Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in al_kenobi's LiveJournal:

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Saturday, July 4th, 2009
7:48 am	Michael Jackson's "Thriller" video Okay, while I'm not really a fan of Michael Jackson, anything with dancing zombies has to be cool. If the dancing zombies are LEGO dancing zombies, well, that just raises the cool bar!! This is a shot for shot remake of the Thriller video done with Legos. WOOT! Enjoy!! Current Mood: geeky Current Music: MJ - Thriller (Comment on this)
7:40 am	Zombocolypse Survival Kit Everyone should have one of these!! Current Mood: geeky Current Music: The Air Conditioner (Comment on this)
Tuesday, June 16th, 2009
9:21 am	CRAIGSLIST!! Here's the latest video from Weird Al Yankovic. It's done in the style of the group "The Doors", and former band member Ray Manzarek even plays keyboards on it. WOOT! I can't wait for the album to be released! Current Mood: geeky Current Music: Weird Al: Craigslist (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, May 29th, 2009
11:08 pm	When Kiwi's fly... This is awesome! Current Mood: giddy Current Music: The Beatles - For You Blue (Comment on this)
Monday, May 25th, 2009
9:06 am	Happy Memorial Day In the USA, the last Monday in May has been set aside to remember those who have given their life in defense of this country. Many of us will be out and about visiting with friends and family, having fun and yes, hitting the store specials While we are doing this, let us also take a moment and recall those who have made the ultimate sacrifice to give us (and many around the world) the freedoms that we enjoy every day. Thank you. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, May 17th, 2009
12:40 pm	Social Persona Test Your result for The Social Persona Test (What kind of man/woman are you?)... The Late Bloomer (QTAM) Quirky Traditional Alpha Male You are a horrible persona to be until sometime in high school or college, and then things just can't go wrong for you. Sure you are a bit nerdy, but the cool type of nerdy; and you have developed confidence as if it were a well toned muscle. When selecting a date stick to nice, traditional women, preferably ones who share your interests. You are more QUIRKY than NORMAL. You are more TRADITIONAL than LIBERAL. You are more DOMINANT than PASSIVE. When picking a date, consider: The Rarity (QTAF) or The Librarian (QTBF). (Image from scificool.com) Take The Social Persona Test (What kind of man/woman are you?) at HelloQuizzy Current Mood: geeky Current Music: Cheap Trick: I Can't Take It (Comment on this)
Saturday, May 9th, 2009
5:22 pm	Trekkies Bash New Star Trek Film As 'Fun, Watchable' Current Mood: geeky Current Music: The Who: Happy Jack (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, May 6th, 2009
9:35 am	Dom DeLuise: 1933 - 2009 Dom DeLuise, star of some of my favorite comedies and one very notable dramatic favorite, has passed away. Read the CNN article here. In addition to his better known films such as "Blazing Saddles", "Silent Movie" and the "Smokey & The Bandit" films, he also had a part in the 1964 film "Failsafe", with Henry Fonda. He was a very funny man who had an amazing sense of timing, and a very infectious laugh. Rest in peace, bro, we'll miss you. Here's a short video of Dom doing a skit with Dean Martin. Enjoy. Current Mood: sad Current Music: Buddy Holly - Raining in my Heart (Comment on this)
Sunday, May 3rd, 2009
3:40 pm	Convincing panhandler... I'd give this panhandler a couple of bucks!! Or a combo from Gagh-in-the-Box. DANG!! Current Mood: amused Current Music: CCR: Ooby Dooby (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Thursday, April 9th, 2009
11:38 pm	Dave Arneson, 1947-2009 Dave Arneson, Co-Creator of Dungeons and Dragons and founding father of the gaming industry as we know it, has passed away. He was 61. Read the Wired article here, or the article from Ain't it Cool News here. There's not much I can say here that didn't also apply to Gary Gygax's passing last year. His talent and vision gave us a hobby that has outlived him and will continue to grow in his absence. I've had the pleasure of talking to him several times at GenCon over the years and I found him to be a warm, friendly man, a pleasure to talk to. He will be missed. Once again, The Order of the Stick. has the right words. Thanks, Rich. I couldn't have said it better myself. Rest in peace, Dave. Current Mood: sad Current Music: Guns & Roses: Yesterdays (Comment on this)
Saturday, March 14th, 2009
2:15 pm	Super Capers So... Last weekend at ChimaeraCon we got passes to a preview of the movie Super Capers. The trailer on IMDB looked okay, so my wife, daughter and I went this morning. The movie started at 10:30 and Lord Vile did a short trivia contest and then beat a hasty retreat. We should have taken his lead. The movie got off to a clumsy start, despite Clint Howard's best efforts, and didn't get any better from there. I'm not going to go into details, but it was badly written, acted and shot. Even Adam West couldn't help. While it wasn't the worst movie I've ever seen, I REALLY want that hour and a half of my life back. As we were leaving the theater, we discovered all of us wanted to leave the movie, but didn't say anything because we thought the others were okay with it. Miscommunication - Something that families do. DANG. Current Mood: cranky Current Music: Just the voices in my head. (Comment on this)
Saturday, February 21st, 2009
8:16 am	ChimaeraCon '09 Update ChimaeraCon '09 ChimaeraCon is coming!! We're two weeks out and we've got some exciting things coming up.   The folks at MechCorps (http://www.mechcorps.com) will be back at ChimaeraCon again.  Check out the BattleTech Pods and fight the Black Knight or participate in the Gunslinger Tournament! Guest Announcements!!   Meet Jarrett Crippen: "The Defuser" from Stan Lee's "Sho Wants To Be A Super Hero?" Saturday, March 7th.   Sanford Allen - Musician and dark fantasy/horror author   Mike Fisher - Cartoonist and animator All this, plus games of all sorts, panels, costume contest and more! Check out the website (www.chimaeracon.com) for more information. See you there!! (Comment on this)
Thursday, February 19th, 2009
8:34 pm	ChimaeraCon '09 ChimaeraCon is coming!! We're two weeks out and we've got some exciting things coming up.   The folks at MechCorps (http://www.mechcorps.com) will be back at ChimaeraCon again.  Check out the BattleTech Pods and fight the Black Knight or participate in the Gunslinger Tournament! Guest Announcements!!   Meet Jarrett Crippen: "The Defuser" from Stan Lee's "Sho Wants To Be A Super Hero?" Saturday, March 7th.   Sanford Allen - Musician and dark fantasy/horror author   Mike Fisher - Cartoonist and animator All this, plus games of all sorts, panels, costume contest and more! Check out the website (www.chimaeracon.com) for more information. See you there!! Current Mood: geeky Current Music: The Beatles - Let it Be (Comment on this)
Friday, February 13th, 2009
9:01 pm	Dazed & Confused INSTRUCTIONS: 1. Put your iPod on shuffle. 2. For each question, press the NEXT button to get your answer. 3. You must write that song name down no matter how silly it sounds. 4. Tag friends who might enjoy doing this as well as the person you got this from. IF SOMEONE SAYS "IS THIS OKAY" YOU SAY? Red House - Jimi Hendrix WHAT WOULD BEST DESCRIBE YOUR PERSONALITY? Mary - Pete Townshend WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL? Hard To Be - The Vaughan Bros. WHAT IS YOUR LIFE'S PURPOSE? Dust & Bones - Guns N' Roses WHAT IS YOUR MOTTO? The Wind Cries Mary - Jimi Hendrix WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU? Rusty Cage - Johnny Cash WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT OFTEN? Sunshine Superman - Donovan WHAT IS 2+2? Here We Go - Barnstorm (Joe Walsh) WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIENDS? Wili & the Handjive - Eric Clapton WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY? She Makes My Day - Across The Room WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP? Uneasy Rider - Charley Daniels Band WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE? Welcome - The Who WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU? Fire & Ice - Pat Benatar WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING? Junkie - Lynyrd Skynyrd WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL? I Wanna Be Sedated - The Ramones WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST? Under The Gun - Blondie WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET? I Wanna Live - The Talking Heads WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS? Almost Blue - Elvis Costello WHAT'S THE WORST THING THAT COULD HAPPEN? Wasted On The Way - Crosby, Stills & Nash HOW WILL YOU DIE? Don't Ask Me Why - The Eurythmics WHAT IS THE ONE THING YOU REGRET? Jolene - Dolly Parton WHAT MAKES YOU LAUGH? Mr. Greed - John Fogarty WHAT MAKES YOU CRY? So Good To See You - Cheap Trick WILL YOU EVER GET MARRIED? Piggies - The Beatles WHAT SCARES YOU THE MOST? Houses of the Holy - Led Zeppelin DOES ANYONE LIKE YOU? I'm Tore Down - Eric Clapton IF YOU COULD GO BACK IN TIME, WHAT WOULD YOU CHANGE? Run Like Hell - Pink Floyd WHAT HURTS RIGHT NOW? That Day Is Done - Elvis Costello WHAT WILL YOU TITLE THIS POST? Dazed & Confused - Led Zeppelin Current Mood: happy Current Music: Dazed & Confused (Comment on this)
Saturday, January 24th, 2009
6:26 pm	I Watch Too Much Television - meme 1. Bold the shows you watch/used to watch. 2. Italicize the shows you've seen at least one episode of. 3. Underline the shows you own [at least one season] on DVD and/or VHS. 4. Post your answers. 50. Quantum Leap 49. Prison Break 48. Veronica Mars 47. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine 46. Sex & The City 45. Farscape 44. Cracker 43. Star Trek 42. Only Fools and Horses 41. Band of Brothers 40. Life on Mars 39. Monty Python 38. Curb Your Enthusiasm 37. Star Trek: The Next Generation 36. Father Ted 35. Alias 34. Frasier 33. CSI Las Vegas 32. Babylon 5 31. Deadwood 30. Dexter 29. ER 28. Fawlty Towers 27. Six Feet Under 26. Red Dwarf 25. Futurama 24. Twin Peaks 23. The Office 22. The Shield 21. Angel 20. Blackadder 19. Scrubs 18. Arrested Development 17. South park 16. Dr Who 15. Heroes 14. Firefly 13. Battlestar Galactica 12. Family Guy 11. Seinfeld 10. Spaced 09. The X-Files 08. The Wire 07. Friends 06. 24 05. Lost 04. The West Wing 03. The Sopranos 02. Buffy the Vampire Slayer 01. The Simpsons Current Mood: geeky (Comment on this)
Friday, January 2nd, 2009
11:25 am	Happy New Year So, here it is, the start of a new year. We have 3 of my 4 kids home for the holidays, and R will hopefully be home on leave this summer. All things considered, our family has been quite blessed. We're all working and L's been working hard on getting our bills paid off. I don't generally like to make resolutions, since I don't stick with them, but there are a few things I'd like to do. Take a vacation with the wife. We've gone far too long without spending any time away from home by ourselves. The kids have been putting funds into our vacation account, so I'm thinking about a cruise. I can't wait. Lose more weight. I've lost 35 lbs over the past year, and I'd like to do another 35 at least. As part of this, I need to see the doc and get a complete physical, get a colonoscopy (I know, wtmi, but I've been putting it off), and start seeing a chiropractor for my back. Start playing some of the games sitting on my shelf. I've got a LOT of games that I've never played, and that's a shame. I think a family game night is called for. Play Guitar Hero on hard mode. I'm pretty good on medium, but I can't get the hang of it in hard or expert. The orange button messes me up. Well, that's about it for now. I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season and best wishes for the coming year. Al Current Mood: contemplative Current Music: DDR ( in the background) (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, October 18th, 2008
10:58 am	ChimaeraCon '09 ChimaeraCon '09 March 6-8, 2009 Crossroads Convention Center 4522 Fredericksburg Road, SA, TX www.chimaeracon.com Convention hours: Fri: 6pm - Midnight Sat. 8 am - Midnight Sunday 8am - 6pm Hotel Rooms: Hotel information coming soon. Events include: Board, card miniatures, roleplaying & LARPS. There will be Magic, Yu-Gi-Oh & World of Warcraft tournaments. MechForce will be returning with their Battletech Pods. There will be a dealers room, artists alley, costume contest and panels. This years guests: Guest information coming soon. See you there! Current Mood: geeky Current Music: None (Comment on this)
Sunday, September 21st, 2008
1:05 pm	How do I hate Vista? Let me count the ways... So... My family bought me a new laptop and gave it to me just before GenCon for an early birthday present. Yes, my family is awesome. It's a Toshiba Qosmio X305-Q701 laptop. It's fast, has plenty of RAM, and as big a hard drive as I could want. There's only one thing wrong with it. It's running Microsoft Vista. When I set up the computer after getting it, I installed 64 bit Vista, because I heard that 32 bit Vista would not support all 4 gb of RAM on the system. Well, then I ran into compatibility issues between the system and Punkbuster. Okay, so it's not a major productivity app, but Call of Duty 4 is one of my favorite programs. So I decided to reinstall Vista, but the 32 bit version this time, to eliminate compatibility issues. Talking to the tech support people at Toshiba, they said that creating restore disks off the computer would only give me the option for 64 bit Vista, and told me to use the restore disk. "What restore disk?" I ask. "The one that came with the system." he says. "I didn't get one in the box." "Then we'll ship it to you" So, two weeks go by and still no disk. I call them back and find out that it's on back order and won't be available for another week. DANG! Well, all this time, I'm running into another issue. My computer, which originally booted quite fast, now stops after flashing the "Toshiba" screen and doesn't do anything. So after several minutes of black screen, I shut it down and then start it back up. It then says that it needs to restore to the last set point. After booting, I discover that programs I've installed are missing. Yes, I'm feeling the love of Microsoft Vista. Well, I finally take it in to the Store and they send it off to the service center. After two weeks, I get it back on Friday, and it boots right up. All they did was reseat the RAM, and it came up just fine for them. After talking to the Geek Squad guy about the missing programs, he says to delete everything on the hard drive, repartition, and then restore 32 bit Vista. That takes all Friday night, and it reboots just fine afterward. Yesterday (Saturday) dawns bright and clear, and the computer comes up like it's supposed to. I spend Saturday installing my programs. Office, Outlook & Norton load perfectly and the system reboots just fine. I them install iTunes, Yahoo IM and Call of Duty 4 and everything works fine. My wireless keyboard and mouse also work fine, which eases my mind, because I suspected they might have been part of the problem, since the boot issue happened the day after I bought them. Since everything seemed to be working fine, I connect my external hard drive (Seagate Free Agent external hard drive), and start loading my data back onto my laptop. Everything is going well and I shut down for the night. This morning I try to boot up and it's doing it again. Good Freaking Lord!! I'm so disgusted! Talking with the missus about what to do about it, it eventually comes up to the login screen. This took about 10 minutes. Dang!! Well I took to down to the store again, and guess what? It boots up just fine. Now I feel like a jackass, because it's not doing it at the store but it at home. I go get the keyboard which I'm SURE is the problem, and it still boots up normally. Talking to the tech some more, we conclude it's the external drive. The BIOS is trying to boot from the Free Agent drive. Now this is perplexing, because I never had issues with that problem on my previous laptop, but that was under XP. Well, I go into the BIOS, and the internal hard drive is the top drive and the external is third on the list. Looks good, so I save changes and boot. It still tries to boot from the external drive. I reboot and go back into the BIOS and disable the external drive as a boot drive, and it FINALLY boots like it's supposed to. After over a month of issues, and it's just just because the freaking BIOS wants to boot from an EXTERNAL drive instead of the C:\ drive. What the hell is that? Yeah, I know that wasn't really a Vista issue, but this whole thing started because my programs wouldn't run on 64 bit Vista. When they same "some programs may nut run under 64 bit Vista", I didn't expect it to be the one I use almost every day. Good Lord, isn't technology supposed to make our lives easier? I think it's going to be a while before I really start to trust my system, but it is nice to know that at least it's booting up like it's supposed to. I need a margarita. A really big one. Current Mood: frustrated Current Music: Just the voices in my head. (Comment on this)
Saturday, March 8th, 2008
9:57 am	Whatcha think? Is it right? So, - September 24 - You are very clever and knowledgeable. You are very calm and cool in social situations. You are kind and sympathetic to people, although you like to choose your friends carefully. Positive Traits: diplomacy, team player, affection, just, loving Negative Traits: self-pity, obsessive, workaholic, smothering, fearful 'What does your Birthdate mean?' at QuizGalaxy.com Normally, I don't think I would have agreed with the self-pity thing, but with all the BS going on with the sale of the place I work at... Hmmm... Current Mood: tired Current Music: Meri Wilson - Peter the Meter Reader (Comment on this)
Wednesday, March 5th, 2008
9:28 pm	Gary Gygax (1938-2008) I don't think I can adequately state how I feel at this point. I started gaming with my friends Gordon, Ralph and Don back in high school (30 years ago this summer) with AD&D, and yes, I STILL have all my books. From there we went on to all the other TSR games: Gamma World, Boot Hill, Top Secret and more. I've gone on to play many more systems, from Shadowrun to GURPS, Marvel Super Heroes to Paranoia. But it all started with that first summer at Gordon's place so long ago. The gaming industry has changed a lot since then, some for the better, and also for the worse, but it all started with Gary Gygax and the others from TSR. People who gave us an opportunity to be the hero, instead of reading about him. For that, I say thank you. Rest in peace, Gary. May your next jourey be as exciting as this one was. Current Mood: sad Current Music: Warren Zevon - Keep Me In Your Heart For a While (Comment on this)