guess you could call it being lazy, or whatever; just haven't been motivated to interact. But I'm back, and I have stuff to relate. First off, I'm 31 now. Yippee. I'll raise a banner and grab a party favor. No, seriously. It's a birthday, and it's groovy that I got to celebrate it by doing a variety of things. Nothing really major...I went golfing with a group and did really well in doing so (I got a birdie on one hole, yay!), and I celebrated a little more by going to see Weird Al Yankovic in concert just the other day. Had to take a day off of work to be able to go, but it was well worth it. I realized as I saw the show that he has a lot more material in his repatoire than a lot of music artists; he did snippets of some of his more popular songs in the middle of the act, and still had a lot of song favorites that I didn't get to hear. I'll have to pick up his latest album and catch up, sounds like there's some good material on there. Anyhow, back to the birthday business. I don't mind getting older, but I'm noticing that I'm not quite as spry or as ache-free as I used to be. I'm not falling apart, mind, but there are times when my hands get tired from constant typing, and times when I accidentally hurt myself and don't bounce back as quick as I used to. Little things. Going to have to take care of myself a little more, I suppose, as I want to be able to get along later in life without too much trouble. I've been catching up on some classic stories from my childhood of late, trying to feed my mind and get back to roots. I'm discovering that things aren't quite as I remember them being, and I am not sure if I just forgot, or if things got warped over time by differing versions of the story. I am looking to find Peter Pan and read that old chestnut from cover to cover, to see what that's like. They say the books are always better than the movies, and for the most part, I am inclined to agree. There's a lot of material out there that I haven't read yet, and I don't think I'll ever be able to get to it all, but at least I won't be lacking for something to do. It's interesting...the more I go to the library, the more I see people on the computers and not actually reading. I guess it's a digital age now. As of late I've been forced to reconsider the nature of my relationships, as a few of the close personal connections I've had with people have been redefined. And by redefined, I don't mean in a bad way; just different, I suppose. One in particular is interesting, because it's not exactly redefined; I just chose to think in my mind that it was more than it was. I was reminded of that a little while back, and I am taking the lesson to heart, though it's still hard to fix things in my head. Once you get used to thinking a certain way, it's hard to change. I stress again, though; things aren't bad. Really, nothing has changed except my perception of how things are. And I can deal with that. I'm starting to reach out more, which is good, but the jury is still out on whether that's the way I really want to be yet. Time will tell. My work shift has changed a little bit, moving two hours later in the evening, which means I now get out of work at 12:30 AM. I don't mind it, but it does mean that the evenings are SLOW. And when I say slow, I don't mean workwise, but I do mean for my department. I'm the only one there, and before, I would help out other departments to try and be a good little worker. But when times are slow, I can't do that, because that takes hours away from other people, and they lose out on pay, and that's a big no-no. So I have to try to find stuff to do to make the hours go faster, while still being within the bounds of company policy. I can't look up stuff on youtube or wikipedia or anything like that, which really drags things on. But I deal and get through it. I'm a night owl, so I don't have to worry about being tired. But I just want stuff to keep me occupied. When there's nothing to do, 8 hours goes by incredibly slow. And that's pretty much stuff that's going on with me, not really anything groundbreaking, but hey, it's news to me. Current Mood: thoughtful (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, May 12th, 2008
2:11 am	Reaching out I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I don't do emo. I've also said before that I'm comfortable being a loner type. This is true. However, there is a difference between enjoying one's own alone time when choosing to be alone, and being alone when one is reaching out to other people. The past couple of weeks, I have been fluctuating between my need to have private time and the need to talk to friends and people I know. It's easy to be alone; I'm not the type of guy that generally gets called upon all the time to go do something or be somewhere. And when I want to do something, I usually go do it. Sometimes I invite other people, but usually, other people are too busy. I just have lousy timing, I guess. However, I have been discovering lately that when I've been trying to reach out and talk to others, I'm just not having success. And while I have no trouble occupying myself, it's still nice to be able to talk to people. In large part, I think this is my fault, for being such a recluse; I don't usually get called to do things because people don't think that I would be interested in doing things. I've heard this more than once, so I know it's true. And I also have different hours than most people. So, I'm going to make an effort to be more sociable. To make myself available to do things, and actually maybe even get into trouble once or twice. Who knows? But I've gotta do more, that much is certain. The day may come when I turn around and I have no one, and that would be really miserable. Current Mood: thoughtful (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, May 3rd, 2008
1:55 pm	I AM IRON MAN. OK, I WISH I was Iron Man. Been a long time since I made a post, but I felt this was one that was easy to make. Last night I went to go see the Iron Man movie after work, crossing my fingers that they got it right and they didn't make another superhero movie that was decidedly sub-par. I had high hopes, though; the commercials and previews had a lot of interesting little tidbits that I was looking forward to seeing, amd let's face it: It's IRON MAN. He's my favorite Marvel superhero, bar none. With Tigra coming second (anthro tigress in a bikini...yeah. I'm not complaining). And Storm from the X-men ranking third. Anyhow, back the the point. I needn't have worried. Iron Man RULES! Right from the beginning, I was enjoying myself, the first 5 minutes of the movie definitely set up the kind of person Tony Stark is supposed to be. There's a lot to look forward to in the movie that you don't see in the previews; I'm thankful for that, as there tends to be too much showboating in the commercials these days. The visuals in the movie are stunning, and kinda give you a real hope for inventions to come, although there is a lot that is just fanciful dreaming. And the tech...well, if you like schematics, this is the movie for you. Granted, for me, the movie was a little predictable, since I knew the history behind Iron Man and the villain in this movie (not revealed); I read the comics in the Marvel continuity where they actually fought. But even so, I enjoyed this movie thoroughly. Highly recommend it. 3.5 out of 4 stars from me. Oh, and don't forget to stay for the extra scene at the end. It's SWEET. Current Mood: happy Current Music: Black Sabbath - Iron Man (Comment on this)
Wednesday, March 26th, 2008
1:22 pm	Just my luck... Yeah. I am due to fly out to Jacksonville tomorrow for the con, and I'm sick as a dog. I'm not sure what I got yet, but I'm going to the doc soon as a preventative measure. It's not fair. I fully expected to enjoy my vacation and trip, and now it looks like I'll be a quarantine case. Current Mood: sick (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, March 22nd, 2008
5:20 pm	TV Jingle Am I wrong in thinking that the freecreditreport.com TV commercial with the guy in the pirate costume is one of the best jingles ever? Honestly. I find myself singing along when it comes on television. I enjoy it immensely. Current Mood: weird (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Sunday, February 17th, 2008
11:46 am	Omniscient characters and their appeal When I read books or watch movies, my interest tends to gravitate toward characters who seem to be in control. Who seem to know everything, even if it is revealed later on that they don't; they just happen to be well-informed or making very intuitive guesses. I guess that sort of thing inspires me, really. I mean, characters like Gandalf from Lord of the Rings, Charles Xavier from X-Men, Bagger Vance from The Legend of Bagger Vance, Soracia the Shadow Lady and Quinton Zempfester from Thieves & Kings (you might not know them, and that's OK, but I highly recommend people checking it out)...they all hold my attention whenever they make an appearance. After reflecting on it a little recently, I think it stems from a number of things. Most notably, I wish that there were people in my life that had it all together, that had all the answers and could prove it with reliable regularity, without blowing smoke out of their ass. I want to be able to go up to that know-it-all, ask a question out of hand, and have an answer that gave me unshakable confidence that following through with it would produce favorable results. A leader that could give guidance and counsel, and also be able to lead by example rather than just blithely spout out solutions. That sort of thing resonates deeply within me. I can see myself following someone who I know will prove their abilities more often than not, with someone who has their finger on the ebb and flow of the world, and can feel which way to go. I want to learn from such a teacher. It would be an honor to learn from such a teacher. I am a follower more so than a leader, but if I were to be a leader, I would like to be like one of those characters, able to inspire with words and actions, to be able to know which way the wind blows, in a grander sense than I do now. To speak with words that reach the soul and soothe the troubled spirit, to explain things with a greater understanding of the way that things will eventually turn out, to act on my knowledge and solve problems before they even become problems. The egocentric part of my psyche would like to mystify and astound with such knowledge, but it's a very small part; I mainly just would like people to feel that sense of confidence that I hope to feel myself. I guess just about everyone wants to feel like someone out there has it together, if not themselves. I'm probably not unusual in that. Current Mood: thoughtful (Comment on this)
2:00 am	Worst hockey fight ever Ha ha ha ha! I saw this, it made me laugh. I think the refs even got a laugh out of this one. Current Mood: amused (Comment on this)
Sunday, January 27th, 2008
7:04 pm	Funny commercial! Saw this during the NHL All-Star game, and I LOLed. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02ftwn6SCkQ It's clever, I gotta say. Current Mood: amused (Comment on this)
Saturday, January 26th, 2008
1:17 pm	I'll have to re-think Saturdays... Long have I lamented that Saturday morning cartoons aren't how I remembered them being. That used to be the thing that I got up for on the weekends, when I would rather sleep in and do nothing for a while. I don't remember exactly when that changed, but I do know that I tried watching Saturday morning cartoons again a couple of years ago, and was immediately disappointed by what the networks had to offer. So, I just stopped tuning in. Well, this morning was no different, really. I watched some of Beetlejuice on Bravo network, flicked back and forth between channels, took a shower, got some breakfast, all that sort of thing. And then when I was flicking through, I found a show called Jane and the Dragon. I have to be honest, it didn't really look like anything special (3D animation that was well done, but the movements of some of the characters looked a little wooden), but for whatever reason, I kept watching it for a while. And I was surprised. This particular episode dealt with a merchant who supposedly had an extremely rare dragon egg, and was looking to sell it to anyone who was interested. The dragon was apparantly the last of his kind, because he mentioned to Jane (a young lady knight and his friend) that he had been searching for another dragon for ages, and there was a slim chance it was the real deal and that he had to have it. Jane tried to warn the dragon not to get his hopes up, but tried to help him acquire the egg to care for it nevertheless. Long story short, the egg was a fake being sold knowingly by the greedy and lying merchant, and the dragon gave one of his teeth to acquire the egg, which he later found was fake. He dropped the merchant in a pile of compost not long after by way of getting even. It held my interest, I had to admit. In part because the interaction between Jane and the Dragon was believable. They were friends, but they had disagreements still. Each had the courage of his or her convictions, and though admittedly it was made for children, it felt very adult in the way it dealt with situations. At one point, the dragon tried to steal the chest the egg was in, seeing no other way to acquire the egg through Jane's actions. Jane stopped him, even though it pained her to do so; she could understand his position, but she was duty-bound to prevent him from taking it. That's an adult situation; those sort of conflicts tend to come up all the time to some greater or lesser degree. If all Jane and the Dragon episodes are this interesting, I might have to make it regular viewing. Of course, that's just one show out of many on Saturday. Doesn't make Saturday morning cartoons a winner yet, but...it's a start. Current Mood: hopeful (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Thursday, January 24th, 2008
8:46 pm	Sparking memories It's amazing to me what pops into my head through the course of a day. It's never the same old, same old with me. It can range from the the casual (I wonder if stocks are on the rise today?) to the comical (I wonder if anyone has ever tried to sign a birth certificate to Jesus H. Christ?) to the downright obscure (there's all sorts of dried fruit...I wonder if there is dried watermelon?). Today, my thoughts flashed back to my time in grade school. Let me explain it for you, and take you back on a stroll through memory lane. I was in the production meeting at work, sitting in the big conference room as we all went over the details and itinerary for the day. Pretty routine stuff. The big conference room, of course, has a big conference desk. And this big conference desk has been around a while. So it has it's fair share of battle scars, although it's still a very beautiful desk, as far as desks go. I was looking down beside my list of jobs to accomplish, and I happened to notice some of those scars. The desk is a soft wood, so it can be indented fairly easily, and it looked to me like someone has been scribbling too hard on a piece of paper, and had lightly scored the wood underneath. Normally this wouldn't even faze me, but today it jogged my memory. And it took me back, waaaaay back...to the 4th grade. Back when I was in the fourth grade, I had a science class, that also doubled as a biology class for higher grades. This classroom was a bit unpleasant as a result...the lingering scent of formaldahyde (if that's how you spell it) was in the air from various dissections, and the desks weren't like normal classroom desks...they were elevated desks for the purposes of scienctific examination, and were dark black. They were also not the most decorative desks in the world, and had seen better days. Well, on this particular day in my memory, there was a boring lecture going on that I didn't really feel like paying attention to (it was all in the textbook anyways). I was fiddling with my BIC pen, and started paying attention to the silver clip that is on the end of most pens. I continued to mess with it, and during my occupation, I learned that the end of the pen was hard enough that it could score the paint of the desk to reveal the wood underneath. Not really thinking much of it, I decided that this would be my new means of entertainment for a time. Absent-mindedly, I started to scratch my name into the desk. Then, to round it out, I took a page from Kilroy and scored in "was here." Then, still not thinking straight, I changed the period to "..." and added to the end of that, "permanently!" Not long after that, the class was over, and I went on to my next class, not really thinking much of it. Well, the stupidity of my act caught up with me later on...it never even crossed my mind that I wasn't supposed to do anything like that to the desks there, and even more so, it never crossed my mind that by writing my own name, I has pretty much confessed that I was the one that did it. I had written my nickname instead of my real name, so it was a dead giveaway, since no one else in the school had my nickname. The school contacted my parents, and my parents let me have it with both barrels. I couldn't even defend myself, they had me dead to rights. There was even talk about replacing the desk at school, which I would have to pay for somehow. Looking back, it was a bit excessive, and was probably meant to put the fear of God into me, and believe you me, it worked. I couldn't imagine how many allowances it would take to replace a desk! Or what sort of work I could get to try and pay it off earlier. Of course, the desk was never replaced, and when I left the school to go to junior high, that desk was still there. I always felt bad about that; I hadn't really meant to be a vandal, it was just I didn't really think about my actions being as permanent as I wrote them as being. But it did impress upon me what can happen if you don't think your actions through completely. And that's my story. Yes, I am a reformed vandal. Current Mood: nostalgic (Comment on this)
Monday, January 21st, 2008
8:07 pm	Profile update Due to it being a massively long time since I updated my Livejournal profile, I decided to take steps to rectify that matter. If it interests you, go ahead and take a look. You might find something you didn't know about me until now. Current Mood: accomplished (Comment on this)
Thursday, January 17th, 2008
7:59 pm	Is it a full moon tonight? Today was just full of all sorts of weird. Stuff that happened today out of the norm: Being ask to make a copy of a birthday vid onto DVD (I'm a programmer, not a techie, so generally stuff like this doesn't happen on my block). Witnessing a Xerox copier die a slow, horrible, NOISY death. I have video of this, because it was just that bad. Having to put one of our managers on my personal cell phone list, and vice versa. Not really weird, but the reason was. She was cutting down from three phones to two. Long story. Committing to drive another co-worker to the yearly after-Christmas party in Mt. Pleasant. There's a bus available, but the co-worker wants to be able to leave early. I got no problem with that, nice person, just a little out of the blue. Going upstairs to deliver a work ticket, and watching a line dance taking place. I kid you not. I have video of that, too. Apparantly, I missed the memo. Someone has to let me know when it's weird day, I'll wear the t-shirt. Current Mood: weird (Comment on this)