Default Values

My name is Lou. I live just outside Providence. Like the song. I'm the Support Manager for Hippo Technologies, doing good works in the virtual environment of Second Life. Thanks for visiting.

[gobanshee-blog]

Riddick - The Movie

Attended "Riddick" with the Boston Movie Group, as usual. My expectations: it would be an action film, some gore, bad dialogue, decent CG, and no boobs, especially Katee Sackhoff boobs.

I was no disappointed on *most* points. Heh. Points. Boobs. Katee Sackhoff.

Sorry, not disappointed on most...expectations. Namely, Katee Sackhoff boobs.

Action: the A-story. The mobs harken back to, again, "Pitch Black", especially when a long bone is used for defensive purposes. Their behaviour is straight from the series start: they awaken at dark, for the most part, as storm clouds hit. (Get it? A storm is coming. Literally, and figuratively. Get it? THAT'S A TROPE, BITCH!)

Gore: there was some, and some pretty good gore at that. The (less) main, I guess, antagonist, Santana (Jordi Molla), had a very realistic semi-heading. I said spoilerish, so go see the film to see what I mean, or read a real spoilery review. Aside from that one, Riddick, himself, suffers a bit of self-inflicted trauma near the start, and it is pretty cringe worthy. The mobs get their due slice-and-dice treatments from many parties.

Dialogue: did you really expect David Mamet here? It was a Riddick movie. Bad lines, credibly spoken. Much bravado, and much more camp. The B-story involves events from "Pitch Black". Again, go see both from the full skinny. That much was well scripted. Boss Johns (Matt Nable) has a chip on his shoulder, and Riddick (do I really need to put the actor here?) has answers to give.

SFX: let's see, believable monsters, whose population far outweighs the available prey; overly complex, and damage prone jet bikes, that didn't mesh well with the terrain flown over; comical pets that did actually add to the story; both good and bad weapons, and their effects.

Boobs: Katee Sackhoff, and couple of other women in a flashback scene to "Chronicles". On the flashback note, it serves to explain why he's not the Necromongers' leader anymore, and allows the Riddick mythos to go its separate way again, at the end of the movie. Back to boobs. Katee Sackhoff boobs. Kinda worth seeing right there. Sideboob, but boob is boob.

Overall, a fun ride. Maybe not IMAX worthy, but definitely theatre-going. B-

[gobanshee-blog]

Harry's Shaving Ecoutrements

This past Saturday, I received a shaving set from Harrys.com, a specialty shaving wear site, specifically, the Truman set.

The set comes with the Truman handle, three cartridges, a tube of their shave cream, and some instructions for n00bs.

THE REVIEW!

I LOVE the handle. It's a smooth, wonderfully balanced, substantial wave of polymer. Look to the site for its details, but it feels great. I was at first dismayed by its smoothness and perceived lack of control, coming from Gillette's rows of grippy, nubbed rubber, but once I started using it, my fears went away, even with wet fingers. Never once did I come close to dropping it.

The cartridges don't have complex hinges or springs, but softer rubber areas at the sides provide tracking along your skin. I found that the blades didn't clear as well with water as I'd liked, but it may owe to the included shave cream (read on). A subsequent shaving will tell when I switch back to my preferred gel. I had no irritation, even at my problem areas, and I can honestly say kicks the Mach3s I've used for closeness. I never liked the Fusion scheme (too grippy on my stubble), but Harry's works where Gillette doesn't. AND THE PRICE! Good gravy, they're most expensive pack (price per cartridge) is cheaper than Gillette's cheapest.

The shave cream is the weak area. It doesn't lather. Nope. Just lays there like margarine. It's slick, I guess. There's that. Whisker softening? I guess. And it doesn't clean up well at all. Pretty greasy.

IN CONCLUSION!

Handle: GREAT!

Carts: SUPER!

Cream: Meh.

I'll follow-up with the switch back to my usual Nivea Sensitive Shave Gel for how well the cart clears.

[mroobit-blog]

Fan art of Jeph Jacques’ Claire from QC. I kind of adore her and I love her puns.  I may also be seen making her same pun grin at times.

I already spent more time on this than I intended (being that it was just going to be a warm-up), so I didn’t end up drawing the object she was going to be leaning against.

[gobanshee-blog]

Mission: Best Saturday Evar

This past Saturday, June 8th, I took my daughter and her boyfriend out to Boston for a day of walking , drinking, eating, sciencing, laughing, eating, more drinking, and aborted karaoke.

We met up in Bridgewater to ride the train into the city (next time, driving in to enjoy more time) and started the day off right; heading to Jacob Wirth's for a good selection of beer and food. All before noon. 

Intending to walk the Freedom Trail a bit, we headed toward the Common to find a map for background info, but all the guides cost money, so....

Commotion deeper into the park, and people with rainbow colored leg warmers, tipped us off that it was Pride Day in Boston. Walking along, we stopped occasionally to watch the parade and people.

After a bit more meandering around the Downtown Crossing area -- DTX to those in the know -- we heading over to the Museum of Science, one of her requests. Oh! The Walgreens in DTX totally has booze. Keep that in mind.

At the museum, we say tamarins, lizards, tortoises, planetary models, electricity shows, weather models, fog tornadoes, maths, nanotech, optical illusions, scary fish, lasers, and THAT WAS JUST ONE WING.

If we had arrived sooner, we could've hit the other wings, buuuut it was close to closing time, and we were hungry anyway, so we headed out. BTW, my hand got trapped in the re-entry hand stamper. Oh, what fun being falsely imprisoned by the museum.

Greg's (the girl's boyfriend) sister and her girlfriend were in the area, so we met them at MeadHall after a pretty good walk in the wonderful Boston weather. Tiffany and Julie are the SHIT. We bonded over Grace Helbig, Hannah Hart, and their retinue. Don't recognize the names? Get on Youtube, loser.

MeadHall consisted of a large beer/ale selection, pretty good food, and iffy service. The restrooms have the beer list on the stall walls, so you can plan your return while you make. Before we left there, we had front row seats to a random guy bird striking a window while trying to fancifully exit the open air facade. We exited the selfsame windows without incident.

A short walk brought us to the multiple-time-voted Best Karaoke in Boston bar, Courtside, in Cambridge. Kinda divey, but a nice backroom for the singing. Alas, we had almost no time before we had to leave for the train back (see, drive in next time), so not a note was sung.

A tipsy ride back to Bridgewater, bonding with 2 young women in the next seats (one's a porn star), and Mission: Best Saturday Evar was in the books, successfully completed.

[jephjacques]

I can’t think of a single author who has had a more profound effect on my work than Iain Banks. His science fiction novels, particularly the Culture series of books, are the template upon which all of the sci-fi elements of my comic are based.

The stories themselves run the gamut of emotion-...

[gobanshee-blog]

"Now You See Me" viewing

Went with the Boston Movie Group to see, "Now You See Me", starring all the people in this image.

It's a pretty original idea, along the lines of, "Ocean's [insert number]", where a group of smarmy, fast-talking masterminds pull a heist. But this time it's all MAGIC!

Damn, I love watching Isla Fisher.

Anyway, Morgan Freeman's character, a former magician with a chip on his shoulder, works to debunk their illusions, finally on the payroll of their jilted benefactor, and then a joint FBI/Interpol investigation headed by Mark Ruffalo. Everyone else is in on the heists, and there is a theme to it all.

It has car chases, man hunts, illusions revealed, con men, hypnosis, INCREDIBLE fight choreography,'splosions, and it keeps you guessing.

The only bad part is the end. A tacked on love story that totally doesn't fit into the grand scheme of things, and, really goes nowhere.

All in all, a great rental, no over arching reason to see it in theatres. 3.6/5

[gobanshee-blog]

Lazy Sunday, End of Holiday

Sitting in Starbucks, waiting to go to karaoke. Woot. Sent a FB update telling everyone I love them.

Scattered thoughts. Need meds. Hmmmm.....

[jephjacques]

[gobanshee-blog]

I’m sure you get asked this all the time, and you may have even addressed this question before, but how do you feel about the idea of people getting your art tattooed on them? After reading the most current strip (2234) I’m very much attuned to the idea of getting a tattoo of the Tequila...

[gobanshee-blog]

Cards Against Humanity, against My Family

Had a super Sunday night with what -- I hope -- is a first of many Game Nights. I bought Ticket to Ride, and printed/cut out Cards Against Humanity, on Saturday for Sunday's game.

Crazy story of getting the games to come.

Got to the house and waited FOREVERRRRRRRRRRRRR for people to get home (that's you Diddles), and...

CARDS. AGAINST. HUMANITYYYYYY.....

I won, BeeTeeDubs.

[gobanshee-blog]

Mochart. (Taken with Instagram at Pavement Coffeehouse)

[gobanshee-blog]

I cleaned out a cabinet today,

which turned out to pretty much be a time capsule of early/mid-nineties tech. Serial mice, 204 3.5in floppies, 15 5in. floppies, some faxmodem manuals, and other stuff.

Which are now strewn about the bed.

I'm not going to bed tonight.

[ilovecharts]

Here’s a really interesting photo, an intern from Facebook wanted to examine the locality of friendships, pulling some data from Facebook he created this image. What’s incredible is that lines don’t represent coasts or rivers or political borders, but real human relationships. Each line is a friendship between two people, and with enough information these friendships give us a surprisingly accurate map of the world, minus Russia, apparently Facebook isn’t too big over there. 

You can read more about how it was made here. Also here is the High Res Version.

[gobanshee-blog]

Where the magic will happen. #nerdist (Taken with Instagram at Wilbur Theatre)

[rockbetter-blog]

“Checkup”

[gobanshee-blog]

Taken with Instagram at Kickass Cupcakes Truck

[gobanshee-blog]

Sarge requests playtime. (Taken with instagram)

[gobanshee-blog]

A Convention Story

I was recently listening to a "This American Life" episode podcast named, "Conventions", and it reminded me of a convention story of my own. So here it goes.

Many, many, many years ago, before this Security Theatre rigmarole we're subjected to, I attended a paintball tournament in Nashville, TN. I was a last minute attendee after an outside salesman couldn't make the trip. My name is not Wallace Chu, nor do I resemble a Wallace Chu. Again, way before the events of 9/11.

If you've ever attended a tournament or convention of any kind, you know that the attendees get a  kind of pack mentality and are readily visible as not part of the general public. More so with paintball.

My now-defunct company was a sponsor of the paintball tournament, and as such, we were flush with cash and the boss was willing to splurge on us, and we were given suites on the top-most floor of the Holiday Inn; a floor that could only be accessed by a physical key inserted into the elevator button panel that then lights up the button for that floor. That keyhole that you look at and wonder, "Who goes up there?"

"What do they see up there?"

"What kind of food is up there?"

Me, that's who goes up there. The view is great. The always-fresh snacks, and cakes, and pastries are exquisite.

My favorite part of the trip was after playing a couple of pick-up games against the Paintball Elite of the day. I lagged behind to clean up our sales area, still very much dirty and paint covered from running around in the dirt and just generally not being in the same league with these guys. I returned to the hotel alone, and traipsed through the lobby to the elevator, filling with some well-dressed folks. They gave me appraising looks, as I then reached into my muddy, paint-stained Army fatigue pocket, drew out the Large Brass Key, and inserted it into the Elite Keyhole. Gave it a twist, and the chose the highest number button next to it. 

Yeah, I'm that guy.