Author: Tom Kern

And now another word from a really good bottle of scotch.

So the writers strike, it starting to suck for me… I’m lacking my John Stewart fix. I mean I’m lacking my John Stewart fix to the point that I’m actually watching CNN. It’s kind of weird to watch the news and not have a montage of some sort pop up where people are saying things that are 180 degree’s from what they were just saying.

So this distinct lack of John Stewart pushed me over the edge, what the hell is this strike about?

The internet is a wonderful thing.

I landed on everyone’s favorite Star Trek wonder kid, voice of Aqua Lad and in my world “A” list blogger Wil Wheaton Oh hey he has a couple of links to something called “unitedhollywood.com” WAIT WAIT HE HAS A VIDEO! IT’S FROM THE COLBERT REPORT!!! Oh wait their is no Stephen Colbert, but it’s a writer from the Colbert Report. That is good enough for me.

I watch the video and finally decide I wonder where I go when I click on “Unitedhollywood.com“

Oh it’s the blog for the writers HEY LOOK MORE NOT JOHN STEWART BUT HIS WRITERS! I got my John Stewart fix finally and then way down at the bottom of the page is a link to a video that talks about what each generation of writers has gone through to get where they are today. It’s actually a start contrast to the John Stewart/Stephen Colbert combo.

I read, I watch, I ponder… I ask “What does Ronald D. Moore think?” I check the Scifi.com blog, nothing there since June, check Wikipedia and BAM! Their is a link to to rondmoore.com
and it’s my personal fiction writing hero of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Battlestar Galactica. The blog is new and done in iWeb but it’s Ronald D. Moore uncensored, the only thing better is Ronald D. Moore with a bottle of Scotch, the smoking lamp turned off, and a podcast recording under way.

Cody as a side note, remember the poker table with the midget from the show “Carnival” when we were in Vegas? This is the guy who wrote the first season, he left before the second season to do Battlestar Galactica!

So I’ve read and pondered for a while now, and I’ve come to the conclusion that we should all find a good book/game/hobby and snuggle/curl up/next/to our very bearded/pregnant/sleepy loved ones because this folks is going to a very long haul and we need to do everything to make sure the writers get everything they are asking for.

And for the record yes, I’m a Ronald D. Moore fan boy (didn’t know screen writers had fan boys did you?)

Where were you?

So 2.5 years ago I went on a little rant about how downloading TV shows would be the savior of television and gave an example using Star Trek:Enterprise. The things I talked about were merely the logical extensions of a business model that had become wildly popular in the music arena (i.e. tv shows via iTunes)

So after 2 years of itunes goodness of tv shows how many have I downloaded? A total of two, both of them free. What gives? I of all people should be all about watching TV shows off of iTunes. True, however their are a few things that have pretty much stopped me.

1. I got a DVR aka TiVo
2. I got a big screen (like bigger then any computer monitor I will ever have big)
3. I already pay for cable.

So with these three things in place the $1.99 of iTunes just doesn’t hack it for me… I will pay <$.0003 per program and fast forward through the commercials myself. Apple TV doesn’t hold up compared to my TiVo (in both price points and performance). So where does this leave the whole tv on the internet market?

Kind of in a pickle, people aren’t flocking to internet TV, well except for High School Cheerleader Coaches who did a tame routine compared to what she’s teaching the girls to do on the field in front of hundreds of people. And even then she didn’t post it one of her students did!

Honestly trying to predict the future of television is like reading animal entrails… I’m going to leave that euphemism to you the reader.

Where was I going with this?

Oh yeah, go outside and read a book.

A “Dry” run…

Doing a first “dry” run on the beer kit…. making sure that I have all the stuff that I need logistics that kind of thing.

Things to note…

Propane burners are loud and hot… should probally brew on back porch when time comes not garage unless it is a windy day.

20 minutes to bring ~8 gallons of water to 200F so around 15minutes for 6 gallons to 180F

Propane control knob has a small play region after 2 turns it’s wide open.

Need to find a better thermometer… this one floating way low in the pot is not a good idea.

Oven mits are a really good idea all around

Ball valve on the pot is holding… small leakage only from the end.

Sink, test, and tighten chiller before starting boil…

7 minutes to 150F with 8 gallons of water.

May need to spray out side of kettle to help get water temp down. Need to get second hose.

And with out of the ashes rose a “Pegasus”

So when I got home from hunting I came home to a desktop rig that would not turn on, after 3 hours of dicking with it I still couldn’t get it to post. This is the 5th time this year it’s done something like this to me and 3rd time since August.

So I did what any sane normal person would do, I ordered the parts for a new PC.

So 3 days and a bit of money later I now have a desktop rig and laptop rig that are truly on par with each other in almost all aspects except for one.

After screwing with Vista for 3 days to finally get it where I want it I am no longer of the opinion that those Mac vs PC commercials were were advertisments… THEY WERE WARNINGS!

Vista vs MAC OS X, hands down no contest MAC OS wins and I’m not saying that just because I have special place in my heart for Unix based operating systems either. It truly is the better OS, except for that whole playing games thing… Steve Jobs, hell Fake Steve Jobs even, if your reading this GAMES ARE NOT BAD THEY ARE GOOD!

So yeah I’m on Vista but it is nice to have a desktop rig that can play all of my games again. I guess that is why I bought a MAC so I could do work on it and not be bothered with all of the games.

Two final thoughts…

1. I know a few of you (Clint) are probally kind of curios as to what I got for a rig, The general specs are a…. Intel E6850, 4GB of RAM, 500GB HD (main system drive), 8800 GTS 320MB Video Card.

2. I also upgraded from Tiger to Lepoard on the Mac over the weekend… I found the icon for a PC file share server to be how you say… Intersting : )

Pay no attention to the Moose, the Squirell, or the Wapiti

As is tradition for me since I’ve moved to blogger I take the month of October “Mostly off” to do whatever it is the fuck that I do when I’m not working.

This year has been no different. From the 10 year high school reunion to a successfull elk hunt to spending money like I have a endless supply (which for the record I don’t… I get paid next week, two weeks after that I should be good though).

A while back I talked about my indecsion on going to my HS reunion, well the stars aligned and the truck drove true and I went. I had a great time until Jack D, showed up… it was all down hill from their. My brother provieds a nice synopsis on his myspace… you should go their and read it yourself. Of course you need to be my brothers friend to read it, so you probally need to friend him while you are at it.

Anyway the reunion was fun I only did the main Saturday night dinner and dancing thing. I once again confirmed that I can’t dance nor do I have rythm. On the whole it was a good experince it was good to see some folks I haven’t seen in a very long time and catch up. And if anyone from KHS97 is reading this feel free to drop a line.

So after two days of recovering from the reunion Dad and I went elk hunting, much as we have done for the last 15 years. Unlike the last 15 years we actually have something to show for our efforts. If you would like the full story drop me a line, since I don’t want to bore the general public with the tails of my hunt.

So since the hunt ended 4 days earlier then we planned I actually had a couple of days of downtime, man that is a unique concept for me. With 5 days of straight downtime I planned on getting a ton of crap done… and as is so often the case with everyone I only got a very small fraction of it done. Eh oh well.

I now return to work, and I’m almost scared for what awaits because I know the next month is going to be rough.

Peace in the pasture my ass…

Swung by the grocery store this evening on the way home… had to pick up a few essentials you know beer, milk, more beer.

So I’m wandering through Safeway towards the milk and I go for the half gallon of organic that I always buy since I’m trying to healthy and the experation date is 11/18/2007….

5 weeks from now? Wow what is this some sort of super organic milk? I start checking, all of the milk with the same batch code has a experation date of 11/18/2007!

Holy Cow! No really what kind of cows are they getting this from holy cows? So now that I’m curious I look at the regular non organic milk and the best date I can find is 10/27.

I don’t know how they do it but I don’t know how “organic” organic milk really is.

Angry Tooth… you may meet your end.

I work in a hospital you would think that I take pretty good care of myself…

yeah right…

Take for example my jaw, a few weeks back I started having some pain on one side of my jaw for no real reason. I ignored it for about three weeks. Why did I ignore for three weeks? Because I’m tough like that and I really dislike going to the Dr’s office. I have more important things to then sit in a office and be told how badly I’m not taking care of myself. If I wanted that I would go visit mom at least then I don’t have to pay a copay and I get fed.

So I make a appointment for the dentist, and get an appointment for the next day. Wow what a difference dentists offices are in Phoenix compared to Kingman. It’s like a Jiffy Lube for your teeth. So I’m in the dentists office and they poke, prod, and x-ray. Come to find out that I have had the crown of a tooth collapse and it’s not doing so hot back there… and oh yeah it’s my wisdom tooth in the back of my mouth. Joy!

So I’m given the option of either getting it pulled or a root canal done. I’ve heard horror stories about root canals so I opt for the tooth pulling. Have you ever read about how your tooth gets pulled? You should turns out that only school you really need to goto is the “school of hard knocks and better dentistry” these folks offer classes online and on campus just in case your interested.

I’m also given the option of Nitrous Oxide or full general anesthetic… Well hell I’ve always heard good things about Nitrous I will take that doc! So I get an appointment with the oral surgeon for a week later to get the tooth pulled. I guess if it hasn’t killed me by now it isn’t going to kill me in the next week.

So a week rolls by and it’s time for my appointment…

I get my nitrous

I get my local number (3 shots!) (OH BOY CUZ I LOVE SHOTS ALMOST AS MUCH AS I LOVE DOCTORS!)

I get 10 minutes to myself to contemplate the deeper meanings of life while breathing Nitrous Oxide with a contraption that bears more then a passing resemblance to Miss Piggy’s nose attached to my nose.

The doc starts to do his thing and says “Now let me know if this hurts”… HOLY CRAP THAT HURTS!! Like bring tears to my eyes hurt… so I get 2 more shots of the numbing agent and I now have enough on board for a “horse”

Wow if it takes that much numbing agent for or a tooth what other things are are horse like about me? My appetite? My Attitude? Other things?

So I get another 5 minutes of contemplation before the doc comes back this time he’s pulling and pulling and tells his assistant “Yep this is a classic angry tooth”

What the hell, it’s bad enough I’m pissed off half the time but now my tooth is too?

So one or two more good yanks and the tooth comes out. I get my gauze and some post op instructions and am sent on my merry way…

48 hours later the only thing that hurts is my jaw when I open real wide other wise I’m fine. I’m sure your all concerned.

The moral of this story? If your getting your tooth pulled and you have the option for a local anesthetic take that.

Blackhole sun, won’t you come?

Soundgarden was a great band, but you really have to wonder about what kinds of drugs they were on. You know between the lyrics and the Iron Butterfly esque guitar solos, I would be willing to bet it was a great live show.

As all of 3.2957838 (<– almost to 3.3 loyal readers!) know in addition to thinking that Soundgarden was the best band to come out of Seattle in the 90’s I’m a pretty big Pearl Jam fan. So when Eddie Vedder comes out with what is basically a solo album I take notice. The rub is the “solo album” is actually the soundtrack to the movie “Into the Wild”. OK Eddie did a movie soundtrack so I go and read about the movie. This guy gives up all of his worldly possessions for a life as free of trappings of modern life where he eventually ends up in the Alaska wilderness living off the land. Which appeals to me because I’ve always had this desire in the back of my mind to drop off of the grid totally and disappear. Problem is the only person who would notice would be Kristina since there would be leftovers and beer for Curtis all of a sudden.

And how did I know all of this about a movie that I hadn’t heard of up until two weeks ago? Why Cody of course! So Cody and I go see “Into the Wild” at what I call a “Art Theater” because it’s the first theater I’ve been to in Phoenix that has less then 20 screens (it only had four?!). Of course when you goto the movies they have the commercials before the movie now instead of just the trailers… don’t get me started on commercials before movies that is another rant in of itself. The last set of commercials are for Team Fortress 2!!! It’s a fucking brilliant commercial (click the link to see them all, the one that was in the theater was the “Meet the Heavy”) I thought it was a brilliant commercial.

So the movie finishes which was also excellent you need to go see it! And I’m looking at all of the people in the theater… Cody and I are the youngest ones in their. Wow they must have been really annoyed by the Team Fortress commercial. It’s a great commercial from a gamers perspective but if your not a gamer (Cody) then I can understand your annoyance.

So as a somewhat direct result of that commercial I purchased the Orange Box and have been playing Team Fortress 2 on and off all weekend. Holy cow that game is fun!!

So looking back at the title of the post it is rather true, because Team Fortress is a “Black Hole Sun”.

And oh yeah to top off a great weekend the Cardinals offed the Steelers!

Really?

You find the most interesting things on Wikipedia… I have to say that I am a bit surprised by this…
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The Packers’ fan base is famously dedicated: regardless of the team’s performance, every Packers game at Lambeau Field has been sold out since 1960.[citation needed] Despite the Packers having one of the smallest TV markets, the Packers have developed one of the largest fan bases in the NFL. Each year they consistently rank as one of the top teams in terms of popularity.[6] The Packers have one of the longest waiting lists for season tickets in professional sports with about 74,000 people as of May 3, 2007.[7] That is more names on the waiting list than there are seats at Lambeau Field. The current wait time for season tickets is approximately 35 years. For this reason, it is not unusual for fans to designate a recipient of their season tickets in their wills or place newborn infants on the waiting list after receiving birth certificates.[8]
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