More Office

I started watching the British Office on Netflix due to a serious lack of Series 3 of the American version. I found, quite to my surprise, that I enjoyed the American version much, -much- more. I loved Ricky Gervais and have always been a huge fan of the guy who plays Tim, and after hearing from nearly every fan of the series as a whole that the British version was better, I was surprised I felt otherwise. Granted, I've only watched the first half of the first season, but I think I love Pam too much to enjoy the other version as much. Plus, the Dwight character is sixty times better than the Gareth character. It seems like all the other background characters play a much larger role in the American version too, which I enjoy.

Jim and Pam

I simply have to say that when Jim and Pam finally kiss at the end of season two, I stood up and shouted. There were also a few fist pumps. This happened about three minutes ago at 12:59 AM. It really was one of the happier moments for me in a long, long time.

Wait for You

"Wait for You" by Elliott Yamin

Instant Netflix

The power of Netflix amazes me yet again. Now, instead of waiting for your movie to arrive in the mail, you can watch it instantly on-line. The fullscreen quality isn't great, nor is it terrible, but if you watch it in the slightly smaller window mode reminiscent of how Lost looks when you watch it online through ABC's website, it looks just dandy. And this is all included in your subscription price.

Now, I don't know if I would ever really want to watch a full-length movie on my laptop when I could watch it on my TV. But I've found that if I'm trying to catch up on say, The Office or any other TV show which would force me to receive 5 or 6 discs, instead of waiting for each disc to show up, I can pull up an episode here and there instantly. That's just fantastic.

Die All Bats

So Shelley and I went again to see the bats last night. We were convinced that their inadequacy as a performing "troupe" last time was a fluke. We told ourselves that they simply had an off night. Wrong.

Ladies and gentlemen, I have disturbing news. The bats under the Austin Congress Bridge are a hoax perpetrated by Austinites who, as we all know, hate tourists and people that look like they don't really belong in this fine city. Look at Real World, as an extreme example. We broke a guy's face just because. So, they all decided to band together and play a trick on everybody, spreading false stories about the Amazing Bats. Hell, they even set up boats, which upon being paid vast sums of money, will take you to the bridge to see them. If you take one of these boats, you are being swindled.

The video in the post below this one chronicles one man's run through Dragonforce's "Through the Fire and Flames" coming soon to Guitar Hero III. The video shows the first and last minute of the song. It's a little hard to see the scorebox, but he managed to five-star it and score over 400,000 points over the course of the seven and a half minute song. I have two points in rehashing the previous post:

1. Wow.
2. Dragonforce, as a band, is incredibly awesome.

I bought their album soon after seeing the video. If you enjoy metal, you will absolutely love this album. They are so technically proficient it scares me. Plus, they sing about brandishing steel, riding light, and fighting demons, all in the name of freeing man from some terrible curse. And then they bring the rock.

Case in point:

Flying over darkened skies the battle will call.
Distant angels crying into the eye of the storm,
And the world falls under the starlight
Shining from heavens below.

Long years of pain and sorrow, searching for more.
Cry for the touch of angels never before,
And the stars fall on the horizon
Onwards and up through the pain.

Ride the wind and fight the demon,
Steel is shining bright.
Standing together forever onwards,
Flames burning strong.
Hot wind in hell of pain and sorrow,
Now and ever onwards.
We stare into the dawn of a new world.

Cry out for the fallen heroes
Lost a time ago.
In your minds they still belong
When the sands of time are gone.

Rise over shadow mountains, blazing with power.
Crossing valleys, endless tears,
In unity we stand.
Far and wide across the land, the victory is ours.
On towards the gates of reason.
Fight for the truth and the freedom.

-- Dragonforce, "Revolution Deathsquad"

Oh No

Guitar Hero III will annihilate you.

The End of the World

Parental Control is the greatest show ever to air on MTV, which I think is saying something. The fact that they can script hate like this is just amazing. What a fun job that would be. Giving the most hateful lines you can think of to a 50 year old Asian mother with matching comebacks to the 20 year old asshole. If you've never seen the show, do watch it. It deserves your love.

Shell and I went down to the Congress Bridge today to see the bats. We arrived an hour before dusk just to be safe. We sat there until 9:30. Nothing happened. They were just swirling around beneath the bridge. Don't get me wrong. I loved the rare opportunity to taunt them with such phrases as "Fuck you, bat bitch." and "That bridge is not going to fly out from under itself." I even tried the slow clap Bat Chant to coax them out from their Bat Bridge hiding place. Needless to say, the Bat Fuckers wanted no part of my Bat Chant. I made the observation that perhaps this was a sign of the apocalypse. That, and I am currently reading Good Omens. This book has taught me that if Atlantis rises and Brazil inverts itself, we are in trouble. And now the bats aren't flying out from the under the bridge. Where's Aziraphale when you need him?

UPDATE: There is a guy who looks like a half-black and half-white Drew Layton on this episode. Dave Grohl is talking about musical themes (other than the Power Chords theme) like he knows what he is talking about. I enjoy a good laugh.

I played the Darkness demo. It was fun for about three minutes. I ate a couple of men's hearts with my arms made of darkness. I summoned a comical demon to aid me in my death-dealing. However, the story was just really boring. A mob boss double crosses the main character, ends up killing him, and THE DARKNESS BRINGS HIM BACKOOOOOOOOH! The Darkness imbues him with delicious powers, blah blah blah. Plus, the main character's name is Jackie Estacado. I don't know why, but that name pisses me off. I was also surprised at how poor the graphics were. It looked like a PS2 title. Also, part of the game is that your Darkness suit feeds off of, BOING, darkness. So you have to shoot out all the lights to regenerate your powers. However, you need light to see. Playing the game blind or playing without cool powers? Hrm.