This blog is becoming very me-centered. If that’s a bad thing, I apologize.

I believe it was about seven or eight years ago, in my second year of high school. I had a nice job and some money flow, and decided to finally upgrade my computer. A friend of mine offered to build one for me, and he even put together a shopping list– did I want this video card or that one? How much ram? What kind of sound card? After much debate, I spent the money, and got the best computer I’d ever had. I watched my friend and his buddy assemble it, asking questions the whole time, and when it ws done, they booted up Windows and started to set it up. “It’s asking us to name the hard drive,” they told me. “What should we name it?”

This computer was awesome. It had a huge (at the time) hard drive, and a state of the art (at the time) video card. It was going to play any game I wanted in eyebursting color and resolution. It was going to run like the wind and chop up bits and bytes like a maniac. “The Beast,” I told them. “We’ll call it The Beast.” THE_BEAST (C:) is what my hard drive was called for the longest time.

Yesterday, after eight years of service, the Beast died.

When we first built it, it was awesome. I played Doom II and Quake II on it. I discovered Civ III, Black and White, and Grand Theft Auto II on it. I used it all throughout college– countless papers and presentations, countless webpages visited and pieces written. I ran two webpages from that computer, including a webcam on and off. The Beast is where I ran Napster in its heyday. I remember right before one Christmas break in college, my roommates and I decided to have a Christmas party, and we needed some Christmas music. I started up Napster, found some songs, and was shocked at how fast they were downloading– by the time one song had finished playing, the next had downloaded and queued up. I didn’t call it the Beast for nothing.

Of course, eventually, time passed it by. When I got back from college, I settled down into money again, and discovered that the Beast had tamed a little bit. It still played new games, but only on the lower video settings. It only had a 10gb hard drive, and I’d filled that up quickly (again, this was when Napster was wide open).

So I decided to build another computer. I bought a new case and mobo, and a new videocard and hard drive. I stole the sound card and modem from The Beast, and even took the 10gb hard drive so I could dual boot Windows and Mandrake. The Beast was taken a part, a shell of its former self, and I named my new computer Arthur, after the Hitchhiker’s Guide character.

But I still kept the Beast around. A little while after I built my new computer, a few more computers opened up. My brother retired his old computer, and my parents decided to get a new computer as well, which left me with a bunch of computer parts available. Right before I moved to Chicago, I pulled a bunch of parts out of the old computers, plugged them into the Beast, and somehow, some way, I got it turned on and running. It had an old copy of Win98 running on it, but I quickly downloaded a Knoppix build and installed that on it. The Beast, I thought, was back.

Since then, it’s been sitting here in my room, plugged in but silent. At one point I planned to turn it into an arcade emulator, but didn’t have the time to build a cabinet. Then I planned to make it just a regular second desktop, but could find a real use for it.

Last week, I came up with one more plan for it. I’d install it in the living room, plug it into my surround sound system, and use it as an mp3 jukebox. All I had to do was buy a cable to connect the soundcard to the sound system, and an IR reciever to control it with a remote. Finally, the Beast would live again.

So I moved it out of my room, and plugged it into my home entertainment center. I got it all set up, thinking about how cool it would be to have a computer playing music for me. I set up the monitor, plugged in the mouse and keyboard, and hit the power switch.

And nothing happened.

I checked the cables– all there. I flipped the power switch in back, and still nothing. I checked the outlet– all good. Still no power.

And then I remembered. A few weeks ago, the power had dropped out in my apartment, and I’d heard a horrible click, like something somewhere had been completely fried out. I checked mine and my roommate’s computer and our appliances then, but didn’t find anything. And I remembered how the Beast had been plugged in at the time, and how the click had come from the Beast’s general direction.

I took a look at the Beast’s power source, and sure enough, it was completely fried out. The Beast had finally, after all this time, died.

Sadly, I stripped it of the CD rom, of the memory and the video card, placing them gently in a box for another computer and another time. Tomorrow, I’ll take the metal shell of the computer that once was the Beast down to the back alley, there to be picked up and trashed like so much old technology before it.

It’s kind of sad, saying goodbye to something that’s done so much for me and been with me for so long. You could say that something of The Beast lives on in the computer I have now– I’m listening to music on the same soundcard and speakers, I saw my friend install so long ago, and the Beast’s original hard drive still sits right here next to me, ready to be booted up and run the latest version of Mandrake. But I’ll still be carrying an empty case out to the curb tomorrow, one that I’ve been carrying around for years.

I suppose that, with the advances in robotics we seem to be making all the time, it’s only a matter of time before people start attaching emotions onto their technologies. I think I’ll start early.

So I’m almost done with God of War.

It’s pretty sweet. You play as Kratos, a Greek guy who makes a deal with the gods (Zeus, Hera, etc.) and then learns to regret it later. He’s a crazy killing machine– he’s got two Blades of Chaos that are connected to his wrist, and he swings them around with vigor and fury, slicing up everything in sight while blood goes everywhere. He’s got all kinds of magic stuff, and, while the game is complex and looks terrific (nice music, too) God of War is the kind of game where if you don’t know what to do with something, you just try to kill it and everything works out fine in the end. Great game.

But I’m left wondering one thing. Why didn’t anybody ever tell me the greek gods were so AWESOME?

Back when we were studying Antigone and The Illiad in high school, all I heard was a bunch of whining about “Oh, the gods” this and “Oh, the gods” that. “Oh, gods, please save me from my sins” or whatever. Bo-ring. Who cares about Oedipus or his brothers or something (I wasn’t really listening)? Nobody, that’s who.

But if anyone had TOLD me that this guy Kratos was around, chopping of the heads of Medusas and slicing open Minotaurs, I would have totally been interested! My teacher was always talking about like Hades was some metaphor for the punishment of the fates or something– he neglected to mention that Hades had these badass guys with flippy blade things that you had to defeat in the last level! And he also didn’t tell me about gaining the power of Hades’ Army, which lets you use magic to unleash the souls of the dead against your enemies! If that dude in Homer’s something or other had been fighting with the Blades of Chaos, I would have woken up and paid attention!

Now, it’s too late for me as I’m already a lost cause, but maybe if we get this game in schools RIGHT NOW, kids can start learning what they’re supposed to. Don’t bother making them read Antony or Cleopatra– they won’t be listening anyway. All you have to do, teachers, is let them play through to the third level of God of War, where Athena gives Kratos the blade she killed a titan with, and then they’ll start understanding what they’re supposed to: That the blade of Athena is KICKASS!

Also, when you power it up, you can totally cut footsoldiers in half with just one swipe. If someone had told me that when I was in school, I’m thinking I would be much better off today. Get on it, kids!

I’m fascinated with Batman. I know everything about the guy and all of his friends and enemies. I’ve read every comic, watched every movie multiple times (yes, even the Schmacher ones, though I didn’t enjoy it), and memorized the animated series. Every incarnation of him, every one of his versions and cohorts– I love each and every one of them. I collect Batman memorabilia, and when I finally move into a house, I swear on all that is unholy in Gotham City that one full room will be dedicated to a display of Dark Knight memorabilia. Why, you ask, am I so enamored of the comic book hero in the cape and cowl?

Let me tell you. (Warning: extreme nerdiness ensues, especially in the last answer. If you’re not interested, come back tomorrow.)

1. He has his principles, and he doesn’t give up on them. Ever. In Batman’s eyes, good is good and bad is punished always. Doesn’t matter if it’s some lowly street kid or even Superman himself that does something wrong– if you mess up, you get punished for it, and Batman’s likely the one to punish you. He doesn’t kill, and he works for the law. He’s a vigilante who works for the cause, and only the cause. He doesn’t cower, doesn’t overlook, doesn’t make wrong decisions.

2. He always saves everyone. He’s the World’s Greatest Detective– no matter what scheme is being run around, or how much trouble other superheroes have gotten into, it’s always Batman who figures everything out, and knows what villian has done what. At the end of the story, when all the other heroes have gotten confused and turned against each other, and all the bad guys are hiding behind shadows and secret identities, it’s always, always, always Batman who figures out who’s done what to do, and what’s really going on.

3. He’s human. He’s just a really rich, intelligent guy whose parents were killed who decided to do something about it. He’s a genius– he’s invented all sorts of junk that can get him in and/or out of any given situation, and he’s got– by far– the coolest gadgets ever invented (James Bond would kill to have a Batmobile). Technically, out of all the comic book heroes, Batman is the only one that could actually, theoretically exist. There’s no way that an alien would ever get power from our Earth’s sun, and there’s even less chance that said alien would look so human as to be disguised by a pair of glasses. But there is a chance, albeit small, that a multibillionaire genius heir just might see his parents killed in front of his eyes and decide to dedicate his life to fighting crime.

4. He has the best villians. Seriously. Everybody else is a joke (pun intended) compared to the baddies in Gotham City. Two-Face used to be a District Attorney until he got half his face burnt off, and now tends to see things (and morals) in shades of black and white. Catwoman is a classic cat thief, with a feminine and feline twist. And The Joker is the archetypal Loki character, all insane colors and laughter next to Batman’s somber black stoicy. All of Bat’s villians are characterized by not only insanity, but the need for revenge, which makes them alarmingly close to their own nemesis. Batman himself, also kind of crazed (heck, this is a grown man who dresses up in a batsuit and beats people up) is just a misstep from becoming one of them, and it’s another testament to his greatness that he hasn’t.

5. He has the best sidekicks. Ok, sure, Robin was a joke. He was an obvious marketing mechanic to give the boys who read Batman comics a much lighter role model. But Robin’s gotten much better, especially since he 1) retired as Nightwing, 2) died (killed by the Joker, and the real-life fans who voted to kill him), and 3) split up from Batman. His costume has gotten darker, and his character has also, and Robin is actually kind of cool now. But Batman’s got more than that. Huntress, Oracle (who’s the original Batgirl), the new Batgirl (in that cool black suit), and even Harold (the weird dude who lives in Batman’s basement and fixes his stuff) is awesome. Batman Beyond’s new Batman is the most interesting character they’ve created in a few years, and there, Bruce Wayne is the sidekick. The whole Batfamily is actually pretty cool, which is more than you can say for Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen. Finally, there’s Alfred. Say what you want about Nightwing, make fun of Robin if you need to, but there’s no denying that in the history of sidekicks, there’s noone more important, more necessary, more awesome, than good old Alfred.

Ryan (the guy behind Daily Dinosaur Comics) posted a thing on his livejournal about how the best format for music is in outline form. I agree, so here’s some more.

Me:
-I’m
-be
-goddamn
-I am

I can:
-sing it
-hear me
-know me

If you want to destroy my sweater:
-hold this thread as I walk away
-watch me unravel
-I’ll soon be naked

Oh no:
-it go(ne)
-bye bye bye

I:
-think
-sink
-die

Lying on the floor:
-I’ve come undone

I think I:
-did it again
-made you believe
     -we’re more than just friends

It:
-might seem like a crush
-doesn’t mean that I’m serious

Just so typically me:
-to lose all my senses

Oops, I:
-did it again
-played with your heart
-got lost in the game

Things you think I am:
-in love
-sent from above

Things I really am:
-not that innocent

She:
-grew up in an Indiana town
-had a good lookin’ mama
     -who never was around
-grew up
     -tall
     -right
     -with those Indiana boys on those Indiana nights
-moved down here at the age of 18
     -blew the boys away
     -was more than they’d seen

I:
-was introduced
-said ‘I dig you baby, but I got to keep movin’”
     -on
          -i.e.: keep movin’ on
-feel summer creepin’ in
-tired of this town again

Last dance with Mary Jane:
-one more time to kill the pain

I don’t know but I’ve been told, you never:
-slow down
-grow old

Things that I am tired of:
-screwing up
-going down
-myself
-this town

Oh:
-my my
-hell yes

Things for you to do, honey:
-put on that party dress
-buy me a drink
-sing me a song
-take me as I come
     -because I can’t stay long

Happy weekend, everybody!

Good evening, madam.

I am Dracula, Lord of the Night, and your host for the evening.

No, it’s not a stupid name. Please don’t call me Drac Attack, I haven’t heard that since college. Stop it! I’ll have you know that I am also called Vlad the Impaler! Does that scare you!?

No, Vlady isn’t any better. Please stop. My name is Dracula.

Do you like my castle? Do you think it’s dark enough? I have the power to summon the stormy night that you saw outside, and, because I am deathly allergic to sunlight, I have kept my home in an eternal night! Darkness forever!

Wait. Forget about the sunlight thing. I shouldn’t have told you my weakness– I mean allergy. Never mind. Damn! This isn’t going well at all! Let me start over.

Good evening, madam. I am Dracula, and I want to suck your blood! But only if it’s OK with you.

It’s not? Are you sure? Listen, I’m totally a creature of the night, right? And I need human blood to survive. And I haven’t had any in a while, so it would be great if you could just lift your head up a bit. No, I mean up and to the back. Here let me show you–

OK, fine! Forget I said anything, geez! We’ll worry about that later. Let me show you around the castle.

Man, you’re one pushy lady.

This is my ballroom. Back in the 18th Century, I used to have enormous balls here. What? Why are you laughing at the thought of my enormous balls? They were huge, and everybody always dressed up to come and see them. It’s not that funny– they were very serious, my balls. People would come to my balls and dance all night. Many great kings and queens came here, just to visit my balls.

I’ll wait until you’re finished.

Did you hear what I said about the 18th Century? That’s right, I have lived for hundreds of years! Do you like older gentlemen?

I know, I know, I’m looking a little gaunt lately, but that’s because I need more blood! Are you sure I can’t have just a little? It’ll only be a tiny bit, it probably won’t even hurt that much. No? All right, fine.

And over here is my bedroom! Do you like the drapes? I picked them out myself. No? Oh, but you like the bed? That’s not really mine. My wife picked it out for me. Well, one of my wives– I had three.

Don’t worry, they’re all gone now. They all divorced me and headed for Vegas with this handsome vampire hunter who came by a few years ago. I was so angry, I cut one of their heads off, but we’re fine now. We’re all friends, actually.

What was that? Oh, I was just mumbling something under my breath. About my wives.

Anyway, if you’ll follow me down these stairs– watch your head there, we wouldn’t want you bleeding on the floor! Down here is my basement. Isn’t it roomy? I spend a lot of time down here. Oh, you know, pondering about the evitability of death, torturing citizens, browsing the Internet. Are you on Friendster? We should share screen names!

And over here is my coffin. That’s right, I’m undead! Does that scare you? No? Man, you are totally a brat.

Do you like the gold trim on my coffin? It’s very expensive! No, I’m not telling you exactly how much it costs.

All right, fine. Guess. No, not nearly that much. Well, now I can’t tell you. No, because I said it was expensive, but then you guessed way too high. Now if I tell you how much it really costs, you won’t be impressed.

Well, Miss Rude, some people do care about how much my stupid coffin costs.

And, now, I think, it’s time for the blood sucking. No, seriously, I really need some blood. Have a seat over here. What? Where are you going? Oh, come on. Why’d you come all the way out here then?

Listen, what if we just went upstairs and had a little something to eat, and then we could see how you felt? I’ve got some very nice zombie servants, and they make a mean steak. I like mine raw!

Well you could have a salad then, I don’t care.

Oh, come on, are you sure you won’t rethink this? Come back! Don’t leave!

Fine! But I’m not validating your parking!

Did you see my pictures from the protest downtown? Now you can read the article about it, too.

Bad news coming down the pike from the Army. MSNBC reports they’re missing their recruitment goals again:

“I’m clearly not going to give up,” Harvey said. “At this stage we still have six months to go” before the recruiting year ends Sept. 30. “I’ve challenged our human resource people to get as innovative as they can. And even as we speak we’ve got a number of new ideas.”

Perhaps you’re wondering what some of these “new ideas” are. Wonder no more.

-New Slogans: “The Army: Everybody gets a gun!” Runner up: “Join up at your local recruiter now, or the terrorists have already won!”

-Start up a Senior Citizens Corps. When they ask who they’re fighting, make up something about the Nazis returning.

-Appeal to the youngsters by making a cool new shooting game, and then recruit the winners. Oh, wait, that’s already been done.

-Admitting that we really do need more than an Army of One.

-All those militias wandering around Michigan? Let’s just export ‘em to Baghdad, and they can do the fighting for us!

-Look into creating a relationship with the Kiss Army, whoever they are. Rumor has it that they follow the rule of the rebel leader, Gene Simmons, and that they want to “rock and roll all night,” whatever that means..

-Change name from “United States Army” to a moniker that better identifies our cause. Suggestion: “The United States Anti-Peace Corps.”

-Stop letting the media run all these anti-patriotic stories about us “invading” other countries and “killing” people with “high-tech weapondry”.

-Reassure potential recruits that Dubya is the Commander in name only– all decisions are made by a cool, top-secret shadow government.

-Humans won’t join us? Let’s start recruiting robots!

Wandering rant today. Don’t worry, forecast calls for a funny list tomorrow.

I was reading Claire Zulkey’s MBToolbox blog today, and found this quote in an article about financial issues for writers:

Unfortunately, ours is not a career often known for its big bucks (unless you are a celebrity writer/editor, in which case, please drop me a line. I do windows.)

Right after I read this, I took a shower. If you’ve ever tried to do anything creative, you may have realized what most writers already know: All the best ideas either come while dreaming or in the shower. And so, though I didn’t even really mean to, I came up with an idea.

The idea that I came up with was this:

We all know what she means by celebrity writers. I just read a NY Times article about Dan Brown– apparently he was in line at an airport but had forgotten his ID. Fortunately the guy behind him had a copy of The Da Vinci Code, so he was able to use the author photo to get on the plane. Dave Eggers is speaking here in Chicago this evening (at the Metro, 6:30 pm), and I’m sure the room will be packed. And Stephen King totally must get mobbed when he goes to the mall. It’s probably not in a boy-band-ish kind of way (although that would be interesting), but I’m sure you’d recognize the guy if you saw him.

So, yes, those people could all be considered “celebrity writers.” But really, if you’re a writer, you have to be a celebrity, no matter how many books you sell. Whether your book sells or not, the mere fact that you have readers, or even a single reader, means that someone knows you in a way that you have not mediated. Fame is inherent in the writer’s lifestyle. Celebrities are “famous” because they are known by many people who’ve never actually met them. The act of reading someone’s writing creates the same relationship– even if they’re someone that you know in real life, reading their writing will introduce you in a way that most likely isn’t familiar, like a back door into their personality. You may not like someone’s writing, but if you’ve sat down to read it, you’ve got a relationship with them, like it or not.

In that way, if you’re a writer, you have to be a celebrity. A writer is nobody without readers. Sure, you may not have any readers, and your books may never sell, but even if you’re published only once in an obscure magazine, at least you have a fan in your editor or agent. Someone, somewhere at least thought you were good enough to get published, and, at least with them, you’re legitimately famous. Zulkey may make a distinction between rich authors and starving artists, but every writer is a “celebrity” by the nature of the activity.

More importantly, writers, many times, are not just connected to their readers, but are the connections between readers. They’re like social tinkertoys, little nobs connecting the pegs of meaning and ideas. I think up a great idea in the shower (or, more likely, hear about and research one), and then I write about it, and then, by reading my work, the idea gets transferred to you. If there’s an idea floating around that only a select few have the time or experience to understand, I the writer can only hope to grab hold of it, twist and turn it, and push it into words that my readers appreciate (hopefully with an original twist of my own included).

This is also why blogs are quickly becoming the forefront of modern thought– everyone in the blogosphere is a writer AND a reader. Instead of tinkertoys, it’s like legos– there are tons of different pieces and colors, and they can all fit together in almost any configuration. I hear something, I write it, you hear it, you write it, your friend hears and writes it, and then I hear and write it again. Likewise, anyone can become a blogosphere celebrity at any time, because relationships are easy and frequent (all I have to do is link to your site, and likewise you to mine).

The other side of “the celebrity of composition” is exactly why so many people with low self-esteem become writers and artists. The mere act of creation (with the minor yet fascinating exception of outsider art) is a search for judgement. Art is, more often than not, an attempt at justification (or lack thereof) of existence. Even the writing of someone like Palahniuk, which seems to defy any sort of attempt at justification (he wrote a short story about a pool filter pulling a kid’s guts backwards through his rectum) can, I think, be seen as a wrestling match with himself about his own worthiness. What does it mean, I picture him asking, if I can create something so devoid of value and yet still have it be called entertainment, still be called art?

All writers, in their own way, are searching for the celebrity that composition provides. These are interesting ideas, the writer says, and here’s how I dealt with them. What, they ask the reader, sometimes desperately, do you think?

I’ve been meaning to get groceries for a long time, and finally went tonight.

But I didn’t have time to go until after work, so I went to the 24 hour grocery superstore at about 1 a.m., and discovered this:

It’s like they opened up Disneyland and only let you in. The aisles are empty but for a few workers and other late-night souls out for necessities. The shelves are fully stocked and straightened– meats, cheeses, and boxes of foodstuffs hang there like cherries on trees, waiting for you to pick them. There’s no hustle or bustle. I left my cart to walk all the way across the store not once but twice, and when I returned, no one had touched it, no one had asked whose it was or what it was doing here. It was great.

There are only a few employees around, but they’re used to working late and hard, and were the most helpful I’ve ever seen them. An old lady (probably a habitual late-nighter) asked where olives were, and a guy unpacking boxes of cereal smiled and pointed her directly to the end of the far aisle. He must be happy to see someone, I surmised. The day workers are lazy and stubborn compared to these angels of the grocery store. An older man pushing a mop loped past me to the front floor, where he began to clean, quickly and methodically. Amazing.

And yet, as helpful as they are, they’ll leave you alone if you know where you’re going. During regular hours, people are running and wheeling carts around the store. There’s always someone looking at that exact food that you’re looking for, and you have to excuse yourself for invading their view and navigating your cart around them. But late at night, they’re all absent, and you have all the time you need to amble along the displays, inspecting each item that crosses your path. Does this pre-cooked sausage have all of my RDA for riboflavin? Nope, but this one does. Which cheese is actually cheaper per pound. Oh, that one is, but this one has a neater design, and comes with a sealable container for fifty cents more! Sold! There’s plenty of time to decide late at night.

As I move through the aisles, I get sucked in to the environment– alone with the work of marketing geniuses. No one else is around, so I find myself humming along with the muzak, gliding from advertisement to advertisement. There are no salesmen here, no free samples or personal recommendations. There’s just me and the signage, a continuous dialogue between the marketing budgets of major food companies and my shopping budget. I get to sit down, take my time, and finally decide what I want and why I want it, once and for all. It’s capitalism at its best. I negotiate with myself more than a merchant at a Turkish bazaar. If marketing folks want to know what people think about their products, they don’t need fancy panels or test markets, they just need to let a single shopper enter an empty grocery store, and, like so many lab rat experiments, watch the results.

The only hamper on the evening was an issue at checkout– because there was only one employee, I had to bag my own groceries, and since I was slow, I ended up with a line of patrons waiting on me. No matter, though– once packed, I rolled the cart out to my car, packed my bags in the back, and pulled out of an empty parking lot, watched and accompanied by no one but the streetlights overhead.

Satre famously said that “Hell is other people.” Heaven is shopping at an empty late-night grocery superstore.

“Insanely airbrushed.”

“What happens to them when she gets old?”

“She seems to have a very small head.”

“I prefer real breasts. Crackers however would not be a reason for an ejection from the bed.”

“Wow.”

“Very nice on the tease factor.”

“If she were my girlfriend, I’d feel uncomfortable introducing her to my mom.”

“She looks happy.”

“Someone finally posts a cute one.”

“Whats up with her nipple in pic 008?”

“ewww… flithy and not gorgeous”

I went to the National Manufacturing Week conference last week, and then wrote this for Newcity. Boy, wouldn’t it be great if I got paid to write about SXSW or E3 or ETECH or a really cool conference? Nope. National Manufacturing Week for me.

I got a treat for you today. Get ready to win some money in your office pool, because here are my official NCAA March Madness picks for this year. In addition to a yearly pool run by my boss (in which I picked up major grip* last year) I’m already in groups at Chicagoist and Totalfark– if you want me to join yours, email me ASAP and I’ll see what I can do.

I used the same technique to make these as I do every year: a rigorous 48-hour session with my Scientologist auditor, followed by a light lunch with my Kabbalah mentor. Good times.

Thirsty 32 (I forget what they’re called– this is off to a good start already):
Illinois v. Texas
Alabama v. Boston
LSU v. Arizona
S. Illinois v. OK St.

Wash v. Pittsburg
Geo. Wash. v. Louisville
UCLA v. Gonzaga
Creighton v. Wake Forest (this is my official bracket breaker, plus my uncle works at Creighton)

NC v. Iowa St.
NM v. Florida
Wisconsin v. Kansas
Charlotte v. Conn

Duke v. Missippi
Mich St. v. Syracuse
Utah v. OK
Iowa v. Kentucky

Sweet 16:
Illinois v. Boston
Arizona v. OK St.

Washington v. Louisville
Gonzaga v. Wake Forest

NC v. NM
Kansas v. Conn

Duke v. Syracuse
OK v. Kentucky

Elite 8:
Illinois v. OK St.
Washington v. Wake Forest
NC v. Conn
Duke v. Kentucky

Final Four: OK St. v. Wake Forest, NC v. Duke

Champion: Ok St. beats Duke

There you have it. It’s like someone from the future came back and gave me the results of the tournament before it even started. Freaky. No seriously, I am totally going to pick up some bank* on this. Totally.

*make money

So I rented The Bard’s Tale for PS2 tonight. The game is pretty mediocre, but the voicework is not bad, not bad at all. Cary Elwes does the main voice (it doesn’t sound at all like him, but that’s who the book says it is), and the narrator is played by Tony Jay (not Ricky Jay, the guy with the cards). Tony Jay is a British actor with a very famous voice. Among other things, he played Shere Khan in the Tailspin animated series– remember that? I’m sure you’ve heard him other places as well. This, of course, got me thinking about some of my other favorite voice actors.

David Warner: If David Warner never did anything else, he would be on this list for being Ra’s Al-Ghul in the Batman animated series. The way he slyly calls Batman “Detective” made me wonder if Ra’s Al-Ghul isn’t really my favorite Batman foe. He was also the Lobe in Freakazoid, a short but sweet little series, and played in the British Horatio Hornblower series. Next up, he’s set to be in the movie based on the British TV comedy League of Gentlemen.

Keith David: I’ve shared my admiration of Keith David before on RJ’s. He’s one of those actors that can play any part, and yet isn’t really recognizable in anything. You’ve seen him in There’s Something About Mary, Pitch Black, and Agent Cody Banks (ok, maybe not Agent Cody Banks), but I’m sure you still wouldn’t recognize him unless you were a Keith David fan. If you’ve heard his voice work, though, you probably are– he’s the posterboy for strong, exotic dudes. He played Goliath in Disney’s great series Gargoyles, and Spawn in Todd McFarlane’s less great HBO series. Maybe he’ll get some cred when he shows up with Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie in Doug Liman’s Mr. and Mrs. Smith later this year.

John Rhys-Davies: Of everyone on this list, John Rhys-Davies is probably the person you know most– he’s Gimli the Dwarf from the Lord of the Rings movies. But you may not know that he also was the voice of Treebeard the Ent. Whenever you need a rough and tumble Scottish accent John Rhys-Davies is your guy. He also showed in Gargoyles as Macbeth, and in almost all of the Wing Commander games. He got a little press this year for a rumor linking him to the new Star Wars villian General Grevious, later revealed untrue.

Park Overall: There are lots of female voice artists, but it seems like most of them end up reading for laundry commercials or playing kids, and not very many of them actually stands out for me. Park Overall is the exception, however, for her amazing part in The Critic. She has a rough and perky Southern accent that was played perfectly and made a second season addition of a character one of the best parts of the show. She also showed up in Kindergarten Cop, Talk Radio, and Mississippi Burning, and was a series regular on Empty Nest.

Cam Clarke: When Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance first came out, my friend called me over to his house, and put in the game to show me one thing. I sat there as he played through the first level, constantly telling me to wait so he could just show me “this thing.” Finally, he finished a quest, went up to talk to a townsperson, and lo and behold, when the townsperson spoke, I heard the voice of Leonardo the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle. Cam Clarke’s voice brings back the early 90s for me, from the TMNT cartoon to Eek! the Cat to The Tick’s Die Fleidermaus. It’s a nasal whirr of a voice that takes me right back, and it’s a classic.

Lorenzo Music: Speaking of classics, Lorenzo Music didn’t play much of anybody besides Garfield, but he didn’t have to. From the Garfield specials to Garfield and Friends (with a stop as the animated Peter Venkman), he gave Jim Davis’ seminal character a voice, and what’s more, an actual personality. Sadly, he passed away in 2001, and while I’m sure Bill Murray did as good a job as he could on the Garfield movie, we all know it should have been Lorenzo behind the mic.

Frank Welker: Finally, when you talk about voice actors, you can’t not mention Frank Welker. If there’s a purr, a growl, or a bark in any movie or television show you see, odds are that Frank Welker’s name will be in the credits. The man has made an entire living for himself playing the overdubbed voices of animals. Well, not an entire living– he’s also been Scooby Doo’s Fred, Kermit, Barney Rubble, and pretty much everybody on Transformers and GI Joe. Frank Welker is the granddaddy of voice acting– there’s a reason Hollywood calls him a “voice god.” Just like everyone else on this list, you may not recognize him, but you’ve definitely heard his voice.

So I was at work tonight, and I was talking to someone about how I was trying to make money as a writer (obviously not easy). And one of my other co-workers walked up and said that I was going about it all wrong.

“Here’s what you do,” he said. “Just take your logo, or site’s name, or whatever. Put it on a t-shirt with a funny saying, and people will buy it.” It doesn’t matter what it is, he told us. People will buy anything. Look at “I’m with Stupid” or any of the other million t-shirts out there that people pay money for. As long as it’s clever and it’s on a T-shirt, people will buy it. “You’ll make plenty of money with that,” my co-worker promised me.

Thus began…

I was also trying to think of something to write today, and so I figured this would do. To prove my ability as a writer, I decided to come up with some kind of slogan, put it on a t-shirt, and see how well it sold online (at Cafepress.com, a quick and easy shop setup site– I’m sure many of you are familiar with it). I’d give it two weeks, and at the end of two weeks, I’d come back and see how many it had sold.

So the only thing was that I needed to come up with a slogan.

It had to be something quick and simple, but catchy. And it had to be something new– I couldn’t reuse a slogan from a copyrighted show, or anything that I’d heard anywhere else– I had to own it all myself. It didn’t actually need to make any sense. But I am in business here, so it can’t just be complete nonsense, or be a really funny inside joke that only I get.

So I sat and puzzled over what to use. The best T-shirt I’ve seen lately is the Vote For Pedro one from Napoleon Dynamite. I also liked the 1337 hoodie that I linked to a while ago (reminder: my birthday is just over a month away).

We were reshelving magazines, and started talking about this cover model on one of them. I didn’t recognize her, and wondered who she was. He replied that he didn’t think she was famous– “She’s nobody. She’s just some model.”

“Hey, models are people too,” I said. So the first idea I had was Models are People, Too.

Then, after talking about a t-shirt that said “Guns Liquor Drugs Killing” on it (don’t ask), we started talking about liquor and got to absynthe somehow. Which led to me saying Absynthe Makes the Heart Grow Fonder.

My co-worker thought someone had already used that one, though. I liked the pun, but I wanted something original.

We asked the security guard at work, and he actually had a pretty good idea. He said whenever he walked around, bums always asked him for money, and so he wanted a shirt to show them. All it would say on the front is NO. “And then,” he said, “on the back it would say I SAID NO.” I thought this was a pretty good idea, too, but I didn’t want to steal the security guard’s idea. I’ll let him make millions off of that one.

On the way home, I thought more about it. I’m geeky, so I wanted it to have kind of a geek angle, but also be kind of hip and current. I wanted to kind of have it link to the site somehow, and I wanted it to reference something popular.

I hadn’t come up with anything yet, but I registered at Cafepress anyway, and got ready to build the store over there. Again, I wanted hip, cool, geeky, popular, referential. When I came up to the point where it wanted a store name, I stopped, and thought really really hard. I wanted to promote my site. But everybody wants to promote their own site. Everybody wants promotion somehow.

And, of course, right then it hit me.

Ladies and gentlemen, go buy your t-shirts. Tell your friends. Link to the store (www.cafepress.com/mikeschramm), and tell those friends to do the same. Buy lots of t-shirts, and wear them with pride. We’ll check back two weeks from today and see how it went.

So I’m kind of done with this Overheard thing already, but I did hear one great thing this past weekend. It was a McDonald’s commercial on the radio. If you’re, you know, alive, you’ve seen they’re “I’m Lovin’ It” commercials, where they have been trying to appeal to a younger, hipper, less-inclined-to-actually-eat-at-McDonald’s audience. I swear this is what I heard:

YOUNG, HIP AND COOL AFRICAN-AMERICAN DJ: “Yo yo, ya’ll, McDonald’s Chicken Strips are on point! Check out our bangin’ Chipotle Sauce! Holla!”

This is what I actually heard him say. And then I thought how interesting it would be if other companies had tried the same tactic throughout the years.

-”Yo, homies, this new Ford Model T is ballin’ in all the right ways! Now that the car’s been invented, get yo’ azz rollin’ on dubs, G!”

-”Hit up the new Color Television from RCA! See the fly shorties bumpin’ and grindin’ in full crunktastic color! Holla!”

-”Introducing Viagra: It’ll set you up the ba-dump-ba-dump! Ya heard?!”

-”Don’t be a busta, fool. Put Valvoline in that g-ride and break up on out of the fuzz trying to lay that 187!”

-”Mentos is the freshmaker, peeps! Word up, blood!”

-”Get down with the New Coke! It’s off the hizzle for shizzle, nizzle! No diggity!”

-”Beef: It’s what’s for dinner. Blunts: It’s what’s for breakfast.”

-”Trix are for kids, silly rabbit. No, I mean it, back on up before I pop a cap, biatch. Front me and get gatted, ho. That’s what I thought, rabbit. And if you don’t know, now you know.”

I wrote this little thing about hard-to-find videogames for Newcity. Read it. And weep. Or laugh, I forget. One of those.

Today’s mikeschramm.com is half theory, half public service, and all sexy.

Here’s the thing
We started out friends
It was cool, but it was all pretend

So Kelly Clarkson releases her new album “Breakaway” a little while ago, to pretty much little or no fanfare. Clarkson, you’ll remember, is the first winner of the American Idol, and “Breakaway” is her second album. Of course, radio plays it, because radio sucks, but no one who actually listens to music enjoys it because American Idol, of course, sucks.

Yeah, yeah, since you been gone
You dedicated, you took the time
Wasn’t long till I called you mine

Until today, when a few indie rock bloggers start posting that they’ve found their new favorite song. And it’s track number 2 on the album, a candystore pop guitar tune that sounds more like Avril Lavigne than anything else. It’s called “Since U Been Gone,” and all of a sudden, indie rock trendsters everywhere are proclaiming it as the best thing they’ve ever heard.

Yeah, yeah, since you been gone
And all you’d ever hear me say
Is how I picture me with you
That’s all you’d ever hear me say

Kottke is where I first saw it. He, you’ll also remember, is the guy who just started blogging professionally. This is a guy who’s getting paid for letting people read his personal opinions, and his personal opinion is that Kelly Clarkson (singing a song with a title that contains an uppercase “U”) rocks. He references an indie rock message board, and other sites follow suit, proclaiming their love for the “Since U Been Gone.” M. Doughty of Soul Coughing calls it one of his top three songs of all time, and Ted Leo (of Ted Leo and the Pharmacists) even does a cover of the song at a live show. Kelly Clarkson, winner of a contest where people voted for the best singer by phone, seems to have become an overnight indie rock darling.

How can I put it, you put me on
I even fell for that stupid love song
Yeah, yeah, since you been gone

Of course I had to download the song, and check it out. I didn’t hear anything special. It’s catchy, for sure. There’s kind of a trendy hook to it. But it’s nothing I’d want to pay money for. And it’s nothing that would make me replace any of my top three songs, that’s for sure. So what are the chances that Kelly Clarkson has actually conquered indie rock? Not very good, apparently. There’s a lot of talk about how this is all a prank, that all those blogs are trying to trick posers into proclaiming their love for Clarkson’s music. It is a big coincidence that all these hipsters start proclaiming their love on the same day, and so it’s pretty unlikely that this is all true.

But since you been gone
I can breathe for the first time
I’m so movin’ on, yeah, yeah
Thanks to you, now I get, I get what I want
Since you been gone

But… what if it is? What if indie rock has gone mad? What if they’ve finally fallen under the spell of American Idol’s sway? Maybe all of that market testing and commercial appeal record companies have been fine tuning and practicing over the years with Janet Jackson, Madonna, Britney, and so on and so forth– what if they’ve been doing it for so long that they’ve finally perfected it? What if “Since U Been Gone” is actually the pinnacle of pop music– a formulaic tune so formulaic that no one, not even the trendiest of alternative snobs, can avoid its gaze? Maybe, just maybe, Kelly Clarkson and the record companies that back her have finally conquered the world.

I’m so movin’ on, yeah yeah
Thanks to you (thanks to you)
Now I get (I get)
You should know (you should know) that I get
I get what I want

And, when you think about it, there’s no better time. The record companies’ backs are against the wall. First there was the music pirates, and now they have to sue little kids and grandmothers to stop them. iTunes and Napster are one step away from making music stores and record companies obsolete. All kinds of bands are proving that you don’t have be popular to be great. If they’re ever going to come up with the perfect song, the perfect commodity that no one can avoid consuming, now’s the time. And while, sure, Kottke and Haughey might be pulling a prank, what if they aren’t? What if, Kelly Clarkson, with her down home good looks, contest-winning voice, and catchy tune, is actually taking over the world?

You should know (you should know) that I get
I get what I want

Since you been gone
Since you been gone
Since you been gone

I usually am not interested in writing about my personal experiences, but today I had an experience so satisfying I figured it had to be shared.

Last week, I got a letter from Jesse White, who is the Secretary of State for the state of Illinois. He informed me, in no uncertain terms, that I had until the 20th of March to get my motor vehicle tested for emissions compliance. If I failed to do so, he said, I would “recieve a Notice/Order of Suspension for the license plate listed above,” which meant my ‘96 Explorer would be removed from the roads, possibly forceably.

I’m a generally law abiding guy. Sure I download some mp3s now and then, and I have the occasional parking ticket or run the occasional red light. But I’m not interested in losing my license, especially not for failing to comply with an emissions test. So that very day I ran out the door, drove over to the testing place, and tested my car.

And it failed.

I had never failed an emissions test before. I used to have an old pickup that was a piece of junk, but both emissions tests it took, it passed with flying colors. I was pretty dumbfounded when they gave me the little card that said “FAIL” and told me I had to fix it. “But I got this letter about my license,” I told the girl.

“Then you better fix it but quick,” she said.

Except I couldn’t. That was last Friday, and I called three dealerships, and none of them could look at it until after the 20th. And Saturday and Sunday I was busy all day. And Monday, I planned to go, but then couldn’t because something else came up. Finally, Tuesday, I pulled into the parking lot of an unknown mechanic, left him with my car and key, and took the train around all day.

Twenty four hours and a good chunk of money later, I got back on the train, picked up my car and drove home. The mechanic told me he had fixed it and the car had passed. It better have, for what I paid him. All I had left to do was set things straight with Jesse White.

So today I called the number on the back of the letter he sent me. First, a guy answered. Just some dude.

“Is this the EPA?” I asked him.

“Nope.”

“Is this the emission test place?”

“It’s not, man.”

I panicked. I had to talk to Jesse, or at least someone who worked for him. “I’m trying to call… I’m trying to call [this number]?”

“Not me.”

“OK, bye.”

I hung up and dialed again. This time it was a woman. It was the EPA. She asked for my license plate. I tried to read it off to her but the ink was smudged on the paper. It went something like this:

“What’s the license plate, sir?”

“It’s… wait… 68948.. 6? 5?”

“That’s not in our system, sir.”

“I’m sorry, it’s not clear.” I was panicking, I searched the page for something else.

“It’s not clear?” She was losing patience. “What’s the number?”

“The ink is messed up, I don’t think I have it. No. I found it. Wait, here it is. 6894865.” She must have thought I was a lunatic. I explained my plight. “I got this letter, but I couldn’t fix it right away. I took to the mechanic, but it’s fixed.”

“You were tested yesterday.”

“Right! I passed!”

“You did, sir. I’ve got that right here.”

“But they were going to take away my license, I got this letter. I was just calling to, you know, make sure everything was OK.”

She sighed. “Yes,” she said, in the most relaxing voice I’ve ever heard, “Everything is fine.”

After all the trouble this weekend, after paying so much money to fix something so trivial, and after enduring threats to my license from the Secretary of State, it felt so good to hear her say that.

Sure, we can depend on friends and family. They’re always there for us. They’re supposed to be– that’s why they’re friends and family. When the chips are down, you can always turn to them, and they can expect the same from you.

But sometimes, it’s a necessary and valuable thing, it’s an amazing thing, to hear a complete stranger tell you, with total conviction, that “Everything is fine.”

“Everything,” she said, “is fine.”

So apparently Mel Gibson is going to remix all the nasty parts out of The Passion of the Christ and rerelease it as “The Passion Recut,” just in time for Easter. I thought he would go right for the sequel, but apparently he wants to build up buzz before he released The Passion II: Still Passionate. Remember all that talk about how Gibson was doing this because he felt he had to do it, and how he just wanted to spread his feelings about God? Yeah, that was all crap apparently. He wants something called money, and lots of it.

Fortuately for you, dear reader, mikeschramm.com has discovered a list of the planned edits (credit where credit is due: I had a little help from the Newcity people on this).

-The Devil, formerly played by albino freaky guy, will be played by a much friendlier Nathan Lane, although he will still have albino facepaint. Also, he’ll have a musical number.

-Mary Magdalene will no longer be a prostitute. Instead, she’ll be a nurse, and she have all the latest first aid technology when Jesus starts to bleed. And research found that women didn’t appreciate the way her character was treated in the first movie, so she’ll be much stronger and less prone to crying and running about than in the last one. Also, she’ll have a musical number.

-No more subtitles. Research found that this was the main reason the majority of Red Staters never went to see it, because “there was too much readin’ and too little talkin’.” The entire movie has been redubbed in English, Southern style. Except for Pontius Pilate, who speaks in the Queen’s English. You know– because he’s evil.

-Three new disciples have been added: Murtaugh, a devil-may-care cop with a heart of gold, William Wallace, a plucky Scottish revolutionary, and Mad Max, a postapocalyptic biker who gives Jesus a ride up to Golgatha. Gibson complained that he didn’t get to do much while just directing the first movie, and wrote himself into the script. Three times.

-Viewers were a little distraught that their savior spent most of the movie naked. Instead, the soldiers will strip Jesus’ clothes to reveal a WWJD t-shirt and jeans, which Jesus will wear for the rest of the movie.

-And, instead of whipping and stabbing, Gibson will digitally replace the guards’ weapons with foam swords and water balloons.

-A few viewers were outraged at the references to the Jewish religion in the film, so all references that appear anti-Semetic will be changed to appear anti-Scientologist. No one will care about that.

-Finally (spoiler!) Gibson has added a full half hour onto the end of the movie. Instead of just rising and walking, Jesus will rise, walk, go get an arsenal of weapondry and meet up with his sidekick, the Pope. Then, they will return to Jerusalem and wreck havoc on all who wronged him. Jesus will even, at one point when he kills a guard, say “This one’s for you, Dad!” and from where the tear fell, a hand will come out of the clouds and give him a thumbs up. And then, Pontius Pilate and the Devil will be dead, Jesus and the Pope will share a righteous high five, and the credits will roll to a remix of the original theme by Lil’ John and the Kings of Crunk.

-But after the credits, an extra minute will show a huge rock rolling back from the cave. A great light will pour out, and inside, we’ll see… Muhammad. This will perfectly set up the final sequel, which will of course be called The Passion: Revolutions.