Scullblog.net - Blog - October 2006

15 October 2006:

All goes well in the land of orange leaves! There isn't anything really all that exciting to report - or to photograph. So I used an old pic from Bob's website to reminisce of simpler times. Look how young they look! The music is a little Irish ditty from my favorite show on T.V., the third season of which premiered just last week! It's probably the only thing on television that I'll actually make time to watch. I've also been watching the original Star Trek recently. "Classic" is just the only word to describe it. Between William Shatner's acting and the ridiculous costumes it is such a hoot to watch. I heard that they're going to do a remastering of Star Trek similar to what they did with the original Star Wars films and replace all of the 60s era special effects with CGI.

While I'm on the subject of television, I read on JMSNews.net that J. Michael Straczynski is currently working on a new Babylon 5 production! Rather than another spin-off dominated by corporate meddling and thus ruined, this production will feature original B5 characters and the actors that played them. Two actors who won't be returning is Richard Biggs who played Dr. Steven Franklin and Andreas Katsulas who played G'Kar - both of whom recently passed away. The working title is The Lost Tales and will be filmed in HD specifically for DVD release. The first DVD should be out in February and will focus on human characters. The second will follow sometime after that and focus on non-human characters. I'm rather disappointed that G'Kar won't be coming back though.

And also, the much anticipated English dubbed release of the third season of Full Metal Panic! is scheduled to be available next month! Full Metal Panic! - The Second Raid has got some awesome animation that I can't wait to see on DVD!

Aside from all that, I've been busy studying, working, driving, all very exciting things. My father recently got back from Quantico and a four-week session on counter-intelligence, which I will have to ask him about the next time that I see him.

And, of course, there's the Trans-Siberian Orchestra coming up in December! Unfortunately, there will be no TSO concert at The Garden this year. They will be busy showing Disney on Ice or some ridiculous thing. Which means no rides on the T or delicious steak dinners at Longhorn's for me this Christmas. However, there is going to be a show at the Hartford Civic Center the day after Christmas. I am organizing an expedition to that venue instead - it is all very exciting! TSO concerts always make the Christmas Break much more enjoyable!

Also, I recently realized that this year marks the tenth anniversary of my personal music compilations that I named SMASH after the first song that I included on my first mixed cassette tape back in 1996: Smash by The Offspring. Back in 1996 I had only a boombox with an FM Radio, CD player, and cassette tape recorder. In those days there were only two stations in the state that played modern rock: 106.9 WCCC, 104.1 WMRQ. And, there was 107.3 WAAF out of Boston. Since I lived on a very tall hill at the time, I could demodulate WAAF's signal with a vast array of wires that ran around my room acting as an antenna. Back then, I compiled mixed tapes by recording songs off of the radio and then transrecording them onto the mix tape, itself. Each year I would start a new mixed cassette tape: SMASH '96, SMASH '97, etc.

By 1999, I had a full stereo system complete with MiniDisc recorder and a dial-up Internet system with a whopping 2.4 Kps connection. Thanks to a little program called Napster, I was able to download a vast amount of music recorded digitally. I could then digitally record the music onto a MiniDisc album.

After I moved out and got my own high-speed Internet connection and my own computer with a CD recorder, the price of recordable CDs had dropped dramatically while MiniDiscs and MiniDisc systems still remained rather expensive. I could burn my mixed albums onto CD and back them up on my computer in case the disc was damaged. I could also record them onto my XBox to play on my stereo system almost instantaneously. Because of the high-speed Internet connection, I was also able to download music of much higher quality than in the MiniDisc days.

Now that the price of DVD+DLs has come down quite a bit, it will become possible for me to record twelve albums onto one disc. A car stereo with a digital iPod interface would also make roadtrips quite enjoyable.

Currently, I am in the process of transferring my SMASH listings from my old website to this one. I have the first page up and running, the next two should be coming soon.

18 October 2006:

I was walking through the church parking lot on my way back from lunch today. I was interested, though not surprised, to see the multitude of bumper stickers on the parked cars with messages that mixed political and religious beliefs. Personally, I've never been a fan of bumper stickers, least of all the political ones. I tend to regard political opinions that can fit on a 3"x8" sticker to be rather simplistic, regardless of the issue being addressed.

The first one that I noticed actually wasn't a sticker at all but a magnet. It was in the shape of a ribbon, the same as those "Support The Troops" magnets that were abundant five years ago but have now seemed to have gone the way of antenna flags and Christina calibar. One half of it was blue and white with the pattern of the Israeli flag and the other half was orange. It read, "Support Israel, Fight Terrorism." This struck me as rather odd since I have observed that it was our support of Israel which gave birth to the Jihad and its terrorist methods in the first place.

The second one... what was the second one? Oh, yes. It read, "Harmony" or something like that and all the letters in the word were symbols from different religions. I liked that sticker. It made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, as if I had eaten a Furbie and washed it down with some vodka.

And the last one, (this one was the kicker!) it read, "When Jesus Said, 'Love Your Enemy' I Don't Think He Meant Kill Them." While I salute the creator of this sticker and those who would permanently affix it to the ass-end of their automobile for their snarkiness, it is, sadly, based on imbecility. Disregarding for the moment the paradoxical language used in this particular messianic quote (one is hardly your enemy if you love them), I think we can assume the message of this sticker is that we should all follow the example of Jesus and love even those who want to do us harm.

And what became of the One who presumably said we should love our enemies? You know what happened to him. He was betrayed, captured, bound in restraints, paraded through the city while people spat on him and bludgeoned him with fruits, vegetables, and big fucking rocks, nailed to a piece of wood, and finally lanced in the gut. Now, no offense to Jesus, but I'm not going out like that. Maybe it all seems worth it to some of you who believe that strongly in pacifism and feel like you have something to prove, but I'm in no way inclined to try to upstage the Savior. Personally, if a bunch of bastards tried that shit on me, I'd prefer to shoot them all in the face with a large caliber weapon, thank Jesus for dying for my sins, go home and have a nice frosty beer. I believe that's what God would want me to do.

I think that would make a much better bumper sticker:

"KILL YOUR ENEMIES. JESUS DIED FOR OUR SINS. HAVE A DRINK."

Oh, no! It's the Mugato!No, not Mugatu...