If the makers of Forza 2 for the 360 have any sense, they’ll include Top Gear’s test track as one of the courses in the game.

I’m pretty sure I first heard of this at Chuck’s blog, but Sci-Fi has the pilot of The Amazing Screw-on Head on their website. It’s quite interesting. I wouldn’t have thought Mike Mignola’s visual style would translate at all to animation, but there’s something about it that just looks … right. It’s appropriately weird, the voice acting’s really good, and the whole manner of storytelling works really well. There’s a “video phone,” for instance, that’s entirely mechanical, and the effect is surprisingly good.

http://www.scifi.com/amazingscrewonhead/

I just got a rejection letter … from the place I was hired at a month ago.

Now, that’s maybe the weirdest thing that’s happened all week.

Picked up three books from Amazon recently, two of which arrived today.

* The Gun Seller, by Hugh Laurie
* What Einstein Told His Cook 2, by Robert Wolcke

the one that hasn’t arrived yet:

* The World According to Clarkson, by Jeremy Clarkson

I’d read WETHC1, and so getting WETHC2 was sort of a no-brainer. I’ve been watching Mr. Laurie in House, so that was sort of a no-brainer, and I’d just finished I Know You Got Soul, by Jeremy Clarkson and loved it, so that was also a no-brainer.

I had time to read the books today, to boot, due to a bit of a cold I picked up sometime last night. Whee.

The Gun Seller reminds me strangely of Kerowack’s book, in some respects – lots of wordplay, and just overall sort of an odd situation. Not really similar settings or content in any respect, but there’s a definite similarity to the overall style, I think.

WETHC2 is good, so far – basically a collection of food columns written by a witty chemist. Good stuff, both educational, and entertaining.

Bleah. Back to bed for me. Gotta get better by tomorrow, I don’t have any PTO accrued. Alas!

So, the last couple nights, I’ve made sort of random dinners out of leftovers. Sunday night, it was chicken katsu sandwiches. Basically, we had some leftover chicken thighs, which I breaded in panko, and pan-fried. Mixed up some ketchup and worcestershire (sp?) sauce to make a tonkatsu sauce, and had it on a split Acme herb slab (bread). Good stuff. Went with a salad Joe was making. Ate, and watched Battlestar.

Tonight, I remembered we had some left over frozen shrimp, and had a hankering for a po’boy. Now, I’ve never made a po’boy before – hell I’ve only had ’em a fistful of times. But I figured, what the heck. Looked up a Food Network recipe, and was off to the races. 20 minutes later, the other half of the herb slab was the foundation for an awesome shrimp sandwich. Mmmmm. Good stuff. That + more Battlestar = good times.

Made me wonder, though, what can I cook?

That is, what can I cook without looking at a recipe?

Not much, honestly.

* Chicken Teriyaki (with a sauce made from scratch)
* Jambalaya
* Risotto
* Ravioli (dough from scratch)
* Harb-stuffed roast chicken
* Roasted Salmon w/ Cranberry/lemon relish
* ?

Not much else is coming to mind. I think for the most part, I don’t tend to make the same things over and over – we tend not to cycle recipes much, even if there’s stuff we like. But I think that might change, because we’ve found a stable of stuff that’s relatively quick, and tasty, and gotten to the point where we cook enough things that even if we cycle them in a regular rotation, there’s enough variety that it’d take a good long while before we got bored. Now, if only I’d made enough of the shrimp sandwich filling for leftovers. Damn!

Fixed the water valve in the washer this morning. Pretty straightforward – remove three hoses, and unscrew the unit from the washer body, but getting everything off took a while, ’cause it was on pretty tight. Getting it on took even longer, because the new valve didn’t have its screw holes threaded. So, I had to forcibly use one of the old screws to thread the holes. Gah. The other thing, and pay attention, because this will *undoubtedly* be useful to everyone who reads this blog one day:

KEEP YOUR TOOLBOXES NEAR THE FRONT OF YOUR GARAGE

Because when your garage gets full of weird knicknacks and odds and ends, they’ll all pile up at the front, making reaching the back nigh-impossible. Still, I cleared out a pathway, and made it to the back. Hooray for me. Got the vise grips, the plumber’s wrench, and some screwdrivers, and the whole process took about an hour, and a $26 dollar part. If only I’d had a washer overflow thing, the floor damage would be fine. Definitely have to look into getting one of those.

On a slightly different note, been playing Battle for Middle Earth 2 on the x360, and though the controls aren’t perfect, they’re reasonably good. Better than I’d expected, to be sure. If anyone out there’s got it on the 360, I’d love to get some multiplayer going. Also watched the first three episodes of Battlestar Galactica tonight, which were pretty darned good. Not say, Firefly-good, but they’re setting up much longer plot arcs, I think, and are taking their time in telling them. Where Firefly clearly was trying to “hook” viewers, Galactica seems to be more assured there will be a future, and so the stories are unfolding at a more deliberate pace. It also feels like there are a lot more characters, and they’ve all got disparate goals. Instead of having say, 10ish people focused on a single goal, there’s maybe 10ish people, all with different agendas, purposes, and histories. I’m definitely excited to see more.

Oh, and on another fun note:

The water valve in our clothes washer developed a leak, and ended up leaking all over our floor, seeping through the bamboo flooring, and travelling through the subfloor. So, now for about a four-foot span in front of the dryer closet, the seams of the bamboo flooring are stained. Whee. It’s not a complete discoloration, it’s just now the seams between the boards have gotten a touch darker, like, say, they were water damaged. Stupid washer. We found the leak, turned the water off, pointed a Vornado at the floor to dry it out. Sucker’s been blowing non-stop for a day, now, and it feels like it’s almost dry. It’ll stay on for another day, just to be sure. Fortunately, the replacement part was only $26, but the damn thing was leaking for the better part of at least a day. Tomorrow, I’ll pull the old part out, and replace it. Hopefully, that’ll do the trick.

Stupid water. Seems to really be the bane of my existance, in regards to this house.

So, as anyone who’s ever been to our house can attest, we have an excess of stuff. That’s basically what happens when you have four people, who are all essentially “fully-equipped” living in one house. Too much kitchenware, too many sitting things, etc. Fortunately for us, our excess isn’t all that excessive, as our two housemates don’t actually take up much of the common space – most of that is dominated by Ei-Nyung and my stuff. Still – we’ve got too much. At one point, we had three couches, two recliners, four other nice, padded chairs, two tables, and seven table-related chairs. For four people.

Now, I don’t at all have a Niralth-like minimalist sense – for the most part, I don’t mind having a variety of seating options, for instance. But today, I gave away a sit-up bench I haven’t used in years, and the brown couch I got from my parents, that I’ve had since I was quite young. I had a distinct emotional attachment to that couch, but the simple fact of the matter was that it had been relegated to a part of the house where it wasn’t getting much use, and the recent inheritance of two of my grandparents’ chairs meant that basically, we had way too much seating.

So, with a bit of sadness, I gave that away on Craigslist, to some people that needed a sofabed, and would use it. I’d rather it was used somewhere than not, here, so I’m happy that it’ll find more purpose, and utility in its lifetime. Same with the sit-up bench, without the weird emotional attachment.

There’s a lot of stuff we need to sort for a yard sale, or give away outright. I’d started doing that with shirts I was no longer wearing. There’s a clothing donation bin on the street near our house, and so I’d given away almost half my t-shirts. And I *still* have more shirts than I reasonably wear, so I’m sure the closet’s due for another culling sometime soon. It’s sort of strange – I’ve always worn t-shirts – I figured that was just the way it was. They’re extremely comfortable, cheap, and I’ve never been in a job where I’ve had a dress code. So, t-shirts were perfectly fine in every respect.

But recently, I’ve had a desire to switch to button-downed shirts – not polo shirts, I’m talking collared shirts that button from top to bottom. And I can’t for the life of me explain it, other than that I must care to some extent about the image I’m projecting to others. I think maybe it’s that I valued comfort uber alles, because it was in some sense a rebellion against what I’d imagined I was supposed to conform to as I grew up. But now, I’m in the game industry – everyone’s dressed like shit. You’ve got 40 year olds in ratty t-shirts, and they all think they’re still in their teens. And something about it’s sort of off-putting, almost.

It’s weird, because it’s not like, say, my dad, who dresses casually because he really enjoys it – it’s almsot like it’s an image that these people are trying to cultivate, that they’re hip, and “free.” So maybe part of me is rebelling against that – that the off-kilter thing to do would be to dress really *well*. Because frankly, the people at work would think it’s weird. And I don’t really need to conform, to be honest – my work does my talking for me.

It’s just weird, that I would have some desire to dress up in a suit, and go to a job where I sit in front of a computer all day, and never interact with any clients, or do any sort of outward-facing interaction. Eh, it’s all just style anyway.

Am I wrong in thinking that it looks like it’s pretty much all-out war in Israel at this point? I mean, there’s missiles flying about, and it just looks/sounds like it’s basically full-blown war at this point.

Anyone have any ideas whether this is likely to escalate into something that involves more than just Israel and Hezbollah? I don’t know enough about anything in this region to hazard a guess, but it sure doesn’t look good, to me.

Teardrop, Massive Attack: The reason I first picked up this song, as I’ve mentioned before, is that it’s used as the theme song for House, M.D., which is an excellent show. When I first heard the whole song, I remembered that my old roommate in college used to play Mezzanine periodically. The more I listened to it the more the vocal performance grew on me. Wacky thing is, you can basically play it in a really trivial manner on the piano, and it’s only four chords. Of course, I can’t sing in the register the woman sings in, so no singalongs for me, alas.

Mind Killer, Adam Freeland: This is basically another version of the level 5 song in Rez, which I thought was really, really good. Sure enough, this one’s really good, too. I almost opted for a song called, “We Want Your Soul,” off the same album, which has a robotic female voice reading off stuff you have that they want. Ah, hell – here’s the lyrics:

adam freeland – we want your soul

Your cell phone, your wallet, your time, your ideas
No barcode, no party, no ID, no beers
Your bankcard, your licence, your thoughts, your fears
No simcard, no disco, no photo, not here
Your blood, your sweat, your passions, your regrets
Your office, your time off, your fashions, your sex
Your pills, your grass, your tits, your ass.
Your laughs, your balls, we want it all.

We want your Soul x5
(in background…Your Cash, Your House, Your Phone, Your Life, Your Cash, Your House, Your Life)

Tell us your habits, your facts, our fears
Give us your address, your shoe size, your years
Your digits, your plans, your number, your eyes
Your schedule, your desktop, your details, your life.
Show us your children, your photos, your home.
Here, take credit, take insurance, take a loan.
Get a job, get a pension, get a haircut, get a suit.
Play the lottery, play football, play the field, score some toot

We’ll show you females, show you sex.
We’ll sell you crap, charge you max.
(unintelligible for two lines)

We want your Soul x5
(in background…Your Cash, Your House, Your Phone, Your Life, Your Cash, Your House, Your Life)

Your thoughts, your emotions, your love, your dreams
Your cheque book, your essence, your sweat, your screams
Your security, your sobriety, your innocence, your society
Your self, your place, your distance, your space

Go back to bed America, your government is in control again

Here, watch this, shut up
You are free to do as we tell you
You are free to do as we tell you

We want your soul

Here’s programs, here’s matters, here’s Britney, here’s Cola
Here’s pizza, here’s TV, here’s some rock and some Rolla
Watch commercials, more commercials, watch Jerry, not Oprah
Buy a better life from the comfort of your sofa
Here’s popcorn, here’s magazines, here’s milkshake, here’s blue jeans
here’s padded bras, here’s long cars, here’s football shirts, here’s baseball caps
here’s live talk shows, here’s video games, here’s cola lite, here’s Timberlake
here’s filter tips, here’s collagen lips, here’s all night bars, here’s plastic tits

We want your soul x5
(In the background…Your Cash, Your House, Your Phone, Your Life, Your Cash, Your House, Your Life)
Your Soul x6

Go back to bed America, your government is in control again
Here, here’s American Gladiators
Watch this, shut up

Go back to bed America,
Here’s American Gladiators, here’s 56 channels of it
Watch these pictuary retards bang their fucking scrolls together
And congratulate you on living in the land of freedom
Here you are America
You are free to do as we tell you
You are free to do as we tell you

We want your soul x5

Red Flag, Billy Talent: Another videogame song, this was in Burnout Revenge, among other games. It’s a really aggressive, poppy punk song. One of those songs that sounds so dischordant at first that it’s hard to imagine liking it. But then you find yourself humming the chorus (which is one of the only parts of the song where the lyrics are intelligible). But great stuff – sort of Green Day of the early 90’s, on a really mean day, or something.

Sweet Lullaby, Deep Forest: If you’ve recently watched the dancing video at http://www.wherethehellismatt.com you’ll recognize this. I’d listened to it way back when, and figured I’d pick it up, as I could use some laid back work music. And the mental image of the guy dancing is good fun, as well.

Unsung, Helmet: GUITAR HERO!!! w00t w00t. Seriously, I’ve had Betty (one of Helmet’s other albums) for a while, and mistakenly had thought I already had this song. When I realized I didn’t, I figured 99 cents would fix that straight away.

DARE, Gorillaz: It’s strangely compelling, because it’s almost straight-ahead disco, except for the guy shouting the lyrics in the background, which changes the tone of the song entirely into something … mesmerizing.

Nothing But You, Paul Van Dyk: This one isn’t intentionally connected to a game – I’d heard this song a while ago, and when I worked at EA, I picked up a free copy of one of the FIFA soundtracks, which happily had this on it. Great stuff. Very, very good music for driving, or doing anything you’ve got to concentrate on.